A tremor wracked my body, and I threw myself backwards, but Hugo’s grip stayed tight on my hand, tethering me to the world. I fought against it, ripping myself away from him as dizziness slammed into me, leaving me breathless.

  I jolted in the chair, my heart pounding and my chest heaving as if I’d just run a marathon. My eyes turned wide, darting back and forth as I took in my surroundings and searched for my mom. I was terrified that she’d noticed my reaction, and I knew that wouldn’t have been good.

  It was too obvious. The fear that I’d felt fading away, slipping from my body, so recently seemed to have returned in an instant. It crashed back into me, the intensity stronger than it had been before the man found me, and it was far too noticeable. If my mom looked at me, she’d be able to see how hard I was panting.

  There was nothing I could do about it, though. I was on the brink of hyperventilating. Sweat beaded on my forehead, and desperation soared within me, but my mind was distracted. It was fixed on one fact, and I could barely focus on anything else.

  I gave in so easily. I didn’t want to go with the creature. I knew it was a bad idea and that it would lead to my death, but I barely fought against it. The screams, the arguing in the back of my mind, were nothing. I still let it take me.

  No. I went willingly. Despite knowing what he intended to do to me, I was happy to go with Hugo. That didn’t matter at all. I didn’t really care about it. The only thing I could bring myself to think about was him, and that was terrifying.

  He was too enticing. Something about him drew me in and captivated me. He made me feel safe and wanted, and I didn’t want to fight anymore. I didn’t want to resist or pull away. I just wanted to go with him, and that was wrong. I should have been stronger than that. I should have pushed him away and ran.

  But how could I resist him? The peace I’d felt, the one brought on by his presence, almost made me want to cry. I knew it was wrong; the sensation wasn’t real. It was just an illusion that Hugo, that the monster, made me feel, and I didn’t want that. Not really, anyway. It was wrong.

  My thoughts were unconvincing, even to myself. Longing burning in my heart so intensely that it hurt. I felt nauseous, gripped by the realisation that I would never feel so calm, so at ease, ever again. It wasn’t possible for me to not be scared or anxious. Not for me.

  At least my mom hadn’t noticed my panic, though. I was alone in the car, I realised as I sagged back against the seat in relief and peered through the window. We’d stopped at a service station, and she must have gone in to use the bathroom or have a cigarette or something.

  Confusion washed over me. How long was I in the other world? I had no idea. The conversion of time between worlds wasn’t always as straightforward as it should have been, but it must have been a while because I felt like we’d stopped at a service station pretty recently.

  Hadn’t we? I couldn’t actually remember. My mind was hazy from panic and my rapid departure from the other world. Everything still felt a bit uncertain and not quite real, but it was quickly becoming more solid. I could have just checked my phone, I realised. Then, I’d know what time it was, but I didn’t really want to. I wanted to cling to the hope that a lot of time had passed whilst I was gone for a little longer. It was better to be ignorant and unaware than to have that hope crushed so soon.

  I was pretty sure we were still in Scotland, though. The world around the car was too green. My mom had parked right at the edge of the car park, and it quickly gave way to a forest. That didn’t tend to happen in England, in my experience, so we couldn’t have gotten far.

  A disappointed groan threatened to escape my lips as I eyed the entrance to the service station, checking to make sure my mom wasn’t approaching. I couldn’t see her, thankfully. That was good. I wanted a little more time to get my breathing back under control. It was needed. I was still breathing far too fast, and if she noticed, she’d have something to say about it. I knew she would.

  Pulling down the sun visor, I flipped the mirror open and stared at my reflection. My eyes widened slightly as I took myself in, my gaze landing on the giant bags beneath my eyes. I looked exhausted. That was my first thought. I couldn’t quite believe how dark they’d gotten, and I was certain they were much larger than they had been before. It looked like I’d been punched. My nose must have been broken somehow. That was the only logical explanation for why I looked so wretched.

  I lifted my hand towards my face cautiously. I couldn’t remember being hit in the face, not in reality or in the other world, but it could have happened. Maybe I somehow headbutted the window in my sleep, or the creature, Hugo, had done it after I left the world. Perhaps he felt me leave and tried to keep me there.

  That wasn’t realistic. I was pretty sure it couldn’t have happened, but I still found myself grimacing as my fingers drew closer to my face and touched my nose softly. I was anticipating pain. I thought it would have hurt, but there was none.

