Duplicity [h.s]

65

this chapter is laid out pretty different than my past ones. Throughout the chapter you'll see 30 SECOND audio clips that will help enhance this upcoming scene! Bare with me though I've never done this before...

Aven Brooks

Sometimes, something just wakes you up out of the blue. Not a person nor a sound or touch, but something. Even in the most deepest of sleeps, your mind can sense somethings wrong and randomly wake you up for no reason. It had nothing to do with a bad dream or a lucid trip that made you feel like you're falling, it was an intuition. Sometimes you can just wake up because something doesn't feel right. It was your bodies way of going into red alert, that something in the universe may be wrong.

But when I arose from the dead in the middle of my perfect sleep, I realized something really did feel off. No noise or touch woke me, nothing besides the small hum of the television I fell sleep to. My eyes shift to the digital clock on the nightstand—it was only 3:54am. Meaning I've been asleep for just over an hour.

Why did I wake up?

I turn my head back and quickly realized I was alone in the wide bed, nothing but a indent in the sheets of were he used to lay. I remember falling asleep as he was sitting up against the headboard watching a sitcom. He was still wide awake when I passed out, so where was he now? Bathroom?

I had a weird feeling in my stomach.

I sat up, my blind eyes adjusting around the room. I grab my glasses on the bedside table, sliding them on my face. With better vision, I glance at his ensuite bathroom across the room. It was empty and dark. There was a pit in my stomach, something just didn't feel right.

I draw the blankets off my bare legs, feeling the draft. I turn and step down on the cold hardwood floor, standing up to my legs that weren't completely awake yet. I don't know why I felt so strange, but something was telling me to go look for him. He's probably just sitting with insomnia in the kitchen or getting some fresh air on his balcony—To ease my mind I had to make sure.

Walking out of his room, I head right to the stairs. My arms cross over my stomach because I was cold, only in a large shirt and shorts. Going down the stairs I had to watch my feet, making sure my foggy brain didn't make me miss a step. Getting to the bottom, I head across the dark living room and straight to the kitchen. Turning the corner, I was surprised to see the kitchen was dark and empty.

Right before I start to get worried, I heard something. The sound of a single piano key.

My heart drops when I heard the sound, one that didn't scare me, but shook me down to my core. Everything immediately pieced together on where he was, nerves taking over.

I turn away from the kitchen, stepping down to the short hallway that lead into the lonesome room at the end. There was a small yellowing glow coming from that area, as if he had a little lamp turned on. My bare feet stuck to the oak floors at each step, my arms remaining cold and crossed over my body. This hallway was chillier than the rest of the apartment, I think there was a draft in that room. Or maybe it just lacked compassion from no one ever being in there.

I heard the sound of another piano key as I walked silently down the hallway. The door was wide open to my surprise, but I still didn't take it as an invite to walk right in. The piano was around the corner a bit from the door, so I couldn't see him or the instrument just yet. When I reached the white doorframe, I carefully glance around the corner of the dim room.

There he sat on the black rectangular stool that matched the exterior of the grand piano. The piano was angled in a way I could just see his side profile and his hands along the white keys. Nothing else really accented the room besides a large window almost touching the ceiling, similar to the grand living room. The moon in the sky glimmered along the top of the slick instrument, mixing with the warm lighting of the lamp.