“You should have told me that it was date Alex not cool man!” In the quiet dorm room, the air held a palpable tension as David, a reserved college student, found himself in an uneasy conversation with his friend Alex. Persistent in his attempts at setting David up on a date, Alex pressed, “She said you blew her off. What’s the deal? Why don’t you ever date?”
“I didn’t ask you set me up that’s on you man.”
“Look I’ll explain. I never bring in up because no one ever understands. Back in middle school, it took all my courage to talk to a girl,” he confessed, recounting the nerves that led him to invite Sally to the middle school dance. “I knew Sally just broke up with Zach, so I swooped in and asked her to the dance. She accepted but, she was going to say something like change her mind but hesitated long enough and she didn’t. I was so afraid that she would say no, but I realize now it was something worse.”
The cafeteria was decorated as best as he had ever remembered. When his mom dropped him of Sally was already there. She was excited with a nervous energy. I thought she was beautiful. I extended my arm for her to folder her arm naturally under my arm. And we walked into the dance. It felt like magic, marred only by Sally’s anxious glances at her watch. “She needed to be back by 9,” David remembered, the unease creeping into his voice. “I jokingly asked if her parents were strict like Cinderella’s. She said that Zachary left at 9. I was a little pissed because she was with me why did she need to talk about Zach. Little did I know; the night would spiral into a waking nightmare.”
David took a deep breath and then continued, “Sally ran off the dance floor. She left and didn’t look back. I chased her running at full strength, but when I saw I made a complete stop and witnessed it. “I I don’t even know how to explain, what I saw. You have to imagine a shadow that could fly through a solid brick wall. It was somewhat humanoid but in other ways not. There was no face it looked kind of like the static on TV, but it is all black with grey. There is not a speck of light. There is an oval space where the face would be. There were ocular cavities but no eyes and a large grimacing mouth. There were no arms just wing like appendages with talon in place of hands. This figure took Sally screaming and then flew right back into the brick wall. I ran to the building but there was nothing. I walked backed to my house hoping it was a hallucination but it was all too real.”
David explain that the next day, the police and the newspapers interviewed everyone. The security camera picked up that we left separately but none of the cameras caught that creature. He explained that at thirteen years old, he just didn’t have the ability to understand what happened. He shook his head interrupting his narration, “What book teaches you to prepare for this?” When the police asked, he just said that she left. Fortunately for David all the evidence pointed that way as well. Eventually the police put the disappearance of Zachary and Sally together. Zachary disappeared just 2 weeks earlier. David wished that was that was all there was.
After he finished his story, the weight of the unsolved mystery hung heavy in the room. David had this last bit to ad, “Alex I still see her in my dreams but… She is not human anymore. She looks just like that, that thing. I know it’s her because it sounds like her but different.” He breathed in before finishing his thought, “Her voice is evil.” Just then, Alex’s phone rang. He ignored it not wanting to be rude but it kept ringing. Finally answering the phone, he told his friend what happened, “David, the girl from the blind date is missing, She just disappeared. She doesn’t answer her texts or calls,” “Oh shit I forgot it was after 9 O’clock. Oh shit! Shit! shit!
Life has changed a lot since middle school. But my nightmares haven’t. I see both of them. Sally and the other girl in my dreams, if I sleep. Many times, I busy myself studying. But this why I don’t date anymore.