Nora harkened her ears to the wordings some bit, taking into context the fact every word seemed to be calling out for the darkness to come consume the light therein and around. Constant appeal for dark spirits living beyond the veil to tear through and manifest in the current realm was the sermon continually being preached by the words, and it shriveled up her heart just listening to it.
She pondered hard on whether the music had any effect on her dreadful fifteen minutes sleep in hell, or if she was simply being overly troubled by the fact she was sure of everything she had seen earlier and that they were as real as can be. She looked over to the quiet Naomi, who continued to drown herself in the rock music as well as paint her nails on the bed.
Daren coughed aloud, followed by a rather irritating cackle that caught Nora’s attention.
“What!?” he asked upon noting her glare at him.
Nora shook her head, watched the boy roll up some more weed and gently place it in between his finger while he scuffled for his lighter. Coughing softly, midst struggling to breathe an uncontaminated air with either weed of the demonic music on play, Nora approached the window and shoved the curtains to the side to allow in enough clear air.
Asides the fact the somewhat stuffy smelling and feeling room needed it, she needed it as well. Her lungs still felt parched of proper air since she woke, and her breathing was yet to steady itself in normal pace. Her heart slowly wound its rapid beats down a notch, but she could feel her organs threatening to fail at the slightest threat.
“Much better”, she sighed in relief, staring out the window and into the night.
The sky looked beautiful with a million stars tucked all around and into its bosom. The moon hid itself halfway in the clouds, but still managed to grace its beautifully borrowed rays from the sun down on the surroundings of her house. Things looked brighter and better and it was just the way Nora would love it to be.
She turned around swiftly, clenched her fists nervously on both sides, and headed for the bed when she halted abruptly to shoot Daren another scowl and disgusted look while he let out an irritating cough.
“Knock it off!” she yelled.
He shot her a perplexed look in response as she marched over to snatch the rolled joint from his hand.
“Chill out! You’re acting crazy”, he moaned. ‘Your religious parents aren’t here, so you can take a chill pill!” he winked at her and smiled, while trying to reach for his weed.
Nora fumed, bit her lower lip and took another look at the weed in her hand and then at the stash placed on the table before Daren. She locked gaze with the boy, while he broke his eyes off of her to reach for the stash he carelessly laid atop the table before him. Regretfully for him, he was too slow; Nora beat him to it, smirking and smiling as she marched her way back to the window and stopped to look back at Daren.
His eyes bore a mix of anger and a little bit of plea meshed with arrogance, but he wasn’t about begging her not to do whatever she intended to and Nora knew him too well. S
“Let someone else enjoy the craze for the night”, she giggled, before unwrapping the joint and letting its content dance beautifully with the wind.
She tossed off the wrapper before holding out the bag of weed and dusting its content off as well, to the cringing and absolutely disheartened looking Daren. He looked away in hurt and ground his teeth, but all in harmless deed, as Nora dusted her hands free of any weed residue.
“Maybe some of my insane neighbors will be sane for once after taking a sniff or two”, she thought to herself. She paused momentarily before Daren who slowly lit in smile.
“You understand I’m not the bad guy here, right?” he smirked and sniffed.
Nora turned to look at Naomi who seemed to have been following their conversation for a while after getting through with her nails. Both girls stared blankly at Daren, who interchanged his gaze from one to the other.
“For real guys, my hormones do more than you two can imagine”, he added.
Nora waved his theatrics off and looked to her computer. She ducked just in time as a pillow flew past her from Naomi’s side of the room and at Daren who barely saw it coming and hard little to no time to duck.
“Stop making silly excuses!” she yelled at him.
Nora took a step forward and slowly blanked her mind and interest from hearing a word they were arguing about. They soon broke out laughing hard and loud, with the intermittent breaks of audible coughs from Daren as he struggled to catch his breath. Nora sighed, shook her head and veered ahead in two steps before hearing Daren’s cough heighten and become a struggle, with a loud thud and accompanied scream from Naomi.
“Daren!” Naomi yelled while she approached him.
Nora turned around briskly to see the boy had fallen on his face. His eyes rolled back in their sockets slowly, accompanied by his eyelids clamping shut.
“Nora! Please, do something!” Naomi yelled at her friend.
Nora hurried closer, almost too stricken with shock to move in the first instance. Naomi rolled him on his side and held his head in her hand.
“Daren!” she screamed in grief, searching for a pulse, but seemingly unable to find any. “Wake up! Daren!”
Her cries filled the apartment, and the air suddenly grew thinner by the second. She shrugged him hard and hoped he would respond, but the boy remained perfectly still with his breath seemingly absent. Naomi looked over to Nora, who still wasn’t sure on what to do or how to even tackle the situation. Nora knelt
