In the early morning, I tried to see if there was a moment of time when the weather wouldn’t become overwhelming. The second I stepped out of the shade, sweat started forming on my face.

“Alright, well, that was sufficiently tested,” I told Killie as I slipped back inside. It didn’t matter. I already had a plan for today.

The morning was spent cleaning the entertainment room wall. I moved the VHS bookcase to get to the wall there. Honestly, if it wasn’t such a hot day, I would have thrown them all in the dumpster again. I hated seeing the covers of those movies.

The books were no different. I glared the entire time I did it, but I cleaned off the bookshelf and put the books in a much more uniform way.

As the sun got hotter, I moved onto the living room. Thankfully the living room wasn’t nearly as hard, mainly because I didn’t need to take out a ton of VHS’s and move a bookshelf before moving back said shelf and return the VHS’s. It was when I was halfway done putting them back that I decided it might have been easier to just sacrifice the stamina to drop everything in the dumpster.

I didn’t like going to bed with a full bar of stamina. It felt like a waste. So, when I got bored of cleaning the walls in the living room, I went out to the greenhouse and sacrificed a chunk of stamina to water and pick tomatoes and potatoes.

I wiped the sweat off my face. I had no desire to do any cooking today. It was fine. I’d get another thing checked off my list soon.

It was about evening time when I finished cleaning the wall in the living room. I was glad that I did more cleaning at the beginning of the season. Cleaning the walls of two rooms wasn’t nearly as hard as all four. I just got really excited when I could clean walls.

Walls cleaned on first floor.

Upgrade loading now.

I held my breath, excited. But the bars didn’t move an inch. Instead I heard a sound in the kitchen. It sounded like something toppling to the ground.

Second floor unlocked.

“Oooh,” I couldn’t help but say. Sure, it wasn’t an added bar to my sanity or stamina, but the second floor? What was on the second floor!

I went to the kitchen, pulling out my flashlight before hesitating. It was getting dark. All the ghosts I had heard so far had all been on the second floor. Did I actually want to do this?

As though for an answer, Killie came up to me, giving my leg a rub.

“Keep me safe, okay Killie?” I asked. She meowed in response, and my decision was made. “Just a quick peek. I want to know what’s up here.”

I pushed open the door from the kitchen and walked into the darkened hallway. My original thoughts were right about the layout of this house. It was a small hallway leading from the kitchen to the other doorway to the bedroom. There were some closets at the end of the hallway stuffed with junk, and crammed into the wall was the beginning of a staircase, winding its way up to the second floor. It was a dark colored wood with carpet on it. It was easier to get to the start of the stairs from the bedroom door, so I walked a little, seeing the cupboard under the stairs, also full of junk. At least the ghost boy wasn’t living under the stairs. There was too much junk for him to fit. Though… if he actually was a ghost…

It was way too dark to be thinking about this right now.

I started on the steps, each and every one of them creaking with age. I walked up the steps. It curled as it got to the top. I shined my light and saw a small landing with four doors ready for me to open. There were four bedrooms up here! Not a bad place, really. Except for the ghosts that haunted it. Seriously, whose house was this?

I opened the first door, seeing nothing but boxes. It looked like a storage room of some sort. The room itself wasn’t big, but there certainly was a lot of junk in here.

I tried the next door to see a much bigger room. It was painted pink, with a lot more clothes and things. The first level wasn’t nearly as full of junk compared to the second floor, which was saying a lot. This second floor was where the owners hid their hording. This would take a really long time to declutter.

The third room was also full of stuff. This looked like all the decorations, like Halloween, Easter, Christmas, as well as some seasonal decorations like fall, summer, winter, and spring. Despite these decorations, it didn’t seem like the homeowners had used them. I was getting rid of the Halloween decorations first.

I tried the final door, but it rattled. I tried it again, but it wouldn’t move. I sighed, then dropped my hand. Oh well.

It was truly dark, now. I wanted to look out one of the windows of the rooms to see if I could see the wolf prowling, but I couldn’t reach the windows. There was a lot of stuff.

