Prom Queen ~ Tyler Hernandez || **PART TWO**

**TW!!!****

Mentions of Su!sc!de, death, and m^rd3r

Please consider this when and how you read.

Word Count: 527

Her neck was searing in pain. She bit her tongue and let out a muffled scream. Water pricked the outside of her eyes, the darkness pressing in on her. 

She laid there, sobbing quietly. Her chest hurt. Her ribs, her neck, her legs. Everything hurt. Layla took in a large breath of air.

She paused. 

Was she...

Alive?

It didn't make sense. Hadn't she just... hung herself? Was she in some other place? An afterlife? Layla felt around, hands brushing the walls, down to the floor.

Suddenly, a sharp object sliced at her finger. Layla yelped and jumped back. 

Taking her finger to her mouth, she recognized the sour, metallic taste of blood. 

The clock...

The realization of it made her blink back more tears. She was still in the closet. She was still trapped. She didn't die. Her mother was going to kill her. 

Not unless I do it first... She thought, reluctantly searching for the rope. 

Layla froze again, as little voice inside her spoke up.

"But do you really want to go through that again?"

She swallowed hard. The thought of  tying the rope around her neck again loomed in her mind, the feeling of it wrenching at her head as she dropped. 

She curled up in a corner, farthest away from the shattered glass. She cried into her knees, and salty water droplets coated her legs and the floor. 

What was she going to do? If she tried to break out, her mother would hear and kill her on the spot, but if she waited for the morning, she would die either way.  

Does this mean I only died in the phantom world? Layla wondered.

So if I died here, would it still carry over into that dimension, or am I truly dead there? Will I not go back? Or if I died here, would I be permanently be stuck in the phantom universe? Layla sighed. Thinking right now was exhausting.

Everything faded to a dull ache, but one move knocked the breath out of her. Her eyes fluttered as the last of her tears dried on her cheeks. Maybe, everything would be all over in the morning.

~

 The house was quiet. She could hear birds singing. So it was morning.

Layla waited for her mother and her ultimate fate, but she never came. In fact, there was no sound except the songs of sparrows in the trees. 

Another question hit her. Why could she hear birdsong?

Pressing her ear up on the door, she listened. An engine starting, and it slowly getting farther and farther away.

Layla sat back, her mind racing.

Her mother had just left the house with the front door open.

It was honestly somewhat understandable, people this far out in the countryside didn't really need to worry much about thieves, not that they had anything of much value anyway.

Or at least, in a robber's eyes.

But that was besides the fact. 

Gently, she presses on the door to the closet. Locked, as always. Adrenaline pulsed through her. Layla placed her back against the door, and her feet on the wall opposite of it.

Taking a deep breath in, she pushed.