"Ha. Haha. Would you look at that? Haha." I laughed. Not because I was happy. But because I found everything ridiculous (not in a good way). Aren't I fucked?
Maybe I've gone mad for good. Maybe I've been mad for quite some time. But the letter in my hands felt so real. Everything felt so real. Even the bandage Kristina wrapped around my arm felt real. Not a single thing was fake and the realness was what made everything sucks. Because it means I will probably die if I don't do anything at all.
I read the letter over and over again. I wanna make sure I didn't misunderstand something. And I probably read it over seven or ten times because when I checked the wall clock that hung beside the smart TV, it was already half past five.
And since I don't wanna die yet, I thought I should do something. Anything at all. And I thought I should take care of the corpse in my closet first.
Let's take one step at a time, I told myself.
But as I was headed to my room, for the nth time that day, my doorbell rang. It almost gave me a heart attack.
I froze. Who will it be this time? Did the man come back? Was it another person the 'other me' commissioned or something? Or was it a middlefolk?
It rang again. And I swear whoever was pressing the button must either be out for blood or having explosive diarrhea. He or she just doesn't stop pressing the damned thing.
I peeked out the window. And when I saw who was behind the door wearing a familiar pair of boxers and a hoodie, no words could possibly explain how surprised I was. Those clothes were mine! And it was none other than Kristina Bilton, my best friend. She frantically pressed the doorbell button as she kept glancing behind her.
I let her in as my head became a muddled mess of crap as I thought of a way to apologize about what I said earlier but something wasn't quite right.
As soon as I opened the door, she immediately snatched my left arm, the one with the bandage. Poked it, felt it, scanned it… After she did all that, she jumped at me and choked, I mean, hugged me the tightest she could ever hug me. Then she wept.
"Uh, K—Kristina? Are you okay?"
I was confused, quite honestly. Is this how people express their disappointment in this plane? If so, then I would like to disappoint every single woman alive. But my confusion was soon resolved after she told me her end of the story.
"I was so scared, you dolt! Really scared that I pissed myself!"
And now that she mentioned that, her crotch seemed to be a bit wet indeed. But I didn't call her out on that. Instead, I just listened until she let out everything that was in her chest.
"I—I woke up. Around four maybe and I remembered I forgot to take a piss after, uh, we did that thing, you know what I mean, and I remembered my OB-GYN telling me it could cause UTI so I went to the bathroom. I met you on my way but you were acting weird. You've got blood all over your white tee shirt and your arm was fine when I clearly remembered dressing it for you. Then suddenly—suddenly…"
"Kristina. Kristina, look at me." I told her. She was hyperventilating and I had to make my voice a tad louder to calm her down. "Let's take a seat and let's talk about it calmly. Believe me, I was just as confused moments ago too. Hn? I—I'll get you a cup of water. Wait for me on the sofa."
"Any better now?" I asked her after she downed the glass in one go.
She nodded.
"Please tell me what happened."
She did. And apparently, a hideous, black as a coal, sludge-like monster attacked her from behind and swallowed her. She clawed her way out of its 'stomach' and she found herself in a room that looked like hers but somehow different. She knew it was different because the walls had a nasty shade of pink instead of magenta.
She was holding her phone and saw that 'she' called me not long ago from the call logs. And amidst the confusion, she decided to dial me, but before she could do just that, she saw the same creature that attacked her, only that it was the size of a golf ball. Not the huge one back at my house. And that was when she ran to my place in a frenzy, forgetting about her phone.
"Aren't we fucked?" Was all that I managed to say.