  Was it stress? The multiple horrible worlds in a row must have been having an impact on me, and maybe that was what had caused my bags to suddenly be so much worse. It would have made sense. I felt like they were impacting me. I was so tired, both physically and emotionally, and I just wanted it all to stop. I wished I could stop finding myself in terrifying places where everyone I loved died before I got shot.

  My eyes flicked towards the entrance of the service station again. My mom still wasn’t there, I realised, and that meant I had time. I could finally check whether my chest was bruised from that other world where I got shot, and I needed to know. The pain was still there. It still ached slightly when I moved, but I had to see if there was a mark.

  Quickly, I scanned the car park around me to make sure no one was nearby. I didn’t want anyone to see what I was about to do in case it looked weird or if there was a huge bruise. They might come over or something, and I couldn’t think of anything worse than being trapped in the car as someone came towards me to bombard me with questions.

  If I didn’t open the door and answer them, they might wait until my mom got back to ask her what had happened to me, and the mere thought of that sent a shiver of panic through me. I double-checked to make sure no one was paying any attention to me before pulling the neckline of my jumper to the side and staring down at the place where I’d felt the bullet hit me.

  My eyebrows pulled together, and I looked around again before my gaze returned to my chest. There was the faintest of red marks on my skin, but it was barely noticeable. It wasn’t even a proper bruise. It was just… a shadow, nothing more. It could get darker, though. Perhaps it would start as a red smudge before growing darker and darker until it was impossible to miss.

  I didn’t think it would, though. When I’d been shot in the stomach at the Academy, that had bruised immediately. The moment I’d gotten back to my real world, the bruise had been almost black, so it was promising. Surely, that meant it was going to stay light.

  A smile flitted across my lips as I let go of my jumper, letting it fall back into place. I hoped it didn’t get any darker. Then, I wouldn’t have to wear jumpers and high necklines for the rest of the summer. I could still wear a dress for my date with Duncan if I wanted.

  If it was a date, that was. I still wasn’t entirely sure, but I’d figure it out at some point, I assumed. It would become obvious, wouldn’t it? Either something would happen to make it clear that he only saw me as a friend or he’d do something that made it clear he saw me in a different way, in a romantic way.

  Would he kiss me?

  The thought came out of nowhere, and immediately, my cheeks began to burn. I glanced in the mirror, lifting my hands to my face as I saw how pink I’d turned. I’d never really thought about that. I hadn’t considered that Duncan might actually want to kiss me, and I…

  I didn’t know what to think about it. My brain seemed to stutter to a halt before restarting, but my thoughts were fleeting. They raced past too quickly for me to hold them, and I couldn’t work out what I was feeling or why my heart was pounding quite so fast.

  Was I scared? I felt scared. It wasn’t the normal fear, though. I wasn’t terrified and wanting to avoid the situation. In fact… I think I wanted it. I did. Maybe. He was my friend. Duncan was one of my best friends, one of my only friends. It felt wrong for me to admit that maybe I wanted to kiss him, and I wasn’t sure.

  I’d figure it out later, I decided as I glanced towards the entrance of the service station again. At some point, I’d work out how I truly felt about Duncan, but I didn’t have to do that immediately. It was too confusing, too scary, and I was exhausted. I just wanted to do nothing and think of nothing.

  My vision drifted out of focus as I stared blankly out the window, letting my mind empty and the world continue to move around me. I wasn’t sure how much time was passing. I barely paid attention to it. I just… existed.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  I was too tired, that was why, I decided. That was why my thoughts were so frantic yet unfocused. I’d not gotten enough sleep in a while, and it was still early in the day. It was far too early for how much I’d already been through. Watching my friends die, being forced to watch myself give up control and…

  It was too much. I needed to fall into bed and sleep for at least twelve hours. That would help. It would fix things, and I’d be able to do it soon. As soon as we got home, I’d see my dad again, which I was really excited about, and then I’d go upstairs and collapse on my bed. Perhaps I wouldn’t even get changed first. I could just curl up under the duvet in the clothes I was already wearing, and that would be fine.

  I was going to sleep so well. I could already tell, and I was so excited for that. Maybe I wouldn’t have any dreams either. I was so exhausted that I could barely summon any thoughts, so I wasn’t sure whether my mind would be able to conjure up any weird or horrifying dreams for me. Hopefully, it wouldn’t. That would be better. Then, I could just rest.

