The Legend - Watty Awards 2012

Chapter Twenty Three

The more she read, the more helpless she felt. Finally, sighing in frustration, after having read the book a million times over, Jenna set it down beside her and stood up. Rubbing her eyes that were tired with all the reading, she noticed that the sun was rising. She realised that she must have been up all night. Exhausted, she closed her eyes and rested her head back on the couch for a few seconds and before she knew it, she fell into a deep sleep.

Tyler jumped into his car and drove over to Jenna's house. When he reached there, he saw the front door wide open. Immediately, fear and anger began rising in him. Fear that something could have happened to Jenna and anger that she and Paul could have been so careless to leave the door open especially after what all had happened. He turned his engine off and rushed inside.

"Jenna!" he yelled.

"Jenna.. Paul!"

Getting no reply, Tyler began to panic. He started looking around the house frantically. Finally he spotted Jenna sprawled out on the couch.

"Jenna," he shook her and tried waking her up.

Mumbling incoherently, Jenna turned the other way and continued sleeping.

Realising that she was just sleeping and that nothing was wrong with her, Tyler let her be and began looking around for Paul. After searching the entire downstairs and finding nothing, Tyler headed upstairs to Jenna's room. He stood at the doorway and looked in and was immediately greeted with a foul, charred smell. Glancing around the room, he gasped in shock at the carnage surrounding him.

The balcony door hung on its hinges, swaying miserably. There were blood marks on the wall just behind Jenna's bed and also on the wall in front. The wall was also black in colour in some places as if burnt. Pillows and bedsheets were strewn on the floor and the entire room stank of stale blood and a weird burnt smell.

One glance told him that Paul was definitely not in there. Stepping back, he pulled the door shut behind him and continued his futile search for Paul. Finally giving up hope, he headed back downstairs to where Jenna was and sat in the chair opposite her and waited for her to wake up.

Jenna finally opened her eyes and she noticed Tyler sitting in front of her.

"Tyler," she exclaimed sitting up. "When did you get here?"

"A little while ago. I tried waking you up but you were so knocked out that I decided to let you be."

"Sorry," Jenna smiled sheepishly. "I hadn't even realised that I had fallen asleep."

"That's ok. But next time why don't you close the front door before you do anything else?"

"Front door? But I had locked it yesterday and haven't touched it since!" Jenna exclaimed.

"Are you sure? It was wide open when I got here."

"I'm ten thousand percent sure I locked it. After everything that has happened, I am so paranoid that I check all doors and windows at least  thrice."

"That's weird. Because when I reached here, the door was wide open. Maybe Paul opened it?"

"Paul?" Jenna replied confused.

"Yes Paul," said Tyler scrunching his eyebrows in surprise. "Did he go out anywhere? I searched everywhere for him."

Jenna stared mutely at Tyler. The memories of Paul hanging on the wall in front of her began coming back. She could feel the tears building up in her eyes. She tried blinking them back.

"Paul's not here Tyler."

"Not here? What do you mean he isn't here?"

"He's gone."