51 minutes 10 seconds
On every full-moon night, your friend goes missing. Is it because of what you think it is or something else entirely?
“Juliet! Is everything okay? Juliet!”
The hall lights flickered and rattled as Sarah rushed down the hallway towards Juliet’s room. Her mind wavered through the evening’s events, unsure of how it all started and concerned about what had happened. She thought Juliet had been acting different since school had started only a few months ago, but tonight was something different all together.
“Open the door!” Sarah screamed. “Juliet, open the door right now. Are you okay? Juliet, answer me!”
Sarah continued to pound on the door while the sirens in the hallway blared and pounded ten fold on her head. She felt like she was going to be sick.
“Sarah! Sarah, you need to get out of there right now!”
Through the dizzying noise, Sarah heard something to this effect come from down the hall. She looked towards the sound and saw Holly peeking her head through the exit door, hands covered over her ears, and yelling with what seemed like all her might.
“Sarah get of there right now! The building isn’t stable!”
Sarah gathered her senses and pulled her fists from the instinctual punishment they were laying on the door. Her fists were white-knuckle tight. As she quickly made her way towards Holly, she tried to unlock her fists, but they were numb and didn’t respond to her commands. She looked over her shoulder before exiting the door and a second later the ceiling in front of Juliet’s door collapsed.
Moments later Sarah and Holly stumbled onto the moonlit lawn of Greston Hall. The other residents were scattered along the yard, each with phone in hand and each looking more confused than the last.
“Holly, have you seen Juliet?” asked Sarah. “I’d been texting her earlier but I hadn’t heard from her since just after dinner at seven.”
“No, I texted her last night about some studying we had to do this week, but I haven’t heard from her at all today,” Holly replied. ” Do you think she is still in there?”
“God, I don’t think so. I hope not. She was meeting up with a guy she met last week in class. Normally when she goes out like this she’ll text me when she gets back home safely, but I never received a text or call this time.”
Sarah opened up her phone again and quickly scanned through her texts, messages, and multiple missed phone calls. None of them were from Juliet. She called Juliet’s number again, the eleventh time this evening.
Just before the phone started to ring, voices erupted and screamed. One blood-curdling scream broke the night’s low murmur, and several more followed suit. Students were running away from the building, stumbling over hedges and curbs, but Sarah and Holly moved around the building’s corner to get a better look at the commotion. It was hard to see in the low light, but when it came into view, Sarah felt her blood drain.
Where Juliet’s first floor window used to be now harbored a gaping maw of shadow and smoke. Sarah could see the mangled body of a student sprawled twenty feet or so away from the building. She recognized his neon red jacket from the picture that Juliet had showed her the other day. He wasn’t moving.
As her trasnfixed gaze loosened on the poor man’s body, her gaze tightened on the ruptured chasm and the figure that emerged from it. It stood nine maybe ten feet tall, and glowed pale like the full-moon’s unobstructed light. It pulled itself forward, gripping the crumbling wall’s frame with long grotesque fingers tipped with talons that looked like glass. It wore shreds of fabric, something that may have once been a dress, but a dress of a distinct pattern: the black fabric with white toile ravens of Juliet’s favorite night gown.
Sarah gasped and held her hand to her mouth. She looked behind her and saw Holly was far gone, running back down the opposite lawn. Sarah looked back in horror towards the damage in the front, only to see Juliet fully turned looking directly at her.
Writing Under the Influence 