I push myself up from the face down, drooling-in-my-pillow position and panic at the dark room – there is a distinct lack of light streaming through my window. I must have been out for hours, it feels like the middle of the night. Strands of hair cling to my clammy forehead and my mouth feels like something crawled into it and died. If anything, I feel worse than I did earlier, my head foggy and leaden. I pat around for my phone, finally disentangling it from the sheets. The screen is dark – out of battery. Damn it. My stomach rumbles a protest and I realize I haven’t eaten since those chips at lunch. I try to ignore it, rolling over and squeezing my eyes shut, willing myself back to sleep.
It’s no use.
I let my feet thump to the floor like dead weights and twist my body around, so I’m lying sideways on the bed. I lie there for a bit and try to put my muggy thoughts in some kind of order.
One, pee. Two, charge phone. Three, food.
My stomach rumbles again. Definitely food.
I stand up, stretching my arms out as wide as they’ll go, trying to loosen all the kinks and knots. I switch on the light, shielding my eyes as the fluorescent bulb groans to life. Blurry eyed, I wander into my little bathroom (the only perk of this new building) and when I come out, I stick my phone on charge, grab a packet of instant noodles from my stash and leave the room in search of hot water and a clean bowl.
These halls are quiet, but much more modern, so they automatically feel a little less creepy. I boil the kettle, idly wondering whether Derek is still downstairs or if it’s the night watchman, the one who makes a little fort of duvets behind the desk so he can have a kip. The kitchen clock catches my eye. Almost midnight; I really was out for hours.
I’m so hungry I start slurping the noodles on the walk back. The hot, savoury liquid scalds my lips, but it also cuts through the horrible cotton mouth. My sore tongue tells me I need to give it five minutes, though.
Once I’m back in my room I exchange the bowl for my phone, which is now happily charging in the corner. Two WhatsApps, a bunch of junk email and, I’m delighted to see, a missed call from Jess. I open the WhatsApps first: one from Jess, apologizing for missing my call, and the other from Meghan, to say that Granny H doesn’t seem to be improving so Daddy is staying at the hospital with her. They’ll be too busy to worry about me then. I shake my head and push the selfish thoughts aside quickly, feeling like a horrible child. Poor Daddy; he would be lucky if Granny H recognized him in the morning.
I retrieve my dinner and sit cross-legged on the bed, wriggling so my back is against the wall, and drag a pillow on to my lap. It hits me that my ankle hasn’t bothered me and I stretch it out tentatively. It feels fine; I guess the ice did the trick. I blow on the noodles for a bit as I scroll through my social media, filled with friends at home who don’t seem to have any Niamh-shaped holes in their lives. I tap in Jess’s name and request to follow her. Then I click into the camera for a noodle selfie, ready to filter my lonely dinner for one and caption it with something that seems vaguely more exciting.
As I’m perfecting my “student life” pose, a dozen tiny thumbnails of photos load up. I pause, squinting at them. I had expected to see the ones I took on the Southbank earlier today; I don’t recognize these at all.
They’re dark, nothing more than little black squares. Did I cover the lens by mistake? I click out of the app and load up my photo album.
The forkful of noodles doesn’t quite make it to my mouth.
I shove the bowl back on my desk, spilling hot broth on my fingers, but they’re numb. Somewhere in the distance I hear the fork clatter to the floor. None of it registers, because I’m scrolling through my phone, through hundreds of pictures, the same image repeated over and over.
An image of me. Here, in my room. In bed.
Asleep.
I slam the phone down so hard that there’s a chance I’ve shattered the screen again.
I must still be asleep, that’s all. What do they do in films, pinch themselves? I try it, squeezing the skin on my calf. Ow. Not asleep.
I study every corner of my tiny room, breath coming rapidly, but no masked murderers or camera-wielding psychos jump out from under the tiny desk. Everything looks so innocent – the room a bit sparse, a bit messy. Everything looks the same.
Apart from all of the flaming photographs of me asleep.
My gaze travels to the bathroom door. It’s slightly ajar. Didn’t I close it before? Mammy would go nuts if I didn’t at home. “You weren’t born in a barn, Niamh,” – but I can’t remember. . . I whip my feet up suddenly.
What if he’s under the bed?
Right, I need to calm down for a second. I can hear my heartbeat, it’s thumping so loud that it’s in my ears and I can hear all the blood swishing around in there, too. I could just look under the bed . . . or in the bathroom. . .
Or I could dive for the door and get the hell out of here.
Option three sounds like a winner.
I leap from the bed like an Olympic gymnast and fling the door open, bare feet hitting the hallway floor with a slap as I run towards the bank of lifts.
A soft click from behind me lets me know my door has shut.
Or been opened.
I press the lift button five, six, seven times, as if I can make it come any faster. The lights above me flicker. Not this again. There is no way I’m getting stuck in the lift with some weirdo stalking around the dorms. I consider the door that leads to the stairwell, remember I’m on the eighth floor now.
The lights flicker again.
