Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25625273-20160730084828

I used to love friends. I know that I will never truly understand how they did it, but it was a masterfully orchestrated plan. I now wonder if I had just gotten a real friend, this could have been prevented. Now, all I have is them. They is dreadful, yet sweet. I will never need them, yet I know I will always go back to him. I know I am expendable, yet the fact that they are collecting us makes me feel needed. I can't live with the thought of them, yet they are all I can ever think about... Or hear. When I was a child, probably around eleven, all I did was read books. My only friends were the books, and yet I still felt lonely in some fashion. Since I was one of the kids in the higher English and Math classes in intermediate school, it was difficult for me to make friends. I had a few, but they were more like people who I could be around without feeling uncomfortable. I always thought I would just get friends in High School, since my town's was quite large. I believed that intermediate school friendships would never last. With this mindset, I isolated myself from most friendships, not letting many close to me. Nevertheless, I always felt like something was missing when I watched TV. Like something was... Out of place when I would look up at the stars at night, alone. Now I realize that I was lonely. Now I know why he came. Well, it felt like a he, it sounded like a he. It was more like a they. It started when I was doing the laundry downstairs in our musty basement. It was an average day, and I simply was going to walk back upstairs to my room and read a book after starting the drier. That's when I felt a presence. Not like eyes in the dark or footsteps coming down the stairs. I got no chills up my back. My mind felt... Invaded. It must sound absolutely absurd, but I felt like each one of my thoughts was being heard by someone or something that was not me. Even the small things, like "My brother is being so loud." Felt unsafe from the invader. For the first few weeks, I ignored the feeling. I'm a child, I thought, and it must just be a phase. Everything is, these days. That is until it spoke. I was changing for the night before I went to bed, and I felt the familiar presence. Again I pushed it away, until it said five words. "Your parents are screaming again." I never imagined that the presence had a voice, but it just... Did. And it did not have a sound, it had a feel. It was more like my own thoughts were being thrown through a cipher, yet not only my own were coming out. It was like I  was thinking this, yet my mind's voice seemed too low and too slow. I pushed it aside as my own thoughts being jumbled up, and I should have believed that. I ignored it until it spoke again the next week, speaking about how my dogs kept getting mud on the carpet. I kept mistaking it for my own thoughts, as these were all things that I and any normal person would think. Nothing creepy, just a small comment here, some insight onto the topic, an occasional opinion. Nothing seemed wrong, really, and all the books I were reading probably set off my imagination. Only, I was immensely bored one night, and my reading light had run out of battery the previous day, so I was sitting on my bed, thinking. The idea of drawing came up. As any average kid would, I pulled a pencil, notebook and coloured pencils out and begin to draw the frames of a human. Rudimentary as it was, due to my shaky kid hand, I zoned out and began to think about how I would design the character. Jokingly, like I had done a few times before, I asked myself out loud what the drawing's hair colour should be. "Brown." I sat bolt upright. It was those low, rough and drawn out thoughts. I would have ignored it like any other time, but this time was different. It didn't comment on something. It answered me. It has never done that before. "Use the brown, damn it." It said in a calm voice, yet the damn it part shook me to my senses. Looking down at my paper, I realize that the only coloured pencils I had chosen were blue, black, brown and tan. I must have chosen those already, out of instinct I tried to tell myself. I kept trying to convince myself that it had to be a coincidence, my thoughts just got... Jumbled. But it wasn't that. If only it was, I could have drawn the figure and given it to my father. He would have rolled his eyes and said "This is why I want you to be a doctor," but it would have been so much better than hearing what came into my head right after I picked the brown up. "I, I am your friend Bell." I jolted and looked around my room, but nothing was there. I looked at the paper, my hands beginning to clam up. "Calm down. Come on, just finish the damn drawing." He said again. By now, the presence was most definitely a male. I whimpered in terror before drawing like a madman, filling in spaces and creating my art in frantic pandemonium. "Stop being scared. Come on, I said I am your friend. Look, you even know what I look