Preternatural (Worlds & Secrets) by Lloyd Harry-Davis Page B

one. With a set of loud clinks, the door locked and secured itself. The sound of the steps were too loud now. Robbie stepped backwards in front of Tammy, protecting her. As he distanced himself from the noise of the steps, he became some sort of shield in front of Tammy, pushing her closer to the wall as she peered to the door from over his shoulders whilst Robbie reared backwards cautiously. The sound of the footsteps seemed to have stopped. Tammy breathed heavily behind Robbie’s protective stance.
    BANG! They flinched whilst staring at the large metallic door as fists embedded themselves in it. Although I wasn’t myself, I could feel the heated tension of what was happening. But as real as this felt, I only considered this a lucid dream. It couldn’t have been real.
    Then, just when the suspense was at its peak, everything closed in. My vision became blindness as water enclosed on everything in front of me. I couldn’t tell if I was finally awake – everything I could see was blurred, wavy and couldn’t keep still.
    I inhaled. With a horrible rush, the unbearable feeling of water surging through my nose and into my brain was imposed on me. I quickly sat upright. I think I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve been confused today. I had fallen asleep under water – but my primary concern was why I didn’t drown. I was gasping for air as water spewed out of my mouth. The shower curtain was pulled around me. Suddenly, my eyes paid attention to one single thing alone as it fogged everything out. Something blue was dangling over my eyes. I lifted it out of view and tried to pull it off. But it wouldn’t budge. I yanked on it harder but ended up with a sore scalp which caused me to exclaim in pain quite loudly.
    I gave up . Subsequently, just when I was about to pull open the shower curtain, a surge of Goosebumps ran all over my body spine-chillingly and I fell back in the water with a sore body. At that moment, I wasn’t bothered to do anything . It felt as if I had been working out strenuously and therefore, every muscle and tissue in my body couldn’t give a flying poodle about what my brain was saying and so decided to stay paralysed.
    I put my mouth in the water and I automatically tasted a familiar, yet odd, flavour. I stretched two fingers in my mouth and realised that both my top canines from my left and my right were loose. Without thinking, I pulled them out and I exclaimed in pain after a brief two seconds of acknowledging my stupid mistake. Then, my bottom lip began to sting.
    I slowly touched it, feeling scared of the consequences. Something – and I wasn’t sure what – had cut my lip. There were two big slashes which slightly crept to my chin. On the brighter side, my sunburn wasn’t a problem anymore. Then again, that’s what I thought earlier and it surprised me once more. I reached for the shower curtain when it was suddenly pulled open by mum.
    “ My goodness ; Aden! What happened? Are you okay? I hope this isn’t another attention seeking scheme?” she panicked. I felt too much pain to be bothered to talk.
    “ Oh dear. Here, let’s get you out of the water.” Mum supported me as I unsteadily stepped out of the bathtub. I attempted to speak softly, sounding like mumbles, in order not to affect the slashes on my lower lip and chin.
    “ Mum, what were you doing in here?” I asked drowsily. My marble skin was paler from being submerged underwater.
    “ I was cleaning the mirror.”
    I observed the mirr ors clean, smooth and reflective surface.
    “ Why do you ask?” she continued.
    “ Because I was just wondering how you were here all of a sudden,” I replied.
    I looke d out of the window above the tub, only to witness the pale moonlight shining down on me through the gloomy mist and clouds. The night seemed still and no stars were in sight. The night was an eerie mist of accumulated blackness above us. It didn’t feel like a usual nocturnal setting. All I could feel from