L o u i s a

"Somebody shine a light. I'm frozen by the fear in me. Somebody make me feel alive. And shatter me." - Shatter Me, Lindsey Stirling ft Lzzy Hale

I'm frozen by the fear in me.

I've forgotten what it's like

To be alive

To be hopeful

To be fearless.

Is someone out there?

Please, save me from my demons.

*

We step past the huge, dark blue archway and into the fairgrounds, the sounds of laughter and light hearted jokes reaching my ears, the smell of popcorn and cotton candy lingering in the air.

There's so much joy and excitement here. I can't live up to that.

"Come on. Let's go," Basil says, grabbing my hand and leading me through the crowd of people.

"Where are we going?" I ask, feeling very aware of my hand in his, my cheeks flushing red from embarrassment.

"To the haunted house. We're meeting my friends there," he replies.

"Wait. Please say we're not going to go through the haunted house. I don't do haunted houses."

He shrugs. "We'll see," he answers lightly.

I really don't want to go in. If Basil's friends are anything like Ria and Lowella and the rest of their friends, it's more than likely we're going. I've never been very fond thrilling and scary adventures.

"We're here," Basil tells me, snapping me out of my daze.

I glance around, taking in my surroundings. There are bright lights everywhere, in the booths, in all the attractions. Bright, colourful lanterns hang from one lamppost to the next, creating a nice and cheery ambience.

Rows and rows of stalls line the fairgrounds and a tall, magnificent Ferris wheel stands on the right end of the grounds. There are so many people here. Perhaps this is a huge annual event for this town. Parents with their young kids, teens, young adults, couples. Everyone looks like they're having such a great time. After all, this is meant to be a place of fun.

I haven't been able to enjoy anything since Dad left.

I feel tears pooling in my eyes and I wipe them away with the back of my hand before they have a chance to fall. I have managed to not think about Dad nearly the whole time I've been here — albeit that's only been just over three weeks — but it's still progress for me. I wish I could just forget about him the whole summer, but I can't.

Dad means the world to me.

He's the only one in the family who understands me, who has always been there for me. But he had to leave.

No, Louisa. Stop thinking about it. You can't change the past. What has happened, happened and you can't do anything about it. Just stop. Stop thinking.

I take in a shaky breath of air, burying any and all memories about Dad deep down, plastering a smile on my face.

"Where are your friends?" I ask Basil.

He shrugs. "I have no idea. They said they'd be around here." He pauses. "Oh, I see them."

He gestures for me to follow him as he head towards the haunted house tent, towards a group of about six or seven people.

When Basil said 'friends', I thought he meant one or two of them, not a whole group. I'm not sure if I can handle it if there are so many people.

"Basil!" a girl calls out.

"Fran! Hi!" he replies, waving his arm.

I wonder who these people are and how they know Basil. I suppose they're people he knows from his internship.

"Fran. It's been so long," he says when we reach the group, hugging one of the girls.

Her platinum blond hair is in a pixie cut and it's too dark to see her eyes, with large, black rimmed glasses framing her eyes. She's around about my height, a small sling bag slung across her right shoulder.

"Louisa?"

My ears perk up at the sound of my name being called and I turn to look in that direction.

"Sam? What are you doing here?" I blurt out, freezing.

My eyes meet his and it's almost as if the whole world has melted away and there's only me and him. My heart starts racing and I feel so nervous around him but I can't stop staring into his eyes. It's hypnotising. A sense of belonging washes over me and it's almost as if I've found a home. Shaking off what must be a false feeling, I force myself to break the eye contact, averting my gaze to the rocky ground.

There's something about Sam that makes me feel like everything will be alright. But I can't. He seems so happy, so contented with life. I can't take that away from him. He deserves a good life, one without me in it. I'll just drag him down with me when I eventually explode.

I've already made the mistake of befriending Basil. I can't make that same mistake with Sam.

As much as I don't want to admit it, Basil and I will always be connected. Through Troy. Hopefully, one day, my mum comes to her senses and divorces him but until then, he's my step brother.

But Sam is not connected to me in any way, and, as much as I wish otherwise, I think it's best for both of us if we keep it that way.

"I'm here with my family," he mutters, nodding towards the others in the group.

"Speaking of," a woman — presumably his mother — starts," I'll leave your sister here. Your dad and I will bring Sandy around the fair. Please look after her."

"Okay, Mum," he replies just as his parents leave, holding the hands of a small kid.

Sandy, I assume.

The other girl moves to stand beside Sam, her eyes alight with excitement.

"This is Stacey, by the way," Sam tells me. "My younger sister. Stace, this is Lou."

"Hi," she says cheerily.

I smile at her. "Hi."

"You two know each other?" the girl — Fran — asks, gesturing between Sam and I.

He nods. "We've met."

"Cool," she replies. Turning to me, she extends a hand and says," Hi. I'm Francesca, Basil's childhood friend."

I shake her hand, forcing a smile. "Hi. Louisa."

"It's so nice to finally meet you. Basil has been talking a lot about you."

I laugh. "We've only known each other for about three weeks."

"That's never stop a romance from blossoming," she says, winking.

I chuckle nervously, turning to look at Basil. "He's my step brother though."

"Key word being 'step'. You two aren't blood related."

"Don't worry about Fran. She's a hopeless romantic," he says, laughing, wavinf her away.

"Am not," she replies, on the verge of laughter herself.

