Crunch Time

I wake up early and note I have only been sleeping for four hours. This is the third night. I've taken to sleeping on the couch again, my roommate says I talk in my sleep and I keep waking him up.

The couch is nice enough though, except for the door. The towel is there constantly (again much to the chagrin of my roommate) but my eyes begin to dart there every few minutes...even in the day. Chalk it up to lack of sleep I guess. Stress, or at least that's what I want to think, because there is no other real explanation for what I saw.

I like my showers hot. Really hot. My skin was beat red this morning (not unusual) and the tiny bathroom filled with scalding steam. I was breathing deep, letting the hot air into my lungs as I stepped out of the shower and into the whiteness. I feel my way to mirror and wipe it down. I looked tired. The circles under my eyes are getting bigger. I begin to brush my teeth and that's when I feel something inside the room with me.

I couldn't see in the whiteness, but I feel it. Sensing it somehow. A presence. I swing my arms around, pushing the white wall apart only to have it pour back in to fill the gap. The room is small and I cover the space in no time. It is empty. But I still feel it.

My heart pounds as I fumble back to the mirror. I try to think about something else as I finish brushing. But I can't. I close my eyes and breath and now it was right behind me. I feel something on my neck again. I do not turn around.

I start to get dizzy and the white room start to spin. It is still there with me. Right next to me no matter where I turn. I slip and sink to the floor. I close my eyes again. Afraid of passing out. afraid of what It would do to me.

My ears are roaring with my heart beat and shut my eyes tighter. My stomach drops as if I was on a roller coaster.

It touches my forehead. A cool light touch in the heat.

The roaring stops and I open my eyes to an empty room.


A case of synopsises firing off randomly in my brain, a momentary case of a mental stutter, like de ja vu' . Couple it with a case of the heebie-jeebies thinking about a dead girl in the middle of the night and what else do you need to explain it.

As you can see, my mind keeps coming back to it. To her, the Room. They are the same thing to me now. I cannot think of Rose without seeing the door at the end of the hall. A door that isn't there anymore. I think about it almost all day, trying to fit together.

So my articles is going slow. My editor, a third year journalism major, is being unusually patient. I think she know that something big is coming. Last time I took this long on one article, the school Had itself it's first "award winning" student journalist.

I have the accident report in my hand now. It came yesterday and is not very helpful. It states the obvious. There was a fire in the room, security came first and could not enter, police and fire came. The fire is put out and Rose is dead. End of story.

All though it provides a useful time line, there is no new information.

But I'm writing the damn thing anyway. All I seem to have are puzzle pieces that seem to point, seem to allude that something about her death was wrong. All I can do is give the pieces to readers and let them decide. I have no answers for them, just things, questions.

I could sit on it. Wait for more, dig deeper...but I need to put this behind me. I need to stop thinking about it so much.

So I will write it. They will print it.

And maybe then I will be able to sleep.