Monday, September 26th, 2016

I’m fazed the second we went to bed and Davy didn’t really seem to have trouble going to bed by himself. At first, I thought he would sleep in Annika’s room too, since he was laying under a cover on the spare matrass that is always on the ground, filled with pillows, blankets and the stuffed bunny that Annika has ever since she was a baby.

It’s her reading spot. She always dives into the pillows, grabs a book, and disappears into a fictional world, sometimes for hours in a row.

And he went up with us – Annika too sleeps in the attic, but shares it with Davy, who has the second half of the attic as his room – and snuggled into the pillows with a blanket pulled over it.

We talked about sweet little nothings, for the first time in a week. It felt good, and it distracted me for a bit. They told me how Edward tripped over a ball during P.E. and how idiotic it had looked.

They told me how Mrs. Jenner – an older lady teaching German – became angry and upset because nobody was listening and how she called our parents pigs who could raise children. She even pushed aside Davy’s desk when he kept laughing during her preach.

But then he stretched, yawned, and pushed up from his spot. “Well, I’m off to bed. We have school in the morning and you know me, I love my sleep.”

I frown in wonder, leaning up on my elbows to look at him. “I thought you’d sleep in here.”

“No way dude.” He scowls. “I’m not sleeping in a room with my sister. I love you and all, you’re my best friend, but what you guys do in the bedroom is not my business.”

“But…” My frown increases. “I thought you didn’t want to sleep alone either? What was up with the skype sessions last week?”

“That was last week, then, nothing happened.” He shrugs carelessly. “I sleep fine, Sid. I know you have nightmares and all…” He scratches his head backwards. “Do youwant me to sleep in here?”

I think I would feel even more comfortable with him in the same room. But then again, that would up the percentage of people in the room that are haunted by Angie, right? If he is haunted by her, which I’m starting to doubt because he apparently hasn’t had a nightmare once.

“No, it’s fine, I just figured you and Edward have the same trouble.”

“Yeah… we don’t.” He seems uncomfortable to talk about it. “Edward is still freaking out a lot, but you know he’s a pussy. He hasn’t had a nightmare once, but he keeps freaking out. At least you have a reason to freak out.”

“So, I’m the only one with nightmares?”

“Yeah, but then again…” Davy’s words stop, and he bites his lips. “You’re the only one who says he sees her in the picture, right? And you said you saw her in the woods too… We didn’t.”

I lay back down, staring towards the ceiling, wondering if me seeing her in the woods and in the picture is the reason I’m suffering while they’re not.

Did she perhaps solely attach herself to me, and not to them?

But why am I different?

“So, well, if you want me to sleep here, I will…”

“No, it’s fine, I have Annika and you’re right next door, right?”

“Right.” He nods, and I see a small smile. “Call me whenever something is wrong.” He leaves the room and I sigh, rolling over to face Annika, pulling her in my arms.

“Well, at least one good thing came out of this.” She giggles. “We get to see each other outside of school again.”

“If you look at it like that…” I chuckle, leaning in for a quick kiss. “I missed you.”

“Ah, Pooh Bear, I missed you too.”

“How come you always call me Pooh Bear anyway?” I wonder aloud, actually not remembering why she started calling me that way, and not digging the name as much anymore.

“I don’t know. Because you’re a cuddly bear.” She shrugs with one shoulder, scooting closer to burry her face against my chest.

“Right…”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I guess. I’m just tired.” I take in a deep breath, keep it in for a couple of seconds and breath out heavily. “Think we can switch sides? I rather face the room…”

“Huh, oh, sure.” She frowns shortly, but then she switches places with me so that I get to hold her and face the room. “Do you want me to leave the bed light on?”

“No, it’s fine. I’m fine.” I lie, knowing I damn well want that light to be on. But I don’t want to feel even more like a little chicken. I’m obviously more affected by all of this then Davy and I wish I would be more like him right now; careless and calm.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” I nod along with my answer and she rolls over to turn the lights off. The silent grows as soon as she is back in my arms, her back against my chest and my nose nuzzled into her hair. “I love you, Anni.”

“I love you too, Siddey. I hope you sleep well.”

And so do I.

And I do fall asleep quick, and without trouble or a freaky scary girl haunting me.

