Page 27 of Fragmented Illusions

Waiting

Playing

All in the shadows

Don’t you wish you knew who we were?

We could be anyone

Anywhere

Anytime

Wanna play in the dark with us, pretty girl?

I flip the paper over to make sure there is nothing written on the back of it even though I didn’t see anything the first time and on the other side of the folded crease is a drawing. I bring the heavy paper closer to my eyes to view it better in the dim light.

There are feather light strokes of gray pencil that encompass heavy, darker gray strokes of pencil across the paper. I trace each tiny line individually as they form almost triangular shapes before pulling the paper back a bit and getting the full picture.

A dahlia flower.

No. No no no.

This can’t be happening. Itcan’t.

This is some really fucked up alternate reality. Or… or maybe I’ve finally lost it.

Yes, that’s it. I’ve lost my ever-loving fucking mind, and nothing is real anymore. That has to be it because it is the only explanation for this.

They aren’t real. This isn’t real.

My phone dinging with a text message on my nightstand behind me has me jolting off my bed, a scream tearing through my throat. I manage to throw my hand over my mouth just in time to stifle it.

I can’t have any of the girls waking up and coming in here, seeing me like this.

With my blood thundering in my ears, muffling all noise—even the sound of my labored breathing—I tentatively move toward my phone. Each step I take is measured with what my roaring heartshouldsound like.

Thump. Step.

Thump. Step.

Thump. Step.

It takes me entirely way too much time to make it to the offending device that the two minute reminder makes it ding again. Forcing down the bile slithering its way up my throat from the sound with a tight swallow, I lean down and wrap my fingers around my phone. The glass back feels cool against my feverish skin. I hit the lock button to light up the screen.

Unknown: pretty girl…

I stare at my screen unmoving as I read the two words over and over a thousand times in the span of thirty seconds. I’m still staring when I see another text come through.

Unknown: Don’t look so frightened, pretty girl.

That has me whirling my head around my room so fast, a bolt of pain shoots through my neck to the back of my skull and I cry out. Tears instantly spring to my eyes and my phone clatters to the ground as I fall onto my bed in a heap. I breathe in the scent of my laundry soap as I force my breaths. My entire body threatens to shut down because of the pain. Not the physical pain, but something much greater.

My life is over.

Everything I worked so damn hard to rebuild is crashing and burning to the fucking ground—all because of my morbid curiosity with a fucking light.

I should have left well enough alone and now—now I have a fucking stalker.