Chapter 12

As soon as Lyra and I were home we ran up to my room and started laughing some more.

"I don't know why I'm finding it so hard to believe that you did that, I mean you've always been the 'don't mess with me or you'll regret it' type of girl, but that was like a whole new level" Lyra says looking at me with admiration. "You're pretty much my hero now"

I laugh at that and throw a pillow at Abigail which she catches just before it hits her face. "Shut up you dork, I'm nobody's hero" I say playfully.

"You are now" she states.

I accept the compliment with a small smile this time "whatever. Wanna watch a movie?" I ask

"Do you even have to ask?"

🔹🔹🔹

After an hour and thirty five minutes of Nightmare on Elm Street, I'm so jumpy I swear I'm worse than I was when I saw that masked guy at the library.

"I gotta piss" Lyra announces as she stands up.

"Don't leave me all alone!" I cry out, jumping up.

lyra only laughs "Beth you're being silly. I gotta use the bathroom so unless you want me to pee all over your bed tonight, I'm gonna have to leave. I'll be back in a few minutes" she says before walking off.

I sit down on the bed and take a look around my room feeling no safety what so ever. As my eyes scan the room, they bypass a red masked face staring at me through the window. I whip my head back to the window but nothing's there.

My heart is beating a hundred miles an hour (or at least that's what it feels like) I slowly get under my covers trying not to make a sound, why? Not really sure.

I lay down and after a few moments my heart calms down and my breathing goes back to normal.

My eyes start to droop as I lay in heaven (A.K.A my bed)

Just as I'm about to fall asleep I hear breathing, but it's not coming from me. I open my eyes expecting to see Lyra, but instead I find a guy in a red mask staring down at me, the same guy from the library.

I'm about to scream when the guys hand quickly covers my mouth.

My screams are muffled by the guys hand. I bite down into the hand as hard as I can. As soon as he pulls his hand away I leap up out of bed and run as fast as I can to my door but before I get there he grabs onto my shoulder and yanks me back, smacking me hard across the face. I feel tears spring to my eyes at the searing pain that's coursing through my cheek but I don't have time to worry about it right know.

I slowly ease back up against my bookshelf "what do you want from me?" I ask, my voice cracking from fear. I grab the first thing I feel. Without thinking I throw it as hard as I can at the guy.

It hits the guy lightly in the chest and falls to the ground.

My teeny tiny paperback book sample. Of course.

The guy slowly starts walking towards me, I throw everything I can get my hands on at him, each book hits him but no matter how big or how heavy the book is, the guy never budges, he doesn't even flinch. Soon my whole bookcase is empty and he's right in front of me.

Where is Lyra?!

Adrenaline is pouring through all my veins and somehow I find the courage to actually speak.

"Who are you? What do you want?"

The guy says nothing, he just stares at me. I try to look into his eyes, see if I recognize him but his mask shaded his eyes so that I couldn't see them.

I need to see who it is. I think to myself.

I quickly come up with a plan, I feel around behind my back until I feel a bottle of deodorant. I fling it over to the side, as soon as the guy looks over at it I reach for his mask. I grab onto it but before I can pull it down the guy smacks my hand down and slams me against the mirror next to the bookshelf.

My head jerks back and smashes into the mirror. I hear the glass shatter. My head is aching where it had connected with the glass. I touch the spot and wince at the pain, and look at my hand to see blood nearly covering it.

"Leave me alone!" I scream as loud as I can and muster up all of the strength I have and shove him.

The guy stumbles back a few steps in surprise.

I use this chance to make a run for the door knowing he'll be close behind. I open the door and run out, "Lyra" I scream as loud as I can.

In only seconds Lyra is out the door and standing directly in front of me looking at me with her eyes wide and her eyebrows creased in concern.

"Piper what is it?" She asks, looking around worried.

I look behind me at my room to see the door still shut.

"He's in there" I whisper, utterly terrified.

Her eyes widen impossibly bigger  as she looks from me to the door and back at me.

