five

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Harry

I ordered the two small bottles on the shelf in my living room in order of dimension. The smaller one on the left, the bigger one on the right, towards the window, making sure that the distance between one and the other was the same as every day. I looked at them with a sigh. Anything to keep myself busy.

I checked the time on the screen of my phone for the thousandth time. It was past midnight. I heard some footsteps in the hallway outside of my front door and I waited patiently until I knew for sure she had gone into her house. As I'd always done. I took my keys and went outside.

There was something of so fascinating in the night, for me, at least. Not in my house though, where the darkness lay upon me like a blanket, keeping me up, staring at a ceiling I couldn't see, thinking about things I shouldn't have thought about. Outside, though, it was different. The street lights enlightened my path, slightly flickering because of the electricity running through them. Dark and light, dark and light. They would've fixed them soon, though.

I stopped as I reached a closed playground. I jumped over the fence and landed on the soft grass on the other side. I looked around. There was a swing in the middle. I sat on it and gripped the chains on both sides, my hands coming in contact with the ice cold iron. I leant my head on my left hand and closed my eyes as a cold breeze swept through the park, making the swing dangle a little and freezing me down to my bones, since I wasn't wearing a coat. I had left it at home. As almost always, anyway. I knew I would've probably got sick because of that, but I couldn't bring myself to care. I also couldn't bring myself to care about the fact that going around alone in the middle of the night is what people would normally define as dangerous. I couldn't bring myself to care about a lot of things, actually. I guessed that when you reach that one point, you know nothing could possibly go even worse. I often found myself hoping to just disappear. It was like being in my own personal hellhole, in need of something to come take me out of there.

I stood up, the wind blowing right through my thin long sleeved shirt and dishevelling my hair. I looked up to the sky as I felt a cold drop hit my head. It was starting to rain. The moon was hiding behind those big, dark clouds. I sighed, and I went back home.



Grace

It was 3am, and I couldn't sleep. I had tried to, but I just couldn't.

On the kitchen table there were all the empty cups of tea I had made myself, on the nightstand lay a book I was tired of reading, still open, even though there was a bookmark in it. But I was still up.

I heard someone coming up the stairs with a stealthy step, clearly trying not to make noise. I didn't need to check to know that it was Harry. I wondered where he had been in the middle of the night.

I looked outside of the window, the rain was pouring down. I got up and opened it, making the sound become much stronger. The city was almost dead, I could see no cars or people around. I shivered as I felt a cold breeze come in, and closed the window again. I went into the kitchen, deciding to make myself another cup of tea before trying to sleep again.

I woke up suddenly when I heard a scream. I had managed to fall asleep around 4am the past night, or early morning, as you'd prefer to call it. I looked at my alarm clock. It was 6:27am.

I heard another scream break through the wall of my apartment, so I retrieved my flip-flops and got out as soon as I could. I knew it came from Harry's house. I started knocking on his door nonstop, hoping to get some kind of answer that could've helped me to understand what was going on. All of sudden I heard steps on the ground, and I stopped knocking. Harry opened the door soon after. He looked so tired.

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