ELARA
If I threw a glass of water into the ocean every time Dean got on my nerves, I swear I'd overflow the Mariana Trench, flood the entire Pacific, and send a worldwide tsunami of my irritation crashing across all seven continents.
It's lunchtime, and the cafeteria is its usual midday blur of chattering trays and the scent of reheated pasta drifting through the air like bad news.
"You've taken your meds right?" Dean's message reads on my phone.
"I can take care of myself," I respond with that eye-roll emoji.
I glance toward him just long enough to cast a death stare.
My twin brother sits at the jock table — and I kid you not, my brother and the rest of the dumb, semi-attractive male athletes have reduced themselves by themselves into the dumbest kind of high-school-movie-cliché clique they were probably enamored with growing up.
"You look pale," his next text reads, and I'm slightly taken aback by how he even managed to notice that.
I spot Damasen and Carl making their way to the table I'm seated at, along with a few other people I barely know.
"Stop spying on me, creep. I'm fine," I type, then place my phone on airplane mode to avoid his annoying head breathing down my neck.
I mean, I love my brother and I know he cares about my well-being, but God, is he annoying.
I've been labeled "mildly schizophrenic" since I was eight.
Back then, my parents thought it was just an overactive imagination — the sort of childhood fear you could shoo away with a night-light and a hug.
But then I started hiding in corners, shaking, pointing at things no one else could see.
Shadows that moved. Faces in the walls. Heat where there shouldn't be any.
Everything changed on the day Dean and I turned nine.
I had bolted out of the house screaming that it was burning — flames crawling up the walls, a woman's voice shrieking from inside.
My parents rushed me to a psych clinic that same day.
The doctor gave my terror a name and told them I was imagining it all.
Six days later, the fire came for real.
Our house went up exactly the way I'd seen it — red-orange flames licking through the windows, smoke choking the sky.
And this time… I wasn't the only one who saw it.
This time, my mother didn't make it out.
A soft thud snaps me out of the past, and I see Carl and Dame already beside me — Carl next to me at the table and Dame opposite.
Carl is staring at me with those otherworldly eyes that seem like a storm of hazel, brown, and green — like leaves caught in a messy yet beautiful current.
My stomach does a weird flip when I meet those eyes. Then I'm reminded of what I saw on a certain summer day when we were down by the lake, and a wave of panic hits me.
"Quarter for your thoughts?" he asks, and I shake my head. He nods anyway, as though he already understands that I'd been thinking of my mum. I love that he and I have a way of communicating without actually speaking — almost as if we can hear each other's thoughts.
He pushes his fruit juice toward me and places his apple on my untouched tray.
"Why are you—"
"You should eat." He interrupts before I finish protesting and pulls out his phone from his jacket pocket. "You look pale."
I sigh and murmur a thanks, rubbing my cheeks to hide my blush.
"Why do I feel like I've suddenly become the third wheel again?" Damasen's voice cuts through, reminding me that other people exist outside the little world Carl and I share.
"Shut up, Dame," Carl snaps, and Damasen chuckles. I roll my eyes. Ever since Carl and I broke up back in freshman year, Damasen has dedicated his life to bringing us back together.
Not that I'm against it — it definitely wasn't my idea for us to break up, and neither of us has dated anyone since.
The plain reason for our breakup was that Carl told me it just wasn't working for him and he'd rather we remained friends.
"Come on, Carl," Damasen continues, twisting the knife, "it's not like you have that much of a chance with the new girl."
I look at Carl again.
Who was Damasen talking about?
"Who's that?" I ask, directing the question at Damasen, who smirks at Carl.
"It's no one really," Carl answers instead, a bit too fast, and I instantly know he's lying.
She definitely isn't just anyone. Suddenly I don't feel so hungry anymore.
I grab my phone off the table and stand up to leave.
Carl stands too, as if to stop me.
"Whoa there. Where you going to?" he asks, and a pang of irritation gnaws at my heart.
He doesn't get to act like I'm something important when he doesn't even think of me a quarter of the way I feel about him.
"You don't need to know everything that goes on in my life. You aren't my boyfriend anymore," I snap out loud — and regret the words the second they escape my villainous lungs.
I feel every eye in the cafeteria on me. I pray the ground will swallow me so I don't have to exist a second longer.
I see Carl's hurt expression, and then Dean's, puzzled by my outburst.
I mumble an apology and weave my way across the cafeteria toward the hallway, bumping into someone's food tray. The girl's pink top gets smeared with gravy, and we exchange looks of horror — hers slowly morphing into rage.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?"
I lower my head, mumble a second half-assed apology, and bolt out of the cafeteria.
---
If there was ever a time I was completely sure I should've never been born, now was definitely among those times.
Maybe Dean should've absorbed me while we shared a womb. He clearly is the one meant to exist, not me.
I hug my knees and sob uncontrollably. I'm at my lowest, tucked away in the empty hallway by the lockers no one cares to venture into during lunch. The air smells like old metal and floor disinfectant, sharp and sour in my throat.
I bang my head on the wall, over and over, hoping maybe I can bash the vacuous mass known as my brain out of my skull. But then I think of Mr. Higgins — the school janitor — who has done nothing to deserve cleaning up the mess my brain tissue would inevitably create.
I cover my eyes with my hands and let out a helpless groan. I begin to feel oddly exposed… and cold.
Was it getting colder?
I hear something bounce right in front of me, and I open my eyes to see a baseball by my side.
I pick it up, looking around. There's no one near me aside my bruised ego sits beside me like an unwanted companion.
The ball is worn out, marked with black and grey spots. I look around again — and the hallway is now… different.
I stand up, perplexed, taking in the sight.
Instead of lockers, I'm standing in what looks like a broken-down hospital wing. The walls are dark and decayed, thick with cobwebs, the air heavy with dust and something damp and metallic. The metal doors are rusted, cracked open just enough to reveal nothing but cold darkness, the sends a shiver down my spine.
The corridor has no visible end, just an endless row of doors stretching into a narrowing bright point of white light at the center.
"Carl?" I call out instinctively. "Hello? Anyone here?"
"Carl. Dean. Anyone?"
Still no reply.
My heart drops. Panic rises like a tide, and I start calling out for someone — anyone — to drag me out of whatever this is.
I run forward through the corridor toward the shining white light. Screams begin to echo around me, growing more intense with each stride. The sound claws at my skin, raw and desperate.
And with the screams comes a terror that isn't mine — someone else's fear, sharp and overwhelming, like watching a horror movie where the actor's cries is so perfectly delivered you feel the panic through the screen.
I fucking hate horror movies.
The screams grow louder and louder until they're all I can hear.
All I can feel.
All I can think.
All I am.
Endless.
Then, suddenly — silence.
Darkness sweeps outward, swallowing everything until even the light I'd been running toward is snuffed out. I feel something breathing behind me — cold, slow, deliberate.
I turn, trembling, and see one rusty door left untouched by the darkness.
It calls my name. Urging me forward.
I push it open and step toward the unknown.