Miasma (Jayda)
"Sometimes not getting what we want is the best thing for us."
Awhile Later
"Karma hand me my comb would ya," I said as I examined the nappy mess that was my hair in the mirror of my bathroom. Karma, who was helping me with my hair, formed a small black tentacle that was now searching the trashy sink drawer that held an incoherent mess of products that I used for my hair. After some digging, and Karma grunting in frustration, we managed to pull out a white metal pick from the confines of the drawer. "I've been looking for that thing for ages," I said as I swiped the pick away from him. Greasy strings of loose tangled hair embedded my comb. "Oof," I exclaimed. All the products that were stuffed in the drawer had made my pick and the hair attached to it a sloppy wet mess. I turn on the faucet and run cold water through the comb as I try to untangle the hair embedded in its depths.
As I struggled to untangle the greasy strands of hair from the carcass of the pick, I heard a loud ringing coming from my room. "My phone," I thought out loud. Before the words finished leaving my mouth, Karma launched himself out of my bathroom door leaving sparks and flares in his wake. "Where the hell is it," I heard him mutter to himself. Things were thrown, stuff destroyed and it continued for what went on for what seemed eternity.
After a while, I went back to untangling the pick. I wasn't really concerned with who was calling me, but I wouldn't lie and say that I wasn't curious. It was rare that someone called me and usually they just wanted something from me.THAT BEING SAID, lately I've been keeping a close eye on it.... Just in case- "Its Lucius," Karma mumbled loudly from the darkness of my room. "Dear god please kill me," I muttered under my breath. I put down my pick and outstretched my hand towards the bathroom door. Karma appeared from the ground up and placed my phone in my hand. The phone had stopped ringing and was now just a dark screen with a desolated (but still beautiful) green flower case. I stared at my phone waiting for it to do something until I remembered that I had to MAKE it do something. I sighed. I looked up to see that Karma had untangled the pick and was just staring at it. I jumped as my phone rang its blaring alarm into my face. Lucius was calling again. "Why can't he take a hint," Karma exclaimed loudly. I turned to see that Karma had dragged a chair from out of my room and into the bathroom. He placed it before me and pointed down for me to sit. "Take the call. I'll do your hair for you," he said. I took a deep breath and answered the phone. Karma ushered for me to come and sit as I put the phone to my ear.
"Bring Your Ass!!", are the first three words that come through the phone when I answered the call. "Wow," I sighed, "No hey, no hi, no how are you?" Karma, with some difficulty, started to untangle the mess that was my hair.
I watched in the mirror as Karma went to work. It's odd, really, seeing Karma doing my hair. Seeing an imposing figure like Karma (a shadow consumed by a literal ball of fire.) doing my hair was ,indeed, strange. This isn't the first time he's done it, though. So I should be used to it. It's just- "Well," said Lucius, "If you hadn't bailed us at the last minute like last time-" I cut him off before he got to finish. I already knew what I did and didn't want him to go into it another time, but he pushed on. "IF you hadn't gone and had a emotional breakdown and dipped on us during the rehearsals, I wouldn't be making this call now would I?"
"Emotional breakdown," I thought to myself. It wasn't all that. All I said was I can't do this right now during rehearsals during our band practice and I walked out.
Band. That's not even the word for it because deep down we don't even know what the hell we wanted to be. We'd didn't know if we wanted to be either a dance group, a jazz, rock, R&B, EMD, electronica, Rap band, or a motherfuckin orchestra. It was a mess...but it was our mess and a well put together one at that. Our "band's" name was Karma. A name of which Karma himself chose and is secretly the proud owner of. Since Karma was secretly the owner of the "band", that meant that I had to do all of his dirty work.
Our group (that's what I'm calling it now) only consisted of four people, and those four people were hella talented...myself included (I guess). Each of us had our own distinct names based on/or off something Karma related. There was Lucius, of course, who went by the name Fortuna. A name that I thought was utterly hilarious and clowned him for because it sounded more like the stage name for a"Female" singer instead of a drummer. There was "Bhad Karma" our lead singer that... didn't lead sing. I don't know why, but I just never liked my voice. Everytime I would sing a note, scream, or whatever the hell I was doing, I never liked what came out. Everything I heard from my mouth sounded sour, like I was straining to use my voice, but when it was heard by everyone else it seemed beautiful like a mockingbird. So I usually don't sing when we go to our little jam contests at school or around the neighborhood. I would usually just either play a guitar (electric preferably is my best) and just performed backup to our two lesbian backup-singers Yin and Yang. Yin and Yang (a.k.a. Rebecca and Sam) were these two girls with the voices of angels and I completely adored the hell out of them.
