The Girl In Apartment 13 | Apply Fic

Chapter Eight: Cold As Ice

"Yumi? Yumi? Yumi! Wake up!"

Slowly, Yumi's eyes start to flutter open, being greeted with darkness. She grabs her phone, looking at the time. Just after one, a time when the world, except Oscar, would be asleep. She drops the phone back on her nightstand and tosses her blanket aside. She walks over to the light switch and flips it, illuminating her room.

"Hello?" she asks, certain that the voice was Carter's. "Carter? Did you break in?"

"Yumi? Yumi? Can you hear me?"

"Carter? I can hear you. Where are you?"

"Bitch turn around."

Yumi turns, looking at her desk.

"Real funny, Lovie. Where am I looking?"

"Right at me."

Yumi approaches the desk, picking up a picture of their friend group from December of their first year. Jade threw a mini Christmas party right before they all headed home for the holidays. No one was fully sober when the picture was taken but they all were so happy.

"Hey Peaches," Carter in the picture greets.

Yumi drops the picture frame, the glass shattering as it hits the ground. She hears four different yelps of pain as the picture frame splinters apart. Her hands shake as she grabs the picture from under the shards, turning it so she can see her friends. All of them seem perturbed, glaring at her.

"What the hell, Yumi?" Pierre asks, rubbing his forehead.

Yumi presses her lips together and sets the picture face down. She grabs a random book and covers it, covering her mouth with her hands.

"I'm delirious," she mutters, shaking her head and closing her eyes.

She flips the lights off and climbs back into bed, wrapping her blanket around herself tightly. She can still hear the mumbling from under the book.

"You're not crazy, Perry and Oscar are just getting into your head," she mumbles to herself, folding the pillow over her ears. "This is all just because those two have been spitting Apartment Thirteen lore."

"Is it though?" is whispered in her ear.

She shoots up, releasing the pillow. She gets up and turns the light back on, looking around her room.

"Okay. Whoever is fucking with me, get out. I'm tired and just want to sleep. Can we please save the fuckery for tomorrow?"

She keeps looking around the room, waiting for any movement. When she doesn't see anything, she flips the switch again, being immediately greeted with a thud. She turns the lights back on and notices that her stress ball fell off her desk and slowly is rolling towards her. Yumi sighs, knowing that her paranoia is probably getting the best of her. She numbly kicks the ball, causing it to roll under her desk chair. Once the lights are off, she climbs into bed right next to the wall.

Then something starts crawling up her arm. She tries shaking it off but it doesn't move. She starts trying to jerk her arm away but whatever has a grip onto her arm only gets tighter. Thinking she's having a nightmare, she immediately starts trying to run her hand down her arm to bring her senses back to reality.

But her arm isn't free. The string lights she hung up during her first year wrapped themselves tightly around her arms. Yumi starts pulling away, hoping to pull the battery pack off the wall so she would at least have mobility. But the pack doesn't budge. It hangs tightly, almost pulling back against her fight. As if trying to create more problems, she can feel other loose strings finding places on her skin, creeping towards her throat. Yumi lets out a scream and pulls again, the strings releasing as she tumbles to the floor. She pushes herself away from her bed and towards the door. Once she gets out of her room, she knows that she needs to get out of her place. She tries her apartment door but it responds as if it's locked. She flips on the kitchen light and realizes that her lock is backwards, the part where she would put the key in facing her.