text: These Are My Friends Now I always hear that it’s supposed to get better but I know that won’t be until I go to college in a few years. So for now, my weekend nights are spent in the solitude of my room. The new phone that I got hasn’t ushered in an era of new text messages for me. My sense of loneliness has only increased due to visibility of the status updates about the parties going on and I check my phone all the time but there is never an invite. I just posted a joke in desperation, maybe which will get someone’s attention but I’m just grabbing at the dark. I skipped a song on Spotify when I saw the shadow of a person outside my room from the corner of my eye. I wasn’t expecting to see someone tonight, but maybe my parents came back early from their trip so I took off my headphones. Sounds of the cabinets opening and shifting came from the kitchen so I put down my laptop and got out of my bed. Even the mere interaction with my parents was much needed for me right now. “Mom? Dad?” I called out while walking down the dark hallway. The air was colder and the noises could still be heard but when I turned the corner into the lighted kitchen there was only silence. I must have just missed them and were already in their room. I followed the path that they would have taken to their room but I wasn’t hearing any noises of them. Once at their door I noticed that it was closed but I remembered seeing the door opened earlier. “I knocked on the door,” Can I come in?” There was no answer so I knocked again but there was still no response. I turned the knob of the door but for a moment it didn’t budge as if someone was on the other side holding it. “Dad,” I said again, “Can I come in?” The door knob finally turned in my hand and when I opened the door I expected to see my dad waiting to scare me, but the room was pitch black. The room let out a breath of icy air and I froze in place but I could feel each individual hair stand up from my skin. “Mom? Dad?” I said with my voice cracking. I wanted to walk into the room but every instinct refused to listen to my demands to enter. I took my phone out form my pocket and used the flashlight to brighten up the room but the light barely broke through the darkness. The light only lasted a few seconds before my phone shut off and I was staring into the pitch black room. I couldn’t break my stare with the room as if I had locked eyes with some predator but my feet began to back pedal on instinct. Two steps back and I heard the sound of children laughing. “Play?” A voice from the darkness said among the laughter. My heart stopped for a second but then went into overdrive, pumping excess amounts of adrenaline through my body and I shot my arm into the black room to pull closed the door. My grip on the door knob was strong but the door wouldn’t budge. “Come in,” the voice said, “Come in and play.” Both of my feet were planted deep in the carpet when I sent my other arm into the room as a final reinforcement to pull closed the door. Dread set in me as I felt the darkness surround me and the sight of my arms were disappearing into the darkness but I couldn’t stop my body from trying to force the door closed. From behind I could see the kitchen lights flickering and the cabinets were being opened as closed in a violent manner as I continued my struggle at the edge of the darkness. I lost feeling in my arms when the resistance on the door stopped and I slammed the door shut. The force of my pull caused me to end up on my ass and I heard the children laughing once again. Still on the ground, my body didn’t wait for me to get on my feet as I crawled backwards ways from the door. The lights in the kitchen stopped flickering and the noises stopped but that didn’t put me at ease. The house was still and I could hear each individual thud of my heard, but I could feel a menacing presence all around me. The hair on the back of my neck was trying to escape my body as I turned my back to my parent’s room. I could feel the hostile eyes of the predator stalking me from behind and it was ready to pounce on me at any second. Everything was telling me to run but I was just waiting for the signal. The kitchen light burnt out and I was chased back into my room. The door slammed behind me and I turned the lock. There was breathing on the other side of the door as I stood braced against it. I waited a few moments and then decided to lax my defense but as soon as I did something started hammering at the door. “Stop,” I cried as the banging continued but there was no stop to it. I stepped back knowing that the door would soon give way and I was ready to accept whatever would come through but I saw my silver cross necklace on the dresser. With the cross in hand I dropped to my knees in the center of the room. “God, help me,” I pleaded. With each hit on the door I held my eyes closed tighter, but then the hammering stopped. With open eyes I stared at my locked door still on my knees and I waited for anything to happen. I got up and put my ear to the door trying to make out any outside noise and stayed there for well over a minute when I heard slight scratches on my door. “Come out,” the voice whispered, “please.” The scratches increased and I backed away from the door but the menacing feeling was gone. My room felt safe as I sat on the bed but I never took my eyes away from the door. I would just have to wait it out in here until someone came to rescue me. The subtle sound of pacing outside my door was unnerving so I put my headphones back on to drown out the noise. My music wasn’t