Once upon a time, there was a young girl called Amy. She was born in a peaceful country called Luxembourg, on a cold and rainy day. The sky was grey and the sun had vanished behind the clouds, making everything seem so lonely and dangerous.
Amy had a wild, happy and adventurous childhood. She went to High school where people didn’t really pay attention to her. It wasn’t their fault though, Amy looked so normal and quiet, they couldn’t know that they were missing the chance to get to know her pure heart and shameless thoughts. Her beautiful mind and twisted soul. Every time they looked at her, they thought that Amy was just a random regular girl.
In university, she met her future husband and eventually they got married. She had two beautiful children, Ben and Jerome and they lived happily ever after. But unfortunately that’s not the truth. That’s not what the universe had planned for our precious Amy. Because there was something about her that no one knew. But what I’m about to tell you, you can’t tell to the ones you love, nor to the ones you hate, and not even to your shadow or your own reflexion in the mirror…if you have one. It’s a secret. Our secret, her secret.
It all happened in the fall of September 2020. The trees had already lost all their leaves, and fifteen-year-old Amy was on her way to high school. Her least favorite place in the world. She was on the school bus, listening to music and enjoying the view outside. The bus was full of people as always, but strangely, that day, no one stepped out of the bus with her as they usually did when the bus reached the last stop. Amy didn’t think much of it and kept walking towards school. But as soon as she got closer to it, she felt like something wasn’t right. She took her headphones off and noticed that everything was extremely quiet and still. No cars honking. No wind blowing. There were no students smoking and hanging out in front of the school entrance. Amy was confused because she knew for a fact that her crush usually hung out there with his best friends, but they also weren’t there that day. She crossed the entrance doors and was even more surprised to see that there were no students or teachers in the halls and all the rooms were empty. Everything was curiously silent. She looked at her phone to check the time, worried that she might have arrived too soon. It was 7:40 am and school would start in twenty five minutes, she was on time…what was she missing? The silence was slowly driving her crazy. There were no people talking, no one was laughing or complaining about the difficult paper that they were about to write. No voices, no screams, only lonely seats and empty stairs. Suddenly, as Amy was heading towards her classroom, a young woman, dressed up with weird old fashioned black clothes, was walking in her direction. She could hear the sound of her high heels from miles away. She was ambling down the halls holding a book on her hands. She looked happy and satisfied. Amy had never seen her before, maybe she was a new teacher, but she did look suspicious to Amy for some reason. She walked right pass her and she didn’t seem to have noticed Amy’s presence. “Ehm, good morning Miss, what’s going on? Where is everybody?” Amy cautiously asked the woman, feeling extremely intimidated by her aura. The woman abruptly stopped walking as soon as she heard Amy’s voice. She slowly turned around and stared at Amy for about a minute before she suddenly smiled and said with an enthusiastic voice: “Ah you’re Amy Johnson right? Hurry up, go to your class room, you’re going to miss the show!” “Show? What show?” Amy asked confused. But the woman ignored her and left. Amy didn’t understand her strange behavior. And she had no idea why no one mentioned anything about a show the day before.
When she finally got to her classroom she knocked on the door, nervously. There was no music and apparently no one was speaking. Amy slowly opened the door and she could feel her heart rate increasing. Her hands were sweaty. But everything got worse when she saw what was going on inside. Amy was disgusted and shocked. She had never experienced such amount of unease before. She started to scream and shout for help for a few minutes when she quickly realized that she couldn’t hear her own voice. Amy stood very still. Everything was very quiet. Amy was trying to process the situation but nothing made sense. There were dozens of dead bodies lying on the floor, spread all over her classroom. Her best friends, her teammates, her crush and even her teachers. They were all dead. There was blood everywhere and she couldn’t stop staring at it. Suddenly, she noticed someone moving next to the chalkboard in front of the classroom. She saw, from the corner of her eye, that someone was sitting on the teacher’s desk. It was her. A girl who looked exactly like Amy, was sitting on the teacher’s desk with blood covered clothes and a big twisted smile on her face. Amy started crying when she looked at the cold and empty eyes of her lookalike. “W-What did you do?” Amy muttered to herself. Her lookalike stood up and whispered while she was stepping closer to her: “Shh, don’t worry it’s not our fault, it’s hers.” Amy hesitantly turned around and saw the same black dressed woman from before, waving at her with the same twisted smile as her lookalike. Amy felt dizzy. But as she was about to faint the alarm goes on all of a sudden, and Amy wakes up. She’s breathing heavily and her whole body is sweating like she just ran a marathon. That’s when she realized that it was just horrible nightmare. She was doomed to have dreams that were as real as reality which made it hard for her to tell the difference between the real-world threats and the threats that were only real in her imagination, when she was asleep.
That day, Amy stood up, took a shower and went to school. She was on the school bus listening to music and enjoying the ride. The bus was full of people as always, and this time other students got out of the bus with her when the bus arrived at the last stop, her crush was in the school entrance with his friends and Amy’s friends were happy to see her. Everyone was safe. Everyone was laughing and talking like they haven’t seen each other for years. Some of her friends were even complaining about the difficult paper that they would have to write tomorrow. Everything was back to normal. The soundless nightmare was over. In her classroom, there were no dead bodies, only empty chairs and desks and Amy’s English teacher, who was patiently waiting for his students. Once all the students came in and took their notebooks out, the teacher stood up and said with a fierce voice: “Good morning class, today we’ll have company but no worries, she’s not here to grade you or anything, she is just here to learn, and if everything goes well, she’ll become a great teacher someday.” Amy wasn’t listening, she was too busy looking for her notebook, afraid that she might’ve forgotten it at home when suddenly a surprisingly familiar sound made her freeze instantly. It was the sound of a woman walking with high heels. She rose her eyes and saw a woman entering her classroom, dressed-up with black and old fashioned clothes. Once she was next to the teacher, he stood up and they quickly shook hands. Then she elegantly turned around and was now facing the students. Amy knew who she was. And the woman knew who Amy was. She looked right into Amy’s eyes, an evil grin on her lips. The teacher sat down. It was very quiet. No one was moving. “Oh yes, Amy I forgot to mention it before but…” The teacher suddenly said with a huge smile on his face. “You’re still dreaming and this time, I don’t think you’re ever going to wake up again.”