like. We are such close friends." I dropped my pencil in shock of what I drew. I had drawn a normal looking teenage boy. Maybe around 18 or 19. Brown, ruffled hair and a dazzling smile. He had blue jeans and eyes, pale skin and a black seemingly large jacket. I whispered, in quite a shaky voice, "I guess we... kind of are friends... Who are you?" Some people say that there is one huge life choice that is your ultimate demise. Well, this may have been it. After answering to the presence, we began to talk more and more. I learned his name, his favourite colour, what he loves to do most and even where he "lives." In return, I told him the same about myself. He always said that he has always wanted to "walk." I never really understood what he meant by that, but he always diverted the conversation to another topic after I asked about it. He also said that he lives "not here." I never ask more that that, though. Around a year passed, and Vance had helped me gain the confidence to get a few friends. In turn, those friends showed me their friends, and I began to attain a social life. I felt... Normal. I imagined that every little girl has needed help in her life, and Vance was like that little help I needed to feel that I was like every other girl in 7th grade. In the middle of 7th grade, though, Vance began to become more and more angry with me. He used to joke around about things, but this was anger. Every time I messed something up, he would act like what I was doing would affect him. I would simply apologize and move on. This happened for a few months, but he soon became too much. "You can't even solve simple addition? What a disappointment!" I was solving a math problem using a calculator, and for some reason Vance was irritated with the calculator. "You can do this on your own!" He muttered, and I sighed. "I can. But it would take more time, and I want to sleep." I whispered back to him under my breath. "Jeez, do you never get angry? F*cking scream, come on. Scream at your stupidity!" I narrowed my eyes in question. "Not really. I honestly do not." I responded. He began to go on one of his rants, shouting about how awful and boring of a person I am. It felt like he was never calm these days, never like the first year I knew him. That was until he began to shout louder and more forcefully, complaining that he was always alone and I was such terrible company, I could almost hear him instead of feel him. My eyes widened, and I began to panic, shushing him and trying to calm him with simple words and phrases. Inside jokes, anything to make him stop. That was until I blinked and I was in my bed, the sun coming up. I wasn't strapped down, I wasn't disillusioning. I felt... Completely fine. Blinking the sleep out of my eyes, I pulled my body out of the tired state it was in and let the cold wash over my leg as I swung them from under the bed. That was until I heard Vance. "I'm sorry." I nearly bolted upright. Vance never says he is sorry. He always blames these things on me. I almost responded, until something strange occurred. Another, slightly deeper voice chimed in. "Well, folks, that just won't do! Say it with more meaning." I swear, I nearly lost my sanity right then and there. Another voice was in my head, just like the other, yet he was calm. Just like how Vance started out. Fearful that I was going insane, I grabbed my head in utter shock, mouth agape. "It is okay. I am here to balance Vance. You two seem to be a bit rocky, now, so shall we begin?" Two years pass with Vance and Cyrin. The two guys really did balance each other out. Cyrin talked so much more that Vance, and his voice muffled the angry teenager whenever he spoke. He sounded a few years older than Vance, and I honestly was quite happy to have another friend. Especially when my very best was almost always angry. I never passed out again, but sometimes I felt light headed when Cyrin wouldn't chip into some of Vance's rants and tirades. Apparently he had beautiful silver hair with a few black lowlights. He wore a white t-shirt and tight black jeans. Within the two years, I became more chipper and happy. My introverted self became extroverted, and my calm friend of mine sometimes had to burst my bubble by reminding me that I was only 14. He was like a constant father, just more fun. He loved talk shows and narrating things, and he honestly helped me make the mature decisions that a 14 year old couldn't do on their own. Obviously Vance would sometimes try to chip in and mess me up, but good always overcomes evil, right? Now, I had lived in a quiet yet populated town in Oregon State, USA. Someone once stole the neighbor's car when I was three, but beyond that, barely any crimes were committed. My parents were out for the night until 12:00PM, and it was 9:00PM-ish at the time. I was watching Internet videos while Vance was pretending to eat popcorn and criticize the video. Cyrin was silent, probably asleep. I went to click on the next video when I heard a knock on the door. I waited for a second