My Place- Randall Carpio Love Story

Still in Hell it seems

*

Remi woke with a massive headache piercing the entirety of her brain. It circled every fold and dip until pain slithered down her spinal cord. Her cloudy head gave no remnants of the dream she had last night- if she even had one.

She gave a throaty groan as she rolled onto her stomach to stuff her face into her fluffy pillow. She breathed in the scent of unwashed sheets brand new from the store and gave another groan. She lifted her heavy head to grab the pillow and discard it to the ground beside her bed. She fell down onto the mattress of her bed and listened to the crinkle of the plastic coating her mattress. The loose-fitting sheets tangled around her legs and bunched up under her.

Stupid wrong fitting, she cursed herself for buying the wrong size for her bed.

She tried to chase her sleep to go back into her dreamless, peaceful state, but it seemed to evade her at every turn.

She sighed and pushed herself up as she realized her attempts were futile. She kicked the gray duvet off her legs and swung them down to sit up on the side of her tall bed. She squinted at the made bed across the dorm from her. The sheets appeared to fit perfectly and the bedding pulled at every corner to give the impression of a perfectly put-together life.

Funny, she thought as she sat atop of her rumpled sheets that didn't quite fit the bed. Looking at the bed, the faint memory of laughter and anxious mumbling came to mind, but she couldn't place a face.

The eerie confusion clouded her head and worried her. She slipped off her bed and tumbled as the blood rushed to her throbbing head and created black spots in her vision. "Woah," She lifted a hand to hold her head but stopped as she saw a fresh red scar along the length of her middle finger. "What?" She lowered both hands to look for more scars but only found the one on her finger. The skin bubbled up but offered no sensation as she drove her finger down the entire scar.

She squinted as she tried to remember the previous day- or what she would have done to get a scar- but as she tried to put her memories into place a headache ravaged her head. She groaned and squeezed her eyes shut as she pressed the butt of her palms into her temples.

The thumping drove down her spine and made every inch of her skin pulse along with her heavy heartbeat. She let out a slow, controlled breath then pulled in a long soothing breath to try and ease the pain.

As the pulse muted she dropped her hands and looked back around her room. Her phone was plugged in and settled on her desk, her duffle bag was unzipped by the foot of her bed, and her dirty clothes were stuffed into the makeshift laundry basket she bought at-

Pain flooded her head as she tried to think of when she bought the laundry basket. The pulse came back, quickly entangling her limbs until it devoured her. Everything blurred as black slowly started to crawl around the edges of her vision. She squeezed her eyes shut and repeated her calm breathing to try and reign everything back in.

The pulse numbed and the pressure in her eyes eased up. She opened her eyes and staggered over to her duffle. She quickly changed into a pair of denim high-waisted shorts and her black 'Rest in Hell' T-shirt tucked into the shorts. She slipped on her black and white checkered vans, grabbed her phone and backpack then left her dorm room in search of some answers.

As soon as she stepped outside the bright sun shined over her. She flicked her hair off her shoulder and dialed a familiar name: Jess. The name gave her the same weird sensation of bubbly laughter and anxious rambling. That mixed with the feeling she got earlier with the bedding made her feel pretty certain she was calling her roommate.

The phone clicked and immediately gave way to a breathy voice. "Remi? God, I was hoping you'd call."

"Hey... Jess." Remi's eyebrows furrowed as she tried to sound casual. She aimlessly walked the concrete path around campus with no real location in mind. "I- um-" She wasn't sure what to say.