I don’t know what time it exactly is, but I wake up because I hear a scream close by and I’m a bit confused because it’s not my own scream that woke me up. Even more so, I can’t even remember dreaming at all, let alone have a nightmare about Angie following me around, repeatedly asking me to play hide and seek again.

The scream repeats – louder this time – and since I’m wide away with a raised heartbeat, I instantly recognize it as Davy who’s screaming.

My eyes widen and I scramble off the bed as Annika sat up with confused and sleepy eyes. “Where are you going? What’s wrong?”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Davy…” I answer, already running out of the room. The third scream is louder, longer and similar to the scream Angie always screams in the end of my nightmares as soon as I present a knife to her.

“Sid, is that you?” Mr. Bray sounds worried and I hear his footsteps run up the stairs.

“Dave!?” I call out as soon as I run into the bedroom, finding him hiding in the corner of the room with a terrified look on his face, covering his head in fear. I run over to him and grab his wrists – wanting to pull his hands away from his face to show him it’s me. But as soon I grab his wrists he yelps and screams again.

“Davy, calm down!” He father pushes me aside, pulling Davy towards him. “Calm down, it’s okay…” He seems lost at what to do and confused about what happened.

“Let me go!” He cries out, trying to push his father away in complete an utter panic. “Let! Me! Go!”

Never have I seen Davy like this, ever. The panic, the fear.

And I just know, he saw Angie.

Tuesday, September 27th, 2016

I’m annoyed while following Davy towards his locker. He’s been avoiding me, Edward and Cory all morning. He left for school before Annika and I got a chance to talk to him and he sat with other friends before school and during classes.

He’s been avoiding eye-contact and I’m worried.

“We have to talk, Dave,” I harshly tell him, stopping next to him while he’s opening his locker.

“About what?” He feigns ignorance and I hate it when he does this.

“The dream.”

“What dream?” He bites his lip, he avoids eye-contact yet again and he’s messing with his lock, unable to open it.

“You saw her. I know you did.”

“Who Sid?” he sends me an annoyed look, mimicking my own expression. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“So, that’s how we’re going to play? Why won’t you talk?”

“Because…!” He groans, lolling his head backwards in the same time. “I don’t want to, Sid. It’s just a dream, right?”

“Tell me what you see in the picture now.” I hold up the phone. Cory advised me to ask him about the picture in which he only saw eyes. According to him, his reaction, not even in words, but in actions, will tell me enough.

He tried not to look at the picture, but I know the effect of the picture, and the fact Davy is curious by nature too. His eyes flicker towards the phone shortly, back to his locker and then his eyes grow wide. I think it sank in that he saw something that he didn’t see before. His head snaps back to me, his eyes staring at the picture in horror. “How the hell… I swear… She…”

Then we lock eyes and I know from now on, there’s a fourth person who’ll be haunted by Angie at night. It’s no longer Kim and Cory. It’s the four of us.

Cory told me Kim is still in a ward, and she hardly ever speaks to anyone. She just lost it. Cory at least kept it together a bit, enabling him to go back to school.

And bond with us over the fact we’re now all victims to our own curiosity and the need to seek thrill and scary things.

“You saw her in your dream. That’s why you panicked.” I conclude, putting the phone away again.

“It’s just a dream, right? She can’t harm us.”

I pull a face, tapping my throat, tapping my head and sighing deeply. “I think she can.”

“But now what do we do? I just know if I’ll ever fall asleep while there’s nobody to wake me up, I won’t survive if she’ll harm me.”

“What do you mean? You can kill her in your dreams. It’s what I do, it’s what Cory does.”

“Kill her in your dreams?” He seems a bit fazed.

“You can kill her in any way possible. Just know that it’s a lucid dream whenever she’s there, and you can do whatever you want. Cory told me knives are the most affective way to scare her off. But she’ll scream in a way that sends chills through your bones…” I awkwardly scratch my head. “I haven’t got the hang of lucid dreaming yet, but according to Cory you can picture yourself holding whatever you want, and you’ll instantly have it. Picture a knife and you’re safe.”

“But I don’t know how to do that!” He cries out.

“I always go to the kitchen in my dreams, grab a knife. But it’s hard because it’s like she knows I’m going there to grab a knife, so she blocks my way…” I sigh. “It’s weird, man. And I hate it because I just need some solid sleep…”

“But you slept fine last night. You didn’t wake up screaming.”

“Yeah… I know. Maybe it did help that Annika is there with me.”