erasing the presence of whatever was outside so I raised the volume, but with every increase the outside sounds became louder. I started to sing along with the songs playing in my ears but the whispers never disappeared. The voices kept begging me to come outside. “Shut up,” I shouted as I threw my headphones against the wall. The voices didn’t stop and nothing was helping so I decided to just lie in bed until morning came. My walls were never touched with anything more than whispers and scratches but the rest of the house was being attacked with extreme hostility. “Get the fuck out here,” A deep voice vibrated throughout the house in frustration. In bed I closed my eyes and kept my hands clasped around my ears for what seemed like an eternity until the sounds just stopped. An hour of silence passed when Facebook alerted me to a new message. I jumped at my laptop for the chance to talk to someone. The message was from Haylee, a girl that I was somewhat familiar with at school. “Are you going to the party?” the message read. “I wasn’t planning on it,” I wrote back. Haylee started typing, “Why not?! You should come out and go with me.” “Alright, that sounds fun.” I replied and all the bad things that had happened earlier were cleared from my mind. “Yay, I sent the address to your phone,” she wrote, “Well I’m gonna get ready, I’ll see you there!” Before I could reply, Haylee went offline. This was the invite that I was waiting for all night but all the cheer in me died when I realized that I didn’t have my phone. I must have left the phone outside my parent’s room in my panic. All the voices in my head telling me to stay in my room were ignored because I needed to go to this party. This was what I was waiting for all those lonely nights and I would get that phone. Fully dressed, I put my ear on my door listening for any signs of movement but I heard nothing so I opened it. I peeked out the doorway and everything looked normal so I left the room with slow steps ready to retreat back inside at a moment’s notice. In the hallway I saw my phone in front of my parent’s room and the light was blinking telling me that I had a message. I was halfway to my phone when I heard my door slam shut. My mission wasn’t done yet so I ran for my phone instead of running back to my room. Darkness started to enshroud me with the phone in my hand but I kept moving, sprinting to my room. I slammed against my door as I tried to open it but no amount of force would make it budge. This time the laughter I heard was not that of children but a deep raspy one as I kept pounding on the door. With each passing moment that I stood outside my locked door I saw my house being enveloped by a wall of black. I reached around my neck for the cross but I took it off when I changed clothes and didn’t put it back on. The darkness was close to me now so I abandoned my post at my door and ran into the adjacent bathroom. I turned the lights on and locked the door behind me, and waited against the door for whatever was coming for me. Nothing slammed against the door this time though and it seemed like nothing would so I took a seat on the nearby edge of the bathtub. I dialed the number of my dad’s phone but shifted my attention to the movement that I saw from the corner of my eye. My head shot to the reflection in the mirror but what was staring back at me was not me. The copy of me smiled back at me with pitch black eyes as four light bulbs that lined the top of my mirror burnt out one by one. I fell back into the bathtub before the last light went out and closed the shower curtain to put something in between us. The last light bulb went out and I heard the steps of someone on the tile floor. I turned on the flashlight of my phone as the black hand was reaching through the shower curtain. My flashlight went out when the hand touched me and my body went numb from the cold touch. The hand moved up my body to my neck and my chest tightened until I couldn’t breathe anymore. I could hear my dad on the phone asking for me but I couldn’t speak and the phone cut off. My thoughts become hazy and I no longer had any control over my body. I was in complete darkness with exception for his black eyes that were shining as they stared into mine and then my mind went black. I was awoken by the violent shakes and shouts of my parents when they found me in the bathtub passed out. “What happened?” they asked me. “I must have slipped and hit my head.” I said relived to see their faces. “Are you alright?” “I’m fine,” I said as I hugged them tight and they gave me a suspicious look. They left the bathroom and my body stopped to look in the mirror. I made sure that every movement I made was my own before I left the bathroom. But as I watched myself walk out of the bathroom I stayed in the same place. At the doorway of the bathroom my body looked back at me and smiled with the same pitch black eyes. I yelled for my parents but no sound was being made and I tried to go after him but I was stopped by an invisible wall. My fists pounded against that translucent wall in anger and fear but I couldn’t break through. I turned around to see a vast nothingness filled with others like me that were shouting and fighting but made no sound. The closest ones to me tried to get my attention but their words didn’t reach me. I slumped down with my back against the wall defeated and accepting my new solitude. A girl my age next to me mouthed the words, “Help me,” as tears rolled down her face but there was nothing I could do. I was one of them. These would be my friends now.