It Felt Like An Ordinary Sleepover, But I Never Imagined Anything Horrifying Like This Happening

My vision continued to spin and wobble. She helped me up the splintery front porch and we stepped inside. It was meticulously kept; books, photos, furniture perfectly organized. “Wow, Myra. OCD much?” We both giggled. We made our way into what I think was the living room, and sat down on the musty, cherry brown rug. She brought me some bread and a glass of water to sober up. “Okay are we seriously gonna play with barbies now. I’m pretty fucked up,” I could tell I was slurring.

“Well maybe you shouldn’t have had so much, you idiot. Here, let’s just watch some TV for now, hopefully you’ll sober up soon.” Myra was strangely calm. If I invited a friend over for the night and she was too drunk to function before the night had even begun, I’d be pretty agitated, or at least a bit disappointed.

She put on an episode of Friends. I barely stumbled onto the lime green couch on the side of the room. I remember hearing the clap clap clap clap in the theme song and only staying awake for a couple more minutes after that. I slowly drifted off into darkness…

The next day, I awoke to see that I was no longer on the couch. I was laying on bare, hardwood floor with a thin pillow under my head and a wool blanket sprawled on top of me. I was hungry and exhausted. I looked up to face a single, dim lightbulb at the center of a flaking, grey ceiling and a set of stairs on the other side of the tiny, dark room. I was in a basement. My bag of clothes were beside me, but the bag of barbies was missing. My phone was beside the bag in a pool of sticky red liquid, most likely dead. I hadn’t bothered to bring my charger as I was only staying the night and didn’t care too much about the battery charge. My stiff body ached tremendously. I focused and took in my surroundings before I was blinded by a deafening headache. It didn’t stop after that. Worst hangover ever.

I held my head and felt cloth wrapped around it. “Myra?!” I struggled to call out, my voice dry and raspy. No response. The sides of my head continued to pound with agony. What the fuck happened last night? I crawled to the shiny, metal boiler in the corner of the room to catch a glimpse of what I looked like. My tired eyes sunk into dark circles. My skin was filthy, caked with a sticky grey layer of dirt. The ragged cloth covering most of my head was dark blue, coated with blotches of dried blood. Had I fallen somewhere? “MYRA!?!” I called out again even louder. The thumping inside my head grew stronger. I stumbled up the wooden stairs. All of her books and possessions were gone. The lime green couch and a couple of chairs remained. It’s like she had moved out overnight. She, and every trace of her, was gone.