before I heard my brother stir in the basement, getting up to answer the door. I continued to the next video. "You are sure about this?" "Never more, Sky." "Then I guess we'll try it, Mercer. He's nearly unstoppable!" My eyes began to droop, and I had stopped checking my phone for messages ten minutes ago. Most of my friends were probably asleep or simply busy. "Dr-!" "Stop, you'll kill her!" "That's the plan, Mercer. Ha ha ha!" "You little as-" The protagonist slammed into the villain's side like a battering ram, but the sound of something being hit suddenly happened again. I stopped the show, and the sound seemed to continue without it. This stirred Vance from his food-coma and he said, in what seemed to be a soft voice, "Go check." I got up from my chair, Hans being asleep and unable to give a logical decision. My brother must have been getting up for another reason, and the person at the door was still there. Sighing, I began to walk to my door so I could get out of my room and walk downstairs when I stopped in my tracks. I heard the front door open. It was slow at first, as if the person was hesitant, but they soon closed the door and I heard nothing but shuffling on the lower floor. I grabbed my phone after a few seconds of shell-shock, and turned to my phone application. 9-1- Suddenly, I heard something snap downstairs and my connection cut out. My eyes widened, and I began to breathe faster and faster. This would not turn out well. "You are upstairs, he is downstairs. Make sure he doesn't know you're in this room. Turn the lights off, he will go into your parents room because the lights are on." Relief filled me when I heard Cyrin's voice. Vance seemed as shocked as I was as far as I could tell, and was silent for now. Doing as he said, I used my lightest footsteps to go to the light switch and turn it off. My house was known for being creaky, so I heard the man footstep for footstep as he inspected the kitchen. I closed my laptop, it turning itself off. My room was nearly pitch black now, and I awaited further instructions by standing in front of my bed, my body drenched in sweat due to fear. "Get all your knives together. Get in the closet as silently as you can, and go behind the clothing rack. Be ready." I was surprised to hear Vance talking in such a calm tone, but it was probably because he was most likely being serious. His option was more violent than Cyrin's, which was to escape. Being on the second floor would not make that option very safe. Right before I slowly closed the closet door on myself, I heard the person walking up the stairs. My breath hitched in my throat. Cryin said "Calm yourself," although his tranquil words seemed to scream out loud for the invader to hear, although it is obvious he cannot hear what is in my head. I breathe slowly, and the intruder sighs before opening my parent's bedroom. Searching around, he opens my parent's dresser and I can assume that he is stealing all the backup cash for when we want to go on a trip. My bottom lip began to tremble in fear and paranoia. After looking around, the invader went back to the hallway. He seemed to pause, thinking, before I heard him slowly step to my room. He must have assumed I was asleep or something. He made that sigh sound again before opening my door. Each step he took into my room made my heart skip a beat. He checked in my covers, under my bed, and by the time he was checking under my desk, I believe I may have been petrified. Now, I am not a religious girl, but even now I was praying for my brother to realize someone that wasn't meant to be here is in our house. Grabbing the knives, I wait as he slowly walks to my room's door. Neither of my friends are speaking, until I hear the man say two words in a recognizable tone. It was calm, relaxing, and set my nerves at ease. It was such a familiar voice, and I could not help but lower the knives in my hands. It was trustful, in a way."The closet." It was Cyrin's voice. He was giving the man directions. If I can clearly remember from three years ago, when the closet door opened, I was too shocked to move. The knives clattered from my hands as I saw the ashen-gray skin of an average-day man. He was wearing worn out clothes with small splotches of blood on them with dark brown hair caught on his buckle, and looked completely normal save for his ominously sick skin. Wait-that is my brother's hair... My eyes bulged in horror. That is why he kept knocking... From the in... His right hand was outstretched as if he still held the doorknob he just let go on, and he didn't look me straight in the eyes. His own eyes were lifeless, and his mouth hung agape slightly. We stayed in our positions for so long, me not daring to think a single word other than "help," that the sound of Cryin's voice from the monster-man's mouth almost made me faint in surprise. "We found you at last."That was roughly three years ago. If you ever feel like someone else is tuning into your thoughts... Let them in. They are collecting."Us." Oh, yes. Us. 