“The door was so bright. It was glowing with infinite illumination. It’s just a few steps away from me, yet I grow doubtful walking towards it. My confidence and conviction had left me abruptly. Behind me is not but pure, bleak darkness. What am I heading for?”

“Hey.”

Jessica groaned and ignored the sound. She felt so tired.

“Hey! Jessica! Wake up!”

The girl was shook abruptly and she snapped out of her slumber land, greeted by Tiffany with a worried look.

“What? What, Tiff?”

“What are you doing lying on the floor?”

“Huh?” Jessica groggily sat up and saw that she was on the floor in the hall, at the edge of the stairs.

“Jessica, are you having your blackouts again?”

“I- I don’t know,” she answered, still in a daze. She looked around her, checking her surroundings for clues in hopes rejuvenating her memory as to how she got there.

“Here, come,” Tiffany helped Jessica to her feet and guided her to her room just a few steps away. She set her on her bed and grabbed a towel by the closet. She went to the toilet to wet it and passed it to Jessica to clean her face and to freshen her up.

“I… I remember that I was finishing my assignment last night and then I must have slept, or something. It’s blank after that.”

“This isn’t a reoccurrence, right?” Tiffany’s tone developed into a worrisome tune.

“No, I don’t think so…”

“This is the first time since Yuri left?”

“Yeah. How long has it been?” Jessica asked, still blurry and blank.

“It’s already one week since Yuri’s departure. I should bring you to the clinic again. Your appointment isn’t due till next month.”

“No, Tiffany. It’s a Saturday, I wanna relax at home. Just let me be. If it happens again, I will see the doctor.”

“This is dangerous, Jessica. You could have fallen from the stairs.”

“I’m fine, Tiffany. I’m okay. Besides, look outside. There’s no way we’ll reach anywhere with that weather.”

The other girl sighed and gave in. No point trying; she knew Jessica would give that kind of response. She knew that Jessica was never keen on visiting the doctor, and her level of stubbornness would proliferate whenever anything medical was mentioned.

She was right though. The weather was crazy. First it would snow, then hurricane-esque winds struck the town. Dozens of rooftops were already blown away, crashing into other households. Some said cars toppled and flipped. Now, it was raining so heavily that she could barely see what was outside her window.

It was a disaster, and it was not finished.

It was scary.

Now with Yuri gone, Tiffany had to handle Jessica on her own; and considering the amount of homework and academic pressure being bludgeoned sky-high, she did not have time for that; the least to say without sugar-coating. So she left Jessica alone in her room to rest and shut the door.

Jessica threw herself back against her bed and closed her eyes. She felt so drained of energy, as if she had not slept a wink the night before. She wasn’t sure if it was a blackout, but she was damn sure that she was nowhere near the stairs throughout the nightfall. In fact, she was pretty confident that she did not leave her room at all. So why was she there this morning?

Jessica pushed the thoughts aside; it was giving her a massive headache just thinking about it. She checked the clock beside her bed and it was ten in the Saturday morning, but she felt like hell; like she barely slept a wink the night before.

She returned to her position on her bed and hugged her bolster, flipping her body to the right. The house was pretty quiet ever since Yuri was no longer around. It was only Jessica and Tiffany left now. To make things worse, ever since the massive success and attention of the current year’s Tennebaum event, more and more students were flowing in from all over the world. That, like a cringing chain reaction, had led the college to up the stakes for its education resume. Students were force-fed with much more homework and extended lessons duration per day. Attendance was compulsory; skip three classes in a row for no appropriate reason and that person would be out in the streets. It was a nightmare.

Jessica almost dozed off when she heard a knocking on her door.

Knock, knock, knock.

“What is it, Tiffany? Come in.”

The knocks continued; the sound was ever so steady and uniform.

Knock, knock, knock.

“Come in, Tiffany. What’s the matter?”

Knock, knock, knock.

“Goddamn it,” Jessica cursed and got to her feet, “This better not be a prank, Tiffany!”

She grumbled and opened her door wide.

Then she let out a gasp.

Beyond her bedroom door, was an alleyway.

The house beyond her bedroom door had completely vanished.

It was dark and wet with rain, drizzling down with thunder overhead. The haunting winds whispered in the air like a mad cackle. The sounds of crows cawing in the distance struck her ears. The rainwater pattered all around her feet and wet parts of her bedroom’s floor. She stepped back from the door, confused and shocked with her jarring discovery. She retracted all the way back until her leg hit something hard and she fell behind, landing on her bed.

She jumped when the thunder from beyond the door roared with all its might, turning Jessica’s bedroom into a startling bright singularity with its accompanying lightning. Jessica’s hair was flying back as the wind from the alley just beyond grew stronger, creating a mess in her room like the struck of a hurricane. It was getting more powerful with each passing second, so much so that Jessica’s bed sheet started to tear.

She ran towards the door and pushed to close it, but only to find that it was locked in place.

The only way out, was out into the anomaly.

She took a step through the doorway, and was immediately soaked with shatteringly cold rain. She shivered in shock from the sudden chill. The door slammed itself shut behind her and vanished.

She was cold. She was lost. She was afraid.

It was dark. The sky looked dead. The only things lighting the area were the small, tiny tungsten blubs hanging on the roof of the surrounding walls, eerily lining the alley. They gave off a weak, dim orange flare that could barely light up anything around it. The lonely lane was a dark stretch. Some of the bulbs gave off a weird zapping sound, like sparks, while some were flickering. Others did not light up at all.

Jessica’s heart was pounding.

There was something different happening around her. She could sense it. She looked around her and noticed that the rain wasn’t falling down the walls, it was rising. The water on the walls was flowing upwards to the roof and rose into the skies.

It was like a cycle: the rain fell to the ground, then began moving coherently on its own, like soldiers marching, towards the nearby wall and started escalating its way to the top, then flying back into the sky, presumably to rinse and repeat.

Jessica panted, confused.

A loud, long roar came from somewhere behind her. Where the door had vanished, a long and dark claustrophobic lane appeared; all lights behind her were dead. She could feel in her spine that something was watching her. She gazed around her, looking for an area to hide, but there was none.

She had to make a run for it to the end of the alley.

So she did.

Her feet pounded with every step she desperately tried to make as fast as her limbs could carry. However, beyond her, the alley stretched on. She couldn’t see an end. It just kept distending further and further, no matter how far Jessica ran. It was an endless pursuit for a close. As Jessica ran, she could hear the bulbs of the lights behind her exploding to pieces.

Something was tailing Jessica very, very meticulously.

Jessica grew tired, but the lane was infinite and the darkness was traili