I shrugged, then used this little time to start organizing. I started grabbing boxes of old Halloween decorations and moved them out of the room. I had a small stack that I planned on rushing out to the dumpster first thing in the morning. I would have done it now, but I wanted to save my sanity.

As I still had half a bar of stamina and an hour before I had to go to bed, I gathered all the boxes I could carry and went down the stairs toward the front door, then went upstairs for another load. I grabbed another box that looked like a huge cauldron when something below it shivered. I backed away, my panic filling me until it eased as a white orb popped up, floating chest high. It was another answer. I hoped.

It didn’t matter. It was all I had right now. I touched it, and everything went black.

***

“…which is when Mrs. Beckers asked me to tell why four plus four equals eight, and I was just so confused. Like, why do we even have to say why things are the way they are? I don’t know, it just is.”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Quinn was sitting cross legged on the floor with her back against Theo’s bed. It was nighttime, with the stars twinkling down on them. Theo was in bed, staring at Quinn, and she was ignoring him, playing with a stuffed teddy bear. She was twirling it in her arms, making it do somersaults in the air.

“But Mrs. Beckers is proud of me. She says I’m catching up to all the other students, even though I missed the first three months of school. Did you ever miss school? When you were with your family?” Quinn asked.

Theo remained silent, his legs curled up and pressed against his chest.

“I guess you don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to. Brenda and Doug says you’re talking now, but I don’t see it. All you’re doing is saying yes or no. Do you ever talk long sentences with them?”

Theo shook his head, and Quinn shrugged. “I don’t know if I could ever stop talking. I’m pretty sure I would burst. Don’t you ever feel like you’re going to burst? Sometimes I think you might explode, and it’s going to be nothing but alphabet soup, because you keep all those letters inside you.”

Theo raised an eyebrow. Him not talking was still the same, but the haunted look from his eyes had ebbed away. He had more expression in his face.

“I… don’t understand,” Theo said.

“Hmm?” Quinn asked, not at all surprised that Theo spoke a full sentence to her.

“Why do you talk so much?” Theo asked. “Your mom, she… last week she…”

“Died?” Quinn kept spinning her teddy bear but shot him a strange look.

“Yeah,” Theo said. “And yet… yet you talk.”

Quinn scrunched up her nose as she thought. “Is that why you don’t talk? Did your mom die?”

There was silence in the room, and despite the question Quinn posed, Theo’s silence answered it. Both children seemed to come to an understanding. It was like a feeling entering their hearts. They knew, deep down, that they weren’t like other kids at school. Something about their families had been different, and they were responding to it in two separate ways. One by never talking, the other by constantly talking.

Quinn looked back at her teddy bear, giving it a spin. “Yeah, my mom died. It was weird. She was in that coffin, and it was like she always was. Sleeping. I think it’s what she always wanted to do, you know? Sleep. Sleep all day and all night, and now she can.”

Theo looked away, the haunted look returning. It never really left. Theo simply hid it away in a compartment, and it made an appearance tonight, flickering across his face as he bowed his head to hide it. He studied his toes under the blanket.

“So if you don’t talk, what do you do to not explode?” Quinn asked.

Theo glanced up, then looked as though he was thinking something over. He then climbed out of bed and motioned for her to follow. Quinn shrugged, then dropped the teddy bear and followed. Theo gave her a look before putting a finger to his lips. Quinn nodded, then mimed zipping her mouth and throwing away the key. Theo opened the door, checking down the hall. He was checking for Brenda and Doug who were asleep in their rooms. Quinn usually didn’t sneak into Theo’s room until she knew they were in their own room.

They crept down the hall toward the tv. Theo worked quickly, opening drawers Quinn didn’t know also had DVD’s. Theo pressed a few buttons and let the DVD player start. Quinn sat down, frowning.

“Is this what you do? Watch movies?” Quinn asked.