"Who is?" She asks

"The guy from the library" I tell her, tears streaming down my face.

Lyly's face drains of any color. "Are-are you sure?" She asks.

"Of course I'm sure!" I wail.

"Okay okay, sh*t. Uhm what do we do?" she asks, her voice sounding as though she was trying to be calm but she was actually completely horrified.

I just stare at her, words aren't even processing in my mind. I don't know what to do.

"Well come on, lets go call the cops" Lyly whispers as she walks toward the kitchen where there's a home phone.

She picks up the phone and dials the number, putting it to her ear, after a moment her face scrunched up in confusion.

"It says that your call has been disconnected" Lyra says, her voice shaking with fear.

"Umm" I search around the house.

"Can't you call on your phone?" I ask

"It's in your room" we both look at each other horror showing clearly on both of our faces.

But we know what we have to do "maybe if we get it really fast and then race back out here we can call the police before he grabs us?" I ask. It's a lame plan but it's the only things we can do.

Lyra nods. Before we walk over to the room, Lyra searches the kitchen until they land on our knives, she picks up the biggest one, me grabbing the next biggest in size before we slowly creep over to the room, Lyra puts a finger to her lips shushing me even though I haven't made a sound.

She slowly opens the door, but after a minute of looking around she slings the door open all of the way.

"Piper you need to come see this"

Wait what?!

I push through Lyra and step into my room. My mouth hangs open as I look around.

It's completely spotless.

Everything is where it is supposed to be, my books are on my shelf in the right order, my perfume bottles and deodorants are on the top in the same place they always are. But the weirdest part is, my mirror isn't broken. I closely examine it, there's not a crack, not a single chip. And it's not like the person could have just switched it for a different mirror, this mirror is a one of a kind with its royal blue silk frame, and black lace covering that, plus on the edge of the mirror there's the stain of Lyra red lipstick lip print.

Suddenly I remember something. I reach up and touch the back of my head, no pain, I look at my hand to see there's no blood. "Look at my head! Is there a mark?" I urgently exclaim at Lyra, utterly freaked out. Lyra grabs my head and looks down on it. She gently moves my hair around looking all over my head. "There's nothing there Piper. Your head has no marks what so ever" she tells me.

Shivers course through my entire body. Goosebumps cover my arm despite the warmth of the house. I rub my arms as I look at Lyra. "Okay this is beyond creepy, even beyond scary movie creepy" I tell her as tears prick my eyes. She pulls me into a hug

"Piper honey" she says simply, holding em right to her. After a moment she speaks

"do you think you might have maybe...um...imagined it?" She asks

"I'm not saying that you're lying or anything, I totally believe that you believe it happened, I just think that maybe you thought you saw all of that happening because of the movie we watched? I mean you were really freaked out and now your room is spotless. There's no way that the guy could have fixed your entire room in those three minutes that you were out of here. Plus look at your mirror! That mirror is like no other. It even has my lips! I'm sorry Lyra, I'm not trying to make you feel like you're going insane, I'm just saying maybe you thought you saw something that you didn't" Lyra said so fast it was like a squirrel on steroids.

I was about to open my mouth and tell her all about how she was wrong, about how I was sure of what I saw when I suddenly wasn't so sure.

Maybe I did imagine all of it, my mind has been acting all weird lately, and I really haven't been getting much sleep. Maybe I thought I saw all of this weird stuff, but it was all really just in my mind, yeah it was a creepy thought, but it would explain how my mirror was perfectly fine, and how my head had no marks, and how everything was back to normal. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I was. There was no way all of that actually happened. My mind must have been making up hallucinations from being so sleep deprived. Yeah that was it. So It was settled, it was all just in my head.

Lyra looks at me clearly worried "Piper? You aren't mad are you?" She asked, her voice regretful.

I shake my head "no I'm not. And you're right. I probably did just imagine it all. Now let's get to bed okay? I'm sleepy" I say, determined to get more sleep from now on.