"Without knowing the present, how could I understand the past?"
17-year-old Charlotte De Loughrey was living the typical Cinderella life, until something made her snap... releasing a part of her she didn't even know existed until now.
She was a wit...
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I wake as if it's an emergency, as if sleeping had become a dangerous thing. My heart beats fast and there is a buzzing in my brain. Together they are as panic with jump-leads. Only now my brain is as a flat battery, the exertions of the night being a marathon of erratic thinking.
But why am I awake now? It's still dark as I peer around my room. There were no lights from the sun outside or coming from me.
No noise either. Just darkness.
Darkness shouldn't scare me. I had grown up surrounded by it. We knew each other well, so why did this darkness make my toes curl under the blanket?
As I could feel it- them. Something was in my room.
I distinctly remember locking the door behind me- a habit to keep Elijah out of my room. The snooping, conniving boy would do anything to get me in trouble.
Nothing could get in with the door locked. But that also meant nothing could get out.
It couldn't be a possum or rat as I keep them out of the attic and roof by leaving food scraps for them elsewhere. It was a person. I could feel them- like we were sitting side by side, even when I knew no one was next to me. I could feel them, not only physically but as if something connected us emotionally. Mentally.
It's like they were existing just in the darkness.
I sat up, trying to see if I could see anything out the ordinary. My dress hadn't moved from where I left it on the floor and the windows weren't ajar either. So how did they get in if I locked the door? Unless- they were already in my room before I entered and I had now shut myself in with them.
I saw nothing different when I entered, but my mind had been so busy processing the days' events it was possible I could have missed something. Nothing felt different either when I had woken up earlier. Only now was it had changed.
There wasn't much that could be out of the ordinary, anyway. My room contained no furniture other than my bed, a small dresser, and a table. No trinkets either- I stopped receiving gifts after my father died, the last of his gifts being Storm and a small locket I always wore but could never open.
There was nothing in my room that someone could hide behind or in, which meant they could only be in one place. I did not want to look and find out.
My bed was raised off the floor with wooden legs, allowing enough room for someone to slide in and lay underneath the mattress.
They were most likely underneath me right now.
I did not want to check to be sure they were in fact underneath. I told myself I would ignore the feeling and go back to sleep. Lying there, the dark presence not fading away, it was all I could think of. How did it get in? Why was it here? Is it going to hurt me?
I wasn't going back to sleep. I couldn't. Not knowing what was underneath me would keep me up all night, and I needed my sleep; tomorrow would be a long day.
