“I think I'll have a lie down” he said as he stumbled to his feet.
How many drinks had he had Emma wondered? She saw he was wobbling a little and helped him over to the sofa where he lay down slowly.
“I'll make a move then” she said, “Are you going to be okay?”
Samir muttered what she presumed to be a yes, so she turned to the front door. She heard a strange beeping sort of sound and looked round wondering what it was. It was coming from the laptop. She decided it was best to shut it down for him, as it looked like it had caused enough damage to him this morning. She never understood people on these message boards; they could be so cruel, taking jokes too far, jokes that generally weren't even funny to begin with. She avoided them herself; she had no time for them and had better things to do. She got to the laptop and proceeded to turn it off. Just as she was searching for the shutdown option the screen flickered, what looked like strands of bright blue sparked on and off in quick succession, and the speakers emitted a strange static sound. He must have picked up some kind of virus from that message board she thought. She found the shutdown button and pressed it. As she did so she felt a sudden surge of electrical static hit her fingers and spread quickly up her arm and into her head, giving her a jolt.
“Shit” she said, taken by surprise.
It felt like her body convulsed for a moment and that she was being pulled towards the wall. She felt a strange tingling too that quickly faded. She left Samir a note to get his laptop checked as it gave her an electric shock and also that he might have picked up a virus, and left him snoring on the sofa. She closed the front door behind her and picked up a light jog along Samir’s path, turning on to the road to head back to her own house. Her attention was drawn to a figure standing across the road motionless. She looked a bit closer and they seemed to be almost see-through and in an odd monochrome colour. She turned back to face the direction she was running and shook it off. It seemed strange, but she'd just been having an odd conversation with Samir, so she figured that his paranoia was rubbing off on her and causing her to imagine things. She decided to take a slightly different route back, passing across a large public park in the centre of the city for a change. Behind her the monochrome figure slowly drifted towards Samir's house, the odd quick flicker of blue lighting it up as it floated through his wall, as if the wall was made of air.
The Sycamore Stop
Danny looked at Monique in complete surprise; he wasn't expecting her to start talking about creatures.
“They seem to be following me, everywhere I turn I see them” She said wide eyed.
“Can you see them now?”
She looked around the bar at all the people sitting and talking, and then into the corners of the room.
“I can make out something in the shadows, and I'm not sure all these people are people. I have a feeling that some could be the creatures in disguise”
This was getting really strange Danny thought, looking around at the same people she had. Was she losing her mind? With everything going on Danny was beginning to suspect that there must be something in the city's water supply that shouldn't be there, something that was causing all these symptoms. If it was only happening to him, he would have thought it was just his mind, but it appeared to be much more than that.
“Okay” Danny said putting his hand on top of hers, “What you're saying sounds crazy, you know that, I know that, but it's only as crazy as what I have been experiencing. I mean, shit, I thought I was going insane alone”
“I can't describe the creatures Danny, which makes no sense” She said interrupting, “There's one in that corner, but it has no actual shape. It's the corner itself, it's there I know it is, but hiding in what I am seeing as just the corner of the room”
“Okay Monique, my best guess is that there is something that's causing all these, well I don't what to call them, delusions?” He replied, “Yeah we'll go for delusions. It's not happening just to me, I know that now”
“You can see them too?” She asked.
“No, my symptoms are different; mine were to do with the Olivia thing”
“Olivia?” she asked confused.
Of course, Danny thought, he should have been expecting that reply.
“Yes, I distinctly remember growing up with Olivia, and I remember seeing her a few days ago yes?” He said
“Erm, okay”
“Well as you saw during Samir's party, no one else can remember her, and your yearbook seemed to suggest she never existed other than in my head”
Monique looked at him a bit confused.
“I must have missed that part of the evening. Did you go searching through my stuff to find the yearbook? I don't just have that lying around” she said a little taken aback.
Danny paused. It seemed that Monique couldn't remember all the events of that evening; this was obviously another side effect of whatever was causing this.
“No” He replied quickly, “Look, this may sound as crazy to you as what you're saying to me. I can remember things and people that other people can't. Like Olivia and Dave, well at least Sam said he couldn't remember him, do you?”
“Dave?”
“Yes”
“No, not that I can recall” she confirmed.
Danny made a quick sigh and held one hand slightly in the air, hesitating to rack his brains as to
