Chirp! Chirp!
As the light of the sun took over the sky, birds began to chirp. Their voices filled the morning air with liveliness.
"Mmmmm…"
It was a liveliness that Alice didn't appreciate. She was never a morning person, and the noise only made it worse. Even back in her life as Sharon, she had chosen place that was relatively quiet in the mornings to live.
She forced her self out of bed, rubbing her eyes and exited her room. She grogily looked around the hall, trying to remember where the bathroom was. After a moment, she remembered and walked toward a door, opening it.
She took the step that was by the sink and stood on it. She turned it on and cupped some of the water in her hand and slashed it onto her face
"Brrrr."
She shocked her head and wiped away the water from her face. Now that she was fully awake, she smiled at the mirror before her and took up her toothbrush and squirted some toothpaste onto it and began brush her teeth.
Once she finished brushing, she moved on to doing other things. After a few minutes, she exited the bathroom looking like a normal human being.
Right after leaving the bathroom, a tantlizing smell reached her nostrils.
The smell pulled her along, as if she was being drawn by a rope. Soon enough, she made her way to the kitchen where her mother was preparing breakfast.
Click!
After turning off the fire, Marisa turned around to see locks of black hair and a pair of aquamarine eyes peeking from the hall.
"Oh?"
To say the least she was surprised. She had never expected to see her here.
"You're up already, Alice?"
"Mn!"
She nodded.
"The birdies woke me!"
"Ha."
Mairsa let out a small laugh and smiled at Alice.
"How kind of them, I was just about to wake you myself."
She walked towards the little girl and patted her head.
"Wait a moment, I'll go wake up daddy and then I'll share breakfast."
Then she walk away.
Alice watched her mother walk away for a moment, before walking to the dining table and taking a seat.
Not long after. She heard a click from her parents' room then her mother came back into the kitchen and shared their breakfast. A few moments later, her father came in and sat with them. Then they happily ate breakfast, after which, Alice get ready and left for school with her parents.
After a while, they reached the school, where many other parents were dropping off their children and leaving to do whatever they had to do.
Alice's parents also did the same and left her inside the school, saying their goodbyes. After her parents left, Alice headed to her class.
She stepped through the door and saw that only four others were currently here. Nina, Noel, Emmet, and Aries.
"Good Morning!"
"Good Morning."
She greeted them as they did her, then she put down her bag and walked to her seat against the wall. Unlike most of the other children, who had shuffled around and sat together in their new friend groups, she never changed seats and sat where she was originally.
Since she didn't have any friends here other than Noel, who was currently chatting with Nina, she simply placed her head on her desk and took a nap. The room was relatively quite so she fell asleep in no time.
Her face became peaceful, her chest moving up and down as she let out quiet breaths. After some time, she began to drool. It dripped from her mouth, pooling on the table.
Not even a few minutes into her nap, Alice was woken up by the constant buzzing of a mosquito by her ear. She tried swatting it away, but she failed, and the annoying bug continued pestering her.
She flailed her hand, trying to get the bug to leave. At one point, she caught herself gathering chi. Knowing that she was in a public place, she simply got up, rareing to kill the mosquito.
"Wah?"
When she got up, something completely unexpected drew her attention. The buzzing had stopped, but she didn't realize, as her focus was on the space around her.
The classroom…
It was completely empty.
Other than her, there was no one there, which she thought strange, as she had heard more people enter, so it should be fuller, not desolate.
'Maybe everyone went outside?'
That would explain why no one was in the classroom, but it would still be quite strange, as she surely would have heard them leaving.
'The desks are neat too.'
After becoming Null, Alice's senses had been enhanced quite a bit, so there was no way she wouldn't have heard children. After having two herself in her past life, she knew just how most kids were, so she knew that they wouldn't be quite enough that her as a Null couldn't hear them, and that they would be orderly enough for the class to look as neat as this.
Still, she had to check if they were outside the classroom and that she had overestimated her Null abilities and her know about children.
If her suspicions were right, however…
She felt her excitement bubbling within her, but at the same time, a heavy weight pressed on her chest as cold sweat slid down her cheek.
… That would mean she was currently experiencing a supernatural event. The thought made her throat dry up.
Licking her lips, Alice stepped away from her seat and began walking towards the door, which was now closed for some reason.
CREAK!
With a loud creaking sound, Alice pulled open the door to the hallway outside the classroom.
"Creepy."
As if hearing her words, the moment she stepped into the hall, all the lights around her began flickering.
"!"
The flickering startled Alice and caused her to involuntarily take a step back. After a few moments, the flickering stopped. When they did, however, instead of returning back to normal, the lights had all become dim, making the place dark.
The atmosphere had also changed. The air became damp, and the place around her became dreary and unsettling, the lights emitting a constant humming sound.
'I was actually joking.'
It seemed that whatever entity was here had taken her joke about the door seriously and made everything creepy.
'In any case, that means something supernatural was definitely going on.'
She stepped into the hall once more, before looking left and right, then taking the right path— The way to exit the school building.
Clack (clack). Clack (clack). Clack (clack).
Her every step echoed through the empty space of the hall, which didn't help at all with the oppressive feeling she felt, as if she was being followed. Her breathing became laboured with each step she took towards the exit.
Clack (clack). Clack (clack). Clack (clack).
She gripped her chest tightly and tried to steady her breathing to no avail.
Clack. Clack—.
The sound around her became muffled as she approached the door.
And then…
Woosh—.
With a gust of wind, everything except for the door became drowned in black. The eerily stood tall before Alice, its presence suffocating, causing her breathing to become even more laboured.
After a few moments of nothing, a viscous dark red liquid bled through the door. Under normal circumstances, the liquid would have blended in with the dark door, but right now, in Alice's eyes, it was unaturally apparent.
The liquid continued bleeding through the door, eventually pooling on the now black floor. The liquid shifted and gathered, forming into three phrases.
'Why didn't you come back!?'
'You're living happily without us, unfair!'
'Did you even love us?!?'
Although it was quiet, Alice almost seemed to hear three distinct voices calling out and condemning her. She couldn't help but take a step back— Moving away from the liquid.
Sweat beaded on her body, shivers ran down her spine, and tears welled up in her eyes. She wanted to run, but she couldn't. It was as if unseen hands were holding her in place. His breathing became heavier— Hyperventilating, as she saw the liquid pool again and showed the reflection of three figures.
The figures slowly disappeared, one by one, a weight pressing on her mind, heavier each time. After the last reflection disappeared, she was on the verge of collapse, but, it didn't stop there…
The liquid rippled, now showing the reflection of a little girl who held a striking resemblance to her.
Unlike the others, the little girl didn't disappear and weigh on Alice's mind. Instead, she reached her hand forward, causing the water to ripple, and then pushed her hand through. Her figure— completely made from the red liquid— emerged from the puddle and walked towards the paralysed Sharon.
Her smile grew wider with each step she took, the wider her smile grew. But before she could reach her…
'Gasp!'
With heavy breathing, Alice jumped up and opened her eyes. Looking to the side, she saw Emmet, who had woken her.
"Are you ok?"
The young boy asked.
Alice looked around the class, which was now almost full, missing only a few children and the teacher. Among those students, some of them were staring at her, specifically the ones she knew. Noel, Nina, Aries, and some others.
Sigh…
'It was a dream.'
She turned back to Emmet, who was crouching beside her.
"Yeah, I'm fine,"
She paused for a moment.
"Just a nightmare."