After a few minutes, I found my hot water bottle. However, when I went to my kettle to turn it on, the light flickered once before it turned off. I flicked it on a couple more times but nothing happened. I checked the plug socket; on.
Then, in a scene straight out of my worst nightmare, all the lights in my flat turned off.
I screamed, dropping my hot water bottle onto the floor. Turning around in the pitch black, I half expected there to be an intruder hell bent on murdering me in my pyjamas. My heart slammed against my chest, and hot tears prickled against my eyelids.
Deep breath. You’re not going to die just because the lights went out.
Being scared of the dark was something people usually get over as they grow up, but I had never been scared when I was very little, instead my fear came later and was born out of a night I wish I could forget. That to this day still triggerednightmares and over the years it seemed to sink its claws further into me, burrowing deeper.
My hand flew out to the draw closest to me. When my fingers wrapped around the cold metal of a torch, my heart began to slow. My relief was short-lived when I flicked the button once and nothing happened.
I flicked it again, and again…and nothing.
Shit.
Phone. I needed my phone.
I let the useless torch slip from my fingers and clatter onto the counter. Stepping over my hot water bottle, I fumbled my way through the flat to my bedroom. Tears cresting my eyes, blurring my vision. The only light was from the street lamp outside my window. Somehow that ominous yellow light made my flat seem all the more dangerous as sinister shadows were cast across the floor.
Darkness altered so many things. Suddenly the space underneath my bed wasn’t innocuous anymore, it was a place for a potential murderer to hide. Behind my bedroom door was no longer the place I hung my dressing gown, it was the secret hideout for a serial killer.
Taking a deep breath, I took two steps into my room and jumped onto the bed, crinkling all the paper underneath my weight as I searched frantically for my phone.
Finally my fingers found its smooth surface. Cradling it like a lifeline, I pulled up Rosie’s number.
Rosie was well aware of myaversionto the dark.
‘Pick up, you cow.’
The line continued to ring until it reached her voicemail.
You’ve reached Rosie. Unless you are some kind of animal in need of urgent care I probably won’t call you back. No, I definitely won’t call you back.
‘Where could you possibly be at eight-thirty at night? Callme back right now. Level a million emergency!’ I hissed into the phone.
When I hung up, silence echoed around my flat. The chilling kind of quiet that meant every single breath you took sounded like you were yelling at full volume.
In my terror, I had forgotten about the cold. But now, sitting on my bed with my knees pulled up to my chest, the cold in the air solidified in my body turning my blood to ice. Shivers came out in full force, so violent they rattled through my body like I was having a fit.
My teeth chattered as I climbed under my duvet.
At this rate I would be an icicle by morning.
I waited a few minutes, hoping that Rosie would call me back. My screen stayed blank.
I blamed the darkness and my potential hypothermia for what I did next.
Without pausing to consider how unprofessional it was, I brought the phone to my ear and listened to the call tone.
‘Fallon?’ Oliver’s voice trickled down the line.
‘Yeah, hey,’ I tried to calm down my shakes but my lungs were seizing, making it difficult for me to take a deep breath.
‘Why do you sound weird?’
‘F-f-funny s-s-tory,’ I started. ‘My h-heating kinda, c-crapped out. A-along with my-my-my electricity.’ My body shook underneath the duvet, I stared at my dressing gown on the back door, eyeing it longingly. But I couldn’t make myself get up to grab it.
‘You’re alone in the dark with no heating? In the middle of fucking winter?’ Anger laced Oliver’s tone.
