One Year Left (2)

(https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/5tx34a/one_year_left/?ref=share&ref_source=li)

It's 3 AM, and I'm stuck in the dark.

Quite literally, too, because when I rolled over in bed at around midnight, I fumbled for my iPhone on the bedside table and found that it wouldn't turn on when I jabbed the home button.

Blearily, I sat up and jabbed again. No change. It was still plugged in; why hadn't it charged?

The battery. That had to be it.

I flipped it, removed the battery, re-inserted it, and again tried to turn it on. A black screen was my only reward. When exhausted impatience brought a flush to my cheeks, I did the next best thing and hurled it at the wall. Hadn't I endured enough?

And so there in bed I sat, during the witching hour and on the eve of the second day since I'd looked in that mirror. Not being able to lose myself on my Kindle app or scroll through my archaic Twitter profile was absolute hell.

Eventually, I decided I'd deal with my iPhone in the morning and swung my legs over the side of the bed, reaching for the light switch. I'm fairly sure you can guess what didn't happen when I flipped it, but rather than lose my cool I stooped and swiped Miss C’s notebook off the floor. If she wanted me to write, I'd write. She was one of those counselors who liked to check up on things. Besides, it might ease the numbness of precious sleep lost.

Tip-toeing across the wood floors in my bare-feet, with the lace of my vintage nightie unfurling through my legs, I sought the shaft of ivory moonlight spilling in through my bedroom window.

If there was one thing in this world besides animals that I loved, it was the moon. Ma's always said that from the day I opened my eyes, I kept her awake for two straight weeks without a let-up in my wailing. Soothing lullabies, burping, gentle teas supplemented with Ma’s breastmilk, and swaddling did precious little to shut me up. On the evening of the fifteenth day, Ma finally passed me on to her mother, resigned in her failure to bond with me, and Grandmama Sholeh carried me outside. The moment the cool light of the moon touched my face, I stopped wailing. Grandmama would affectionately refer to me as her little ‘Moonflower’ until she passed away a year later.

When I got to the window, I dropped my notebook and undid the latches, thinking I'd take a quick breath of fresh air. Lifting my face to the stars, I inhaled deeply.

“Noooooooooor....”

A voice. From outside. And there was no mistaking the fact that it was calling for me.

The blood in my veins turned to frost. Standing there, frigid before an open window and an unknown beyond, my heart stopped for a full three beats.

“Nooooooor…”

“Ya Allah!” I murmured in dismay. It was closer now. Someone was out there behind my house, and it was calling my name while using the darkness as its cloak.

It wasn't just our neighbor Bettina calling out to me in search of her frisky cat, Sam, who was always slinking out. It wasn't just some drunk lost and shouting out for directions back to the Vine Street bar. It wasn't even the voice of a person. This voice was terse, grating, and wooden. Its stilted timbre shot a needle of alarm into my heart. This was the voice of something different.

Something other.

The voice of something trying to sound like a person, but not quite getting it...and it knew my name.

In panic mode, I slammed the window shut without even locking it and tore out of my room into the hallway. This was no horror movie in which I, the ignorant heroine, would foolishly go outside to investigate. No: this was real life. If I had to experience this terror, someone else was going to have to be awake with me.

Reaching Laleh’s room, I burst through the door and found her already awake. She was standing in front of her own (open) window with her back to me. The lace hem of her abaya teased her ankles, tickled by the breeze curling in from outside. Laleh’s raven hair hung down between her shoulder blades in a sloppy fishtail braid. It looked flawless. Only Laleh could be up at midnight and somehow echo perfection.

“Laleh?” I gasped. “Wha-”

“It sounds like your name,” she said dreamily.

I ran to the window and looked out.

Someone(-thing?) was standing in the darkness.

It lurked there, waiting behind the fence that corrals our family's two acres. Hunched like a haggard woman, it swayed ethereally from side to side and raised a misshapen arm. One finger pointed.

“Noor!” It bellowed.

“Ya Allah, get it away!” I shrieked. “How the hell can you just be standing there looking at it? For heaven’s sake, close the god-damned window!”

I rushed at Laleh and knocked her out of the way. After I'd slammed the window, I made the mistake of peeking through Laleh's lavendar curtains. Precious oxygen seeped from my lungs.

It was closer this time. The Thing, or whatever it was, had somehow traversed the fence and was standing next to Dad's tool-shed. It swayed to and fro, but still the finger pointed. How could it have gotten that far in four seconds?

“Noor, you've gone absolutely batty,” Laleh complained, snatching her goose-down pillow and settling back into bed.

“I don't believe you!” I cried. “There's a thing out there in our yard, and it's calling my name! It obviously wants me and you're just okay with this?! What the hell are you even doing up?”

“You've really let your imagination go to town, chick. It's probably just some old lady from that new retirement home. Yet somehow, you think you're being ‘targeted’?”. Laleh used her fingers to make air-quotation marks. She knows I hate it. “Look, I get it. I shamed you for not praying and told you a few scary stories. You're naturally nervous and you've been a mess for three days. I may be a total bitch sometimes, but you need. To. Stop. This. Ok?”

Laleh smoothed her sheets and collapsed serenely onto her pillow. “By the way, your complexion is terrible. Dr. Oz says stress can lead to break-outs.”

“Well, I'm sorry I look like a pile of shit to you in the middle of the god-damned night.”

“I'm just saying. Have you even looked in the mirror lately?”

“Suck a dog's balls,” I snapped.

There was no way I could wake my parents for this. So back into my room I crept, half-expecting to see the Thing aiming a gnarled finger at my window, but there was only moonlight. It poured beautifully across the floor, like the fine essence from a white lily.

I checked the light switch: no deal.

I grabbed the pieces of my iPhone and hastily re-assembled it. But even after connecting it to charger, it remained stubbornly out-of-order. Dead. Kaputt.

That was all about three hours ago. Since I haven't been able to sleep, I've been writing here with my back against the wall, squeezed onto a wedge of floor that isn't touched by moonlight. I crave that light desperately, but if I can be more easily spotted by whatever evil loiters out there, then even moonlight isn't safe.

I feel as if the loops of my brain are becoming knotted. I can't think. I haven't been able to eat. I spent all of yesterday in a state of shock at school, refusing to go near the bathrooms for fear of mirrors. After some time, though, I was able to calm my nerves. I vowed I would avoid any surface in which I could see my reflection until the next day dawned. Then, I reasoned, I would have had a bit more sleep, a bit more rest, to help ease my disquiet. And when I looked in the mirror, I told myself, I would see that my old friend, my reflection, would appear right where it was supposed to.

Saturday dawns. I am weak, exhausted, and trying fiercely to ignore a new sound: the tapping of a bony finger on the window-pane.

“Nooooooorr……”