I walked through the cool breezy night over to Lauren’s house where we were meeting up for a little get together. I had been waiting for an opportunity to hang out with Rachel for the past month tonight is finally the night, I’m going to ask her out. I’ve never felt so nervous before. I’ve been feeling a slight ping of anxiety for the past few weeks for some weird reason but it hasn’t been too bad until tonight. I just feel like something is hanging around behind me, egging me on to get to the party. This weight started feeling more heavy than usual causing me to break into a brisk jog in the dead of the night to Lauren’s house. I made it to Lauren’s house out of breath and knocked on her door. I heard a flurry of footsteps rushing towards the door and the door swung open in a rush revealing Lauren standing in the dark lightless doorway.

“You coming in or what? Rachel is waiting for ya,” said Lauren in a sing-songy voice. The entry seems foreboding almost as if it’s somewhere I shouldn’t be making me take an unconscious step back away. Lauren gave me a confused look but she lost my attention when Rachel’s head peaked around the dark ominous corner and said,

“Oh, he’s here! What’s up Jack?” Her pretty face and hair removed any uneasiness I was feeling almost immediately relieved in her presence. I walked into the dark house and watched Lauren light a candle.

“We have to keep the lights off it’s being giving me headaches all week no clue why,” said Lauren. I thought this was kind of odd but Lauren has a lot of weird things about her that I didn’t understand so I didn’t think much of it. I followed her down the dark hallway barely able to make out any features of my surroundings seeing only the dim light bounce rhythmically down the corridor. I hear a small hissing barely loud enough to be noticed but loud enough for it to give me an uncomfortable buzz in my head.  The further we went the buzzing grew louder to an almost deafening volume.

“Do you guys hear that?” I asked nervously.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lauren said dismissively. The bouncing light I had been following for what felt like hours finally stopped and I walked up to the light to see nothing but a floating candle. I got startled and fell backward into Rachel who felt cold as ice. I turned to see a pale face dimly illuminated by the floating candlelight.

“Rachel?” I slowly backed away from the motionless specter that somewhat resembled my crush.

“Don’t bother you’ll take her place now,” I heard Lauren’s cold voice before I felt something clamp down into my jugular sending searing pain through my neck spreading to the rest of my body that was growing weaker. I was paralyzed and slowly dropping to the cold hard ground below me with nothing but Lauren in my sight before everything went… dark.