^ Sky at 15–16 (at the top)
vs
Sky at 17 (at the bottom) ^

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H o l l o w s   I n
T    I    M    E
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I gulped. My hands started to shake. I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. Tears streamed down my face and I collapsed. What had I done?

And that's how my panic attack started. I gulped. My hands started to shake. I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. Tears didn't come. I didn't collapse. Because that was a different time.

"Sky, breathe." We had barely reached Saph's dorm before I broke down. Jameson stood practically at the opposite end of the corridor. But he was inching closer.

I hiccuped. My lungs were constricting.

"Let me help you." He outstretched an arm, voice strained. I shook my head.

"Breathe." He told me, his voice soft. He was coming closer. I could feel it. But I had shut my eyes, in hopes of shutting out the pain.

Something skimmed my hand and I flinched.

"Relax. It's me." Jameson. It was Jameson. How should that reassure me? I didn't want him to touch me. I flinched away again, my eyelids shooting open.

"Sky." His palms pressed against either side of my face and I backed into the wall.

"Why are you doing this?" He asked, voice broken. "Why won't you let me help you?" Because you can't help. Because I hate you.

I had to keep on running. I couldn't stop now. I'd be caught. I rose to my feet and sprinted, no matter what aches and pains overwhelmed me.

I had picked myself up then. I can pick myself up now. I just had to breathe. I just had to sort my crap out.

I pulled out my phone. Time was leaving me. It would be dark soon. My battery was also leaving me.

Nothing is hopeless if I got through that, no matter how long it took. Then it happened. Those aches and pains overwhelmed me again and, before I knew it, I had shoved Jameson off me. I didn't sprint away, but I also didn't waste any time. Distance. I needed distance.

I needed distance from the house. I couldn't be caught. I also needed to find civilisation. I continued sprinting, my feet smashing against the woodlands hard floor.

Minutes later, I was about to enter the hall on my own. I didn't need Jameson. I had my own nightmares, my own mistakes. They were mine. He may have done unfixable damage, but I would be the purest representation that unfixable damage struts into a hall with her head held high. And so I did.

Everyone looked at me. Not one eye looked away. They all recognised me—somehow. Keep going. No one is there.

I walked into the kitchen to pick out my breakfast. Someone dropped their tray. I jumped out of my skin.

"Is that Sky Forest?"

"Why is she here?"

"What happened to her?"

"Ew, did she really lose that much weight?"

Those are the whispers that circled me like gushes of wind as I picked out my lunch. Milk. And orange juice. Wait–

"You need vitamin C as well." I jolted. Jameson was back.

"Yoghurt?" He suggested, holding up the pot as if I had never shoved him off my body so fast. Faster than he can say, "I'm a twat."

I snatched it out of his hands as he reached over to grab a packet of granola.

"Do you want anything else?" He asked, noticing me peering at all the other foods.

"Toast." I told him. Toast. It's been a while, my old friend.

"But you're not suppo–"

"With jam." Yes. My stomach craved it. I grabbed them before Jameson could object, and then tottered out to the seats. Or at least, I tried to. I bashed into someone and lost my jam.

"Woah, now I'm in Egypt." A voice spoke as I brushed locks of hair out of my face. "I love teleportation." They said next and I frowned. I knew–

And she knew too.

She stared at me in astonishment. "It's Friday." She began. "I think it's Friday." She continued. I frowned. Same old, same old.

Well, not all the same. She learnt how to use makeup effectively. And her hair was longer, and thicker. Her nose was slimmer, her eyes were, as ever, alight with every emotion. Her lips were puckered naturally now, not just for photos. She was seventeen too. Yet, she looks like that, and I look like this.

"It's Friday." I confirmed.

She gasped. "And she speaks?" She spoke about me as if I was a wind-up toy.

She rubbed at her eyes. "Wait." She began. "Sky?" She was being serious now. A miracle, really. Then she pulled me into a hug. The first hug I had received in nearly six months.

I silently cursed when my food nearly went everywhere.

