Noah couldn’t help but be mortified. She was finally able to hear his voice! Part of him wanted to be elated, but why did that have to be the first time she heard him?

Not only did he do his bad habit of muttering to himself, but he also revealed how closely he watcher her while she was dancing. That was okay though, wasn’t it?

She often invited him along to watch her dance, and even said that this would be his part. Demonstrating both parts of the dance to the best of her abilities. Noah did his best to mime his part, but it was hard to image some of it. He had little experience with dancing, so it was hard to know the interactions needed for some of the movements.

There needed to be tension when she pulled away, or other times pressure, pushing to direct her. A squeeze on the hips would indicate a sharp turn, or a push of the hand would…

Noah looks down at his hands. He could see them!

But he knew that they were too ephemeral and opaque for Aurora to be able to see them. This was still amazing, as he could usually only see himself when he needed to tend to the indoor garden. Was he solid enough to do anything? He walked over to the door and tried to turn the knob. Not yet, he shakes his head and goes to join Aurora and the cats… Silently, of course!

*************************************************************************************************************

I hobble my way into the living room and sit down. How the hell did I hurt myself so much just by falling? Does my body really weight that much, I mean…? Ugh!

I snuggle into the pillows and wonder if I am going to watch a movie or fall asleep. At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if I did either one of them. What to watch… What to watch… How about a horror movie?

I turn on the TV and look through the movies on Metflix and Bulu, but I am unimpressed. I wanted something a little bit less mainstream. I guess I could try to look at movies on Shiver and see if I can find something that I haven’t seen before.

Now that I was here the question was what genre of horror movie did I want to watch? There were monster movies, slashers, found footage, gore… the list goes on, but I don’t want to list it, because who like reading lists that are too long. No, I am living in a ghost story, so I want to watch a movie with ghosts. Hmm there can be a demon or two in it.

The movie was a long one, nearly 2 hours long with a lot of twists and turns.

“This feels eerie.” I say out loud. There was nothing particularly spooky happening, but I felt that I could relate to the girl in the movie. She was alone, in a new place, uncertain about her future.

She was there because of mistakes she had made and was hoping that because of this her life could be better. “I feel like I can relate a little too much.”

I keep watching the movie and making comments at the various scenes. “Okay, if she was using drugs this is the point where she would have started going into withdrawals.”

“What are withdrawals?” Bastet said, putting her paws on my chest and looking up at me. She was so cute I pet her little head and listened to her purr. “Are they bad?”

“Yes Bastet, they are very bad. After using a lot of drugs or alcohol your body will get used to it. Once it doesn’t have that anymore you can get very, very sick. You could throw up, have shakes or even get seizures.”

“That sounds bad!” Anubis said, cold wet nose booping my arm. “Did you ever go through that sick?”

“No. I never did but I have friends that did.” I shudder at the memory, causing the light bruising on my side to ache. It was not a pleasant feeling. I think back on what happened.

One of my close friends at the time had been drinking and partying a lot. We were sharing a room, so I was always close to what was going on. It looked fun at times, but because I had a scholarship I would never join in.

It got to the point where she was always on some substance or another. It was coming close to midterms, and she needed several good grades to pass. If she didn’t, she would fail, putting her on academic probation. She wouldn’t be able to audition for our upcoming performance.

In order to do this, she needed to get sober. She thought that it wouldn’t be a problem and that she would find other ways to relive her stress. That was absolutely not the case.

I woke up after hearing some heavy breathing. Emily had been throwing up for most of the night so I thought that she would be asleep. I reach out groping in the darkness looking for the lamp next to my bed. My hand hits the pull chain, I pull it illuminating my half of the room.

I pull my heavy body out of my bed, and I fill a glass of water to bring her. I ended up dropping it to the ground, nearly slicing my foot in the process. Emily had begun foaming at the mouth. I call 911, they say it will take ten minutes for them to get there.

I feel I didn’t have ten minutes, Emily didn’t have ten minutes. I feel my voice pitch as I start to panic. I try to remain calm, but I start shaking, barely able to hold the phone. I start repeating ‘what do I do? What do I do?’ over and over. Even as the operator calmly walks me though the next steps, I can’t stop repeating to myself ‘What do I do?’

I check for a pulse, but she wasn’t breathing. I roll her onto her back and following the operator’s instructions start giving her chest compressions. I continue repeating to myself ‘What do I do, what do I do, stay alive, stay alive.’

Everything blurs until pounding on the door lets me know the EMTs have arrived. Afraid to stop doing compressions I shout at them to come in. I forgot the door was locked, and they have to kick down the door to get in.

Darkness

I was alone floating in the void. Thinking of Emily always made me feel lonely. She was one of the first people I felt close to, I thought our friendship could survive anything. It didn’t, for whatever reason our friendship didn’t survive after that night.

After she got out of the hospital she moved out of the dorms. She said it was so she could spend time recovering with her family, something I encouraged her to do. I never heard from her after that.

I curl up tightly into a ball. It was my fault, I hadn’t been a good enough friend. I never tried to get her to stop, I talked her into auditioning for more performances.

I know I was feeding the thoughts, but I couldn’t stop. I pushed her, I caused her stress. It’s no wonder she blamed me, why she didn’t want to talk to me again. I always ruin things. I shrink into myself as I…

“Aurora?” I hear a gentle voice ask.