Rebecca was a small strawberry, redhead who was as sweet as they come. She had these gorgeous big blue eyes that seemed to pour into your heart no matter how angry or down you were. She had a heart of gold, and was there for anyone who needed a shoulder to lean on. But, don't let her kind nature and innocent demeanor fool you because on stage she was our scream queen. She had some lungs on her and was a whole blatant, disorienting mess when it came to anything "scream related". The crowd (when we had one) loved her good looks and her voice, so it's no surprise that she was one the more popular ones when it came to the four of us.
Sam, her girlfriend, was the polar opposite of Sam. She was a light skinned emo-punk dressing brunette with really bad resting-bitch-face (which is sad because she had a beautiful smile,but no-one ever saw it.) She was a chill person,but was sly at the mouth, always coming back with retorts and could easily tear anyone down with just her words. The way she acted you would never have guessed that she was, in my eyes, the one with the sweetest voice in our group. Everytime she sang it was music to my ears. I could go an entire day just listening to her voice. The way sound flows with ease with every note that she sings could make me cry.
Lately; however, I've been wanting to distance myself from them. I don't know why, but hanging out with them is something that I can't physically or mentally do. Just being around them...took too much energy.
I glanced with my eyes into the mirror to see Karma hard at work with my mess of a head. Comb. Pull. Cut. Repeat. Karma was giving me a whole new makeover. The mess, that was my hair, was originally a bundle of curls that literally consumed my head and ended around my shoulders. My hair was dyed half royal purple and half midnight black. It was a popular hairstyle for girls that a lot of people recommended to me at school. I eventually tried it and the first couple of days it looked good. As a matter of fact it looked great, everyone loved it...but I have a bad habit of not taking care of myself; especially when it comes to my appearances. I don't really care what I look like and it wasn't like I was ugly either. I mean fuck, at school I was told by damn near everyone at school that I was gorgeous even on my days that I look like utter trash, so I know i'm not ugly.
Karma had started try to straighten my hair (try being the key word) while at the same time trying to find a scrunchy to put my hair into a ponytail. "Hellllooo?" called a very annoyed voice from my phone. Oops. I forgot Lucius...again. I really need to work on that. I have a habit of zoning out when people talk to me.
"Sorry," I apologized, "What did you say Lucius?" Karma tugged hard on my hair. "Oww!" I screamed. Karma shrugged and went back to doing my hair. "Be more gentle for fuck's sake," I thought in my head. "Man the fuck up next time," Karma muttered out loud.
"You good?" Lucius asked. I keep forgetting that he's on the phone. I wished that he'd call back some other time. "Yeah, I just tugged on my hair too hard," I said, making sure to exclude Karma. "What did you call me for again?" I asked because I deadass forgot and I don't think he ever told me. I sat and listened as I heard him open a bag of chips over the phone and start to stuff his face. One of the few things in this world that I couldn't stand is when people ate their food over the phone. It irked me to no end when I had to listen to people eat and talk at the same time ON THE PHONE! Ugh! The sad part is that Lucius knew this and thus did it anyway to annoy me. It wasn't helping the situation that he was eating with his mouth open either.
"So," he said, pausing to stuff his face with more chips, "I hope that you know today's festival is today."
"Festival?" I thought to myself. I turned around to look at Karma who had stopped doing my hair and was now scratching his flaming black head. He shrugged. He didn't know either. "What fucking festival?" I asked. Smack. Smack. Smack. He was killing me with me with all that damn smacking. "The Sin Dance Festival," he said, surprised, "I thought that you'd remember because that's all you talk-...." Lucius's voice was sent to the background. I had zoned him out again.
"The Sin Dance Festival?" I thought. How could I ever forget the festival? It was something that I've hyped up for ever since I heard about it from Lucius in January. It was a huge fucking party were peopl came to lose themselves in a sea of ecstacy and ruin. It starts in the evening at the The Black Lotus Club at 7. Everyone meeting at the Club was a way for everyone to get together and enjoy themselves before blowing themselves on god knows what at the after party which was in the backyard of some rich douchebag named Kyle. There, people truly lost themselves in a sea of desire. "A true place of sin," as Lucius once told me. Apparently, Kyle owns part of a forest that was cleared up into just being a bare field of grass when his parents originally owned the property he now lives in.
