I can hear his voice…

Its clear and soothing like always.

The sun is setting and if I continue to listen to him, I’ll be drawn so deep into his addictive voice that I’ll…never be able to pull away.

“Go into the house, Clarisse” the voice whispers.

I look from left to right…I begin to panic inside but my outside contrasts my exploding insides. I am in a trance. A trance that is unwavering. The voice. His voice is controlling me.

I begin to walk against my will. My legs moving towards the house. Not fast but not slow either, just a normal walking pace. I don’t know why but the feeling of wanting to go against his voice, is disappearing with ever step I take.

The trance is getting deeper. My mind is clouding up and my body feels numb. He’s pulling me to him and there’s no turning back. I can’t find the will.

I finally make it up to the porch of a house that was built in the late 1800s. This house, this familiar house is nothing new to me. He’s pulled me here more than once. I know what happens every time.

The door in front of me slowly clicks, the rusty doorknob turning just as slowly and swings open with a chilling unwelcome.

My body without hesitation walks into the house and goes directly to the couch that I have sat on many time before.

The house is vacant and silent as always when I come inside.

The door closes with accompanying creaks….and clicks signally it has locked.

My mind no longer belongs to Clarisse. It belongs to him.

I stare straight ahead, waiting for what I knew was coming next.

The fireplace turns on and two hands rest on both of my shoulders. I feel him behind me and then…

“I’ve been waiting for you beautiful,” I let out a sigh of awe hearing his loving voice.

He leans down to my ear and I get goose bumps feeling his breath in the loose strands of hair surrounding my ear.

 He wraps his arms around my neck and comes back up to the top of my head, and places a chaste kiss.

This is what I love about this house, his love that I get whenever I come here. It pushes out all of the eeriness about it.

“I love you, Clarisse.”

I gasp slightly, hearing these words that I anticipate every time.

“I love you too, Luhan.”

My head feels his smile as his lips had never left the top of my head.

“Will you do me a favor my beautiful Clarisse?”

“Anything for you” I reply still in my trance.

“Finish off what you started before they took you away.” He said his arms beginning to tighten more around my neck.

“Of course.” I said beginning to get up from the couch.

I walked over to the kitchen of the old house and instinctively go to the drawer that I know holds what Luhan wanted me to find.

I pull out a sharp kitchen knife.

I walked back over to the couch, where Luhan had comfortably sat himself, a leg crossed over the other, waiting for my return.

He smiles as I return with the knife in my hand and sit down beside him, eyes trained only on what is in front of me.

“Good, my beautiful Clarisse. You know what to do.” He smiles assuringly, pushing the knife towards my chest.

I nod, acknowledging that I do know what he wants me to do.

“This time…there is absolutely no one here to stop us” Luhan says with a cold tone, my arm comfortingly.

I smile at him and begin positioning the knife in front of my chest and….

White noise.

I know I’m dead.

I stabbed myself right?

I strain to see and I finally come to and see my parents, my best friends, and a nurse around my bed.

“She’s awake!” my mom exclaimed, tears spilling out of her eyes.

My eyes furrow from the bright light as well as her unusual statement…awake? Aren’t I dead?

“Clarisse? Clarisse…can you hear me?” the nurse said shining a light into my eyes to see if they dilate I suppose.

“Y-yeah” I said, my eyes squinting from her intrusion of light to my eyes.

“Do you know where you are?” she began to question again.

“Maybe…” I said placing my hand to my head, a throbbing pain hammering at my head.

“You are in the hospital Clarisse…do you know why?” she asked eyes furrowing in concern.

“Did..did I stab myself?” I said starting to feel a pain in my chest.

“Stab yourself?!” She exclaimed in horror, “of course not?! Why would you think that?!” She said looking worryingly up to my parents.

If I tell her about Luhan and the creepy house I visited…that I was supposed to have stabbed myself in she wouldn’t have believed me. So I went with a lie.

“I’m sorry, my head is really not clear right now. I don’t remember at all what happened? Please tell me” I said eyes furrowing once again to demonstrate confusion.

“You fell down a staircase, Clarisse” the nurse said walking around my bed to look at the machines that were connected to me.

“A staircase? What staircase?” I asked, really feeling confused now.

“You were gone for two days Clarisse, your parents put out searches for you everywhere and finally they remembered that they had a tracker on your phone and luckily you had it with you and they found you in a vacant house, lying at the bottom of the staircase like you had fallen and gotten into a slight coma. You broke one of your legs and sprained one of your arms as well as one of your wrists.”  She said putting information into the machines, pretending not to care about the unusual incident that I had ‘apparently’ been in.

