My friends and I finally decide to leave the floor after 7-long hours of partying and drinking. Well, it's mostly because Lia threw up for half an hour straight and started highlighting me with a highlighter saying I was important.

It was a dark, gloomy night, like the ones you see in a horror movie. Yet, not a hair in my body stood up from fright. There were gigantic, tall trees on both sides of the street we were walking on, with the grean leaves rustling and swaying along the wind. The moon was nowhere to be seen, the howling of wolves surrounded us.

Like as if none of this had an effect on us, Lia kept rambling about her ex while I hardly managed to keep her on her toes. My heels left my legs and were now accompanying my right hand, my left hand balancing Lia.

"This lady really needs to quit drinking." A sigh left Ginnie's lips along with those words.

"She must have done some really good deed in her past life to have such good friends like us." Sana added in a sarcastic tone along with the three of us bursting into giggles, with Lia's lips forming into a visible pout.

As we were walking through the abandoned street, an ice-cream shop caught our sight. The neon lights illuminated the pitch black sky and the creepy street. As uncanny as it sounded or looked to us, we decided to enter the shop to cool the adrenaline down and hopefully, it would stop Lia from looking for Nemo in her purse.

Weird drinking habits, I tell you.

A middle-aged man stood at the entrance, with a smile that reached upto his ears. His eyes bulged out and the collarbones that stood out of his skin made it painful to watch.

Just like in any other horror movie, the four of us ignored the creepy man dressed in pink and were more focused on which ice-cream flavour to buy.

The shop looked rather cold but I didn't feel that chilly feeling at all. The haunting streets didn't make my heartbeat race either, nor did the wolves howling.

Finally settling with a 'cookies & cream flavour', I take it out of the coolbar and begin to unwrap it, my high heels left inside the coolbar. As I was about to have a bite, I felt a hand grip on mine and pull me away.

Unlike me, my three friends looked rather tranquil on seeing me getting dragged away by a complete stranger and despite screaming their names for help, none moved an inch.

Ginnie was busy pulling out Lia from the freezee where the ice-creams were kept along with my heels.

The unknown dragged me out of the shop and into the lonely streets, my body didn't flinch even after my toes made contact with the cold road. The stranger's grip tightened around my wrist and his fast steps soon turned into a jog.

All I did was watch the stranger drag me, like as if I had no control over my body.

Instead of trying to escape from the stranger's grip, I was rather bothered by the leaves of the trees which were now red. The moon-less dark sky was now replaced by a cloudy red one, a crescent moon peeped out of the clouds.

Below my bare feet were red autumn leaves that made a crunching sound everytime the stranger and I stepped on it.

None of this made any sense and yet, I was unfascinated. Like as if I was watching a movie, only that I was starring in it this time.

All I did was blink and now I was in an old building which looked oddly familiar. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐰𝐞𝐢𝐫𝐝 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐬.

And here I was, with a stranger who just kidnapped me. And of course, with a melting 'cookies & cream' cone in my hand.

It was all like another cliche horror movie, with me as the clueless protagonist whose every move brings nothing but danger.

Before me was a stranger whose face was still a mystery to me because of the humungous pink hat that sat on his head.

It sure had to be the man from the shop before. That creepy smile and the neon pink colour was a radar to danger and yet, it flew above my head. The cookies & cream that was once on the cone was now melting into my palm which I soon licked. The enchanting, lucious flavour of 'cookies & cream' didn't savour into my tongue.

"Why don't you ever treat me like your Lia, Sana or Ginni? Why do you always ignore me when you're in front of other people? Why Nora, just why?"

The voice echoed through the unkept walls and the ice-cream in my hand turned into nothing but dust. A loud sigh leaves my mouth in annoyance due to the sudden disappearance.

Red light leaked into the building from the windows which made the entire building glow. It was no longer dark, but the eerie and fearful vibes only grew as big as the tall trees in that street.

I look at the direction from which the sound was coming from, only to meet bloodshot and swollen eyes. The gigantic hat of the stranger had vanished away, into thin air like as if the wind took it away along with my ice-cream.

It was a man that was my kidnapper but a smile that reached his ears didn't play on his lips, nor did his collarbones stick out. He wasn't a middle-aged man, but rather a guy my age.

Those bloodshot and swollen eyes could only belong to one person. Those brown eyes and jet-black hair reminded me of that same guy, the one I've known since when I knew myself.

𝗔𝗥𝗢𝗡.

"WAKE UP NORA!! IT'S ALREADY 7!"