  My eyes found the screens lining the service station windows, and I stared at them for a little while as my brain slowly worked out what was happening. A soft chuckle escaped my lips. Someone must have messed something up when they were programming the screens. They should have been looping through advertisements or something, but the speed was wrong.

  Usually, they lingered on each ad for a little while, but they were changing so quickly that I had no clue what any of them were for. The picture barely had the chance to appear before it was whisked away and replaced with something new.

  And, they were all changing at the same time. It was kind of a weird sight, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether that was normal. Did screens like that usually change simultaneously? I wasn’t sure. I never really paid that much attention to the ads before. They were always boring and advertised things I didn’t really care about or already knew about and wanted, so why bother?

  It was a little unsettling, I decided as I watched every screen continue to loop. They just looked a bit wrong, but no one else seemed to have noticed. They were mostly just keeping their heads down as they hurried between the service station and their cars, eager to be on their way again.

  My eyebrows drew together slightly as something pulled at me. I glanced at the cars around me, trying to work out where the creeping sense of wrongness that I couldn’t quite push away was coming from. Something was off. I knew that, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. It felt like I was missing something, like there was something I should have noticed or done but I hadn’t.

  I took a deep breath, trying to focus. Why would something be wrong, I asked myself. Was it my mom? That was the most obvious answer. Was she mad at me? Probably. It felt like she was most of the time, but why? What could have happened for her to get annoyed this time, I wondered.

  Was I meant to be meeting her inside? Panic sparked within me, and my hand twitched automatically towards the door handle. I couldn’t remember. I hadn’t been paying much attention when my mom had gone into the service station, and I couldn’t remember exactly what she’d said. I was still in the other world, and I must have missed it. She could have easily told me to meet her in there. How long had she been waiting for me? Perhaps she was in there, slowly growing more and more furious.

  Surely, she would have texted me, though. If she was expecting me to join her in one of the shops and I hadn’t, there was no way she would have just waited for me to appear. I would have gotten a call or something, but I had no missed calls or texts from her.

  My hand drifted towards the buckle of my seat belt. Mom still hadn’t come out, though. It was starting to concern me, and part of me felt like I should go out and look for her. Would that make her suspicious, though? I could always just say that I realised I needed to use the bathroom too, or I got hungry. I could probably lie convincingly enough.

  I undid the seat belt before freezing again. My gaze roamed the inside of the car, checking the cup holders and Mom’s seat for the keys before I leaned to the side, making sure they hadn’t been left in the engine. She did that sometimes rather than just handing them to me, and I hated it. It didn’t make me feel safe. Anyone could just open the car and drive off, but Mom didn’t seem to care.

  The keys weren’t there, though. She hadn’t left them with me, and that meant I couldn’t get out of the car. I had no way to lock it if I wanted to go into the station, and all our luggage was still in the car. If I were to just leave the car unlocked, someone could easily steal something, and then Mom would be furious.

  Even if nothing happened, if we got back to the car and everything was still there, I’d never hear the end of it. She’d call me irresponsible and reckless. Stupid. And she’d be right. It would be a stupid and irresponsible thing to do, but I was still tempted to do it just in case.

  But surely, if she hadn’t left the keys with me, she couldn’t be expecting me to come in and find her. That wouldn’t make sense because she must have known it wouldn’t be safe for me to leave the car. She couldn’t get mad at me for not doing that, could she? I mean, she had before, but I doubted she’d do it again.

  It was my fault last time, according to her. She blamed me for not reminding her to leave them behind, and maybe I should have been paying more attention. I could have asked her to give them to me before she went in, but I hadn’t, and it was too late.

  I chewed my lip, eyeing the entrance of the service station as I tried to work out what to do. Should I text her? If I messaged her and asked her to grab me a drink or something, I could mention that I didn’t want to leave the car because I didn’t have the keys, so it wasn’t safe, and then maybe she wouldn’t get annoyed. She’d realise I was making a smart decision, right? Or she’d just refuse to read it and get angry anyway. Maybe it was worth a try, though.

  My hand closed around my phone, and my eyes flicked towards the doors again, half expecting to see her storming out, but instead, confusion washed over me. I leaned forward in my seat, staring at the two people who’d just exited the building. They were dressed in matching clothing.

