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A New Witch (JuumbledxPygalgic)
- Thread starter Jumbled
- Start date
OP
OP
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2019
Purple.
Never before had Serena laid eyes on such a monstrosity as the house she stood before. If it had been a normal color— something standard like cream or grey or white— she might have been jealous that her grandmother had lived in such a home. Serena had only ever lived in a cramped, two bedroom condo with her father when she was young, transitioning into an even smaller one bedroom apartment once she’d moved out. As she gazed at the old, gastly purple, Victorian styled home that might as well have been a mansion in her own mind, she wondered what she might find within its walls. The house keys shifted in her palm as she idly twisted them around with anxious fingers. It had to be at least three stories high, but there was always a possibility of an attic as well— add a basement and that became a whole lotta’ house to sort through.
The funeral had been a small service— small meaning she was the only one there aside from some stray cats that gathered around the building she’d been directed to. As picturesque as the town appeared to be, they really needed to collect their strays and manage them better. There were good programs for that, maybe they just didn’t know. None of them had their ears clipped. But, it wasn’t as though it really mattered. Serena wasn’t staying in Birchwell. She didn’t need to teach the locals about their “wildlife” issues.
There was something horribly awkward about being asked if she wanted to say anything about her grandmother during the service. Serena had peered around the room briefly, being sure that someone hadn’t snuck in while she wasn’t paying attention. “I— I really didn’t know her.” she mumbled in response. The service then shifted into an exchange about assets and the house, with a thick envelope and a set of keys handed off to her.
Serena had been the last living relative of Trudy Black. The circumstances leading up to her coming to such a town were baffling at best. She hadn’t shared her address with anyone from her mother’s side of the family, they’d never been close or even known one another. Her father was a protective man— in her 28 years of life she hadn’t met a maternal relative. He’d always told her they were trouble, getting into things a young lady such as herself shouldn’t mess with. Serena assumed drugs were the culprit her whole life, but the town felt so quaint. She struggled to picture thuggish drug dealers roaming the streets. It wasn’t a bustling city with dirty back allies. So, when an unsuspecting letter arrived for her with elegant scrollwork for penmanship on the envelope, she never in a million years believed it would be a summon to Birchwell. She didn’t mention it to her father. He would have told her not to go, but the mysterious invitation pulled at her, beckoning her to the town she’d never stepped foot in.
Serena took her first few footfalls toward the house, slowly pushing through the overgrowth of plant life that prodded out, over the sidewalk as if it wanted to grab her. She was delicate with the plants, shifting them carefully out of the way as she approached the front porch. At least that particular part of the house was a deep, cool gray that offset the purple. The stairs leading up were a bit steep, but the porch itself was actually quite pretty. It was a wide, hexagon shaped space, complete with a simple wooden bench swing hanging on chains and large potted plants that were more tame than the plants along the walkway.
Fumbling hands, nearly shaking for some reason, fought with the keys as she unlocked the door. The faint sound of a cat’s meow drew her attention to the side railing where another cat was perched. The all black feline with piercing yellow eyes stared at her. She shifted her body to the opposite side as if saying she was uncomfortable with such a simple motion. Her slender form, still fitted in a simple black dress pushed hard against the door, finding it a little stuck against the frame. She wasn’t a large girl by any means, she’d never grown taller than 5’3” and that was in her early high school years. Her silken brown hair cascaded down her back, just below her shoulder blades, and as she peeked over her shoulder, getting the sudden sensation that something other than the cat was now watching her, her glossy brown eyes found nothing— noone— there.
“I hope there’s not a lot to do here. I didn’t expect all of this to fall into my lap. I suppose I could try to sell it?” she mumbled to herself as she pushed the door open the rest of the way. Before she could stop it from happening, a streak of black zipped into the home. She realized it was the cat as she then found the railing to be lacking one. “What—?” Maybe Trudy had pets. Hopefully that was the case. Not that it would matter much now. She was technically the new owner of the property. Luckily she wasn’t allergic.
