Chapter 29.

Who does ‘she’ refer to though? My boss? An ex? A ghost? Can I even trust what I’m seeing right now? With doubts in mind, I sneakily erased the first two words with my sleeve and decided to verify I wasn’t just seeing things.

“Hey Seth, why is Rick’s name written on the chalkboard here?”

“Where?”

“Right here?”

When I first pointed it out, Seth looked slightly confused for a moment, but it appeared he had suspicions of his own since he still patiently responded to my random question.

“Hmmmmm, you’re right. Why is it written there? Well, it’s probably just one of my colleagues messing with me. They’ve been cracking jokes and making fun of me for how serious I’m treating the deceased, Rick’s, death. Some of them have teased me by saying his death was the work of a ghost if it wasn’t suicide like everyone suspected.”

“Maybe the reason the breaker blew was also related to a prank directed towards me and you just happened to get caught in the crossfire. They probably wanted me to get freaked out and likely set up a few gimmicks to trip the breaker.”

“Haha, I see. It sounds like you’ve got it tough.”

“At least it’s not as bad as you have it with women.”

Ugh, the burn.

After I verified the words written on the chalkboard weren’t just a figment of my imagination, I erased his name from the chalkboard and followed closely behind Seth as we exited the room. Rather than feeling relieved after I got this mess out of the way, I actually felt more on edge than when I came here. My questions and worries since I came had only increased rather than decreased.

As we were finished, I didn’t dawdle any longer, I immediately left the station and returned to my car. I drove back to my workplace and parked up in the lot nearby and spent the night outdoors again. My workplace was already closed and there wasn’t anyone inside to let me in, so I could only rough the night out in my car.

All sorts of unanswered questions ran through my mind amidst the silent night and I found it difficult to sleep. As I was unable to fall asleep right away, I pulled out my almost dead phone and plugged it into the built in USB port in my car to charge it while I watched YouTube videos.

I really needed to keep my mind off of ghosts and murder as much as possible for the sake of maintaining my sanity. Too much had transpired for me to take in over the last few days. I’d only recently started working here, but I already wanted to take a long vacation away from everything.

I made sure to set my alarm so I’d wake up in time for work this time to avoid repeating an embarrassing mishap like today when I was caught sleeping on the job.

In between YouTube videos, I also looked up a local psychiatrist that I could make an appointment with in the morning. I really wanted to get myself checked out. I had reasons to both believe and disbelieve in my sanity; seeing a psychiatrist was one of the few things that would allow me to reaffirm to myself that I was still sane.

As time passed by slowly while I watched random videos, my eyes grew heavier and heavier until I eventually entered a state of deep sleep.

…

The silhouette of a woman stood directly before me.

Adele?

She was the first person that came to mind.

But… no. It wasn’t quite right. Who was that person? Her hairstyle from behind was different. Adele’s hair was white and perfectly straight; this person’s hair despite also being a lovely white, hers was wavy instead. She also had a more dignified and mature feel to her when looking at her from behind.

I couldn’t see her face as she had her back to me, but just her figure alone told me she was definitely gorgeous. She wore a black one piece that beautifully contrasted with the wavy snow white hair that draped down to slightly above her waist from behind.

Her legs were completely bare without any footwear and there was nothing that hid the smooth distinctly arched curves from her lower calves to her upper thighs. Only the skin tight fitted black dress which was somewhat see through in certain areas obstructed the magnificent sight of the full view that provoked a man’s carnal desires.

She looked far into the distance out a window while she simultaneously gave off a rather lonely, desolate feeling. If she didn’t remind me of Adele, I might have sympathized with her more; however, I knew from my past experiences, the more beautiful the woman, the more psychotic they were. I’m not about to go and fall for a blatant honey trap again.

Despite that being the case, when I understood that it wasn’t Adele I felt a slight sense of relief and I somewhat let my guard down to a certain degree. If it was Adele, I’d definitely be left shitting my pants in terror even when I’d already long understood that this was only a dream.

In the past I really loved Adele, but I was left heartbroken when I discovered the real her and I couldn’t ever come to accept her because of it.

Her parents and her sister… she personally killed them. She also killed who knows how many people in pursuit of her twisted form of love before she met me.

Was this dream an unconscious wish of mine for an Adele that turned out differently than she had?

Somehow, that thought left me extremely conflicted. I was torn internally when I thought about how I didn’t really know a thing about her past despite the three years we spent together. How did she come to murder her parents and sister? I’d been running away from her ever since the day I discovered she was a psychopath.

“You’re the worst. Thinking of other woman when you already have me.”

…

“Hah! Haaah! Haaaaaah!”

Without any warning, I awoke with saggy eyes in a state of hysteria.

When I heard the words that belonged to the mysterious woman in my dream, my eyes, which were glued to the floor in deep contemplation raised upwards and I traced a path from her toes to her knees, waist, back and finally her head. What came into view was a pale white face straight out of a horror film. With her head rotated 180 degrees vertically, looking directly back at me with a sinister smile and large pointed piranha like teeth that stretched from one ear to the next. Only the whites of her eyes were visible and they contrasted heavily with the large black circles painted around them along with the long streaks of bloody tears that trickled down from the corner of her eyes. Where there should have been a nose, was caved in and hollowed out; in addition, one of her ears were also missing.

In reality, I’d actually been so shocked by the large gap between my expectations and reality that I was immediately scared to the point that I was kicked out of my own dream. At first glance, I’d assumed she was just another dime a dozen beauty from behind, but the moment I saw her face, those naive thoughts flew straight out the window. I definitely got baited to the extreme.