I was awoken by my mom knocking on the door.

“Breakfast ready.” Mom said. The floor was cold. I got up on shaky legs and walked down to the kitchen.

“Have you been out again?” She said, crossing her arms. “I can see that you have slept in your clothes.” I shook my head.

“No, I just fell asleep reading.” I said.

“Finish your breakfast and take a shower.” She said, not believing a word out of my mouth.

“Mhm,” I mumbled. I couldn’t get the image of Ryan out of my head. “I’m not hungry, I will just take a shower instead.”

“Okay, I will leave a sandwich out for you.” Mom said.

In the shower, I broke down crying. I had abandoned my friends, I always thought I would be strong and do the right thing in a situation like this, but I’m just a coward. I dragged myself out of the shower. Layed in bed looking at Levi’s contact on my phone. Maybe he is home too, being just as scared as I am. He might think he lost both me and Owen yesterday. I couldn’t press the dial, “I’m such a fucking cowered.”

I knew I couldn’t stay in my room forever, so I picked myself up and went down to get my sandwich. Mom had made some tea. She sat with me and talked about her job and how she wouldn’t be able to be home tonight. I just nodded and couldn’t focus on her. The doorbell rang. She got up and answered.

“Ryan, it’s for you!” Mom yelled. 

“Oh god, it’s the police.” I thought as I got up from the table. I couldn’t breathe as I walked to the door. In the opening Owen and Levi were standing. I threw myself on them.

“ How, how are you here? What happened? Levi you got out.” I said. They looked at each other with raised eyebrows.

“Uhm, what are you talking about?” Levi asked.

“Why wouldn’t we be here?” Owen said. I looked around.

“Let’s go up to my room and talk.” I said.

Levi and Owen sat down in my bed and I paced around the room.

“Yesterday, when we met up and went to the abandoned house, something went very wrong. Owen, something happened to you. You started throwing up,” I said.

“Wait, wait a minute now,” Owen said. “I never met up with you guys yesterday.”

“Me neither,” Levi said. I stopped in my tracks.

“Yes you did,” I said. I took out my phone, almost dropping it. “Look.” I took out the chat with Owen.

“That’s from three days ago,” Owen said. I turned the phone around, the texts from yesterday were gone. “No, no, no. This isn’t right.” I collapsed to the floor. Levi sat down next to me, putting his hand on my shoulder.

“You sure it wasn’t a nightmare?” Levi said. “We know you used to have them a lot.”

My dad had a mental breakdown when I was seven, which ended with him killing our neighbours because he thought they were imposters. I had a lot of nightmares after that. Dreaming of monsters in my closet. Being locked in the basement. That my dad came back to kill me. That my mom took off her face. But this felt different, to real. I shook my head.

“I don’t know anymore,” I said.

Owen and Levi took care of me that night. We played video games and everything started feeling normal.


My life continued during the upcoming weeks. I hung out with Owen and Levi, but things were different. Unless I came up with something to do, they just existed. They didn’t eat, never wanted to go into the forest and always smelled like new baked bread.