"Jayda?" I heard a voice call my name. Oops. Lucius. "Yeah, I'm here," I murmured distantly. I looked around to find a clock so I can check the time. Karma smacked the back of my head "Be still dammit," he yelled, "It'll be real embarrassing if you go to this party with a big ass bald spot on the back of your swole ass head." "My bad," I thought. I looked at my phone, which had gone dark, and pressed the home button. "2:45," it read.
"Hey, Lucius," I said to my phone motioning for Karma to finish my hair at the same time. "What's up?" he acknowledged. I could hear him crumbling up an empty bag of chips on the other end of the phone. "Uhm," I said thinking out loud, "I'm almost done doing my hair. I'm going but imma need a ride."
"Say no more. I'm already here," he exclaimed enthusiastically, "Actually I've been sitting outside your apartment for awhile now." Oof. "That's not weird at all, Lucius," I muttered sarcastically. "Chill out it's not even like that," he chuckled, "It's just that someone needs to make sure that your cute depressed ass is still alive out here in these streets." "Uh huh," I said as I rolled my eyes, "So you sit outside my house like an obsessed boyfriend." We both laughed. Hmm, Laughing. I can't remember the last time I did that. "Well,"he sighed, "Could you blame me?"
"No," I said, "I know you wanna clap my cheeks." We laughed again. I looked into the mirror to see Karma was nearly finished cutting my split ends. "Do you wanna dye your hair?" he asked. I looked at my hair in the mirror. The royal purple half had faded and was darkening back to my originally hair color, a dusty black. My other half the black had already faded back.
Looking in the mirror, I noticed how much I've changed over the years. The emerald eyes of a child had aged and what looked back were the darkened green eyes of a young woman. Over the summer, puberty decided it was a good idea to finish me off and hit me full on like a truck. I had grown a lot for a girl. I went from 5'3 to 5'10 in under a span of two months. I didn't even get a good chance to settle into some of my clothes I was growing so fast. My face was... I was cute but I had a really bad resting-bitch-face.
My original caramel colored light-skin had darkened from tanning under the sun during the time I was on the school soccer team. Though, because of the season's change of weather, my natural color (even though tanned) was starting to turn a weird pale pinkish color. If I wasn't tanned I might have probably started to look like Edward Cullen from Twilight Saga (Eww!)
Unlike when I was a kid, I stayed in pretty good shape. When I was 8-12, I was a bit on the thick side. Unlike most girls my age who were busy having sleepovers and were starting to go out with their friends, I liked the idea of indulging myself indoors in the comfort of my home. At that time, I didn't really like the idea of HUMAN INTERACTION (I still technically don't). It's not that I didn't like hanging out with people. People, as a whole, just get on my fucking nerves (I'm not sugar coating it either.). People sometimes just really irk the mess out of me...some more than others. I'm a very independent person and usually, growing up, I liked doing things alone.
"Karma," I asked with the voice in my head, "Do I have any clean clothes?" Karma looked at me and scratched his flaming chin. "Let me check right quick," he said as he vanished with a comical "pop" into thin air. I giggled. The imagination can be a wild place sometimes. I could hear Karma rummaging through my room looking for clean clothes and probably failing in the process. "Nope, Nope, Nope," I heard Karma mutter from my room.
I walked out the bathroom into my room which was now filled with a somber chill. My body was still clammy from the humid air produced from my shower. Steam was still flowing from my bathroom entryway as curly, long fingers of heat and moisture flooded my room. Karma was casually prowling through my dirty underwear. At this point I think he knew none of my clothes were clean and was now looking for the next best thing...semi clean clothes. I frowned and he felt it. Karma and I were linked emotionally. He felt everything I felt even if it was physical or mental pain. It's just sometimes he hid it better than I did. " He sighed and then stood. His tall lumbering figure loomed over mine as I approached him from behind. "Don't look at me like that. It's your responsibility to wash your own clothes." he snorted as he slingshot a pair of my dirty underwear at my face. The disrespect was unnecessary. I wanted to fight him because believe it or not he didn't have to throw my unclean tidy whities in my face.
"So no clean clothes?" I sighed. "Nope," said Karma. We both sighed. "How can I not have clean clothes?" I thought to myself, "I could have sworn I washed some clothes recently." I turned around to go and look in my dresser for clothes. I open the drawer to find it bare-bone dry. Not even a tumbleweed would be caught in an area so bare. I looked in the direction of my closet. Not a single bit of clothing was hung on any hanger. I turned and walked to my nightstand that was beside my bed. I knelt down and opened the drawer only to find my secret stash of sweets; plus new pads and tampons for when my cycle starts up. I groaned and closed the drawer in disappointment. "Are you fucking kidding me?" I asked myself.
