Memories That Still Haunt Us

Chapter Forty-Four:

I wake up in the night with the same eerie feeling I felt before. A chill runs down my spine as my eyes open quickly. The same unnerving feeling like someone is standing over me, watching me as I sleep.

The room is dark. No glow from the moon peeking in through the blinds. No shine of the TV. The lamp is turned off on the nightstand. Just pure darkness.

I reach my hand over and feel Ellis sleeping beside me, his chest rising and falling. My eyes move slowly around the room, trying to pick up on anything out of the ordinary. Except everything looks scary in the dark.

It's hard to tell if there's anything in the room at all or if it's just the dark playing tricks on me. My mind creates scary monsters out of nothing.

The hairs on my arms stand up. The sound of the fan circling on the ceiling. My heart thuds in my chest, picking up speed as I focus on every inch of the room. The uneasy feeling not ceasing.

When my eyes fall on the accent chair in the corner of the room, my breathing halts. A dark figure sits in the chair. At least, what appears to be. I try to remember if there were clothes piled on the chair. There couldn't have been. I cleaned the house today. The room was spotless when we finally fell asleep after staying up late talking.

I squint into the dark, my body petrified. It becomes so still—so silent in the room—that the sound of my heartbeat might as well be used as an alarm clock. My breathing is slow as I'm scared that any sort of sound from me might result in this dark figure launching itself at me.

I stare and try to make sense of the shape. Try to remember what might have been there before we drifted off. But nothing comes to mind. The longer I stare, the more it takes shape. Arms lay out along the arms of the chairs, fingers hanging over the edges. Each leg is planted firmly in front. The outline of the body, sitting up straight.

I'm going crazy. I must be. There's no way someone can just be sitting there in the chair, staring back at me.

Yet, why do I feel so scared?

I can feel their stare boring into me, taunting me. I want to shake Ellis awake, to call out his name, but I'm too frightened to move—to say anything. So, I remain completely still; my eyes remain on the figure as they stare back at me. After a while of no movement, I begin to believe it's not real. That I've completely lost it. Until suddenly, I see the leg of the figure cross over the other leg, and a loud gasp escapes my mouth.

My hand moves over the bed, and I shake Ellis. He doesn't move. I shake him again, my heart pounding out of my chest. There's someone in the room, watching us sleep. The same person who broke into the guest house. The same person who probably took my journals with the photos inside. The same person who wants to hurt me.

My eyes widen as the dark figure slowly stands from the chair. A scream builds in my throat. Even though I can only see the outline of their body, it's evident from their size and build that it's a woman standing in the corner of the room. My eyes are fixed on the person, watching their every movement. I want to scream—to do anything besides sit here frozen—but it's as if every part of me has shut down. My survival skills thrown out the window.

Very slowly, the figure takes a few steps towards the end of the bed. Eyes on one another, until she reaches the end of the bed and stands firmly in place. As I stare, the more the figure looks familiar. The more I process who she is.

She begins to proceed to approach me, and the scream that was being held in the middle of my throat gets pushed out. "Go away!" I yell and shut my eyes, turning my body towards Ellis, where I shake him again. "Ellis!" I screech, and he lurches awake, eyes flying open.