Inside a dimly lit study full of books on shelves that had accumulated dust and spiderwebs, a girl sat in the middle of room, where a large table and chair was placed, all but her dominant hand was motionless, her lifeless stare fixated at the notebook in front of her. A page was filled in with a journal entry, describing a piece of herself as she writes,
Fallon notes (Page One):
Fallon Saunders, age 17, currently in Senior High at East Side Secondary School - Advanced Class B, I live in 420 College Dr., Belleville, Ontario, Canada. Phone number xxx-xxx-xxx.
I'll be carrying this note around and keeping it secure so it'll be easy to identify when you find my body. Today is the 10th Day of August, 2018.
Her scribbling abruptly ends when the door of her study swings open and a loud familiar voice tears the quiet of the room.
"Good morning Fallon! Are you ready for.."
Upon seeing the tall and slender young man glaring at her, she quickly puts away the notebook into her bag, and looks at the neighbor and classmate casting his shadow in the dim room, holding the door open, and who's yet again, perfectly on time picking her up for school. But yet she, was still comfortably seated disregarding the time.
"Jae!", She was shaken, lifts herself up from the seat and runs up to the man, "Jeez sorry for not meeting you outside. Let's go."
She leads out of the house and into the front yard as they await the bus to school.
She looks up at the tall lad and thinks to herself. "Kang Jae Kim, he's been a classmate since junior high but we only started being friends on my 2nd year-" Her brows and face contorting as she keeps speaking to herself. "-he happened to be a neighbor too... I can't believe it took us that long to get along. We're seniors now, he picks me up everyday and drags me along his perfect attendance and no tardiness."
"Stop making faces at me, Fallon."
Jae Kim trying to avoid looking at the somewhat agitated girl to hide his face which contorted into a cringed expression.
The girl retreats, looks down on the ground, embarrassed from her action.
The bus siren breaks the cold air around the two as it stops right in front of them. The doors swings open and they are greeted by the bus driver, Morin, lifting up his cap slightly, as a gesture of 'Hello' when seeing the two.
"Good morning Mr. Morin" Fallon said.
"Mornin' Morin", added Jae Kim casually.
As they both take their seats, Jae Kim starts a lackluster conversation to pass the time, "Were you studying this morning, Fal?" his eyebrows raised "You looked quite busy."
"Yes, every so often I feel like studying" she says, letting out a soft, nervous laugh.
"Great-" he says with a brittle smile "I bet you'll do well in Hudson's quiz today."
Fallon's eyes widens as she leers at Jae Kim who looked relaxed and confident. "Quiz?"
They soon arrive at East Side Secondary School with its gates and entrance swarming with high schoolers heading in, some hurrying, others relaxed, chatting, and bold ones stopping to talk. One was apparently heading their way, a girl, her hands above her head, waving. She lunges at Fallon and wraps her arms around her,
"Good morning Fall!", her mouth open into a teethy smile, eyes shut and her hug tightening.
"Good morning Jiji."
"Morning Jiji", Jae Kim adds.
"Good morning to you too, BTS." the girl says, winking.
Jae Kim has his eyes rolling upon hearing the greeting. He sighs, "Racist as ever today."
She smiles sardonically.
"Justine," Fallon thinks "we call her Jiji, has been around since middle school. She can be obnoxious at times but she's a good person."
Fallon enjoys a short chat with her friends as they were heading for class.
Her eyes wanders about, she scans the familiar corridors, the other students spending their morning in various ways, she looks at her friends, throwing words at each other in their usual light-hearted arguments, she hears the words they utter, but doesn't understand them.
"Just another lackluster day-" she sighs, thinking to herself "-everything the way it is, my friends acting the way they are, time running awfully slow in class. A perfect mediocre life for a mediocre girl." looking straight ahead as her lips curve into a smile. "I can't wait to get out of this life."
Later that day at around 4pm when all of their classes had finished, Jae Kim loads books into his bag and readies to leave,
"Cram school today, gotta go." Jae says.
Justine grunts at the seemingly stern and serious Jae Kim.
"Jesus BTS, we know you're asian, but you don't have to be the stereotypical asian-" she smirks jokingly "-if you know what I'm sayin."
"Bye Jiji", he exclaimed, rolling his eyes. "Bye Fall."
Fallon waves at him and smiles while her friend runs off hurriedly.
"Let's stop by the club room, Ji. We didn't join them for lunch today-"
"Yeah, no problem.", Justine replies.
As their feet started to move forward, Justine starts to chat with eyes full of excite.
"Hey Fal, have you heard the rumors lately about the club?"
"No." Fallon looks at Justine with a brow raised, "But I bet it's just about Garren again."
"No! It's nothing you'd expect." she gloats "Hear this-" she lowers her voice "-apparently, someone who was walking past the room when it was empty started hearing a man's voice yell 'Will~ Will~' coming from our room."
"Are they sure-" she laughs, slightly crouching down and holding her stomach, "-maybe someone near was watching Stranger Things-" she jokingly adds.
