Him

Chapter 6

G'day! Longer chapter this time, and only 17 days left till Christmas!!!!!!! I'm NOT going to upload ANY more until I get some votes. My last chapter I only got 2 votes including my own. Not cool. Seriously, vote or do without. I will upload when I am happy with the number of votes. :)

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White walls encase you in the room. You are lying in a bed with a single white sheet tucked tightly into the bed. There is a silver Perspex pod chair next to a metal table, a built-in wardrobe and a door with a small square window. It's all very futuristic and dull looking. You scramble out of the bed and run to the door, but you can't reach the handle. You try to drag the chair over, but it is secured to the ground, as are the table and bed. The little furniture the room actually contains is all sleek, simple metal secured to the ground. You jump for the handle and manage to grab it, leaving you dangling a few centimetres above the cold floor. The door turns out to be locked. Where are you? You look out the window to get a better idea. The lawns outside are perfectly manicured, with pretty little flowers lining the building and the path to the building. The sun is shining brightly from its cloudy kingdom in the sky. Then you hear the footsteps echoing down the hallway outside and, with the worst premonition, you dive beneath the covers of the bed. The doorhandle rattles and turns, allowing a man in a long white lab coat to enter with your parents following him. Stupid girl! It's a doctor, and your parents. But where is Hannah? You feel sick to your stomach. He killed her. It was Him! Did they catch him? Why didn't Mummy and Daddy stop him?

"So what exactly happened last night?" The doctor asks your parents. You can hear your mother weeping.

"Sapphire woke up in the middle of the night and she was screaming and screaming, saying that 'he' was in our house. She ran into her sister's room, holding a knife from the kitchen, and..." You can also hear the tension, the anger in your father's monotone. "She killed her sister."

"No!" You scream at them. "No! I didn't kill her! It was Him! He's been following me home since I started walking by myself and Hannah knew so he killed her!"

The doctor looks at your parents and kneels down in front of you.

"Sapphire, who is 'He'?" He asks gently.

"I don't know his name." You sob. Why is this happening to you? You're stupid; you know asking that won't help! Why do you ask it?

"When did you first see him?"

"The first day I walked home I could hear his footsteps, but I couldn't see him. That kept happening and then I could hear him breathing behind me and then one time he was trying to kill me." You trail off, crying harder. "Mummy, the scratches and the rips in my stockings weren't from school. They were..."

Your mother is crying even louder now. You look at her but she won't make eye contact. Of course she wouldn't! She hates you. She thinks you killed her favourite daughter, and what's worse is that they all think it was out of jealousy. Everyone thinks it. Everyone hates you. Can't they see that you always adored Hannah? Evidently, they cannot. The doctor writes on his annoying clipboard while you recount each time you saw Him. It hurts you to have to dig up these memories, each one taunting you with all the ways you could have acted differently. You should have told your parents, you stupid girl. You should have at least let Hannah tell them because look where secrecy has got you now. A room in a psychiatric hospital and a world full of people who think you're crazy, but you're not. Or are you? Is there a difference between crazy and idiotic? If not, then yes. You are crazy, but only if there is no difference between those two words.

"Sapphire, what happened last night?" The doctor asks. You stare blankly at him because he knows damn well what happened. Everyone does. They know and hate you for it. "Why was He there?"