Unfinished

The woods were silent.

She sat on the swing, rocking back and forth.

Ahead of her, through the trees, James was pacing back and forth, running a hand through his hair and repeatedly trying to call someone on his phone.

"Riley won't pick up."

"Why not?" She asked, trailing the toe of her boot through the leaf litter on the ground.

Although the leaves above them were green, the ones on the ground were red and orange, like the ones falling around her.

James was silent, and started walking away from her.

"James?"

He didn't stop.

Piper was struck with a sudden feeling of wrongness. He couldn't leave. If he left, something terrible would happen. If he left, he wouldn't come back.

"James!"

Silence.

"James!" She screamed, trying to struggle off the swing.

But it rocked her forward, and backward, and forward, and backward.

Then the strings snapped.

Piper woke with a jolt in bed, sitting up and clutching the sheets in her fists as her breath came in short gasps.

What's the time?

She opened her phone: it was half past five. When she went to turn it off, she found herself staring at the lock screen for a few moments.

It was a selfie Riley had taken at a diner, with her face taking up the entire bottom corner of the screen. James gave an enthusiastic thumbs up, whilst Piper was just beaming.

Her brother and his fiancee were supposed to be on a date, but after a particularly horrific rejection from her crush, Piper had found herself invited along.

She smiled weakly, before turning her phone back off and rolling onto her side.

After a few minutes, she swung her legs out of bed and pushed the covers off. Piper couldn't tell whether she was sweating because of the fear or the heat. She gripped her knees tightly with her fingers, and screwed her eyes shut.

She needed some air.

Piper tiptoed down the stairs, hardly daring to breath until she had unlocked the front door and stood on the porch.

The sun wasn't yet up, but the sky had begun to lighten to the east. A cool wind blew dust across the floor, and she felt goosebumps rising on her skin. The world was still cold.

It had only been a few nights since she'd arrived, but the nightmares hadn't stopped. If anything, they'd gotten worse.

━━━━━⋅⋅⋅ˏˋ • ˊˎ⋅⋅⋅━━━━━

"Higher!" Finn screeched, kicking his legs in the air.

"I'm going as high as I can! I'm only little!" Piper protested, pushing the swing with all her might.

"This is fun! And completely safe!" He addressed her earlier worries.

The swing was a thick plank of wood with two holes drilled through it. Rope threaded through the wood and knotted underneath, before stretching upwards and attached to a tree branch.