Day 2

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

"Urgh—!" I woke up and sat up in my bed immediately. I began to cough, immediately running my hands across my neck to check for blood. I then looked down at my hand.

There was no blood.

"H-Huh…?" I continued to feel along my neck, but unexpectedly there was no serration in my skin to produce the blood I'd just seen on the way down to the floor.

"The floor…" I looked at my surroundings. I was laying in bed. I looked at the walls I'd painted. They were still nude, with no trace of blood anywhere. I looked at the digital clock on the far side of my room, and it read 8:00 am.

My hands shook at the sheer shock of what'd just happened to me, but it was then that I realized,

"It was just a dream."

I sighed of relief.

I turned off my alarm, got out of bed, and grabbed my face towel on the way out of the room. I was going to wash my face per usual.

In the bathroom, I was soaking my face with water for longer than usual. I was in a sort of trance, my mind still adjusting to reality after the surreal dream I'd just had. How vivid it was didn't help in keeping my mind off the subject either.

Tap.

A faint yet noticeable sound interrupted my concentration. I lifted my face from the water and looked at the window where I heard the noise as water dripped from my chin. A raven had landed on the window still.

"How ironic," I thought. I smiled faintly as I watched it fly away.

After applying all the facial products I needed, I cleaned up the sink and made my way downstairs for some much needed breakfast. Coming to the table, my heart may have stopped for a second.

There was an orange, and a note.

"You're kidding, right…?" I picked up the note and read it:

{ Your father and I will be tending to business priorities in Xavier District for the next month or so. We don't know exactly when we'll be back, but you can take care of yourself anyways. I've bought enough fruits to last you a daily breakfast for at least a month. But they only had oranges available at the store we shop at. It's okay though, you like oranges anyways, right? Eat healthy while we're gone.

Mother }

I scrunched the note into my hands, forming it into a crumpled ball of disregarded paper. "There's no way…" I laughed slightly to myself. The nightmare still lived in my mind, and so to see the exact same note, word for word from my nightmare itself, was a little bit odd to say the least. I picked up the orange, gave it an obvious look of disgust, and threw it across the kitchen into the garbage bin.

"Swish."

Without recollection of what I should have been doing, my mind subconsciously led to the idea of playing a video game. "Just like my dream…" Things were playing out a little too accurately for comfort. I immediately brushed off the thought though. "Who am I to be scared? Only imbeciles would be."

I marched up the stairs, almost in a careful manner, as if anticipating something. That anticipation was answered.

Ding!

I heard my phone receive a notification from my room. I immediately ran upstairs, and as I approached my room, I realized my heart was beating at an unhealthy speed. Was I scared? Was I excited? It was hard to fool myself what to believe, so I just went for it, entering the room expecting nothing.

There was nothing inside.

"Phew..."

I walked over to my phone to check what'd been sent. It was a message from an unknown number.

"Haha…" I let out a faint laugh subconsciously. I couldn't believe how accurate everything was to my dream. It was almost unnerving. I opened the message, and looked inside.

It was a picture of a raven.

"No." I dropped my phone. It hit the floor, and the screen shattered, scattering tiny glass shards everywhere. Before my panic could settle, I heard a heavy knock at my bedroom door.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

My heart really skipped a beat in that moment. With a fight-or-flight response to the fear, my body moved on its own, reaching for the lock on my door and locking it shut. The knocking pursued, getting heavier and heavier with each hit against the door's wooden frame. I slowly backed away, not wanting to know who or what stood behind that door. I could have called out to ask who it was. A simple "Who are you?" might've done the job. It could have been my mother, my father, or anyone else I may have known. But with the nightmare still vivid in mind, fear had overtaken my reasoning completely. I backed away the furthest I could from the door.

As I backed away, my momentum stopped in place. My back had hit something I couldn't see, something behind me. It was sturdy, but not hard like a wall. I felt it expand and contract, breathing against my back, and I felt a cold pair of eyes staring at the back of my head.

Fear.

I couldn't move. There was no fight, nor flight. I was paralyzed out of pure fear for the ideas that plagued my mind all at once. As if the world had frozen in place, I held my breath, and stared forwards at the door that knocked no more. All was silent, except the heavy heart that beat against my back.

Before I could get my body back up and running, back into motion out of this paralyzed state, a hand laid itself on my left shoulder, followed up by another that reached out in front of me. I could see it, the hand was covered with a black leather glove, and within its grasp, being gripped all too tightly, was a pair of already bloodstained scissors.

SHLK—!

The scissors swiped cleanly across my throat, and my blood sprayed horizontally. My vision withered with the life that left my eyes. I fell to the floor with a heavy thud.

Death.