2020-01-29 - The Line Gets Thinner

The sound of glass breaking wakes Esme up with a startled gasp. She’s disoriented for a few seconds, blindly reaching out to turn the lamp on. The room is immediately colder that it was when she went to bed and...Esme can see why. The window is broken outward. Her room, sparse as it was, looked like a tornado hit it. Open drawers, scattered papers. The alarm clock is missing. Esme carefully gets out of bed, grabbing her gun off the nightstand in the process as she peeks outside. Yep. She’s pretty sure she sees the alarm clock lying in the snow in the backyard.

Thank god her parents are out of town tonight. Because Esme didn’t know how she was going to explain this. Was it a ghost? The thought struck Esme to her very core and she stood very still for a moment. Hadn’t she just been dreaming about that? A ghost hunt in an abandoned house? The crooked house with crooked hallways. ...With Thewlis and Beth? But...it wasn’t a dream. Esme knew that it had happened. That the house had twisted and there had been bugs...everywhere. And the Spider-Man-Monster.

Esme stumbled over towards the dresser, setting the gun down with a heavy thud and drawing in a ragged breath. Had she done this? Caused this mess? The alarm clock? She slammed one of the open drawers closed. No. She couldn’t have. It was impossible.

Was it?

Hadn’t she cut the monster with nothing? Had she? It barely seemed real...but...she glanced towards where the alarm clock would be and let out a strangled sound between a laugh and a sob. In a way, it felt like her world was crashing down around her. There was a fine line between reality and this craziness and it was only getting thinner. She needed to call Beth. Or Thewlis. Both even? They’d be able to tell her if it was real or not right?

It was too late/early now to do that though. She would have to wait for sunrise. In the meantime, Esme pulled the curtains tight. Grabbed her pillow and blanket and retreated the couch in her work room. She’d figure out the bedroom and window tomorrow. Now, laying on the couch, Esme stared at her hands. Did she throw the alarm clock? Even if she had...that didn’t explain the rest of the room. Or how she was feeling. There was an innate feeling in the pit of Esme’s stomach. She could feel the impossible.

There was a look towards the door. Her phone was in the bedroom still. Probably for the best. There were people she could text, but what would she say? Especially when she wasn’t even sure of what had happened and all she could offer was ‘having a feeling’.

For the first time since she’d been back - Esme was seriously starting to wonder if she’d made a mistake in coming back home. Maybe she should have just let her mom convince her to stay in Spokane. In the end, Esme figured it didn’t matter.

It was too late to leave now.