"No!" continuing her deep narrating voice "Cause when this person glanced inside, at first he thought he saw a person laying his head down on the table. But when he knocked and peeked again.-" she stomps her foot making a loud thump "huzah! There was nobody in the room-"
Fallon cries in holding back too much laughter, "Huzah?" she mocked.
"Let me finish!", Justine's face turning bright red from embarrassment. "So the lore is- Muttering any word that starts with Will.. the ghost will show itself!"
"That's silly.", Fallon remarks.
"I don't know." she shrugs. "Anyways, we're here."
In front of the two young ladies was a door leading to their club, inside there were already 3 people.
"The guys are here!" Justine exclaims as she opens the door.
And sure enough there were 3 young men sat comfortably and eating sandwiches.
"Girls hey!" shouted a young man with a bright smile on his face.
"Lincoln Moore-" Fallon looks at the lad with the big smile "-he's so nice that no one would even dare ask him out since he already treats everyone like his girlfriend... even the guys. He's popular with everybody for being outgoing and friendly. His curly brown hair, green eyes and glasses work like magic when he lets out a smile so bright, you'd want to squint."
"Fallon," another lad adds "and Jiji." winking at Justine.
"Hey, Jiji." and Justine winks back.
"That is Jenkin Wright" she gazes continuing to talk to herself, "He is also a Jiji. He and Justine never get tired of,- 'the Jiji greeting' -i've known Jenkin since Junior High, he's a bit intimidating to look at, at first. But he's actually pretty kind and sincere."
"He has his share of fangirls-" leering "-pretty popular with mature-looking women, cause his long ebony black hair and clear blue piercing eyes, always catches that type of crowd's attention."
" . . . " a snarl from another side of the room.
"Garren, did you just growl at them!?", yelled Lincoln at his friend sitting furthest from the door.
"And Garren King a.k.a. King of East Side," she smiles lazily "he's undeniably one of the most good-looking people that will ever bless anybody's life at the mere sight of him- I have never seen such an almost-perfect being- tall, built, with defined facial features, beautiful cognac-colored eyes and unfairly long lashes." her gaze wandering off "His striking silver hair falls just above his thick eye brows and-"
"Fallon!" Justine snapping her fingers in front of the girl's dazed face. "Fallon! Hello! Earth to Fallon!"
Fallon quickly snaps out of her self-trance and blushes in retreat.
"Fall, would you like a sandwich? Made it myself!" Lincoln, reaching forward with a sandwich in his hand.
She gadly takes it but her eyes on the 6 other sandwich slices suspiciously left inside the picnic basket on the table.
Fallon leers at Jenkin with her lips forming an awkward smile.
"Yes-" sighing "-Lincoln overpacked food again." Jenkin says out loud, as if answering Fallon's mental question.
"That's okay! I'm sure someone outside will gladly take a sandwich!" The naive brunette said confidently.
The unserious bunch spends around 30 minutes more in the room before they split ways.
Much later that same day, Fallon arrives home and finds her place unsurprisingly empty.
She lets out an empty sigh.
After going about with her evening she throws herself on her bed and quickly drifts into deep sleep.
Fallon woken up the next day by the eerie feeling of being watched. Her eyes bulging with shock as she tries to scan the room with just her vision. She struggles but ultimately, and realizes her body is impossible to move.
"Not sleep paralysis again." she says in her thoughts as she is unable move her mouth.
She keeps looking around her room, the curtains closed but with early sunshine peering through. She can't shake the feeling of being stared down on intensely. She could feel cold sweat seeping out her skin and her heart beating so hard, she could feel her ears spasm with the pulses.
But her whole world stopped when she looked up the ceiling and saw... something staring back at her with wide black eyes and with a sinister teethy, gummy smile.
It was a child, floating above her, staring at her with its menacing empty eyes.
She feels her warm tears running down her face and she struggles to move her body, feeling sucked in by the child's eyes that felt like bottom of an abyss. She can't think clearly nor avert her gaze, afraid the child might move if she gets distracted or blinks.
All the seconds she spends staring felt like minutes she fights to writhe her body to get it to move when-
A loud knock at her door crashes the ominious atmosphere in her room, the child disappeared, and the door swings open.
It was her neighbors and classmate, Jae Kim, staring at her, looking surprised.
She lifts her hand, surprised she could move and reaches for her friend and calls his name.
"Jae!" she yells, gasping for air and with a panicked look on her face.
"Fallon, you better get ready in 5 minutes or we are going to be late!", The angry young man nags, looking at the seemingly careless girl, still tucked in bed on a school morning.
She turns at the clock and it was already 7:38am, the bus was to arrive in a just a few minutes.
"What the hell!" her eyes bulging in alarm.
Miraculously, they weren't late for the bus. But Fallon would then spend the day debating to herself if what she saw that morning was real.
Fallon Notes (Page two):
Today was different from any day in my life, my sleep paralysis brought an unwanted sight that will probably never leave my worries and nightmares. I truly wish that was just an illusion created by my recurring sleeping problems.
I hope he doesn't appear in my after life.