Theo again placed his finger against his lips, and Quinn pouted, staring at the movie. A few more buttons later, the eerie music of Sixth Sense came on. Quinn was staring, curious, though it was clear she did not like it.

Quinn watched, confused, as the opening scene of Sixth Sense played on the screen. Theo watched, a smile on his face, the most content he ever looked.

Quinn furrowed her brow when she saw the man in the bathroom. “Why is he in his underwear?”

Theo again put a finger to his lips. Quinn pursed her lips, but said nothing. The opening scenes kept going, and Quinn jumped in surprise when the character pulled out a gun and shot the other character. Theo again placed a finger to his lips, but Quinn ignored him. She watched, wide-eyed, as the camera panned to just miss the character shooting himself in the head.

She screamed. It rocked the silent house, and it didn’t take long before Brenda and Doug rushed out of the bedroom. Quinn kept screaming, covering her face as Brenda rushed forward.

“What happened? What’s going on?” Brenda asked.

“What are you two watching?” Doug asked, glancing at the tv.

Quinn didn’t answer. She just kept screaming, backing away from the tv, and Theo looking at her like he didn’t understand why she was reacting this way. Doug took the DVD out as Brenda tried to comfort Quinn.

“No!” Theo shouted when Doug walked away with Sixth Sense.

“What?” Doug asked.

“Please don’t take it!” Theo said, wide eyed as he stared at the movie. “It’s my favorite movie!”

Doug raised both eyebrows, surprised. Quinn didn’t understand his surprise, but Brenda looked over, just as shocked. It was the first full sentence Theo said to them, and it was about keeping Sixth Sense.

Doug twirled the DVD case in his hand, then looked at Theo. “This movie is… it’s dark, Theo.”

“I know. I love it,” Theo said. He blinked away tears. “Please don’t take it away.”

Doug glanced at Brenda, then sighed. “Look, Theo, maybe… maybe don’t watch any of these darker movies with Quinn. She gets scared easily.”

Theo sniffed, quickly wiping his eyes. “But we can still keep it, right? You can still keep that movie here. Please. Please leave the movie there. I still want to watch it.”

Doug still stared at Theo, the sudden waterfall of words from the silent boy surprising him. “I… would love to watch this movie with you sometime. Would that be okay?” Doug asked.

Theo sniffed again, wiping his eyes. “Okay.”

Doug and Brenda shared a worried glance as Quinn kept sobbing, trying to get that image out of her head.

***

I gasped, coming back to myself. I almost lost balance, tripping over boxes of junk. I steadied my breathing, feeling more confident with every memory orb that Theo knew something. That kid was obsessed with the horror genre from a young age and made a drawing of the wolf creature. Could he be behind all this?

No. The people behind all this were those two beings I heard. That male and female. They were no doubt taking notes about how much I hated horror.

I felt it in my bones, the ability to now go to bed. I walked out of the bedroom when I heard a strange noise. I flipped on my flashlight and pointed it around the hall. There was a quiet dripping noise, and my beam of light traveled over until it landed on the locked door. It was coming from there. A steady dripping noise. I crept forward, frowning. Killie hissed, then bolted out of the room and down the stairs. That didn’t help my heart, which made it worse when I felt something wet touch my foot.

The beam of light immediately dropped to the ground to show blood coming from the bottom of the door.

I gasped, this time actually tripping over myself as I landed on the ground.

“No, no, no.” I wanted to scream it, but the way that blood moved reminded me too much of them. The way they pooled at the door before sliding in through the cracks.

With a gasp, I scrambled to my feet and bolted it out of the hallway, following Killie. I hadn’t put two and two together until that moment, but that was the room that was directly over the living room, where I heard the most activity at nights. Talking women, arguing male and female, most of it came from this room that was now dripping blood.

I flew down the stairs and opened the door to my bedroom. Killie was on the bed, mewing at me.

“Sleep! Sleep!” I shouted, shoving myself into the bed. I hadn’t gotten into my nightgown, but at this point I didn’t care. Beautiful darkness claimed me.