  For some reason, that realisation was enough to shake me from my panic. I was being ridiculous and getting worked up over nothing. It was silly and pointless, and I knew it, but it was hard to stop myself. I needed to focus on something else, I told myself as I continued to watch the two women surreptitiously. Then, I’d stop overthinking it, and Mom would be back soon.

  Did they realise they were wearing the same outfit, I wondered. I wasn’t actually sure. It didn’t seem like they were together; one of them was walking about ten steps behind the other, and they weren’t dressed in anything too unusual. Jeans and a white, slightly oversized shirt were a fairly normal thing to wear during the summer, but it was just weird that they were so close, and it did seem like the shirts were identical.

  They were both distracted by their phones, though. It seemed unlikely that they’d realised, and that almost made me want to point it out to them. I was close enough that I could have opened the door and called out to them, but there was no way I could bring myself to do that. I’d probably terrify the poor women, and it would have been so weird. Normal people didn’t do that kind of thing, and I knew that.

  But it would be kind of disappointing if they didn’t notice. It was a kind of weird but funny coincidence, and how often did it happen? How often did someone run into a person wearing exactly the same clothes as them? I couldn’t remember it ever happening to me before, but maybe it was more common than I thought. Perhaps it just didn’t happen to me because I didn’t wear anything particularly stylish. Maybe if I did, it would happen all the time.

  My gaze roamed the car park lazily, checking to see what other people were wearing. There was a guy by the door who was dressed in an outfit not too different to mine. His hair was messy, and he looked as though he hadn’t slept in a week, but he was wearing a hoodie and a pair of dark skinny jeans. I was in leggings, so they weren’t exactly the same, but it was close enough.

  I looked away, my eyes falling on people sitting on the bench not far from him. Slowly, my eyebrows began to pull together, and I craned my head to get a better look at them. The girl had a hoodie on. There was no pattern or print, just like the guy’s. It was the same colour too, and I couldn’t see what else she was wearing, but I almost suspected she was wearing black skinny jeans.

  That was weird. Maybe it did happen all the time, I told myself hesitantly. Perhaps I just never really paid that much attention to people’s clothing before, but I suddenly couldn’t stop. There was another person. The man walking across the car park behind my car. He was wearing the exact same hoodie and jeans as the other two, but that wasn’t it.

  One of the women he was with wore a white shirt and light blue jeans, and the other wore a navy button-down dress. I could see four other women wearing that exact dress, I realised as I looked around. No, five. Another had just climbed out of their car.

  Why was everyone wearing the same outfits? Something weird was happening. There was something strange going on at the service station, and I stared ahead blankly, trying to ignore how fast my heart was beating.

  It was nothing. It was probably just nothing. I was just overthinking things, and nothing strange or weird was happening. The clothes probably weren’t actually that similar at all, or maybe there was just a local shop that only sold a few pieces. People just had to go for whatever it stocked, and that meant they often dressed the same. Maybe that was why no one else seemed to have noticed it. They were all used to it.

  My frantic stream of thoughts did nothing to force down the sense of dread that continued to rise within me as I stared ahead, not wanting to look away from the car parked in front in case I saw something else that scared me. It felt safer that way. If I just continued to focus on it until my mom got back, I’d be fine. I wouldn’t have the chance to get any more worked up over anything else because I wouldn’t be able to see anything other than that car.

  But it wasn’t working. There was something off about that car too. It was eerily familiar, and for a moment, I wasn’t sure why that was, but then it hit me. It was my mom’s car. The car parked in front of us was the exact model and colour of the car I was sitting in.

  That wasn’t too weird, though. Lots of people had the same car, and the colour wasn’t anything special. It was just one of the standard shades the dealership offered; I was pretty sure about that, anyway. Still, I couldn’t stop myself from ripping my eyes away from the car, needing to confirm a suspicion that pulled at the back of my mind.

  Almost every car in the car park was the same. There were only… three different ones. There was my mom’s car, a posher-looking black car or a bright red Ford. I couldn’t see any others in the entire car park. There were no other colours, no other models, and I turned in my seat, trying to find anything that didn’t match, but I couldn’t.

  Why was everything the same? Why were the people wearing the same outfits, and what was going on? Something wasn’t right. There was something going on in that world, and I didn’t know what it was, but I felt myself reaching out desperately for the dizzinesses that always lingered at the back of my mind.