Chapter Text
Sarah Juhel awoke by the distant ringing of the living’s room landline phone. It rarely rang, and most of the time, it was a spam. But still, she slowly turned her body to the side of her bed, silently sighing at the annoying sound. She reached to her own phone, turning it on. It was past ten.
She could stay in bed and continue dreaming, or get out of bed and start her day early for once.
The phone was still ringing.
She decided she could first, see who was calling this early in the day.
She yawned and stretched her body, before leaving her warm and cosy mattress , the cover already on the ground, despite being half of her own weight. She tended to move a lot in her sleep…
Catching her pajama’s pants from the ground with her own feet to bring to her hands, she put it on herself, before finally leaving her bedroom.
She barely glanced at the closed door of her ex-girlfriend, who had already left to work a couple of hours earlier.
The small house was hers.
Given as an inheritance from her grandmother who had passed away a few years prior. Sarah had never been close to her grandmother.
But despite the very limited visit she had done to the woman, who had lived at the other side of the country, it had still been more visit than the rest of her family, who lived in the same city as the old woman, had ever done. Which means that she was the favourite of the older woman, and thus, got the house.
Situated in a small village, far enough to the big city to avoid most of the pollution and city noise, but close enough to easily access to the big city by either bus or by private vehicle. Maybe half an hour.
Sarah wouldn’t know.
She worked from home, and detested going to the city.
So she never did.
She had moved to the home with her then, actual girlfriend, Grace.
Grace had been Sarah first friend, all the way back to when they could barely put two words together. Their friendship had evolved into more as the year passed, and they had lived like that for a time.
Until Grace had realised she hated being in a romantic relationship, and decided to break it off without a warning.
It had put quite a strain on their relationship. And they had barely exchanged a word since now close to six months.
Sarah had been particularly upset that Grace had never once communicated anything about how she was feeling, leaving her to think all was well, and that they would one day marry, and perhaps even adopt a child together. She had felt as if all those years together had been just a useless and now, ruined dreams.
The only reason she had not kicked Grace from her house was to honour their past friendship.
Grace’s father, her only remaining family, had passed away a few months after she turned eighteen, leaving her all alone, with nothing to her name.
She was touching minimum wage from her job, and until she gained a promotion at her work, it would not be possible for her to rent an apartment in the big city from where she worked.
And there was no apartment to rent around them for the moment.
So, Sarah let Grace stay until she found something.
She looked at the number on the phone, and was quite surprised to see the name of Grace’s work written in bold letters. With hast movement, she picked up the phone before the call was sent to the voicemail.
The deep voice of a man rang through her ears, in a cold tone.
“Good Morning Grace, this is Antoine Genieve calling, from the Human Ressource,” before he could continue, Sarah interrupted, “This is actually Grace’s roommate, Sarah Juhel, is there a problem ?”
The man huffed, she could hear the distant sound of paper moving. The man spoke again, a voice slightly higher.
“Grace didn’t come to work this morning, we need to know the reason.”
At that, Sarah was quite surprised, she could find Grace, quite a lot of faults, like the fact she never washed the dishes, or took the bins out, or prepared dinner when it was her turn, or took the laundry out of the washing machine, she also chewed loudly when she ate which had always infuriated Sarah even when they still liked each other.
But Sarah had to give it to her. Grace had never missed a day, not when they were in school and Sarah enticed her to skip one hour or two, and especially not when she started to work. Sick or not, she would always go. It had been a source of conflict many times. Sarah begging her to stay home when she was not feeling well, and Grace, stubborn as she was, always refusing and leaving.
To Grace, work was life.
Without missing a beat, Sarah mouth betrayed her, covering for Grace before she could even start to analyse the situation.
“Grace is actually quite sick, the poor girl threw up all night, it had slipped my mind to inform you.”
The man said some words that Sarah did not care enough to listen to, and put down the phone after ending the conversation.
She slowly passed her hands through her hair and sighed, once again.
What trouble did the girl will give her this time...
She did slightly hope that she was fine, she hadn’t seen her the day prior, she had been too busy working on her craft in her atelier outside, until very late at night, well, the very early morning would have been more exact.
Sarah made her way to the door of Grace’s bedroom and knocked once. Twice,
“Grace, your work called, I said you were sick. Are you fine ?”
There was silence, she hesitated to open the door, but she could hear some movement, and finally, a voice, that barely sounded like Grace, it sounded strained, and there was a slight pause between each word, as if she had trouble talking.
“I am fine. Don’t enter”
Sarah did not think that Grace was fine. And so, she pushed the door open.
The bedroom was illuminated by the sun coming from the big window. And here, in the middle of the bed, laid a grotesque, immense insect, quite like a beetle if they were human-sized. Covered by a blanket that threatened to fall at the slight movement, and legs that kept on moving. The creature moved its head to Sarah. There was no presence of Grace.
Sarah could not take her eyes off the, the thing, that was on her ex-girlfriend bed. Her entire body had frozen, and she was half wondering if she was still sleeping.
Maybe this was just a dream, as this made not one ounce of sense whatsoever.
She felt the same, out of body sensation, as she had felt when she had woke up from anesthesia after a surgery, Not being absolutely sure if this was really reality, or if she was still in her bed, and just sleeping.
She hesitated at taking a step back, closing the door behind her, to make her way to her bed, and forget this silly situation.
But the creature moved again, trying to rock itself to the side. Sarah hand went to her cheek, and she pinched herself hard. She felt pain, but she did not wake, as this was, reality.