The knocking came hard against my bedroom door, in slow, forceful pounds that shook the door as if the whole thing would collapse at any moment. With every muscle in my body tensing up rapidly, I shove my hands into the carpet and wrap my stiffening fingers around tufts of it. As the carpet rubs against the raw wounds on my hands, I start to grit my teeth, hoping to ensure the pain tolerance needed to drag myself along the floor up until I hit my back on the bed frame. As my spine collides with the metal frame I let out a yelp of pain, which I'm not sure is attributed to my hands or my back.

"What the fuck are you doing now?" Kara asks with a laugh as her eyes stray from the magazine to see me sitting with aid of the bed, staring intently at the door. With a deep breath I lift may hands from the floor, and grab onto the metal frame, attempting to pull myself upwards, onto the bed. The metal cuts into my wounds and causes me to lose grip just for a second. In that second I fall back to the ground and hit the back of my head on the mattress. The thing pounds on the door once again, rattling it and myself to the very core.

My heart beats hard in my chest, pressing against my ribs with almost enough force to break them. I try to breathe, to calm myself down but every attempt is a shallow gasp followed by an immediate exhale, effectively rendering me right back to where I was moments before taking the breath. This repeats ad infinitum as the thing continues to wail on the door and Kara does absolutely nothing different. It's almost like she doesn't even see what's going on. She's unaware. But just a few minutes ago she was right there with me, seeing everything. Wait a second when did she get here?


Oh right, not the best time to worry about that. With one more knock the thing breaks down the door. Literally, knocks it off its hinged and as the door falls to the ground in front of me I get a good look at the thing's face. Daniel. The guy who I thought shot me in the stomach. Although he has the grotesque hole in his abdomen, everything else is the same. My hands shake, anxiously fidgeting as I lightly ball them into open fists. Looking down at me, he smiles and clears his throat with a gravelly cough and spits a black glob onto the floor.

"Kendall~" the thing possessing the freakishly mangled body of Daniel hums out in its croaking baritone, holding onto the last syllable for what feels like an eternity. I'm starting to hyperventilate, opening both my hands and pressing them to my chest. My eyes widen and I don't dare blink as it stands still as a statue, looking back at me with a toothy, crooked smile. Everything about the gleeful expression on his face grips onto the last frayed strands of sanity I'm desperately holding onto, threatening to tug them upwards and leaving falling into a mad of raving lunacy.

"Do you remember me?"

There was a smugness to its voice that would irritate me normally, if it wasn't draining away my mental faculties like a leech. The thing steps closer to me with its limp, slouching a little as it hobbled lightly on its left side.

"Y-yes," my cracking and broken voice cries out as loud as I can force it to.

"What the fuck?!" Kara screams, and with my head pressing further and further into the side of the mattress with each uneven step the abomination took, I can feel her jump back a bit, and more than likely hit her head on the wall.

"Ow! Motherfucker!"

"Oh, is that so? Who am I then? Go on, tell me."

"D-Daniel."

It stops dead in its tracks.

"Very well. I have to say I'm surprised. More importantly however, do you know why I'm here?"

That's the very same question I've been on and off wondering between bouts of fearing for my life. Why is this happening? What could I have possibly done to warrant such an abstract response?

"No," I say with a gulp.

"Now that, that's more typical. I swear, you never learn."

"Learn what?"

"I'd like to learn what the fuck you're talking about over there! Seriously, not only do you have to fucking sleepwalk, or crawl, or whatever the fuck that is you're doing but you have to talk too? For fuck's sake, people are trying to do stuff over here!"

"Wait, what?"

"Oh, I knew I shouldn't have let you in here."

The thing slowly raises its arm, sticking it out straight at me and presses its middle finger and thumb together. With a snap, it's gone and the door's back in place, giving no sign that just moments prior it was on the floor, being stomped on the now disappeared abomination.

I look down at my hands, and they're fine. No blood on my shirt. I stand up, my body no longer tense to the point of stiffness and dust myself off as Kara looks over at me, a look of glaring confusion and slight frustration almost burned into her face. She sits up and looks me over before finally saying what she's been wanting to say this whole time:

"Seriously, what the fuck?"

Without thinking, I hug her as tight as I can. The confusion on her face intensifies as she struggles to free herself from my grasp, which finally happens when she shoves her foot into my stomach and kicks me off. Laughing, she repeats herself, hoping for an answer this time.

"I don't know," I say, rubbing my eyes, "I really don't know."

I try to think back to what happened just a minute or so ago but I come up with nothing. I remember nothing.

"Can you at least tell me what the fuck you were talking about?"

Huh? I was talking? Couldn't have been. I was asleep, that's all there was. Wait a second, I fell asleep on the couch, why am I in my room?

"What?"

The blanket statement that covered all of my confusion.

"Don't play stupid with me, bitch. You were talking all sorts of nonsensical bullshit. For fuck's sake, you screamed at the top of your lungs!"

"I don't remember that. Hey," I add in at the last second, making Kara's ears perk up after previously tuning out after my declaration of amnesia.

"Yeah?"

"How did I get in here?"

"Through the door, genius."

"No, I know that but I wasn't in here when I fell asleep, was I?"

"You need to stop drinking. Seriously."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"No. Of course not. You fucking sleepwalked your way in here a few minutes ago and started acting like a nutcase. I fucking swear you need a doctor or something. Christ."

"I'm losing it," I say lowly and solemnly, covering my eyes and shaking my head to hopefully force the memories back into place, to no avail.

"Hon, you lost it a long time ago."

"Thanks," I say as sarcastically as I can.

"Hey, don't hate me for being honest. Besides," she says, getting off the bed and slinging her arm around my neck, "you're much more fun now than you were all mopey and depressive."

"Right," I say with a sigh.

"Now that that's settled, I'm going somewhere and you're coming with me. You need to get out of this apartment every now and again, sheesh."

Ugh. Of course.

"Can I get ready first?" I ask, solely to delay the inevitable. "I mean I just woke up, I probably look like shit."

"You always look like shit. Come on."

Sometimes, I wonder why we're friends. And now that I think that, I'm guessing we're going to do something that answers my question because that's how things like this work. Totally.