Cosmogyral--Alissah

 

“If you were an animal, what animal would you be?”
“I’ve never thought about it. What do you think I would be?” Mallory responds.

“Hmm,” Giselle spun around in her swivel chair while tapping her pencil on her head before coming to a stop and looking at the ceiling, “probably a koala.”

“Why a koala?”
“Cus you’re lazy.”
“Because I’m lazy?!” she shrieks in shock then smiles, “well you’re evil, like a crow.” “How are crows evil?”
“Don’t ask me, I'm not a crow connoisseur.”

The girls laugh at the remarks and go back to work. They begin to discuss the gossip going on within their University and laugh some more. The conversation soon fell dead as the girls began to work on their homework again. Their hard work is disrupted by the text tone of Mallory’s phone in which she checks.

19:25, Thursday.
Maybe: mom

Come home now.

“Who’s texting you? Your boyfriend?” Giselle teases her with a smirk. “It’s just my mom again. She wants me to come home.”
“I thought she didn’t want you home.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”

A loud banging that came from the front door interrupts them. Both girls quickly whip their heads in that direction then exchange expressions. The girls look outside the window. It was dark outside with little to no light near the window area but they realized

they could see a figure. Mallory grabs Giselle’s hand and pulls her down to hide under the bed. Their hearts began to race and fear quickly filled their stomachs. The figure approaches the window and peers inside as if it were looking for something. Mallory kept her gaze on the thing while Giselle covered her mouth and put her head down. The figure begins to bang on the window. The pounding gradually got louder and harder until it stopped abruptly and the figure left. Both girls wait a few minutes before getting from under the bed just in case they hadn’t actually left. Mallory rubs Giselle’s back to comfort her while her mind is riddled with fear and confusion. She gets from under the bed and shuts the blinds immediately.

“It’s okay, G. You can come from under the bed now.” She tells her.

No response follows, nor any movement. Mallory bites her lower lip knowing Giselle feels unsafe. She walks back to the bed and looks under to help her come out, but Giselle wasn’t there. The fear that went away quickly rushes through her body again. She calls out to Giselle, but is met with silence again. She walks around the apartment calling out to her in confusion and worry yet there is no sign of Giselle anywhere in the apartment. Mallory quickly grabs her phone and begins to text her, spamming her with multiple messages before deciding to call her. The phone rings a few times, then a ringtone is heard from the room.

“Giselle?” She calls her name as she approaches the room cautiously. A pit in her stomach begins to rise. A feeling of negative energy radiated from the room. It was almost as if the room was on fire. Mallory grabs the door handle but gets burned by it. Smoke began to ooze from underneath the door and the heat grew hotter.

Help me! A familiar voice called from inside the room. Mallory recognized the voice as Giselle and began to try to kick down the door. The knob was too hot to touch and it seemed the harder she tried, the farther she got from understanding what was going on. An ungodly amount of heat radiated from the room. She kicks at the door one more time before it breaks open. Black smoke filled the hallway of the apartment quickly causing Mallory to cough and cover her mouth while swatting the smoke.

“Mal, help me!” Giselle cried again.

As soon as Mallory saw Giselle, she was also met with a black figure holding Giselle’s head and mimicking her. Mallory screams in terror and darts for the front door. The black figure follows her down the hall and to the front door where she gets thrown to the wall and knocked unconscious.

--

She wakes up in the woods, holding a book with READ ASAP written on it. She sits up, waiting for the raging headache to dim down. After collecting herself for a few minutes, her mind began to clear up and soon be filled with the memories of before. She quickly stands up and looks around. She had no idea where to start looking. On the floor there were crumpled up pieces of paper scattered in no specific form. Mallory begins reading the book in her hand and feels the same feeling in her stomach when she was by the door that radiated the negative energy. The first few pages were filled with tally marks and schemes or plans of some sort that ended up being changed or crossed out entirely. She continues to flip until she reaches a page with explanations.

If you’re reading this, you have to get out of these woods now. Find the tree with the animals on it and touch the crow.

Mallory looks around and notices almost immediately the tree the book referred to. As she walked up to the tree, she noticed all types of animals on the tree. Cows, dolphins, snakes. She looked around the tree and noticed the grow was red while the other animals were green and a dolphin was blue.

What is this thing?

She looks inside the book for notes and finds a page speaking on the dolphins.

DO NOT TOUCH THE CROW. If you want to get out of this hell, you have to touch the

In confusion, Mallory notices that it was the last page with writing on it. Before she could wonder anything, she feels the same heat as she did from the room radiating behind her. Without taking a look, she darts through the forest looking for an exit. The heat follows her and keeps up with her until she reaches a familiar street. It was the University. She ran to the apartment where Giselle stayed and ran to the door banging on it. No answer. She runs over to the window and peeks inside seeing nobody inside. Everything was normal. Giselle’s head wasn’t cut off, there was no smoke, and even their homework laid where they had last put it.

Am I going crazy? Mallory thought to herself.

She begins pounding on the window and calls Giselle’s name, but is still met with silence. The streets were empty and all the lights in the apartments around seemed to be off. Mallory turns around and sees multiple posters all over the area. Once she had gotten closer to read it, her heart sank into her stomach and she dropped the book.