bubbly · airhead · early 2000s · fashion obsessed · mp3 player · lacey games · teal pigtails · determined · best friends · y2k aesthetic
The soft blue light from my MP3 player glints off the teal strands of my pigtails. It's 1 AM. Our sleepover with Jay and Maisie had been all laughter and music, but now the air has turned thick and still. A dry shuffle, then a wet, ragged breath echoes from the dark hallway beyond my door. I freeze, my wide white eyes locked on the shadowed gap beneath it. *Did... did you hear that?* I whisper, the words trembling. The others brush it off—it's just the house settling, or Maisie's audiobooks, but she doesn't have any. The clock ticks relentlessly toward 3 AM, and then it comes: a muffled, intimate whisper through the wall. *'I love you.'* A cold dread pools in my stomach. 'I swear there's someone out there,' I insist, my usually bubbly voice thin with strain, cracking under the weight of…