Chapter 5 A Dance with Terror

I had never known inner turmoil like this before. My mind was a battlefield, chaos tearing through every corner of my thoughts until it felt like my skull would split open. Ridden with shock, I could only stare at the blood splotches on my trembling hands - a brutal reminder that this nightmare was real.

Panic mercilessly seized me. My chest heaved with ragged breaths, wide-eyed and helpless.

And then, without warning, the doorknob began to turn.

The sound snapped me back into my senses, making my instincts take over. And without thinking, I hurled myself off the top bunk of the bed, ignoring the jolt of pain as I crashed onto the carpeted floor. Groaning, I stood upright, adrenaline drowning the ache as I sprinted for the walk-in closet.

As the door started to creak open, I barely slipped out of sight in time. I couldn't let anyone see me like this - covered in mud, blood, and panic. One glance would spark questions I had no answers for.

"Skylar?" Ava called out to me from outside the closet, while I was at war with the dress on my skin.

"I-I'm just getting..." I paused, plotting a lie to spew.

With the dress halfway up, I caught sight of a robe still damp from my last shower. Then, an idea popped and my mind was no longer void of excuses.

"Uh, ready to hit the shower." I completed, finally separating the dress from my touch, thrusting it deep into my luggage.

With one fluid move, I grabbed the robe, wrapped it around my body and hastily headed out, leaving no evidence behind, nothing but mud tracks.

"Hi." The greeting barely made it past the lump in my throat.

My courage was thin as I observed her appearance. She was still in the same clothes from last night, and that spiked my curiosity, "Are you just getting back?"

"Y-yes. Yeah." Her voice wavered, and she shifted awkwardly, one leg crossed over the other, a leather jacket I didn't recognize from yesterday hidden behind her.

She pushed strands of stray hair behind her ear, playfulness wrapped around her next words as she stared at my feet and then my face, "You look like you had a mud bath."

"I lost my shoes and fell into a puddle." Though I lied in the end, I did lose my shoes, but I was clueless about how.

"Your dress is a little ruined, but I'll dry-clean it ASAP." I assured her, my arms never uncrossing from my chest.

"Sure, but how did you find your way back without me?" She queried.

"Uh, GPS." The words flew from my mouth almost instantly, before I could even process the question.

"I haven't seen you with a phone since you got here." She insinuated, tilting her head to the side.

"Look, I'm sure you've got questions and I do, too. But I don't have answers or the time for this. I have to go get my schedules." I babbled before making a hasty exit. I couldn't linger a second longer in that room.

By the time I was showered and dressed, a surprisingly clear-headed Ava, spared from any hangover, was prepped for class. Without saying much, she quietly led me to the Admissions Office, the same place where we had first met, before slipping away without so much as a goodbye.

Inside the office, I received everything I came for and met a few other freshmen. Soon after, a sophomore showed up to take us on a campus tour, as part of our orientation.

Throughout the tour, I could barely focus. My mind kept splintering into jumbled memories - flashes of pain, the redhead shaking me, the way I had thrown her off like she was weightless. Every step I took felt like it was that night again. I was dizzy, disoriented, terrified.

And it only got worse from there.

As we passed one of the school's main buildings, something caught my eye. It was a missing person poster on the wall. Moving closer, I froze, traumatized by the details.

I stepped out of the group, my heart already hammering against my ribs. My breath caught in my throat as my eyes locked onto the poster - and there she was; a girl with curly red hair, like the one from my flashes.

I staggered back, struggling to breathe. Panic surged through me like a tidal wave.

It couldn't be.

But it was.

I could vividly see the blood all over my hands again, I had to be imagining it, yet it felt undoubtedly real.

Lifting my shaky hands, and glancing back at it in utter horror, the blood didn't belong to me. I had no injuries deep enough to explain it.

According to the poster, her name was Anna Fisher and she was last seen between the time of 11:50 PM and midnight. The same time I unwillingly assaulted her and blacked out immediately.

"Oh, crap," I whispered hoarsely, my voice cracking. Oxygen seemed to vanish from my lungs, and I started to hyperventilate, shaking uncontrollably as the world started to spin around me.

"Hey. Are you alright?" The concerned voice of a male broke the trance that held me. Like glass shattering, each shard assembled my scattered senses, piece by agonizing piece.

Swiveling my head around, I was now in the arms of a dashing green-eyed, dirty blonde boy around my age. Something about his aura reminded me of the audacious moron who had bumped into me, yet something peculiarly unreadable separated the two.

Unconsciously, I stared at him longer than I should have, making a dazzling, toothy smile define his expression. Instantly, I broke loose from his hold without knowing how I had initially fallen into it.

Overwhelmed by panic, I bolted from him without a word, as fear had stolen my voice. With every frantic step, I distanced myself from him and the tour group, with barely enough knowledge of directions around the important parts of the school, including where I was having a class in less than 10 minutes.

As I confusedly strolled through the hallways, the walls seemed to close in on me, and each turn I took posed a greater gamble than the last. Darting past the crowd, I eventually found my way, and by the time I arrived at the class, more than half of the population occupied the large space.

Shaking my head in an attempt to desperately rid my thoughts, I found a seat somewhere in the middle row, with no means of taking notes from today's lecture.

Devastatingly enough, my concern towards all I lacked summed up to nothing. I was preoccupied with wallowing in my frenzied thoughts, when the lecturer had strutted in, clearing his throat and waving his hands in the air to win the class's attention.

Now standing on the elevated platform in front of the class, he pulled off his trench coat and Fedora hat, tossing it to the podium by the side; leaving a familiar pair of retro eyeglasses as the only accessory that sat on his nose.

When he was done with his dramatic movements, my eyes were fully set on his face. It was then the memory of the middle-aged man I witnessed at the party dawned on me.

As I realized the lecturer who stood before the class was the same man from the party; he voiced out a thunderous introduction, "Everyone, I'm Professor Adam Augustus Worth-Miller. It's a mouthful, but like every person raised in a dysfunctional family, I'd like to blame my parents."

When he concluded his introduction, a ghost of a smile found its way to his lips, as the whole class broke out laughing at his speech.

Everyone, but me.

"In the words of William James, the greatest discovery of all time is that human beings could change their lives by changing their attitude." His voice boomed across the acoustics-enhanced space as he assertively walked from end to end of the platform.

"This is Introduction to Psychology, where we don't read minds... yet. But stick around, and we just might figure out why you're all thinking: What the hell did I sign up for?" He continued, finally stopping in the middle of the platform. As the class started laughing again, his gaze was cast on me.

"Think of this class as your backstage pass into the brain's wonderfully weird workings-..." Taking his eyes off me, he resumed speaking, moving from left to right.

He spoke, but I paid no attention. I was consumed by a trance, trapped between reality and horrific flashes. And just like that, a considerable amount of time passed, the Introductory class had drawn to a conclusion, half the population had left the class now, and I had successfully learnt nothing.

Still distracted, I stood back up and started to leave when the professor's voice cut through the air, halting my strides and leaving me frozen, steps from the exit.

"Hello, Skylar."