I stood up and yawned. "If you mean recently as in a month," Karma said as he sat on the edge of my bed, "then yea recently." He stood and walked into the bathroom. "Luckily for you the underclothes your wearing are the last clean clothes you have. I laid them out this morning." Karma had turned a facet and I could hear the sink running in my bathroom. I raised my phone to my ear to hear Lucius's radio blaring in the background of my phone.
I glanced over at my alarm clock. "2:55," I repeated aloud, "Hey Lucius there has been a slight delay-" I was cut off before I could even finish my sentence.
"You have no clean clothes do you?"He said. He already knew...That's sad. "Well," I began, "I mean."
"Yeah, that's disgusting," he said. He was laughing at me. I don't know why. He acts like he has never had unclean clothes before. His laugh wasn't helping the situation either. He sounded like someone was trying to start a tractor. He was snorting also. "It's not even that funny," I thought to myself. "Why do you never have clean clothes?" he said calming down from his unnecessary laughing fit. "I do have clean clothes. It's just that I didn't wash any recently."
"Well," he sighed, "I don't think you wanna go to the party looking like a bum and smelling like one too." Well, he got one thing right. I've been thinking about this party for god knows when and I wasn't going looking like some basic bitch either. How the hell did it slip my mind at the last second?
"Tiiiirrrrreeeeddd," Karma muttered from the confines of the bathroom. All of a sudden my body felt heavy and my head was feeling dizzy. I had to sit down on the edge of my bed. "Tiiiiiirrrrreeedd," I heard Karma moan from the bathroom again. ""He's doing it again," I thought, "Why now?" Karma recently has been acting strange. Lately, I'd catch him haunting my room (More than usual that is). Its starting to freak me out too. Sometimes, I would wake up and usually he would be curled up on my bed in the shape of an animal either watching T.V., on my computer, or watching over me so he could wake me up in case something urgent happens (or just to piss me off). Recently, I don't know what's gotten into him. Sometimes, I would wake up and I'd find him just standing in complete silence in the darkness of my room staring at me. His red-ish arua would be gone and all would be left would be his glowing, crimson red eyes. I would call out his name and at first I wouldn't get anything. But after a while, he would go into this moan like chant. "Tiiiirrrreeeeddd," he would go on and on. When he would do it, my body would start to feel sick. Like I was hit with nausea or sometimes having a really bad anxiety attack.
Eventually, I found out if you turned on the lights he would stop. Or, that's what usually happens because the bathroom ( the room he was in) had its light on and he was still going. I was starting to get concerned. "What if Karma really isn't something I thought up?" I began questioning myself in my head, "What if Karma is a motherfucking evil entity that has come to haunt me and take over my body?" These are the thoughts that swelled in my head. What if Karma isn't really here for me?
If he isn't, I don't have time for it. He can take his ass somewhere. I already have enough on my plate as it is and I don't need Mr. "Tired" here fucking my shit up. I've seen Insidious, I know the signs. Any sort of chanting from any suspicious character is definitely a sign or something that should raise suspicion.
The facet to my sink had been turned off and what was left was the dead of silence. He had stopped chanting "Karma," I whispered as I put my hand over the speaker of my phone to block the sound. Nothing. "Shit," My nerves were getting bad. The dizziness in my head had intensified and now my body felt like jelly. I could barely stand. The room felt like it was beginning to shift and spin like a rubix cube. "He's causing this," I thought. Indeed he was. This was HIS doing and HIS doing alone.
"I need to get to him," I said. At that point, all I could muster out was whisper barely heard by even myself. The walls felt like they were closing in. I couldn't breath. I felt trapped. Trapped. Indeed, I was trapped. If I were a "regular" person would have duggied clean the fuck up out the room and out the house by now, but there was one problem. Karma followed me everywhere. From school, to the stage where I performed, to the motherfucking bathroom he was always there. If he was haunting anything, it would more than likely would be me the thing that he was haunting.
"Welp," I said, " There ain't no reason being a chicken about it now." I mustered up the courage to walk to the bathroom door which was now closed. I could tell myelf not to be scared all I wanted, but lets be perfectly honest I was fucking terrified. It's not everyday that you encounter evil spirits. It is also not everyday that you have a giant ball of black fire for a BFF.