Never before had Serena laid eyes on such a monstrosity as the house she stood before. If it had been a normal color— something standard like cream or grey or white— she might have been jealous that her grandmother had lived in such a home. Serena had only ever lived in a cramped, two bedroom condo with her father when she was young, transitioning into an even smaller one bedroom apartment once she’d moved out. As she gazed at the old, gastly purple, Victorian styled home that might as well have been a mansion in her own mind, she wondered what she might find within its walls. The house keys shifted in her palm as she idly twisted them around with anxious fingers. It had to be at least three stories high, but there was always a possibility of an attic as well— add a basement and that became a whole lotta’ house to sort through.
The funeral had been a small service— small meaning she was the only one there aside from some stray cats that gathered around the building she’d been directed to. As picturesque as the town appeared to be, they really needed to collect their strays and manage them better. There were good programs for that, maybe they just didn’t know. None of them had their ears clipped. But, it wasn’t as though it really mattered. Serena wasn’t staying in Birchwell. She didn’t need to teach the locals about their “wildlife” issues.
There was something horribly awkward about being asked if she wanted to say anything about her grandmother during the service. Serena had peered around the room briefly, being sure that someone hadn’t snuck in while she wasn’t paying attention. “I— I really didn’t know her.” she mumbled in response. The service then shifted into an exchange about assets and the house, with a thick envelope and a set of keys handed off to her.
Serena had been the last living relative of Trudy Black. The circumstances leading up to her coming to such a town were baffling at best. She hadn’t shared her address with anyone from her mother’s side of the family, they’d never been close or even known one another. Her father was a protective man— in her 28 years of life she hadn’t met a maternal relative. He’d always told her they were trouble, getting into things a young lady such as herself shouldn’t mess with. Serena assumed drugs were the culprit her whole life, but the town felt so quaint. She struggled to picture thuggish drug dealers roaming the streets. It wasn’t a bustling city with dirty back allies. So, when an unsuspecting letter arrived for her with elegant scrollwork for penmanship on the envelope, she never in a million years believed it would be a summon to Birchwell. She didn’t mention it to her father. He would have told her not to go, but the mysterious invitation pulled at her, beckoning her to the town she’d never stepped foot in.
Serena took her first few footfalls toward the house, slowly pushing through the overgrowth of plant life that prodded out, over the sidewalk as if it wanted to grab her. She was delicate with the plants, shifting them carefully out of the way as she approached the front porch. At least that particular part of the house was a deep, cool gray that offset the purple. The stairs leading up were a bit steep, but the porch itself was actually quite pretty. It was a wide, hexagon shaped space, complete with a simple wooden bench swing hanging on chains and large potted plants that were more tame than the plants along the walkway.
Fumbling hands, nearly shaking for some reason, fought with the keys as she unlocked the door. The faint sound of a cat’s meow drew her attention to the side railing where another cat was perched. The all black feline with piercing yellow eyes stared at her. She shifted her body to the opposite side as if saying she was uncomfortable with such a simple motion. Her slender form, still fitted in a simple black dress pushed hard against the door, finding it a little stuck against the frame. She wasn’t a large girl by any means, she’d never grown taller than 5’3” and that was in her early high school years. Her silken brown hair cascaded down her back, just below her shoulder blades, and as she peeked over her shoulder, getting the sudden sensation that something other than the cat was now watching her, her glossy brown eyes found nothing— noone— there.
“I hope there’s not a lot to do here. I didn’t expect all of this to fall into my lap. I suppose I could try to sell it?” she mumbled to herself as she pushed the door open the rest of the way. Before she could stop it from happening, a streak of black zipped into the home. She realized it was the cat as she then found the railing to be lacking one. “What—?” Maybe Trudy had pets. Hopefully that was the case. Not that it would matter much now. She was technically the new owner of the property. Luckily she wasn’t allergic.
Pygalgic
Planetoid
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2011
Then
The mottled purple flesh that stretched from Eric’s thigh to nipple pulsed and threatened to simmer again. When he tried to leave Birchwell, when he tried to put miles between his body and the consequences of his action, the scar throbbed and pulled at him and burned until he felt more than heard the sizzle of burning flesh.
The scar forced Eric to turn his hunter green hatchback onto the side of the road and stumble into the forest, where he threw himself into a stream.
