𝘚𝘖𝘕𝘋𝘌𝘙 ⁽ʲ ᵐᵒˡⁱⁿᵃ⁾

𝘛𝘞𝘌𝘕𝘛𝘠-𝘖𝘕𝘌

Sleeping in Payton's bedroom was accompanied with the strangest sense of nostalgia.

Elise and the other had taken off an hour or so after the movie had ended, the house so silent and empty seemed like a doorway into another dimension. It smelled earthy the way it had always smelled, since before Elise had found the band, and before she actually saw hope for her sister. It was a doorway to a time she was so grateful she could leave behind.

Despite the facts of her today, Elise still took the death and jolts and the sadness of final goodbyes over the truly miserable life she had before. If you looked through the portal and asked the girl - who only resembled Elise in appearance - she would not have understood. But she had yet to realize exactly how much a person could gain to lose in just a month or so.

Restlessly staring at the ceiling was more frustrating when you knew there would come a day in the near future where you wouldn't be able to sleep entirely. With her hands crossed over her chest and a snoring Payton beside her, Elise traced the shapes the darkness made in front of her. She tried her best to keep images out of her mind, but of course that was an impossible task. Sometimes she wished she could give up thinking. 

Fifteen minutes later, she was sitting with her back propped up against the wall on the other side of the room. It was nice to get a change in perspective after staring at the same dull angles for hours. The room from where she sat on the carpet looked bigger, sharp edges and details she had never accounted for - it was odd how such a small change could impact so much. The ripple effect, she supposed. How much she understood.

It was a good thing she had shifted positions, as only a few moments later the thumping of her heart began to speed. Her mouth opened as if she were about to shout in protest, just as the initial shock in her chest began. It followed up as it always did, shocking through her body, veins burning at her fingertips, her head pounding. She'd rather be shot in the chest than this torture that left her sprawling on the carpet. She couldn't move for a solid moment, as if the electricity had fried her nerves and rendered her limbs utterly useless. Part of her hoped she could just die, then and there. But of course, that was simply too much to ask.

It wasn't until she attempted to climb back under the sheets, now most likely to fall much easier, that she realized she was no longer in the land of the living.

"Shit," she whispered, clawing at the edge of the sheets in an attempt to grasp the fabrics in her hand and bury herself underneath them. "Come on."

She was more annoyed than anything, really. All she wished for was a dreamless sleep, to give her a hiatus from the terrors of reality. But the world really was just out to get her, wasn't it?

She hoped, with all her heart, that the boy's hadn't been half as bad. Her brain painted a picture of them before she could utter a protest, of their breathless "bodies" twitching on the floor of the garage. Would they come to check on her? She wished they would allow her to comfort them, she wished they would poof beside her and make each other laugh.

She shut her eyes firmly, the anger and the pain and the fear mixing into one single emotion that she could only identify as exhaustion. She was so over it - over everything. The physical toll it took on her was nothing compared to the muddled turmoil that rampaged through her mind.

It wasn't until she opened them again that she was standing, pajamas and all, back in Julie's driveway. When she removed her hand from her face, she jumped around in surprise and stared at the boys donning similar bewildered expressions. She cranked her neck around, as if confirming her surroundings, before bringing her eyes to meet those in front of her once more. Well, this could not be good. At all.

"Oops?"

"Oh. my. God." Alex stared at her, wide eyes unwavering. She tried to offer her audience a smile, which only came off as panicked and uneasy. She'd just "poofed," as they'd been calling it. She was a ghost, and she had no idea how long that would last.