I sighed and put my hand on the door to open it. The creaking of the door hinges sent an unnerving chill down my spine. I could feel the small hairs on my arm begin to stand on end as the adrenaline in my body skyrocketed. I felt sick. Karma's dead silence was unsettling. I could feel a dark, evil energy eroding from the other side of the door. It was a dark and foreboding arua. It was a feeling that tasted like iron taste in your mouth. "Well it's now or never," I assured myself. Without even thinking, I swung open the door. Nothing. He wasn't here. He was, in fact, gone.
I turned out of the bathroom door way and checked every nook and cranny of my bedroom for him. Nothing. I walked out into the hallway of my house and I checked both ways of the long dark passage. I lived in a 3 bedroom townhouse apartment and for a while the rooms of this townhouse have been empty, dull, dark, and void of life.
The dark, and ominous ambience of the hallway was starting to suffocate me. I closed the door and turned around. "Karma," I whispered. I walked into the bathroom yet again . I looked everywhere. I looked behind my shower curtain, my bathroom closet, everywhere. He wasn't here. Everything seemed distant, like the world was out of focus. Nothing seemed right, like I was missing apart me. Karma has just never disappeared out of nowhere for no apparent reason. He has been permanently glued to me for as long as I can remember. Without him I didn't know what to do. He's helped me through so many problems because he's helped me rationalize every decision before I made a choice. With him gone, I felt lost. I, without question, felt empty.
I could hear an echo calling out to me. It felt like it was coming from some distant planet, like it was something that was out of this world. The echo was sending a reverb shock of familiarity down my spine. It was almost as if I knew what the echo was. Soon, the echo got louder and then I noticed it was a voice. "Lucius," I thought, "He's going to kill me." I glanced around again just to see if he would pop up at the last second. He didn't. The empty void that I had expanded. "Hello," I said, trying to hide the distance in my voice. To some degree it worked. "Hey, you weren't answering the phone so I let myself in," Lucius answered. "He did?" I thought to myself. I didn't even hear him come inside. I must have been too busy looking for Karma that I didn't hear him come in. I looked down the hallway to see that a lamp was illuminating the living room. Not a good sign.
I continued to look as I noticed that Lucius peeked his curly, dark head around the corner and waved. He had clothes in his hand. "Thank god," I thought to myself. I put a finger over my mouth messaging him to be quiet. He already knew the deal because this ( as I hate to admit) wasn't Lucius's first rodeo inside my house. No sounds. No bright lights. No nothing. If even the slightest incident occurs, even if it was purely by accident, all hell could break loose. I looked to my left down my hallway to the last room. HIS room. The room of my adoptive dad. The father that took me in. The man that I've been cursed to dwell with ever since...ever since.
Just being near his room was unsettling. The room was all the way at the end of the hallway. Even though the lights were off and the hall was dark, his room seemed to produce its own darkness. At this time of day, the sun would shine through his window and illuminate the hall with its brightness through the space under the door. Nothing shone. Not a glimmer of light. All that was there was a dark smokey-like miasma that seeped from the bottom of the doorway. It was intoxicating, thick, stiff, and heavy. It breeded hatred. To be perfectly honest, it scared the shit out of me.
Lucius had made it down the hallway and was standing before me. He had grown recently from tall to unnecessarily tall. Lucius was a handsome dude with short black hair. He was light-skinned with reddish-brown eyes that weirdly illuminated in the dark like twin crimson moons. He was wearing a plain white t-shirt, grey denim ripped jeans, and (clearly fresh out the box) all white Air-Forces I's. He also had a red plaid shirt tied around his waist. Lucius looked ready to go; however, I indeed wasn't. All I happened to be wearing was some pink underwear briefs and a black bra that a friend got me that was, in fact, several sizes too large for me. Lucius seemed to notice because he wouldn't stop eagle-eyeing at my boobs; nor was he trying to hide it either.
"Don't make any sounds," I whispered to him. I looked again towards the door at the end of the hallway. "Whatever creature that's marinating in that room I don't want any part of it," I thought aloud. If you were to say that my father scared me, I'd say it would be an understatement. My father the hell out of me and for good reasons. Reasons that I; however, don't really feel comfortable talking about. Especially without Karma. "Where is he?" I thought to myself.