“I got the message, I got it, now stop, stop, stop,” he had begged the scar as he desperately rubbed winter cold dirt onto his bare torso to make it stop.
Now
The lanky man stood on a hill, half hidden behind a tree, and watched. He put a small scope to a gray eye and watched the small service, scanning past the cats paying tribute to the recently deceased Trudy Black to settle on a woman with brown hair and that family nose. The proud bridge, the slightly upturned point.
Eric had a memory for faces that rivaled, he suspected, most people. However, as much as he would like to pat himself on the back for being able to string together basic clues to point to Serena’s identity as the rumored Black heir, the reality was much simpler.
When he looked at her, the purple lines that crisscrossed his body in a half melted pentagram and profane symbols stopped aching. After days of burning pain and the increasing realization that his body was no longer truly his own, there was a moment of relief.
So he put the scope away and tried to leave again.
It was worse this time.
Eric didn’t make it to the old sign that said Leaving Birchwell City Limits.
When the pain came blood glued his white undershirt to his body and had him gasping for air like a fish out of water.
So he turned around again and decided what he would do.
He would do what the old witch had cursed him to do.
Until he figured a way out of it.
Eric pulled a U-turn and made his way to the garish purple estate Trudy Black had given her mysterious air. The last time he had been there he had painted the walls red with Trudy’s blood and looked on in something halfway between resignation and surprise when the floorboards drank it.
He drove through wending, narrow old world streets that a city planner had never touched and parked in front of a new apartment complex. After he removed his red flannel it took nearly a full minute to peel off his undershirt and wash his chest, stomach, and side down with water and antiseptic. A couple more minutes later and he was spotting large square gauze bandages held down by compression tape.
A few minutes later and he was standing outside of his car, wearing charcoal gray chinos, supple burgundy colored boots, his red flannel button up, a werewolf fur and wool blend peacoat, and a gray beanie.
And two guns, a rune carved knife, and a telescoping baton reinforced with kraken beak.
Confident that he was prepared for anything that would come at him on the fly, Eric walked around the perimeter of the neighborhood to check and see if any Intruders or Practitioners were skulking around to make a play for the Black House.
If he had gone straight to Serena’s new home, he probably could have stopped what happened next.
But he didn’t.
Maribel
When your friend tells you they need your help, you give it. When your friend tells you that their mysterious maternal grandmother has died and left her their estate, you get interested.
So it was a simple decision for Maribel to drive out to Birchwell with Serena and lend her support.
Maribel was a tall, lean woman with short black hair and vibrant brown eyes. She’d known Serena since high school and been a presence for most of that time since, less a short stint working for a job on the other side of the country that had left a sour taste in her mouth.
After the funeral—the most sparsely attended funeral Maribel had been to in her life—she had offered to get some sandwiches while Serena went back to the estate.
Things had galloped off the rails.
First, this town didn’t have any of the chains Maribel cherished. There wasn’t a Subway, a Quiznos, a Jimmy John’s, or even a Jersey Mike’s! And what’s worse is that the information on Google Maps was woefully out of date, so the situation reduced her to asking one of the anxious-looking locals about where she could go to get a good sandwich.
One unexpectedly long trip to an unusually silent deli later, and Maribel was making her way from Birchwell’s small downtown east towards the Black House. Which, from Serena’s text, was really purple.
The picture didn’t come through, but Maribel trusted her.
Why lie?
“Are nails finger tongues?”
Maribel jumped, yelped, and whirled around, pressing her back against a wrought-iron fence in front of an old house. She looked around for the source of the slithering voice, but...
No one was there.
It was just old houses that looked like insulation was a new concept and perfectly manicured lawns and wrought iron fences topped with fleur-de-lis.
A chill passed through her spine as Maribel wrote it off as mishearing, the wind going through the branches in a creepy neighborhood in a town left behind in the 1890s.
Maribel picked up her pace, flats clicking as they hit the ground heel-toe heel-toe, and it didn’t seem to help. The shadows were stretching long, and in the corner of her eye Maribel saw movement.
