Gloria shot straight up in her bed, her eyes wide and her heart pounding fast as the beginnings of sleep were suddenly thrust from her body and mind. Her chest heaved in the loose-fitted t-shirt she wore and manicured nails grasped for the switch on the light that sat next to her bedside table, finally finding purchase as illumination filled the teen queen's bedroom. She winced as her eyes adjusted, half-expecting there to be a intruder looming over her bed...Or maybe Johnny having foolishly snuck into her bedroom for a little late night romance.
But Gloria's light purple-white bedroom was empty save for the typical furniture of a eighteen year old girl. Her make-up stand stooped quietly in the corner, her closet door was secured, her desk and chair waited, her backpack hanging off the chair and her purse and other assorted items lay in slightly disorganized pile next to her homework. She pushed her tongue against the back of her front teeth, a nervous tick she'd developed over the years and strained to listen. Maybe it was just some noise outside? But the night time world was quiet and uneventful, up to the point of even boring normalcy.
But said normalcy of it all versus what Gloria was absolutely SURE had just happened only made her more anxious.
"Gloria...Help..." Came the strange voice again after a moment of silence. It sounded so far away, so small...But at the same time it was as loud as someone was right next to her!
"Billl...I can't..." Came another voice! This time it was the voice of a girl!
"What the fuck!?" The black haired beauty swore as her eyes opened even wider and continued to look around the room from her rather plush and luxurious bed. It had sounded like a boy's voice...But no one that she knew or even remotely recognized from school. Had it been...Gloria's eyes flickered warily to the closet door to the side of her bed where the carpet of her bedroom slid into shadows beneath the skirt of her bed. And then she shook her head vigorously, banishing the childish thoughts of monsters lurking under her bed, trying to trick her from leaving the safety of her blankets and becoming a meal for slimy, fanged beasts lurking in the dark.
"Ugh, get a hold of yourself g-shit!" Gloria hissed as three sharp raps at her bedroom door shook what little childish fear that remained in her.
"Gloria, what was that!? You're supposed to be asleep!" Came the slightly muffled, but still quite shrill voice of Ariadne Vanapolous, Gloria's mom, caretaker, privately in Gloria's opinion, her tormenting helicopter mom-bitch.
"Uh, yeah I just, uh, just a nightmare mom!" Gloria called back in her practiced obedient voice. It was a talent she'd learned in her eighteen years of life; everything was easier when you just agreed and did what mom wanted. Little bursts of independence here and there were tolerated, of course, but looking gorgeous, being popular, and never doing anything that reflected poorly on Ariadne were paramount to Gloria's life being as nag-free as possible.
"You JUST went to bed, Gloria! No one has nightmares that fast! I'm coming in!" The Vanapolous matriarch crooned ominously, and with a slight squeak of a door knob and hinge, she entered the bedroom.
Ariadne Vanapolous was tall, even without her business heels, and in her white lace nightgown, her figure still cut as imposing a display in the domestic setting as it did in her business suits at work. Her slightly graying hair fell perfectly to her shoulders and despite having no make-up on, the face that she mostly shared with Gloria was sharp, angular and wreathed in exotic beauty of the 'old country' (despite having been born in the United States just like Gloria's father). She was still a beautiful woman, but much in the way that a diamond is beautiful; hard, sharp, and beyond reproach (or approach, in Gloria's opinion). What age wasn't robbing from her in youthful looks was being ground and sanded to sharp angles by her personality. Ariadne towered over her daughter and planted her hands on her hips, watching as her silent daughter's face twitched and her eyes darted across the room towards her phone with a wince.
That was all Ariadne needed, an excuse to start going through her daughter's things. And maybe if she hadn't been so intent on looking for a 'tell', then she might have been able to pick up the fear and uncertainty in Gloria's eyes.
"Young lady, I have told you time and time again that if you DON'T get your beauty sleep, you're going to end up looking like forty year old hag before you're twenty-one! Are you talking to someone? You're not...sexting with Johnny, are you!?" Ariadne's nostrils flared at the thought of her daughter leaving incriminating texts that could be used to shame the family (and more importantly, herself). She didn't wait for her daughter's fumbled excuses and stomped across the bedroom, grabbing her daughter's phone off the charger and turning it on.
"Mom! I-I wasn't-" Gloria stuttered as she untangled herself from her bed, moving too fast and crashing to the floor with a muffled 'oof' before clawing back to her feet. But it was too late, her mother had already opened the phone and was scrolling through it like it was HER property, not Gloria's!
"Mom, that's MINE!" She screamed, grabbing at her mother's manicured hand with her own, but Ariadne deftly moved out of the way and frowned into the bright screen of the phone as her daughter collided with the wall, another low groan of clumsy pain following soon after.
"It's actually mine, Gloria. After all I'm the one who bought it, who pays for the phone plan, who allows you to keep it...Really everything you own is mine, unless you've somehow gotten a job without me knowing about it and have, somehow, started buying things using your own money" The elder Vanapolous snarked as she flicked through screen after screen of text messages and Gloria's photo gallery. But, much to her relief, her daughter HAD been behaving herself, more or less. Casual flirting was fine, and all the pictures on Gloria's phone were nothing to be alarmed about and rather almost atypical of what a mother would find on their popular daughter's cellphone...Perhaps she'd been a little too hasty in...
"UGH SHUT UP!" Gloria screamed behind her, and Ariadne's temper flared along with her nostrils as she turned to reprimand her daughter.
"YOUNG LADY YOU WILL NOT SPEAK TO ME THAT WA-" Ariadne began, but stopped sort of finishing the quickly forming punishment as she stared at the very odd image of her daughter...pounding her head with her fists? This was new, Gloria had ever only thrown tantrums as a child and even then it was more or less just screaming. But this...
"MOM! Mom d-do you hear those voices? A boy and a girl asking for help? Please tell me you hear them, mom!" Gloria's voicing wavered, and Ariadne saw the look of fear on her daughter's face. But Gloria could be a great actress when she wanted, so Ariadne chose to err on the side of what she would consider caution.
"Gloria...If this is some sort trick, if you're hiding something..." Ariadne's voice was firm.
"Mom, I SWEAR I'm Not! Can't you...Can't you hear them? They're SO LOUD! AHHH!" Gloria screamed again, her fists pounding so hard against her black haired head that Ariadne could hear the impacts.
"Gloria! What is going on!?" Ariadne hissed, glancing around in confusion, the cellphone still held limply in her hand. This was...This was unseemly, even for the home! If one of the neighbors heard...She was getting ready to reprimand her daughter once more before Gloria let out a wail and collapsed to the floor of the bedroom, her pretty head smacking itself repeatedly against the carpeted floor.
"MOMMY! HELP!" Gloria sobbed as the voices in her head got louder and louder. The only time they stopped now was when she was speaking! What...What was happening to her!? The strange voices of the boy named Bill and the still unknown girl were yelling for help and for her to 'listen' to them! She just wanted it to stop! Gloria let out an ear-piercing shriek as she began clawing at her scalp, quickly drawing blood as she flung herself against the floor. She had to get them out of her head! Pain began to overwhelm her.
"GLORIA! Oh god, ROMAN, GET IN HERE!" Ariadne screamed for her husband as she rushed over to the writhing form of her daughter, trying desperately to pull the stained hands away from a scalp that was wet with blood. She tried to hold her daughter still, blood getting over her pristine night gown as she tried to pin her daughter's body against her own lest Gloria do any more harm to herself.
"GET OUT GET OUT GET OOOOOOUUTT!" Gloria screamed at the top of her lungs as her father came thumping into her room, brown eyes wide in fear.