"Oh, look." She bent down, plucking my jam from the floor. "Jam." She held it up and inspected it.

"It's mine." I told her and she nodded, placing it on my tray.

"SKYEY!" She shrieked, making me jump a whole ten centimetres in the air.

She looped her arm through mine. "Do you remember me?" She asked.

"Of course, Cassie." I responded. In the corner of my eye, I saw Jameson following us like a shadow.

"So how was your vay-cay?" She asked, seemingly oblivious to all the stares we were receiving.

"Tight." I responded.

"No time to fit it all in?" She asked me. No, no space to fit all of me into a tight cage. I hummed a "yes" in response nonetheless.

"Guys!" She yelled in my ear. Then I became aware of more familiar faces. And then one that I didn't recognise.

"Look who I found in Egypt!" That did it. My ear was dead. Cassie took my tray from my hands and slammed it on the table. The girls heads snapped around. Then they saw me.

"Oh my.." Saph couldn't even finish her sentence as the three stared at me. Avery, sitting next to the girl I had yet to meet, pushed herself out of her chair and rushed around the table, pulling me in for my second hug in nearly six months.

I wrapped my arms around her body. She eventually came out of the hug, holding me at arms distance with her palms on my  shoulders. Her eyes drank up my features. I drank up hers. She still had a small, pixie–like frame, but had added a few inches onto her height. Avery's face, as always, was painted with the most natural of makeup. Her features were still small, and, by the looks of it, her facial structure was more prominent, her face being slimmer than I remember. She's seventeen too.

Someone grabbed me from my side and pulled me in for my third hug today. I should feel uncomfortable, right? But I did not hate these girls.

The girl pulled away. Saph. Her dark brown hair still reached just beyond her shoulders in a waterfall of curls as if she had just cut it. She was much the same, really, but had acquired a better figure since I had seen her last. She's seventeen too.

I smiled at them. They grinned back. It was apparently decided, silently, that they wouldn't ask about the ins and outs of where I had been for the past year. They sat me down, opposite the girl I didn't recognise. She stared at me wordlessly. I could see it in her eyes; she thought I was a freak.

"Oh," Avery spoke up from where she sat on the opposite side of the table, seeing me staring. "This is Bria."

The girl was beautiful. Like a model. And then there's me. She had dark hair, and with a smattering of freckles over her nose and under her eyes. Her skin was lightly tanned, as if she had done the fair amount of sunbathing when I had been locked up. I bet I looked as pale and as frail as a ghost against her. She had no blemishes, nothing for me to criticise her on. Her dark eyelashes fluttered as she blinked, still staring at me.

"She's fifteen." Cassie, not-so-whispered, behind her hand to me. This girl isn't seventeen. She was the pure representation of who I was when I was fifteen. Except, she looked tainted. As if she had been burnt at one point and carried invisible scars.

A sour expression took over her face as she heard what Cassie had not-so-discreetly said. "Sixteen in December."

Saph poked a straw into my orange juice and began to sip from it. "That still makes you fifteen, darling."

I stared at her. She wasn't me. She has been hurt. Hurt more than I ever was at fifteen.

As my eyes skimmed the lock screen, I became aware of the date. May the Eighteenth. I registered the fact that I had been away for far too long. But I had to keep sprinting. Keep going.

But I'm hurt now. I'm seventeen. And I'm hurt. Indescribably hurt.

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HEY GUYS

I GOT MY GCSE RESULTS YESTERDAY

TURNS OUT

IM ENGLISH

I GOT AN

8/A* in English Language

AND A

7/A in English Literature

WHATTTTTT

ALSO

PARTIAL CAST LIST COMING MONDAY THE 28TH OF AUGUST '17

BE THERE

CHAPTER NINETEEN

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Next update: Monday (😏😏😏)
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CHAPTER NINETEEN SPOILER:

We stay in the present and observe as Sky attends her first lesson in five months.

Be ready to meet some old characters ;)

One of which doesn't know how much pain awaits them.