But when she turned her head to check it out, it was another old house with a black fence and low effort topiary.
“When the sky roils does the dirt toil?”
That voice, and this time Maribel took her phone out. She pretended to text someone while she turned on the camera app and flipped it to the front facing lens so she could look behind herself.
The screen fuzzed, came into and out of focus, revealing an unusually tall figure that seemed more shadow and branch that real live human being. When she turned her head to check for it, she saw it out of the corner of her eye a tall man dressed like a hunter with wrists that cleared the hem of a patched and worn coat and—
But no one was there.
“Fuck this,” Maribel muttered as she cut into a light jog and called Serena.
She’d seen this movie, and she would not be the first victim.
“Hey, girl, just hang out on the phone with me. I feel like I’m being followed, and I wanted you to know I’m close to the—”
“Where does the smoke from your lungs go once you exhale?”
The sound slithered in her ear and she felt a frigid breath against her other ear.
Maribel broke into a full on sprint, tossing the bag of sandwiches behind her and panting as she ran full bore to the end of the block, skidded left with the Black House in sight.
“Open the fucking door! OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!” She yelled into the phone at Serena. She took the phone from her ear and pumped both arms as she rushed towards the huge purple house.
A few paces from the edge of the Black House a body barreled into Maribel and sent her falling to the ground, turning, slamming her head against the concrete.
The body was the hunter, the gangly man, and his blank face turned towards the Black House.
Towards Serena.
That flat expanse of nothing blossomed into a gaping maw filled with row upon row of needle teeth that shivered with eager anticipation.
It feasted on Maribel.
A heartbeat later a bang filled the neighborhood and the hunter’s head burst like a ripe berry.
Eric moved quickly into the scene, putting two more bullets into the Intruder’s back as he calmly walked onto Serena’s new property. He knocked on the door with the butt of his gun, “You’re going to want to close the curtains and let me in.”
The mottled purple flesh that stretched from Eric’s thigh to nipple pulsed and threatened to simmer again. When he tried to leave Birchwell, when he tried to put miles between his body and the consequences of his action, the scar throbbed and pulled at him and burned until he felt more than heard the sizzle of burning flesh.
The scar forced Eric to turn his hunter green hatchback onto the side of the road and stumble into the forest, where he threw himself into a stream.
“I got the message, I got it, now stop, stop, stop,” he had begged the scar as he desperately rubbed winter cold dirt onto his bare torso to make it stop.
Now
The lanky man stood on a hill, half hidden behind a tree, and watched. He put a small scope to a gray eye and watched the small service, scanning past the cats paying tribute to the recently deceased Trudy Black to settle on a woman with brown hair and that family nose. The proud bridge, the slightly upturned point.
Eric had a memory for faces that rivaled, he suspected, most people. However, as much as he would like to pat himself on the back for being able to string together basic clues to point to Serena’s identity as the rumored Black heir, the reality was much simpler.
When he looked at her, the purple lines that crisscrossed his body in a half melted pentagram and profane symbols stopped aching. After days of burning pain and the increasing realization that his body was no longer truly his own, there was a moment of relief.
So he put the scope away and tried to leave again.
It was worse this time.
Eric didn’t make it to the old sign that said Leaving Birchwell City Limits.
When the pain came blood glued his white undershirt to his body and had him gasping for air like a fish out of water.
So he turned around again and decided what he would do.
He would do what the old witch had cursed him to do.
Until he figured a way out of it.
Eric pulled a U-turn and made his way to the garish purple estate Trudy Black had given her mysterious air. The last time he had been there he had painted the walls red with Trudy’s blood and looked on in something halfway between resignation and surprise when the floorboards drank it.
He drove through wending, narrow old world streets that a city planner had never touched and parked in front of a new apartment complex. After he removed his red flannel it took nearly a full minute to peel off his undershirt and wash his chest, stomach, and side down with water and antiseptic. A couple more minutes later and he was spotting large square gauze bandages held down by compression tape.
A few minutes later and he was standing outside of his car, wearing charcoal gray chinos, supple burgundy colored boots, his red flannel button up, a werewolf fur and wool blend peacoat, and a gray beanie.
