Goosebumps covered every inch of my skin. I wanted to scream but nothing left my lips. I gulped.
I looked down at the bathtub full of blood, at least that was what it seemed. There was something poking out slightly out of the water.
With shaky hands, I reached out and dipped my hand in the water. Feeling something hard in it, I grasped it and pulled it out only to throw it back into the water while I stumbled backwards due to fright.
I landed on the cold bathroom floor, crawling away from it.
It was a very creepy, bloody doll with big, vacant dark eyes and a manic grin on its face.
I let out a bloodcurdling scream at its sight. It was staring at me with her wreaked evil smile which could send me running for the hills. Suddenly, the lights went out and I screamed even louder, if that was possible.
I got up with difficulty and ran towards the door and yanked it open.
Big mistake.
In my haste, I pulled open the closet door, not the door which would let me out of here. As soon as the closet door opened, something fell on my shoulder.
I froze. I stopped breathing. I was pretty sure it was not a towel or a dress or any type of clothing. At that very instant, the lights turned on and I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see what had landed on my shoulder.
Curiosity killed the cat.
I opened an eye and took a peek at my shoulder. My mouth opened again but I couldn’t scream. I was hyperventilating at this point.
On my shoulder was a bloody hand, with blood running down from its arm to its fingertips and dripping down from it on me and the clean tile of the bathroom floor.
I jerked back, falling to the floor as I cowered towards the door. I pulled at it but it didn’t budge. It was locked from outside. Someone had me trapped here. I beat against the door, wailing to them to let me out.
The lights were flickering and went out completely after a few seconds. I heard a cackle coming from the end of the bathroom, from the bathtub and I could swear my heartbeat stopped for a second.
Something rolled out of the closet and the lights flickered again. In the little light, I saw what had rolled out of the closet.
It was an eyeball. Green irises.
I cried out in horror, clutching my chest as I could feel the bile rise in my throat. My breaths came out in short gasps as I struggled to get air in my lungs. I was beyond petrified.
The cackling continued, accompanied by groans and it was then that I noticed the figure, half hidden behind the closet.
Its eyes glowed in the dark with a glow in the dark creepy grin. The fact that I could see it even with it covered in a white cloth from head to toe made it worse. I was sure I was near to getting a heart attack right now, or fainting. The fact that I had involuntarily stopped breathing was not helping either. My lungs protested for oxygen but the protests dulled out in front of? my sheer affright.
I shut my eyes tightly, willing this to be a nightmare.
“Help! Please! Let me out,” I banged against the door, my face probably red by now due to crying.
A few seconds must have passed before I heard the door being thrown open.
I looked at my brightly lit room, taking in the person who had come to my rescue. It was Ethan.
I didn’t care who it was.
I reached out to him with my hand but I suddenly lost focus and felt myself about to fall. I clenched my teeth, preparing for impact but midway between the fall, strong arms wrapped around me and prevented my painful contact with the floor.
Ethan knelt down and pulled me closer. I clung to him for dear life, wrapping my arms around his waist as I sobbed into his chest.
He rubbed my back comfortingly.
“Its okay, Juliet. You’re okay. You’re safe,” he whispered to me but I found it hard to believe.
I cried harder into his chest and shook my head, my lips quivering.
“T-those th-things. I’m scared. Get me out of here,” I stammered because of my trembling lips. I pressed my face into his chest, not wanting to see my scary surroundings.
“Juliet, those things aren’t real. Look at me,” he said, cupping my face. I looked into his eyes. “Breathe.”
I couldn’t. Not until I was out of there.
“They are real. Just get me out of here!” I struggled to get up, clutching onto Ethan for support.
“Stay put. You look like you’re going to faint or puke.”
“No!” I screamed at him. “Get me away from here!”
“Hey, it’s okay. I’ll show you there’s nothing here,” he said, stepping away from me and towards the bathtub. I grabbed his shirt from the back.
“Don’t go any further. They might attack.”
He chuckled. “There’s nothing scary here. I promise.”
“No, don’t go!”
“Calm down, this was all fake. See,” he said and I screamed when he picked up the eyeball.
He squeezed it and it broke off midway. Instead of something gooey, all that came out was a sponge-like substance.
“What?”
“Yeah, and this arm-” he said, pulling out the severed arm. “It’s from a soft toy. I just painted it red. See, it’s not real.”
I just stared at him.
“So calm down, okay? Don’t cry.”
He fiddled for something on one of the cabinets. “I had played the creepy voices on my phone.” He pulled out his phone and tapped away something on it. The ghoulish sounds stopped almost instantly and he pushed his phone into his back pocket.
He walked towards the bathtub and picked up the doll. “It was one of Rebecca’s dolls she left behind. I made it look scary. And this-” he said, grabbing the white cloth covering the ghost behind the closet revealing it to be an inverted unused dustbin placed over a stool.
“I stuck glow in the dark stickers here to make it look like a face,” he said. He gestured around the bathroom. “See? Nothing scary here.”
“You set this all up?” I asked, my fear dissipating quickly and instead replacing with fury.
He opened his mouth to say something but closed it and took a step forward. “Juliet-”
“No, you listen to me. How dare you do something like that to me? All because for a reason as stupid as getting revenge on me? How old are you – five? There’s a line you shouldn’t cross, Ethan!”
“Juliet, I-I-” he hesitated, closing his eyes and groaning. He looked down at his shoes for a few seconds before meeting my eyes. “I wanted to say that I, I’m very-I-”
“You what?!”
“Sorry,” he said quickly. “I’m sorry, okay? Maybe I took it a little far this time but-”
I laughed humorlessly. “A little far?”
“Okay, a little too far this time but-”
“Get out,” I said, pointing to the door.
“What?”
“You heard me. Just get out of here.”
He sighed. “Hey, come on. I didn’t know you would get so scared. What happened to the tough girl you were?”
“If you didn’t know that, you wouldn’t have set this up. You did it intentionally. Now get out of here. I don’t want to see your face ever again.”
“Well, that’s practically impossible when our rooms are right opposite each other, unless you decide to keep yourself holed up in this room for the next two months, which I highly doubt.”
I groaned, vexed. “Get out already.”
He just kept staring at me and made no move to leave.
I stomped towards him, making sure I stepped over his foot hard. It surprised me how he didn’t even flinch even though that shit hurt like hell.
I grabbed his arm and hauled him out of the bathroom with a lot of difficulty.
He pulled back his arm from my grasp and held my shoulder with his other hand. “You’re okay though, right?”
I snorted. “Since when did you start to care?”
“Who says I do. I’m just worried about my reputation with your parents. I don’t want a spoiled brat like you to ruin it.”
“Sure,” I said sarcastically.
“Think what you want to. But that’s the truth.”
“Sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself of that.”
He huffed, rolled his eyes and without a word, left.