𝒜 𝐻𝒶𝓅𝓁𝑒𝓈𝓈 𝐸𝓃𝒹𝑒𝒶𝓇𝓂𝑒𝓃𝓉

4 - 𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝒞𝓁𝑜𝒸𝓀 𝐼𝓈 𝒯𝒾𝒸𝓀𝒾𝓃𝑔

The morning eventually comes, and it brings the bright, cheerful sunlight with it, much to Y/n's relief. The golden rays shine in through her window pane, forcing her to press a hand to her eyes and provide herself with a chance to adjust to the attack on her vision. She's kept herself awake for the entirety of the night, starting from when she woke up from that horrific nightmare at around eleven-thirty and absolutely, under any circumstances, refused to go back to sleep.

Troubling subjects have been laying heavy on her mind for the past six hours, and no matter what she does to rid herself of them, it never works. Well, it hasn't yet. She's scrolled through the internet, watched YouTube videos—she even started another painting, though she only managed a few brush strokes before she scrapped it altogether and fell to the floor in a tired rage.

She won't deny the fact that she's mentally exhausted, from both the lack of sleep and from the anxiety that's been creeping through her nerves the whole day. After around two hours of laying in bed, she wanted to get up and go downstairs for a glass of water. Then she decided against it, mainly because she already had a perfectly suitable bottle of water sitting right beside her bed. She considered wandering down to watch TV, eat some food, or virtually anything she could do to get her mind off of what had happened, but also blew off those ideas fairly quickly.

She didn't want to be the reason for her grandparents waking up, especially because of a stupid little dream. Even though she, herself, knows that it wasn't just a 'stupid little dream'. Whether it has a deeper meaning or not, it terrified her, and that's all the conviction she needs to not want to have another like it, or one exceedingly worse. She fears she would be scolded for having such childish agitation over something that, in all reality, can't even physically hurt her.

Well...the things in her head can't hurt her. But what she saw... Was that really in her head? Sure, one could blame paranoia, panicked delusions, a tired, frantic state that made her hallucinate something that wasn't really there. Like sleep paralysis, though she knows for a fact that she wasn't experiencing sleep paralysis.

So what was it? Maybe a strangely-shaped tree bent by the light in the right way to make it look scary? Some type of humanoid animal? Or perhaps it was her imagination playing tricks on her, after all? She isn't sure, but she does know that whatever it was, it was unsettling and very out of place.

Then there's the nightmare. That's the second time in barely three days that she's had a nightmare like that. Sure, bad dreams are no stranger to her; she's been facing them since she was a little kid, though they became more common after her life started to fall apart. But none of them were like that. Her mind has never been in such a gut-wrenching, sinister state before, and it deeply concerns her.

What would make her think up such a scenario? Her cousin, one of her very best childhood friends, being dead? Right before her eyes? She's thought, maybe it has something to do with the odd conversation that she shared with her grandfather just a day prior. But he didn't say anything that should ever make her think anyone was murdered. Especially Wyatt.

Although it's still a mystery to her, she's confident that nothing like that could've happened during her long absence...right? If it had, someone would have called her dad to inform him, then he would have told her. He isn't the most upstanding person or the best father by any stretch, but surely he wouldn't keep her in the dark about something so horrific.

She's tried to forget about it and settle down, even though she knows that it's likely going to be something that sticks with her for quite a while. It was just a dream—nothing more. She hasn't anything to worry about. It was a startling vision that her mind created to scare her. It's all of the stress finally getting to her, that's all.