"That's enough now. Don't tell anyone this, they wouldn't hesitate in suggesting you seek a psychiatrist. Let me break this down for you, dear. You witnessed this because you were heartbroken and because you felt you were in a nightmare".
"You were emotionally tortured and your brain was producing figments of bad memories or creatures, scaring you. It isn't real and won't be real". Hera assured her, lovingly stroking her cheeks.
" But mum_"
"Shh, eat your meal dear. You need to wake up early for school tomorrow".
" I don't wanna go".
"Why?. Because of those crazy rich kids?. Nah, you are better than that. Now where's your cellphone?". She asked, throwing her eyes around her room.
" I - - I - - had left it in school in a hurry...". She stammered, looking away from her mother. She was ashamed to tell her mother that she had run off like a coward as always and had cried in front of a crowd.
"Ok!. A great reason to go to school tomorrow, now eat. I'll go get a first aid box and painkillers. Why don't you also take off your dirty shoes, young lady?". Hera said to the girl, who turned red in embarrassment. She had forgotten the rules of not wearing footwear to bed.
" I would be back in a jiffy, finish the milk". She said to her daughter as she headed to the door, while Phoebe's eyes trailed after her.
...
When Phoebe had finished with her dinner, she slid down from the bed, heading to the desk where she had placed her laptop, she wanted to research the creatures.
She didn't know what was recently happening to her, but the creatures she had seen earlier had been flooding into her head.
They were real but at the same time felt unreal but her mother had insisted they were illusions and what if she was to be right?.
Opening her laptop, she tried booting it but to no avail and then she smacked her forehead. She had forgotten her laptop was spoilt and that she needed a new one but she had no money on her. Sighing in frustration, she slammed it shut. God! Her life was in misery.
Sitting on the carpet, she wiped the few tears that had dropped down on her cheeks. Her mind couldn't recall anything straight. It was either going over to the picture on the scene where her ex-best friend and ex-boyfriend were kissing and she felt her heart shrink. She just probably needed a new life with her mom.
Her thoughts drifted to when Ava had once promised to give her a huge surprise on her birthday. Was the heartbreaking scene, the so-called surprise?. But her birthday hadn't approached yet. She sighed again.
She recalled her father; her evil father. The man who had woken one morning and decided to file a divorce and then the next thing she and her mother had got to hear, was that he was married. Again!!!.
He had gotten married even before her mother had picked up the pen to sign the divorce papers. He had used his wealth and affluence to suppress them, leaving them with nothing. No money, no property and the lawyers, her mother had tried to call with the little money she had, her father had bought them all over.
When they heard he was married they were extremely shocked. Not just married to his new mistress but was married again with a son.
A son? Yes, a son. Who was two years older than her? That was appalling. His father had been cheating on her mother for a very long time. She was yet to be 18 and the boy would be 20. Great!!.
They had at first thought the new mistress was only with a son and they were trying as much to digest the info and then one day, her father truly told them he also had a daughter, making that two children with his mistress. The child was a year younger than her. That was a hard blow to her mother's pride and dignity as a woman. And that was the shock of her life. If her father had been faithful and committed to her mother, maybe they would have made more kids; she truly yearned for a sibling or siblings. His action and betrayal only meant one thing; he had been with his mistress right before he got married to her mum and had been with her after he had gotten married to her mum. Men were evil!!.
And now, she had fallen into the same ill fate of being used and dumped. Who knew what more sorrowful fate, the future was holding for her?.
She, several times, had seen her mother yell out at night in anguish and heartbreak, drowning herself in alcohol and returning home occasionally with a bruised face. And at a young age, she had questioned her mother and had gotten to know her mother had lied to her when she always told her, she had accidentally tripped to the ground. Was she always tripping?
Now, that she was older, she could only deduce from those images of her mother's bruised face, linking it to her father.
Her dirty father had been raising his filthy hands on her mother and she was hurt. She wanted so bad to retaliate. She swore to become powerful and mega-rich despite all probabilities.
She wanted her dear mother to live and return to the beautiful life, she had once maintained. She wasn't against her getting remarried, she had a perfectly made choice for her; Aunt Catherine's brother. But she was also scared, what if he was not someone, she had thought to be?.
She sighed again. She stood up to take her jug of water and she found it-empty, and she was thirsty. She was about to move when the corner of her eyes, caught something moving away from her window and she gasped in fright.
She was so sure she saw something. Was it the creatures?. Oh, God!!. She should have known. She would have known better, that the creatures would eventually follow her home.
Crouching down beside her bed, she picked up her torchlight and muffler, wore her slippers and dashed out of the door. She had to quietly leave the house without alerting her mother or she would get tensed and scream about her going insane.
Gently unlocking and shutting the front door, she walked out to stare around her surroundings. She walked over to her window to see nobody and then she strolled out of the white picket fence to check who had left their house and she saw no one. Not even a single soul. Strange.
She felt a strange feeling, a tense feeling in the atmosphere; like something ominous and vulnerable was around.
It felt odd and she felt stiff. All she could hear were the rustling of the trees and the faint howling of the wind but she knew she was having a feeling of terror. Something so terrible had come here and she couldn't even bear to think about, what it was. She was beginning to feel unsettled, disturbed and curious at the same time.
Swivelling around immediately to the right as she thought, she had seen something move over there. She was about to move away when she stood stiff, her heart drumming loudly in her heart. She had felt something or someone standing behind her; close to her.
She gasped in horror and then turned around immediately with wide eyes to see a beautiful man, staring at her with a wide smile.