And two guns, a rune carved knife, and a telescoping baton reinforced with kraken beak.
Confident that he was prepared for anything that would come at him on the fly, Eric walked around the perimeter of the neighborhood to check and see if any Intruders or Practitioners were skulking around to make a play for the Black House.
If he had gone straight to Serena’s new home, he probably could have stopped what happened next.
But he didn’t.
Maribel
When your friend tells you they need your help, you give it. When your friend tells you that their mysterious maternal grandmother has died and left her their estate, you get interested.
So it was a simple decision for Maribel to drive out to Birchwell with Serena and lend her support.
Maribel was a tall, lean woman with short black hair and vibrant brown eyes. She’d known Serena since high school and been a presence for most of that time since, less a short stint working for a job on the other side of the country that had left a sour taste in her mouth.
After the funeral—the most sparsely attended funeral Maribel had been to in her life—she had offered to get some sandwiches while Serena went back to the estate.
Things had galloped off the rails.
First, this town didn’t have any of the chains Maribel cherished. There wasn’t a Subway, a Quiznos, a Jimmy John’s, or even a Jersey Mike’s! And what’s worse is that the information on Google Maps was woefully out of date, so the situation reduced her to asking one of the anxious-looking locals about where she could go to get a good sandwich.
One unexpectedly long trip to an unusually silent deli later, and Maribel was making her way from Birchwell’s small downtown east towards the Black House. Which, from Serena’s text, was really purple.
The picture didn’t come through, but Maribel trusted her.
Why lie?
“Are nails finger tongues?”
Maribel jumped, yelped, and whirled around, pressing her back against a wrought-iron fence in front of an old house. She looked around for the source of the slithering voice, but...
No one was there.
It was just old houses that looked like insulation was a new concept and perfectly manicured lawns and wrought iron fences topped with fleur-de-lis.
A chill passed through her spine as Maribel wrote it off as mishearing, the wind going through the branches in a creepy neighborhood in a town left behind in the 1890s.
Maribel picked up her pace, flats clicking as they hit the ground heel-toe heel-toe, and it didn’t seem to help. The shadows were stretching long, and in the corner of her eye Maribel saw movement.
But when she turned her head to check it out, it was another old house with a black fence and low effort topiary.
“When the sky roils does the dirt toil?”
That voice, and this time Maribel took her phone out. She pretended to text someone while she turned on the camera app and flipped it to the front facing lens so she could look behind herself.
The screen fuzzed, came into and out of focus, revealing an unusually tall figure that seemed more shadow and branch that real live human being. When she turned her head to check for it, she saw it out of the corner of her eye a tall man dressed like a hunter with wrists that cleared the hem of a patched and worn coat and—
But no one was there.
“Fuck this,” Maribel muttered as she cut into a light jog and called Serena.
She’d seen this movie, and she would not be the first victim.
“Hey, girl, just hang out on the phone with me. I feel like I’m being followed, and I wanted you to know I’m close to the—”
“Where does the smoke from your lungs go once you exhale?”
The sound slithered in her ear and she felt a frigid breath against her other ear.
Maribel broke into a full on sprint, tossing the bag of sandwiches behind her and panting as she ran full bore to the end of the block, skidded left with the Black House in sight.
“Open the fucking door! OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!” She yelled into the phone at Serena. She took the phone from her ear and pumped both arms as she rushed towards the huge purple house.
A few paces from the edge of the Black House a body barreled into Maribel and sent her falling to the ground, turning, slamming her head against the concrete.
The body was the hunter, the gangly man, and his blank face turned towards the Black House.
Towards Serena.
That flat expanse of nothing blossomed into a gaping maw filled with row upon row of needle teeth that shivered with eager anticipation.
It feasted on Maribel.
A heartbeat later a bang filled the neighborhood and the hunter’s head burst like a ripe berry.
Eric moved quickly into the scene, putting two more bullets into the Intruder’s back as he calmly walked onto Serena’s new property. He knocked on the door with the butt of his gun, “You’re going to want to close the curtains and let me in.”
