Masie's notebook: Problem 1

No movement came from the planchette, and only the sounds of occasional ringing in Masie's ears kept the situation sane.

"Are you the one knocking on the walls?" Masie asks. Nothing.... not a single movement in the room. After 30 more minutes of this, Masie decided to just stop. Moving the planchette over 'goodbye' and saying the words as well, Masie places the board and planchette back into the box carefully, and walks out to the hallway to set it down in it's original place.

Weird, whatever it was, it didn't use any tools to communicate or help Masie find it, but does it's own communicating, whenever it wants, doing whatever it wants. Grumbling, but walking back into her room frustrated, Masie's little notebook was able to not just fit in her backpack, but her very pocket. So, taking it out, and grabbing a pencil off her precious bedside table-

"Wait.... why was there a pencil there? I didn't place it on the table.. at all?" Masie stopped in her tracks, eyeing the table warily. But, after a while, Masie just shrugs. Free pencil for her.

'Maybe the entity was kind to me and liked doing things to my bedside table? No, that just sounds stupid. Maybe it's trying to manipulate me into trusting it so much is can lure me somewhere and possess me? No, no, no, it got the inside of my bible dirty. It can't possibly think that'll make me think kindly of it. Why is this darn entity so hard to get any information about? Can it not talk? What were those voices in the hallway, anyhow? One definitely sounded more raspy. More... alive' Masie's thoughts kept spinning before she had to pinch herself to snap out of her self-inflicted trance.

Looking at her notebook again, she flips to the page where It's titled 'Problem one'. The handwriting was a bit rushed from her writing it in the cafeteria. The lunch times were so short for students, It's hardly possible to get enough food down to last the day. Another mistake. Well, Masie wasn't fully disappointed in herself. She was merely a teenager, who dealt with problems almost everywhere around her. She wasn't perfect, but gosh, sometimes she wished she was, and it ruined her self-supportive thinking. It was always something she always yearned for after being put in what felt like the shadows, while others got looked at for their problems, got the ability to get help from caring people, it all made Masie sick to her stomach. She wanted people to get help, yes, but Masie hated it how nothing could ever be noticed with her. Again, Masie was a people pleaser. An obsessive one.

She never admitted it, even her thoughts didn't, but she was scared to her bones to even ask Matthew to stop beating up the boy. She wanted to be perfect so she could stop being upset at herself, so she could get attention in a good way and not a bad one. It still rocked her stomach to even have this much negative thoughts.

Sighing, and shaking her head to clear her mind, Masie sets the notebook down and walks out of the room. It felt like a weighted blanket was drooping on her shoulders. Those backpacks were certainly something.

Walking down the stairs and to the kitchen, Masie opens the cold refrigerator door, the handle not yet cold enough to numb her hand. Hmm... chicken casserole... mashed potatoes.... pomegranates. Sighing and reaching out, she grabs the pomegranates hastily, shutting the fridge.

'Sophia, are you really skipping breakfast but denying chicken casserole and just eating pomegranates? Are you trying to feel rotten? Empty? You're just making it worse.' Masie's head snapped back at her internal comment on her action. Masie knew it was wrong for her to treat her body like this deep down, but there was one more mistake she couldn't stand that had gradually reached to the top of her thoughts other then her obsessive people pleasing tendencies.

It was her thighs and stomach. She was at a good weight for a young woman her age, but there was one thing leaving a bitter taste in her mouth making her want to do this to herself. It was how active people had always been around her, whether it was gymnastics to just a bike ride, Masie hated not doing that as often as she liked. She lived in an area in a forest, there's no flat roads to ride bikes on without making her feel sick, no hiking trails that don't lead to a campground or someone's cabin, and the only private trail that she can exercise on is one her family owns that goes down to the river banks. In a short note, there was no way to work out for long enough to feel good about herself afterwards.

Swimming was her favorite thing in the world, and perhaps the one most available to Masie, from being able to do a back dive from a man's arm to a backflip, it made her proud of herself. She could swim like a fish in water, letting her never get ehxhuasted for long periods. The cold never really bothered her, and holding onto a rock covered in grime underwater was as peaceful as sleep after a long day to Masie. It was the one sport that made her feel beautiful.

Right now, Masie realized something. Her biggest enemy wasn't Abby. It wasn't her brother, or the weird entity in her room, or Matthew, it was herself, and that cold, hard realization made a flicker of fear and fight arise in Masie. How had she never realized this, she thought, and how was she going to fix this?

..................

Waking up, Masie's eyes blinked as her vision trails around the room. Then, to the hallway. It was pitch black, like the one night she saw the figure.

Quickly tearing her vision away from the hallway, she looks at the clock.

'5:59 A.M.' Masie's eyes go wide, and she immediately jumps out of bed, running to the hallway and turning the light on, walking into the bathroom, starting to brush her hair. Why the living- why was the rest of her family not awake? It's not...

Masie's mouth goes dry, and the hand now holding the hairbrush tangled in her hair even stops. Letting her hand go, the hairbrush hanging from her hair, Masie walks back into her room and turns on her phone.

'6:01 A.M., Saturday.'

Masie groans, collapsing on the bed.

Crap.

She really just made a fuss, probably woke her family up from the now turned on light, and killed any chance of going back to sleep. If there's one thing she knows best, It's that naps don't work for her. Masie hasn't taken a nap since she was 5, and well, at her age now, it was staying. Forever.

"Ha! I knew it. School's schedule always finally a way to make me come across problems. Thanks! This really helps me in real life!" Masie's outburst even surprises herself, and she covers her mouth.

"Sorry god, Amen." Masie murmurs under her hand, and she makes a cross over her chest. Eyeing her room, she wonders what she can do now. Uhm... well, write about the 1st problem. She never really got to it. Picking up her notebook and opening it up again, and grabbing the mysterious pencil, Masie starts to write.

'Problem 1.

1)Matthew and Abby are now dating.

May cause Matthew to be more protective.

2) Matthew doesn't know about what Abby did, unless he's just playing along with it and they're both just a pile of douches.

3) The boy that got beat up was trying to reveal something, based on him saying "I didn't do it, and you know that" or something. Maybe Abby shifted the blame of the girl beat up on to him?

4) The guy was actually being a jerk

5) Sarah has to work in a group with Matthew, might get hurt if she says wrong thing accidentally.'

Masie looks over her notes, reading them over and over before nodding. That'll have to do.

"Masie? Why are the lights on?" Masie hears her mom's voice call out to her. Masie tenses up a bit and explains.

"I thought it was Friday, funny, right?" Masie says, trying to make the whole situation humorous.

"Go back to bed." Masie's mom snaps, turning off the lights from the light switch downstairs. Masie, wincing a bit at her mom's harsh tone knew it wasn't something to be sad about. Her mom was simply grumpy and wanted sleep on a weekday, after all.

Sighing and leaning back against the pillow, Masie picks up her phone and starts scrolling through her old messages with her mom, wondering how she could repair this gap her mother supposedly felt between them.