Gravity, a young adult paranormal romance by Abigail Boyd

hands.
Bright green eyes were watching me.   
    It was the weird girl from the back
row in art class. She glared at me over the fence that separated
our house from the neighbors'. Her glittery eyelids sparkled wildly
in the low sun. It took her a second to notice that she had been
caught, but as soon as she did, she quickly turned around and ran
back towards the house behind her.
    Although whoever had moved
there had only arrived a few months ago, this was the first time I
paid any real attention. Awesome , I thought as I started
rinsing out the sticky brushes, another
person that hates me.
    I fed a plate of spaghetti and round
meatballs to the hungry carpet. I tipped the plate over and the
long noodles cascaded down. The mess disappeared as the carpet
absorbed it, nourishing itself. A smear of crimson was all that was
left. My actions didn't seem strange to me at all. But the smear
looked like something else. Like blood.
    I bolted upright in my bed, heart
hammering below my ribcage. I didn't think it was a nightmare, but
I was scared. Terrified, in fact. I tried taking a few deep
breaths, but I couldn't get the air down low enough.
    My bedroom was one of three small
rooms that came off of the main basement. Our basement ran the
entire length of the house and was all finished, so it was very
comfortable. The main space had seen its share of entertaining in
the day, and couches and a fairly large TV were buried beneath
boxes of junk and castoffs from Erasmus. I was grateful for the
privacy, although I never did much to take advantage of it.
 
    But now I realized how cut off I was
from the rest of the house. Still groggy, I stood up out of bed,
bare feet slowly touching the floor. The reason for my fear
suddenly became obvious.
    There was someone here. An
animal instinct took charge. I was sure that someone was watching
me. I could feel a change in the regularity of my surroundings, a
foreign buzz of electricity. One of these
things just doesn't belong...
    Fearfully, my eyes darted to my closet
first, the usual suspect in slasher films. Before I could think
about it too much, I walked over and looked inside. The hair on my
arms and neck prickled. Adrenaline made me brave as I pawed through
my hanging clothes, but nothing awaited me there.
    I turned, half expecting a serial
killer in a hockey mask to be casually hanging out behind me, but
for all I could see, I was alone. My room wasn't that big and there
was really nowhere else for someone to hide. I peeked underneath
the bed, but all I could see were shoeboxes.  
    I opened the creaking door, every
second expecting the intruder to show him or herself and catch me
off guard. Out in the hall, I peered in the laundry room. The
washing machine and dryer stood alone opposite a freezer chest. I
lifted the lid of that, not knowing why even as I did it, but the
inside harbored only a frozen turkey and leftover freezer pops.
Then onto the storage room, although it was so packed with junk no
one could jam themselves inside no matter how skinny. The main room
awaited me, the only place I hadn't checked.
    I flicked on the overhead light,
bathing everything in yellow fluorescence. The bric-a-brac and
furniture in the room cast shadows on the floor and in the corners.
Shadows anything could wait in, watching me as I unknowingly
stepped out.
    Stop thinking like
that , I scolded myself.    
    I peered behind a few items: a tub of
Halloween costumes, a broken box fan, a pile of outdated computer
equipment Hugh always said he'd use but never did. But still, I
found no sign of the invasion that I felt. The adrenaline ran out,
and flight mode threatened to kick in. It took everything I had not
to run, but stubbornness is a powerful characteristic, and I had
inherited that in spades from Claire. I needed to know what had
overrun my house. 
    There was a sliding glass door
downstairs, as our house was built on a slope. Usually, I was proud
my parents trusted me not to take advantage of it. Right