I Live by the Woods [On Hold]

Chapter 9: Triggered

"Mum?"

"You mustn't look at me, Dear. I'm not quite finished with my tests."

"What?"

"You'll get yours soon enough. Mine need to take place before then, though. I died first."

"First?"

"Sweetheart, you're dead."

                                                    • • • • •

I was pretty sure my screams were heard from.... Uh.... What's that one place on the other side of the......?

I couldn't remember anything specific. It was messing with my head.

"Isabella! Are you okay?! I heard you screaming from outside! Please tell me you're OK."

I sent the boy before me a questioning look. "Who's Isabella?"

"Ha. Ha. Very funny. Are you alright, though? After you hit your head and split your lip open I freaked."

"I'm fine, thanks. Just a...." What was the word?!

"A what?"

"A thing... You know, where these things," I pointed to the things I could see out of, "are closed, and my head... Um... Makes up scary things."

"Uhm... Are you talking about a nightmare?"

"That's the word! Nightmare! Thank you random concerned person!"

"Hey, yeah." The boy's face changed to a confused look. "Are you sure you're alright? You've been having nightmares since you tried to commit suicide that one time and—"

"I tried to commit suicide?!"

"Uhh... Yeah... Don't you remember? I practically broke down the door when I heard you coughing in water."

"What's 'suicide'?"

"Where you try to kill yourself?" The boy responded.

"What's 'kill'?"

"I'm buzzing in the doctor. Your brain isn't working properly."

"Brain! That's the thing that looks like that one thing but is that adjective, right?"

"Definitely something wrong with you." The boy pressed a squishy dot beside the fluffy thing I was sitting on. A noise erupted and I jumped.

"What was that?!" My looking things were larger than usual.

"I buzzed in the doctor? Isabella, I'm concerned about you. Why can't you name specifics?"

"I don't know... I feel like my thing inside my head — my brain — is... What's the word?"

"Empty?"

"Yes! Thanks again, random concerned person! Who's Isabella?"

"That's your name; Isabella. My name's Enoch, you must know that much."

Fuzzy images crowded my vision, and after a bit they became more prominent. "Oh yeah! You're the one that caught me that one time I almost fell of the stairs in front of the house, and you're the one that helped me with making the muffin and cracking the eggs and carrying me to look at the snow outside! Yet you aren't my family...? What happened to my family?"

Enoch's eyes were wide. "That's a lot of specific details. I forgot about catching you that one time with the stairs... Did my name trigger those?"

"What's a 'name'?"

"Aaaand we're back to square one." Enoch sighed, placing an arm with tiny arms sticking out of it over his...