OP
OP
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2019
Serena’s best friend, Maribel, had been a big support system for her. She’d volunteered herself to come to the funeral, and once it was over, she had gone to make a food run. Serena had taken a quick photo of the painfully purple house to send to her friend before she even approached it, but the signal in Birchwell was atrocious. There were houses all around and her cell phone hadn’t picked up on any wifi either. What kind of city didn’t have the internet? It seemed unreal. She supposed the thick layer of clouds looming in the sky could have been messing with the cell signal. Her text had gone through, at least, even if the image looked like it was going to take a month to send.
Serena had entered the home, following after the black cat that had bolted inside. Luckily, it didn’t look as though a hoarder lived there. She had seen those shows before and wouldn’t have been surprised at all to find the place piled up with a decade’s worth of newspapers and trash. Instead, she found a cozy atmosphere with antique furniture fashioned in dark cherry woods and that old-time floral printed fabric. Some of them looked like they belonged in a set while other pieces had the same dark wood but were clearly different. The inside of the house was not very purple at all. Serena supposed if she could get the outside painted a nice, modern color, it would sell quickly enough. This was great news.
She spent her time wandering around the massive home as she waited for her friend to return. The stairs carried her up to the personal living spaces; bedrooms dressed up as though they’d all been lived in at one point. Serena wondered what it might have been like to know those people as she tried to create characters up in her mind based on the contents in each room. She felt as though she might get lost in the grand house. She’d never really lived in a very big space before. Her father had always kept them living just within their means— a bedroom for each of them and a singular bathroom to share, usually.
Her smart phone vibrated in her hand and she lifted it to view the screen. It was Maribel calling. Serena answered, saying ‘Hello,’ several times before she got a clear answer. It was hard to hear. She wandered from room to room, trying to talk while glancing at the bars on her phone every now and again, hoping to find a sweet spot in the purple dead-zone of a house. “Hang on, I can’t hear you—” she said, hoping her friend was at least able to make out what she was saying. It sounded like there was a lot of muffled noise coming from the other end, or static. Serena groaned as she hopped back to the floor level of the house. “I’m going to try to walk outside, hang on.” she had no idea what was going on; no idea her friend was fleeing for her life and pleading to have the door opened.
Serena opened the front door, still fumbling with her phone. The cat from before was near the entrance, hissing and growling wildly. She tiptoed around the stray, afraid she was about to get clawed to pieces. “What is with this place?” she complained. “Mar— you still there? I think I have the best signal outside.” she said as she looked out the front yard. She saw in the distance a girl running. She was lean, tall, had short dark hair. Serena squinted as she tried to get a better look. “Is that you, hun?” she asked, though there was no answer. The figure of a girl got closer and Serena’s eyes grew wide with fear. It was her friend, but why was she running? That girl hated running. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up and she went back for the doorway. “Shit.” she muttered under her breath.
She looked back as a yelp sounded and watched as a flash of something slammed into her friend. “Maribel!” she screamed in horror, running down the steps of the porch and through the thick of plant life that threatened to eat the walkway. Then she saw it. “Wh- Wha-” she stuttered through her shock as she saw a beast warp its face into rows and rows of jagged, needle-like teeth that pierced into her friend, tearing into her like a hunk of meat. The thing looked her way, or that’s what it seemed to be doing. She didn’t see any eyes to be sure. She took several steps back, understanding that in doing so she was abandoning her friend to the fate of that thing. Tears streamed down her face as she zipped back to the house, closing herself behind the door. She leaned against the door, hyperventilating as she slid down the back. The cat was still there. It jumped on her lap, front paws picked up to press into her right shoulder as it looked at the door. Serena couldn’t think enough to worry about the feline.
Was her friend dead? Was that what she just saw? It was a dream— there was no way it was—
BANG.
BANG. BANG.
Three shots fired. Serena jumped at each one of them. The cat startled from the first one, digging claws down deep into her thighs and tearing at the fabric of her dress. She screamed from the pain, the fear, the suddenness. She grabbed the cat, hugging it close as if to keep it from digging in or dragging lines across anymore of her skin. It was quiet for a moment, but her grip was still tight against the soft black fur of the frightened animal.
