I couldn't believe my eyes.
This can't be real.
My head started spinning. It felt like I was about to fall out of my seat.
Layla?
How is she here?
I watched her die.
A wave of panic washed over me.
How could she be alive when she was ripped apart?
I even saw the blood in the cabin.
There's no way she could be alive, yet here she is standing right across the room from me.
I start to breathe heavier.
"Joel."
I hear someone say my name, but it sounds muffled.
My eyes fixate on her.
"Joel… Joel, hey."
I snap out of it.
"Dude, you good?" Ken says.
"Yeah, I'm fine."
They look worried.
"Dude, what's going on?" he says.
I point.
They look over, then back at me.
"It's just Layla," Adrian says. "Is that not a good thing that she showed up?"
"How do you guys not understand? I watched her die."
Layla starts to walk through the room.
Of course no one thought it was strange.
I mean, why would they?
Nobody knew what I saw.
Her friends walked over to her and started talking with her, but Clover stayed at her table, head down now as if she was trying not to look at her.
Why is she not going over to talk to her?
I silently watched Layla the rest of lunch.
Something was wrong about her, but I couldn't put my finger on it.
Lunch ended, and we went to our next class.
My friends talked on the way there.
I wasn't sure what they were talking about because I was more focused on trying to figure out how she could still be alive.
Our next class was worse than the first.
My mind was racing more than earlier.
Am I just going crazy?
Maybe what I saw was all just some weird hallucination.
Yeah, that's gotta be it… right?
The bell rang, bringing me back to my senses.
I leave class without my friends.
I needed to leave this place.
Then I collide with someone.
It was Layla.
I didn't know how to react.
"Hey," she said.
"Oh, sorry. I didn't see you there."
I didn't know how to respond.
"It's okay."
Her voice sounded different, like she had no emotion behind anything she said.
She stared at me.
"Is something wrong?" she said.
"Oh, it's nothing," I said, knowing that there was something very wrong.
"Okay then," she said, then walked away.
I stood there for a moment before I kept walking.
Eventually, I leave school and start walking home.
I feel my phone buzz.
It was my friends texting, asking why I left without a word.
"Oh, my bad," I send before putting my phone back in my pocket.
I take a deep breath.
"It's okay, dude. She's fine. You were just seeing things after passing out," I say under my breath.
I get the urge to look behind me.
I turn around.
Layla was walking behind me, maybe a hundred feet or so.
It looked like she slowed down when I turned to look.
I thought nothing of it since our houses were both in the same direction.
I kept walking, trying not to look behind me.
Her house is closer than mine.
She should stop soon.
I tried to walk a little faster, making sure it wasn't obvious.
I pass her house, relieved to know she'd not be following me anymore.
I was almost at my house when I turned around again.
She was still following me.
Why the—
I sped up again, finally making it to my house.
As I'm walking to my door, I look over again before walking in.
She was just standing there watching.
I step inside and close the door behind me.
I see my dad sitting at the dinner table.
It was the first time I had seen him since that day at camp.
He was sitting with his laptop out and papers all over the table.
I haven't seen him this focused on a case in a long time.
"What happened?" I asked.
He doesn't take his eyes off his computer.
"It's just a case that has zero leads or anything, so I'm just trying to make it make sense," he said.
"Well, what's the case about?"
He stops typing, still not looking over.
"That's not important," he said.
The room was quiet, neither of us talking.
"I'll be in my room," I said as I walked off.
I look over at his laptop.
I saw a picture of a cabin on it.
I know it.
My dad knew something happened in that cabin.
I walk to my room and fall on my bed.
My phone buzzed.
My friends were texting in our group chat.
"Yo, Joel. I heard you talked to Layla. How'd it go?" Ken said.
"Yeah, it went well, I guess," I said.
"So does this mean you admit you are just a crazy person and had been seeing things the whole time?" Adrian said.
"Yeah, very funny, man," I said.
"What I saw was real. I just can't prove it yet."
"Well, we will believe it when we see that proof," Conner said.
He then sent two laughing emojis under it.
"Whatever," I say, then throw my phone onto the bed.
I lay there for a few minutes.
My phone buzzes.
I was going to ignore it, but curiosity got to me.
I grab my phone and was surprised to see the name attached to the message.
It was Clover.
"Hey, can we talk?" it said.
"About what?" I ask.
She starts typing a response almost immediately.
"Can we meet somewhere? Preferably somewhere private," she said.
Why would she want to meet in private?
I was confused, wondering what could be so important that we needed to meet to talk about it.
"Umm, sure, I guess. When and where?" I said.
"Could you meet me at the park just down the road?"
I sat there trying to decide if this was a good idea or not.
"Sure," I said.
"Wanna meet at six?"
"Yeah, that works for me," she said.