The apple tree’s shadow cascaded the room along with the aching colors of morning shining through the descending blades of the shutters. The woman (beginning to finally be at a state of peace) sat on her beanbag of a couch, in front of her small television set, and near her bare feet, empty coffee mugs were scattered across the floor. The day was passing and she continued sitting on that old couch. Her eyes got heavier and her state of mind murkier. The caffeine seemed to have lost its momentum in her body and as a couple of minutes passed, the hand of the clock started to tick torpidly and deliberately. The woman let time’s slowing take control of her surroundings for a while. However as things lagged on, she took notice of what was on the now magnified television. Divorce Court was playing on the screen; the woman immediately grabbed her remote to turn it off. Then as if by the snap of someone’s fingers, everything went back to normal, and the woman let all the air flow out of her lungs not realizing she had been holding her breath.
She got up, drank more coffee, and went outside to have a change of scene. By now it was late in the afternoon as she walked aimlessly around her neighborhood. Unaware of where she had been walking, she suddenly realizes she had walked all the way to the Robinson’s household.
How did I end up here? I can never seem to avoid this place.
There parked one car, up at the front. If it had been last week there would have been two cars there, as always. She knew the family of this household, but only personally knew the husband, Logan. Then the house’s front door opened and a group of women in black walked out, a tall blonde, in particular, stood out being the most distraught of all of them, the other women were just sympathetically sad.
Feeling she had been in front of the Robinson’s home for too long, the woman turned around and made her way back home. She went straight inside and walked into her nearly unfurnished house to slump onto her couch. Now she was beginning to feel exhausted again. She dragged herself to her room and lay on her bed. Everything in her house had been packed neatly in cardboard boxes sitting near her living room. She was planning on leaving this place to be with her father. Too many bad memories have been made here in the house, in the neighborhood, and she couldn’t stay there anymore.

The night came. The woman couldn’t avoid it. Lying on her bed, she stared at the bluish gray light reflected onto the ceiling and thinking of only the color she was looking at, trying to avoid all other thoughts. Then she took notice that the room’s apparent soundlessness was causing a piercing ringing into her ear. This sound bothered her but she refused to do anything to change the silence. Then from the corner of her eye, something moved. Letting her fear control her, she immediately sits up to look frantically for whatever she saw but she was so near the edge that she fell off the bed. Helpless panic, fear, and frenzy took over as she was on the floor. Looking around again, she saw nothing. Cautiously she got up and crept to her bedroom door to look. There was only darkness.


Something must be following her, something evil. Dreams ranging from dark ghosts to skeletons have haunted her, and the fear was something she couldn’t take. To calm herself down, she recited what she had said to herself several times in the past nights: What I did, I cannot change, and what I felt I must forget. Her thoughts stopped and silence came back to echo throughout the room.


“Hello?”


At once a rush of heavy pandemonium came over the girl after hearing the sudden voice whisper in her ear. She instantly spun around expecting to see someone standing right behind her but saw nobody there, she looked in all directions for where the sound could have come but her heart was beating so hard and panic took over so much of her thought that she couldn’t focus. Then she looked towards her window and saw a familiar looking young man frantically banging the window. In a muffled sound the man yelled frantically, “Can you open the window? I’m hurt!”
The woman was hesitant. She walked over to the window to see the man’s leg was viciously drenched red in blood.
Practically crying the man pleaded, “Just help me! I cannot walk any farther! Please help me!”
Forgetting her fear as she saw in shock the disgusting state of the man’s leg, she opened the window and pulled him into her room. She got bandages and medicine from the drawer of tools that she had from her previous job at a clinic and she started to fix up the man’s leg not even bothering to ask how it happened.
He sat there looking at the ceiling in obvious pain, and she focused on getting his leg to stop bleeding so much. Blood was on the woman’s clothes and surrounded the man and woman on the floor. And as she was trying to wrap the leg, while looking at the leg with much concern, she said, “You have lost a lot of blood. I don—“


The young man interrupted her and strained to say, “Yes I’m probably not going to make it. But thank you, Susan.”
The girl stopped and looked up. Her mind started racing just as fast as her heart. She continued looking at him not knowing what to say and she had an apparent look of fear in her eyes. He seemed to stop struggling.


“How…how do you know my name?”


For a while they were staring at each other. Susan stared in stricken fear and the young man stared back with a growing mysterious smile. A few minutes later he finally broke the silence and said, “Why does this room only have a bed? Where’s your dresser, your desk? And you have boxes packed, where are you going?” Susan didn’t give a response.

After a couple of minutes of silence the man spoke again, “Do you love me?”
By this time, there was no way words could come out her mouth. Susan started backing away from the man realizing who he was supposed to be even though he looked too young than he could have been and there was no way he could have been able to even be there.
Then he stood up and walked slowly towards her with his apparently injured legs as he asked, “Do you ever think about what kind of love is real and what is not? Do you ever ask yourself why you would do such a terrible thing to a person you apparently love?”
Susan’s heart was beating uncontrollably staring at the man’s leg. Suddenly the man was transforming into something strange, something devilish and the room was disappearing until her door was what was only left of it. All she saw was black and red flames surrounding her.


“You did this to me! Stop this! Stop!” she exclaimed desperately crying. She ran down the stairs and felt him chasing her. She pulled the door open as fast as possible and ran out into her yard and fell onto her knees crying. She turned back and saw her house. It looked normal. It was just a hallucination.
“When is this going to stop,” She asked herself. She looked back to the opposite direction of the house and saw her apple tree shining in the moonlight. And there on the grass lied an apple’s core.