Have you ever had to share a bedroom before? It’s not too awful, except when you want to just turn off your brain for a while and vibe to your music.
Bullet For My Valentine is blaring through my headphones while I continue making spirals on the cover of my notebook, I retrace them enough times that the pages are starting to peek through.
“Hey, rude!” I yell at my sister as she unplugs my headphones from my iPod. “The fuck is your problem?” My twin Abby rolls her eyes at me from behind her fake eyelashes. She reminds me of the really bitchy, blonde girl from that movie mom watches once a year, some shit about wearing pink on Wednesdays. Spoiler alert, she gets hit by a bus. Sometimes I wish I could hit Abbigail with a bus.
“Your music is stupid.” She smacks as she chews her bubble gum, “I’m watching my shows and you’re leaking goth, teenage wannabe at me.”
“Aww, don’t let me interrupt your “I need validation from men to base my self-worth on but also let Johny dipshit use me as a cum dumpster” show.” “Sorry, I forgot you were trying to take notes.”
“You bitch!” Abbigail throws my headphones at me and storms back out of our room.”
I cannot wait until I get out of here. I can’t stand my sister. She gets so sucked into her reality tv shows sometimes that I think it might literally be rotting her brain now. I hear her turn on the living room tv and then I plug my headphones back in and just close my eyes. The song has switched to “Broken” from Seether. I close my eyes and just lay my head down on the cool side of the pillow. My eyes start to get heavier and my breaths deepen the rise and fall of my chest. I should really turn off the TV but I’m just too tired to climb down my loft bed ladder right now.
I wake to silence. My iPod died and the room is quiet all except for the static of the tv. I guess I should actually get up and turn it off before I osmosis this toxic shit in my sleep. I sleepily climb down the ladder and rub my eyes. I could’ve sworn that the tv was full of static before I came to turn it off, but now it’s playing a horror film. I doubt Abby would’ve changed the channel to anything interesting so it must’ve been one of our dad’s horror films left in the blue ray player because it’s not something I recognize from Netflix, I’ve already watched all the horror shows and movies on there.
I plop down in the giant bean bag chair and grab my notebook. I like to draw creatures inspired by horror movies while I watch them. The girl in the movie is sitting close to an old-school tv while a high-pitch frequency and static come from the tv in front of her. That must be what I was hearing when I woke up. I look down at my notebook and start to draw. I glance up and down, trying to follow along with the movie but I keep drawing less and less. I catch myself with my eyes glued to the tv and losing track of time. The girl is standing in front of the tv now, you can see a bright blue light illuminating her shadow on the wall behind her.
I look back down at my drawing and all I see are spirals now. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the static part, the middle of the tv clears and it looks like someone’s eyes are peeking out at me. I quickly glance back up to see the girl still standing there. The screen on my tv goes black and then starts to count down from 5, there’s a loud hum coming from the speakers and I realize I’ve been holding my breath. My heart is beating inside of my ears and my lungs are on fire. I blinked at the clock and it said 4 am. I don’t remember 4 hours passing. My eyes are watering and there are more spirals on the page, they’ve been traced so many times they penetrate the next 5 pages of my notebook.
I shut the tv off and climb up the ladder to get a couple more hours of sleep. I turn on my side trying to get comfy and I hear the tv turn on again.
“I wish someone would quit leaving this damn tv on.” I huff at Abbigail, but she’s not in here with me tonight. I don’t know what grace of God let that happen but I have our room to myself for the night. Once again I climb down the ladder to turn off the tv but it’s the same movie replaying from earlier. “The fuck?” I whisper under my breath. “Is she trying to play some kind of weird ass prank on me?” I think to myself.
I grab my notebook from the floor to put it back on my desk when my eyes are once again caught by the tv. I feel like I’m drowning in a sea of black and white pixels while my ears burn from the quiet static growing to a deafening silence in my ears.
“Anna”, “Anna”, I hear my mother yelling with panic in her voice. “Annabelle!”
I blink up at her from the bean bag chair, my body aches and I feel the numb tingling you get whenever your arm falls asleep. I shake it off and start to stand. What a weird fucking dream, I think while I turn the tv off.
“Annabelle!” My mother sounds almost desperate in her tone this time. “Have you seen Abby?” I hear her yelling louder but it almost sounds like she’s yelling through a tunnel now. I open my door and head down the hallway, something doesn’t feel right. I think my leg might’ve gone numb too, the tingling almost hurts as I start walking.
“What mom?” I yell back as I’m making my way through the house. I catch my reflection at the end of the hallway. My eyes. My eyes are a pool of black and white pixels, static pulses like water drops on a speaker. The sound rings through my ears and I grab my head, it feels like my head is literally being squeezed like a nasty pimple. Everything turns white and goes quiet.
I blink but it doesn’t matter, I try blinking faster but all that accomplishes is the static getting worse. I can’t see. Am I still texting youare you getting this? I’m moving my fingers but I can’t see what I’m swiping anymoer. HEllo? -3(p me please. help.