Nightshift

chapter 2

“Anna, Anna wake up.” Michael’s attempt at shaking me awake sends me nearly rolling off the king sized bed.

I address him with a mumble; unsubtly showing my disapproval for having been woken up. My eyelids are barely open but I can feel his warmth drawing in as he quietly slides over the bed sheets, leaving us only an inch or two apart.

I breathe in his soapy scent, together with the hint of an ocean breeze lingered on him from the campfire. When my fatigued eyelids are slightly less heavy, I slowly unlatch them to find him lying right beside me, head rested on his left arm. The moonlight behind him beautifully reflects onto his delicate facial features.

He’s glimmering, and I’m imagining the only thing that’s missing; the faint outline of a halo looped above his tousled locks. And because I normally consider him my personal angel, it doesn’t strike me as a surprise when I do start seeing it; a soft shade of almost transparent light, floating on top of my angel of a boyfriend.

Michael’s lips curl into a serene, caring smile, and I swear at this moment the world is ours. He’s gazing into my eyes, most certainly testing my ability to endure the rush of emotion stirring within me.

He reminds me of the ocean. I think to myself.  A clear, blue, calm ocean.

I place my fingertips flat on his cheek, enjoying every moment of his presence, and even better, his closeness. 

I'm in the process of thinking of some other way to get across how much he means to me, when Miky wants to say something.

“Some weird things are going to happen Anna. But you need to know, that whatever it is, I love you now and will love you forever. You need to promise me the same.” His voice is low, his tone warning.

And now all has gone silent, not even the relaxing sound of his breathing, while I attempt to analyze what he had meant.

My attention is intuitively alerted to the backboard of the bed. There’s a loud pounding and thumping as though being struck by thousands of pistons, or kicked with millions of powerful legs. Although I can't see it, every nerve in my body can sense an unseen threat... like the figure I had seen at the beach before Miky and I had snuck inside once everyone had called it a night. The terror must have been too much for them, and I couldn't empathise more. But this encounter 's different... worse. The threat is way too close now, and I feel it.

My entire bed starts to rattle now, and I can't recall the last time being in this much fear. I let out a scream as I feel the vibrations get louder, and my head begins to throb with the pain of excess adrenaline pressuring through my temples. To double the trauma, my stomache drops when I turn and realise something missing, and my mind lags as I try to process what was missing. And of course, it's not something, but someone.

Where's Miky?!!!

I’m helpless. All that I am able to do at this point is force my eyes shut as tightly as I can. I find myself curling into a tight, terrified ball, folding in on myself as much as possible. I’d considered running out but THE DOOR…

It’s wobbling with promise of worse scenarios; the silver knob I had locked when we snuck in earlier seems to be at war with itself. The only rational explanation would be that somebody was on the other side, since this was a joke… right?

My breathing’s beginning to shallow and I feel a rush of dizziness surging through me; very evident symptoms before I usually go into full panick attack mode.

“Michael!” I Scream amidst tears and gasps for air. I'm having trouble contemplating that any of this is real.

Make it stop.