I looked back at Lucius who seemed nervous. "What's wrong?" I asked. He looked at me and then at the door to my father's room. I understood then. Lucius was a boy. I was indeed a half naked, underaged girl. Even in the eyes of a regular father this situation looked bad. The Reason being is Lucius is literally 19 about to be 20, he's basically just waltzed in here without permission, I'm nearly naked, and he was extremely close. If my creature feature of a father walked out of his room at THIS EXACT POINT IN TIME, I don't know what the hell would happen. All I know is that I wouldn't like the outcome.
I grabbed Lucius and tugged at his shirt to usher him into my room. With the swiftness of the wind, he flew in. I then closed the door behind me. I turned to see Lucius sitting on my bed with clothes in his hand. "Whatcha got there buckaroo," I asked. Lucius looked at the clothes in his hands and back at me. "Nothing of your concern BUCKO," he snapped. I exaggeratedly rolled my eyes. I snatched the clothes from his hands and examined them. In my hands were a pair of thick, black leggings, a black YELLR (this world's version of PINK!) sports bra, a crimson red, sleeveless turtleneck, and a..... "A gold g-string thong?!" I laughed silently, "Hmmmm." I jangled them in front of Lucius's face. "Explain yourself, mister," I said. Lucius snatches the thong from out of my hands. "Oops," he muttered sarcastically. "Nice try," I said.
Lucius, his girlfriend (Miah), and I would always have a heated debate on the topic of women's underwear. I liked wearing......regular ass girl's underwear. I, as a person, didn't like the way thongs felt when I wore them and so I didn't buy any. Lucius's girlfriend, Miah, never understood this because that is all she wore and so we'd always get into an argument about it. Eventually, she would try and convince me to wear them but I was extremely stubborn. My argument was that I thought g-string thongs were made for white girls with no pussy lips. Her argument was...well she really didn't have one after i'd say that. Nowadays, she tries to get her boyfriend to do her dirty work for her. He fails every time.
Lucius scratches his head in defeat. "Jayda five Lucius zero," I celebrated silently. He stood up and looked around my room. I tried not to look embarrassed. My room, let's face it, was not clean and I was not the type of person to invite guests over to a dirty home. One thing was on my side was the smell was gone and had been vanquished by the candles and clean outside air. The stench that a depressed recluse that hid in her room talking to a shadow who at the moment was not available. "Not that it really matters anyways," I thought inside my head, "Karma doesn't really do or say anything when people are around anyway." Which was true. Karma was basically either not saying anything and as still as a statue or curled up in his cat form...cleaning himself.
"All right bighead," Lucius said, apparently unbothered by the shape of my room, "We got to get ready to leave for this party. It's already almost 3:30." he said as he pointed to my clock. It was 3:20. The drive to the club was a long one; around 45 minutes to an hour and a half depending on traffic. Plus, Lucius and I needed to get there early if we wanted to get backstage, that's where we meet our group. "Just let me freshen up really quick," I said hastily. I walked to my bathroom door and stopped. Something had crossed my mind. "Lucius did you turn off that lamp in the living room?" I asked. I watched as the color sank from his face. He didn't. "Jesus boy stay here," I rolled my eyes. Lucius moved to my desk where he sat in my chair and tied his shoes. I walk to my door and open it. I look to my right and saw that the light from the lamp still dimly illuminated the living room. I sighed. I looked to my left down the long the long corridor of darkness and my heart (now racing) sank to my stomach. A sickened feeling took over me and the urge to vomit nearly took over my body.
The door, the door of darkness and horror, was not closed but very much wide open. Only darkness escaped the frames of the door. I could feel the thick miasma molest my face as it's gaze sucked me deep into its abyss. I snapped my head right as a switch was being flipped. The light from the lamp had been snuffed out and now was replaced with only darkness. The only light that was displayed from the living room was sourced from our window, but it was barely enough because of our curtains. My heart was racing. From around the corner near the ceiling, peeked the head of my adoptive father. His eyes. His overly saturated blood red eye pierced into my very being. I could feel bile building up in my throat as nausea flooded my body.
He continued to stare at me and I at him. I was as still as a statue. I couldn't move. How could I? He wasn't human. He was a demon, a monster, a FREAK. His body shifted and his body disappeared behind the corner. I retreated back into my room and quickly closed my door shut and bolted the lock. I looked over to Lucius who was standing up on full alert. "What?" he asked. I looked at him and I couldn't hold it anymore. I dropped to my knees and I cried. We were indeed going to be here for a while. Because my adoptive father would make sure of it.