The door behind her thudded. She could feel it budge on her backside. She yelped and hid her face down further into the cat. The voice belonged to a man. Was it a trick? Was it that thing? She couldn’t move, but she hadn’t thought to lock the door either. She trembled on the floor, not budging from her spot.
Serena had entered the home, following after the black cat that had bolted inside. Luckily, it didn’t look as though a hoarder lived there. She had seen those shows before and wouldn’t have been surprised at all to find the place piled up with a decade’s worth of newspapers and trash. Instead, she found a cozy atmosphere with antique furniture fashioned in dark cherry woods and that old-time floral printed fabric. Some of them looked like they belonged in a set while other pieces had the same dark wood but were clearly different. The inside of the house was not very purple at all. Serena supposed if she could get the outside painted a nice, modern color, it would sell quickly enough. This was great news.
She spent her time wandering around the massive home as she waited for her friend to return. The stairs carried her up to the personal living spaces; bedrooms dressed up as though they’d all been lived in at one point. Serena wondered what it might have been like to know those people as she tried to create characters up in her mind based on the contents in each room. She felt as though she might get lost in the grand house. She’d never really lived in a very big space before. Her father had always kept them living just within their means— a bedroom for each of them and a singular bathroom to share, usually.
Her smart phone vibrated in her hand and she lifted it to view the screen. It was Maribel calling. Serena answered, saying ‘Hello,’ several times before she got a clear answer. It was hard to hear. She wandered from room to room, trying to talk while glancing at the bars on her phone every now and again, hoping to find a sweet spot in the purple dead-zone of a house. “Hang on, I can’t hear you—” she said, hoping her friend was at least able to make out what she was saying. It sounded like there was a lot of muffled noise coming from the other end, or static. Serena groaned as she hopped back to the floor level of the house. “I’m going to try to walk outside, hang on.” she had no idea what was going on; no idea her friend was fleeing for her life and pleading to have the door opened.
Serena opened the front door, still fumbling with her phone. The cat from before was near the entrance, hissing and growling wildly. She tiptoed around the stray, afraid she was about to get clawed to pieces. “What is with this place?” she complained. “Mar— you still there? I think I have the best signal outside.” she said as she looked out the front yard. She saw in the distance a girl running. She was lean, tall, had short dark hair. Serena squinted as she tried to get a better look. “Is that you, hun?” she asked, though there was no answer. The figure of a girl got closer and Serena’s eyes grew wide with fear. It was her friend, but why was she running? That girl hated running. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up and she went back for the doorway. “Shit.” she muttered under her breath.
She looked back as a yelp sounded and watched as a flash of something slammed into her friend. “Maribel!” she screamed in horror, running down the steps of the porch and through the thick of plant life that threatened to eat the walkway. Then she saw it. “Wh- Wha-” she stuttered through her shock as she saw a beast warp its face into rows and rows of jagged, needle-like teeth that pierced into her friend, tearing into her like a hunk of meat. The thing looked her way, or that’s what it seemed to be doing. She didn’t see any eyes to be sure. She took several steps back, understanding that in doing so she was abandoning her friend to the fate of that thing. Tears streamed down her face as she zipped back to the house, closing herself behind the door. She leaned against the door, hyperventilating as she slid down the back. The cat was still there. It jumped on her lap, front paws picked up to press into her right shoulder as it looked at the door. Serena couldn’t think enough to worry about the feline.
Was her friend dead? Was that what she just saw? It was a dream— there was no way it was—
BANG.
BANG. BANG.
Three shots fired. Serena jumped at each one of them. The cat startled from the first one, digging claws down deep into her thighs and tearing at the fabric of her dress. She screamed from the pain, the fear, the suddenness. She grabbed the cat, hugging it close as if to keep it from digging in or dragging lines across anymore of her skin. It was quiet for a moment, but her grip was still tight against the soft black fur of the frightened animal.
The door behind her thudded. She could feel it budge on her backside. She yelped and hid her face down further into the cat. The voice belonged to a man. Was it a trick? Was it that thing? She couldn’t move, but she hadn’t thought to lock the door either. She trembled on the floor, not budging from her spot.