I was alone.

It was a chilly, dark night. Rain softly misted a lightened by the flickering yellow street light. It caste a weak, watery light on me as I passed beneath it. I was walking—to where I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. The wind gently pushed against me, capturing my long black hair and pulling it back. The black curls floated backwards, as if defying gravity.

The street I was on was oddly familiar, but I couldn’t place exactly where it was. I was certain that I had just recently been here. All around me was darkness; it fitted around like a cloak, obscuring everything that was further than a few feet away. Even so, I couldn’t shake the feeling of familiarity. I continued to walk, slow, measured steps. My head was down, and I focused on the sidewalk below my feet. After a couple of minutes, I realized something.

It was silent.

Truly, deeply, silent. There was no buzzing, no indistinct voices, nothing. My own thoughts seemed to echo inside of my head. The silence, rather than welcoming, is unnerving. I felt as though I was missing something, something vital. My heartbeat started to increase. Looking up from the sidewalk, I tried to see through the wall of darkness. Something was wrong. I should be hearing someone.

Wait, you want to hear someone’s thoughts? Isn’t this what you wanted—silence? A part of me points out. I frowned. Yes, I wanted silence but this, this isn’t right. There’s something horribly wrong. The darkness surrounding me was unrelenting. I started to get more worried.

I was missing something.

Something important. My gaze probed the darkness. The sidewalk was the only visible thing. The soft light from the street light died out a few feet from where I was standing, beyond it was pure darkness. My eyes darted over the sidewalk, and found a barely discernible path that led off into the darkness. This was where I needed to go—I knew it, though exactly how I knew it I wasn’t sure.

But that’ll mean leaving the light! I thought, looking worriedly up at the dim streetlight. The overwhelming sense of urgency pushed through my worrying, and I darted off the sidewalk, and into the darkness. Once I was off the sidewalk, darkness enveloped me as if it was some living entity. Panic threatened to fog my senses, but I managed to keep a clear head. Up ahead was the dimmest of lights, just a little pinprick. I focused on that light to distract me from the dark that pressed upon me with almost a tangible pressure. I needed to get to that light. Not out of fear of the dark, but a fear of something else. Something was going horribly wrong—something that I had to stop.

I started to run towards the light. The darkness itself seemed to conspiring against me, pushing me back as I tried desperately to move forward. To break free of its grasp I increased my speed until I was sprinting as fast as I could possibly sprint. I felt like the Red Queen. Running as fast as I could just to stay in place.

I must have been getting closer, because the light was slowly, but steadily, grown larger. It grew larger and larger until I realized that it was one of those lights that you attached to the outsides of your house. More details were added; it was right next to a rather plain, nondescript beige door. My breath was coming in raged gasps now, and my side was starting to hurt. The feeling that something bad was going to happened, however, kept me going.

I nearly ran into the door. My hands scrambled as I found the doorknob, and wrenched it open. Nearly falling inside, I caught myself before I hit the red color carpet. Wrenching my eyes up from the carpet I saw that I was inside a teenage girl’s bedroom. The walls were a plain white, but were covered in posters that burst with color. The bed was covered in a funky, geometrical pattern with bright colors. There was a sound, a soft cry, and my eyes darted around the room, trying to find the source. On one wall was an open door, it led to what appeared to be a bathroom. Quickly, in one bound, I crossed the room, and stood before the bathroom. An intense feeling of forbearance almost physically held me back. There was something about this room that struck me odd—a feeling of de je vu that I couldn’t place.

A soft vibration caused my eyes to fall downwards. A cell phone lay upon the dresser. Looking at it closer, I saw that it the owner was in the middle of a conversation when she laid it down. The name read ‘boyfriend’.

That’s weird, I thought. Leaning closer I heard a male speak.

‘Alley? Are you there? Alley! I knew it may come as a shock…but Alley, can’t we still be friends?’

Alley. A sudden flashback hit me and I realized that the girl I had heard on the way home—the one whose boyfriend was breaking up with her—her name was Alley. My eyes turned to the bathroom, and I leaned back from it. There was a soft sound—the sound of someone crying. I knew I should go, this was the whole reason I was here. A feeling of pure fear, though, kept me back.

Taking a deep breath I mustered up all my courage. I had faced the dark to get here—I couldn’t stop now. With one last breath, I entered the bathroom. The bathroom itself was a typical, teenage bathroom, with makeup and ponytail holders strewn recklessly around the room. There was a large white tub opposite of the door. My eyes creped down the tub, until I saw it. The reason I was here.

There was Alley. She had short, black hair, with crazy pink highlights strewn through her black spikes. She was leaned over the tub, limp. My breath caught in my throat, and panic nearly overwhelmed me. Every instinct in my told me to run. I couldn’t. I was here for this—I couldn’t run away now. Cautiously, I edged closer. She wasn’t moving, and then I saw why.