103 | FLAWED

The duvet pooled around my waist. The racing of my blood roared in my ears, an ocean pulling back, reaching higher and higher, preparing to crash –

I slipped from the bed, staring wide-eyed out into the darkness. I waited for something, anything, another tap, a pasty white hand reaching for the slice of open air between the frame and the glass. Nothing came.

I stepped closer. I hardly felt the bite of cold air against my skin, hairs raising on my arms and thighs. The wind wound around me, a playful cat teasing its way between my shins and calves. I swallowed hard, my throat bobbing, and forced my eyes to look beyond the familiar pile of books stacked on the windowsill, the green light of the digital clock that I’d moved there to help keep the night at bay, the old rum bottle that Harper had kept from his first night at university. I looked past it all, yet still I saw nothing.

I reached the windowsill. With n