“So, if I sleep in the same room as you guys, I will be safe?”

“I don’t know!” I shrug, biting my lip while overthinking it. “Do you think, perhaps, she only haunts one of us at a time? Cory hasn’t had a nightmare ever since mine started.”

“Guys?” Annika sounds a bit insecure as she steps up next to us. “I’ve been thinking. Not that I know as much as you guys do. But I need to show you something.” She grabs our wrists and Davy hisses and pulls back, grabbing his own wrist protectively.

I frown, Annika frowns and Davy’s face flushes.

“What’s that?” Annika let’s go of my wrist again, grabbing his elbow to pull his arm in our direction.

Davy reluctantly removes his hand, showing a large scratch-mark on his arm.

My eyes widen in shock and Annika takes a deep breath.

“Did she do that? In your dream?”

“She grabbed me… She tried to pull me into the woods.” Davy mutters, a bit ashamed. “I fought back, and this was a result. Then you guys woke me up.”

“Holy…” I stare at it in shock, but then Annika nudges me.

“You guys really need to see this. Cory and Edward are waiting already.” She nods her head, telling us to follow her.

We follow her towards the library and towards a computer where Edward and Cory are waiting confused and in wonder.

Annika sits down in front of the computer, opening her account, and a web-page.

“I can’t see her, so I don’t know for sure. But I thought, maybe this is about the Angie you guys see. From what I know, it’s a young girl that you see and this one was called Angela…” she turns the screen towards Cory most, but Davy and I lean forwards too, finding a short article about a girl that went missing over fifty years ago. It says that she went missing when she was playing outside in the back garden and was never found again. She was nine years old, wore a pinkish dress the day she went missing and was bare-footed.

The picture shows Angie, only clean and smiling, her short black hair curly at the bottom with a pink bowtie in it.

“That’s Angie.” Cory whispers. “That’s her.”

I read the article again, and then I get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. There’s a picture of the house she lived when she went missing.

“Isn’t that…” I gesture towards the picture of the house.

“The house with the backyard…” Davy’s face pales.

“In which we entered the woods.” Edward finishes with a squeaky voice. “Holy shit, isn’t that a coincidence?”

“Coincidence? What if that’s why she dragged you away from where we were heading?” Davy hits his shoulder hard. “We entered her domain, through her domain.”

“How were we supposed to know she lived in that house? Out of all houses!?” Edward scowls, rubbing his shoulder with a painfilled look on his face.

“Only we can pick that exact house.” I mutter, sitting down again. “But how is this helpful?”

“I don’t know…” Annika whispers insecurely. “I just feel like I need to do something to help. You’re my boyfriend, Davy’s my brother, Edward is… well, he’s Edward. And I like Cory.”

“That’s sweet of you.” I hum happily, leaning to peck a kiss on her cheek.

“One question.” Cory clears his throat. “She was never found, right? So, there’s no cause of death or whatever?”

“Right.” Annika nods and smiles awkwardly. “I think she died in those woods and is now haunting people.”

“I think so too.” Cory nods. “And if you ask me, there’s a big chance she was killed with a knife.”

“Which would explain her fear of knives.” I agree with a nod of my own.

“Knife?” Annika perks up and I can almost see the lightbulb above her head. “That’s possible! That’s… I think… I have to look for it.” She’s now more talking to herself then she’s talking towards us, typing away on the computer.

“You have more to show us?” Edward is reading along over her shoulder. “About a serial killer?”

“Yeah, remember how about four years ago, three people got killed, and they said it was a copy-cat killer?” Annika sounds enthusiastic, and that’s probably because she’s on to something.

Believe me, she isn’t enthusiastic because there had indeed been a serial-killer active about four years ago and I still remember how we weren’t allowed to be outside by ourselves. We needed at least two adults close by whenever we went outside. It sucked, but after three deaths, they captured a guy and the murders stopped again.

“What about it? He’s still in jail.” Davy frowns, leaning back, visibly losing interest in the conversation.

“A knife was part of the M.O. and it was part of what made them believe it was a copy-cat. He stabbed his victims three times each.” She points towards the computer screen. “Amara and I wrote an essay about it a while ago. The top three biggest crimes committed in the area. The original murdered used a knife, stabbed his victims trice, and raped the female victims before drowning them. It was horrific, but he was active in the year Angela disappeared and it is believed she was on of his victims.”