Jessa: You guys awake?

Tonia: I am. How are you feeling?

Jessa: Better!

Flynn: Glad to hear it

Jessa: Just wondering if any of you managed to get through any of the videos yet?

Maggie: Not yet, loads of homework today. I emailed you about an assignment.

Jessa: I got it. Anyone else?

Flynn: I watched one.

Tonia: None for me, sorry

Annora: Me neither

Jessa: OK fine

Annora: ???

Jessa: What?

Annora: You sound mad

Jessa: I'm not mad! Why does everyone keep thinking I'm angry all the time???!

Flynn: Because that’s how it seems. Even if you don't mean to, that's how it's coming across.

Jessa: I have to go to bed

Flynn: alright

Maggie: Sleep well x

Tonia: Night Jessa, see you soon hopefully

Flynn: gnight

Annora: byeeeee

Jessa has left the group conversation

Tonia: Is it me or she's been super weird lately?

Maggie: I wasn't sure if everyone else had noticed it too…

Flynn: I think she's just stressed

Maggie: But why? We're all here to help

Flynn: I know, but she feels more responsibility because it's like HER thing

Maggie: Her thing? I thought it was OUR thing

Flynn: Yeah but she was the one who had the intuition in the first place. She was the one Mr Fletcher wanted to take to see Emmeline. It was her that he wanted to join the Agency.

Annora: But we're helping!

Flynn: I know. I think Jessa knows that too, even though she's not really showing it right now. Please don't be too hard on her. She's having this whole intuition thing, but she doesn't really understand it. That's gotta be frustrating.

Tonia: Yeah OK.

Flynn: I should go to bed too. See you all on Monday.

#

The whites of Jessa's eyes reflected the greeny glow of the netpad. Her unplugged alarm clock couldn't show her the time, but her drooping eyelids told her they were ready for rest. She tried to watch to the end of the video but her body betrayed her, and slipped into a daze of sleep.

Jessa heard the sound of her friends laughing somewhere from the darkness. She tried to sit upright but her arms were weighed down as if her hands were made of stone. Drops of water fell onto her from somewhere above.

More laughter.

"Jessa, what's wrong with you?" Maggie called out. “Come and join us!”

"Yeah, Jessa!" the others said.

She still couldn't move.

The bare skin on her legs began to tickle with the baleful steps of unseen creatures. Creeping and crawling, they came in their hoards, all over her body, finally reaching her shoulders and head.

Wherever her friends were, they finally noticed her distress.

"Oh shit, quick!" Tonia yelled. “Do something!"

Jessa’s body writhed as the creatures grovelled into her mouth.

"Drown them!" Annora screamed from the blackness.

A cold stream of water hit Jessa's face abruptly. She felt relief for a moment as the insects fell away from her skin. But the water started to fill around her body. Faster and faster it inched up, over her ribs, her arms, her neck, her chin.

"Jessa, get up!" She could barely make out Flynn's voice through the sound of water rushing into her ears.

"Jessa!"

The sounds became more muffled as the water rose higher and higher, covering her eyes and surging into her nostrils.

She pulled harder, trying to sit up, but her leadened hands held her down under the water.

She couldn't hold her breath any longer and opened her mouth, gasping an unending current of water into her surrendering lungs.

Jessa Baxter jolted herself awake into the safe darkness of her room. In a puddle of sweat and on the verge of tears, she graciously gulped the dry air into her heaving chest.