I was so confused at this point. When the hell did I get near a staircase? I was about to stab myself in front of Luhan. Then I remembered…I looked down at my chest and looked inside my hospital gown and saw absolutely no marks to my chest. I looked up in so much confusion, my head spinning endlessly. I looked back up at the people in my room, searching every face as if one of them was going to just come out and tell me what really happened.

“We were so worried for you” one of my best friends, Soojung said putting a hand over in shock, a small tear escaping one of her eyes.

“Yeah, what the hell were you doing in that house anyways, Clarisse?” my father exclaimed in anger.

“I-I don’t know” I lied “I was just curious I guess and must have..slipped..when going downstairs…after exploring the second floor” I said trying to make a lie to connect with their story “I’m sorry I worried you all.” I said looking down at my hands that were resting on my lap.

“Just please never do that again, we were lucky to have a tracker on your phone and that you had it with you. From now on, if you ever leave please tell us where you are going.” My mother said, then burying her face in my father’s chest and beginning to cry.

I sighed heavily. None of this makes sense.

“We are going to go get some lunch down in the cafeteria, now that we know you have woken up from your coma.” My father said rubbing my mother’s back and urging her out the door.

Just when my parents and Soojung began making their way out, they started smiling and saying hello to someone who was outside the door. I cocked my head trying to see who they were talking to.

“Well, look who it is Clarisse, it’s Luhan” my parents exclaimed in happiness, my dad patting his back and pushing him into my hospital room.

My heart sunk.

He looked at me with absolutely no expression on his face.

“Thank you for inviting me to come see her, Mr. Wang, I was worried sick” he said his voice even and his gaze still staring holes into my being.

I swallowed hard. I was scared what Luhan was going to say to me once my parents left.

“Well of course we had to tell you Luhan, she would have killed us if we didn’t tell her boyfriend” my dad said rolling his eyes to my mom.

“Young love will be young love” my mother said winking at me and began leaving with my dad and Soojung each waving and saying their goodbyes before finally walking down the hall. All the while, Luhan’s eyes never left me.

I sighed heavily once again and butterflies swirling in my stomach. I didn’t know what he was going to tell me, but I knew that I wanted to know what really happened that night.

Luhan walked over to the side of my bed and cocked his head to look at my face and eventually he scanned down to observe my arms that were in casts and his eyes then finally looking up to meet mine.

“Lu-Luhan..” I said trying to break the awkward silence and tension between us.

He cocked his head once again at me and finally a look of disappointment spread all over his face and he looked down at his hand that was the blanket on top of me.

“Yes?” he said not meeting my eyes this time.

“What-what happened that night? Didn’t I stab myself?” I said staring at his face with so much confusion.

“Obviously not, you aren’t dead are you?” he said with a sarcastic tone in his voice.

“Luhan, you are the only one who was with me that night obviously so what happened? I’m so confused.” I asked with a desperate tone in my voice, so desperate Luhan’s eyes finally shot up to meet my eyes and his softened.

He leaned down to meet my level and he placed his hand on top of my casted one and looked me directly in the eyes.

“She wouldn’t let it happen” he said simply as though I had some idea of what he was talking about, which I didn’t.

“She?” I asked furrowing my eyebrows at him, “who is she?” I asked trying to readjust myself but failed, remembering I had no use of my hands and arms.

He his lips and looked at the wall behind my hospital bed as if trying to debate as to tell me or not, and then eventually placed his eyes back on mine.

“I can’t tell you, but she is connected to me and won’t let me kill you because she’s jealous” I looked up at him as if he told me the craziest thing I have ever heard and it was pretty damn close to just that. “So, she pushed me on the floor, threw the knife at the wall, and brought you up at the top of the staircase and pushed you down” he said anger in his eyes.

“So I really did fall down a staircase…” I said looking down at my lap with a bewildered look on my face. I don’t understand this explanation at all. Who is she? I need to know. Why does she have a connection to Luhan? And when did this mysterious woman he’s speaking of get into the house? It was just Luhan and I.

Luhan noticed the confusion in my face and just stood back up.

“Some day Clarisse, you’ll understand but right now, this is all I can tell you, just trust me” Luhan said with a glint of assurance in his eyes.

I nodded understanding. I’ve always trusted him and he has never let me down before. I know that he always has a good reason for everything.

He smiled down at me and I smiled back up at him.

“You are being such a good girl, so strong and determined to make me happy. We are almost there, beautiful. Don’t forget, I love you.” He said leaning down to place a kiss on my cheek.

I smiled as he said this and a little voice in my head was beginning to come to light…wait a second…he’s been telling me to stab myself, he’s been telling me about a mysterious woman that pushed me down a staircase, and we’ve been talking about it like its normal.

My eyes widened in realization and I noticed that I just broke my trance.