Basil rolls his eyes dramatically at her. "Anyway, where's Jas?"

Fran shrugs. "No idea. She said she was going to throw a couple of bean bags but she's been gone for nearly twenty minutes. Did she—"

"What were you going to say about me?" another girl asks, walking up to us.

Her strawberry blonde hair is braided to one side and she has on a white crop top with dark washed jeans.

"Nothing," Fran replies, punching the girl playfully.

My gaze wanders to Sam and it's almost as if he's frozen in fear. I nearly walk towards him to check up on him without the others hearing but I stop myself.

He probably doesn't want anyone prying.

"Hi. Louisa, right? I'm Jasmine," the new girl introduces, waving at me. "But you can call me Jas."

"So nice to meet you," I mutter, for the sake of being polite.

"Shall we get going?" Basil asks. "I think we've all more or less been introduced."

"Yes, please," Fran says, heading towards the haunted house.

I really do not want to go in — I don't do jump scares or any sort of scare — but I've no choice as everyone is already going there. I don't want to wait out here nor do I want to voice up and go against the idea. After all, it's their outing. I'm just an outsider tagging along.

"How many?" I hear the cashier ask Sam just as I reach the rest of the group.

"Six."

"That'll be thirty dollars."

He takes out his wallet from his back pocket and places three ten dollar notes on the counter.

"Here you go," she says, taking the notes and passing Sam six black tickets. "Enjoy."

"Thank you."

He turns away from the cashier, walks back to us and distributes the tickets.

"How much?" Basil asks, reaching for his wallet.

Sam shakes his head. "My treat."

"Thank you, Sam!" Fran exclaims enthusiastically, throwing her arms around Sam.

I've got to admit. She's very comical and expressive.

"My pleasure."

"Let's go!"

I follow the rest from behind as they head towards the entrance of the tent. Basil falls behind the group to walk beside me.

"Are you okay?" he asks, concerned.

"I'm fine. You don't have to keep on asking me that," I snap, suddenly feeling annoyed.

"I'm just worried about you, Lou," he replies softly.

"Sorry. I'm not sure what got into me."

"It's fine. Let's just go in there and have fun, okay?"

I nod. "Sure."

We present our tickets to the staff stationed outside the tent and he takes them, gesturing for us to enter. I take a deep breath and take a step into the tent.

We find ourselves standing at the beginning of a long, dimly lit hallway. My hands start shaking with every step I take, anticipating a monster or some person in scary makeup and a mask to jump out at any time, and I can feel hot tears pooling in my eyes.

Keep it together, Lou. At least you're not alone.

I'm not alone? I'm always alone. It doesn't matter if I'm physically with anyone else. We'll all be alone in the crowd. Only we can walk our path of life. No one else can do it for us. And nothing else really matters, not that anything else mattered in the first place.

Thankfully, we reach the end of the corridor unharmed and unscared. Sam and his sister go around the bend and the rest of us follow cautiously. Jas and Fran are holding onto each other, as if for dear life, and Stacey has her arms wrapped around Sam, his arm over her shoulder. Basil, on the other hand, continues on his way as if there's nothing to be afraid about.

But you see, that's the thing.

There's everything to be afraid about.

Fear. Fear is what traps us. Fear is what encapsulates us, leaving us unable to continue. Fear is what ties us down and stops us from doing what we want. Fear is what makes us angry and upset. Fear is what makes us hate and betray one another. We are the prisoners and fear is the warden in this maximum security prison with no escape.

I'm not going to lie and say that I am not a victim of fear. If anything, I'm the biggest victim of fear.

"Are you okay, Louisa?"

How many people is going to ask me that today?

"Yeah, I'm fine," I reply, looking towards the direction of the voice, only to find Sam walking beside me now, where Basil was just a while ago.

Have I been spacing out for that long?

"You're not scared right?" he says, a hint of playfulness in his voice.

I force a laugh. "No," I answer. "Why would I be?"

"I don't know. We are in a haunted house after all," he say, smirking.

I shrug nonchalantly, unable to find anything else to say.

He seems to feel the same way.

There's something about Sam that intrigues me. I'm not quite sure what it is. I thought I had him figured out in that short amount of time we spent together. At first I thought he's perfectly contented with his probably perfect life but then I thought I caught a glimpse of him, the real him, when he let his guard down when he thinks no one is looking. But it's so brief that it may have been just my imagination.

But what does it matter.

All of a sudden, a scream broke out, echoing throughout the whole house. Instinctively, I let out a scream as well, collapsing to the ground and pressing the palms of my hands to my ears.

It's okay. It's okay. It's okay.

"Louisa, it's okay. There's nothing to worry about," Sam says softly, rubbing my back in an attempt to comfort me.

There's nothing to worry about?

There's everything to worry about. Scream or no scream, we're all scared of something. And we all just keep it in, suppress it, bury it deep, where no one can find. But it doesn't really work that way. Our lives are all intertwined, everyone a ticking time bomb.

At the end of the day, we're all trapped in a tangled web of fear, just waiting to explode.

"Come on, let's go," he tells me, getting up, extending a hand.

I grab it and he pulls me up and we continue on our way through this haunted house, though, if I'm being honest, I can hardly make out anything. How does anyone navigate through this? It's too dark to see anything.

It's just like life, isn't it. None of us knows where we're going. We're all just stumbling around blindly, just like we are here.

And hopefully, I'll make it out alive.