Emika left her home at 8 the next morning. She’d gotten up especially early to prepare herself for her venture to burn down Mina’s house. Once she had done that, and caught that person who broke into her home, she’d be various steps closer to solving all of her issues. Probably…

This time, she did a much better job at hiding the fact that she was carrying highly flammable liquids, and she was feeling pretty confident. Nothing could stop her from burning down that house.

The reasons for her newfound optimism were quite simple; for one, it seemed that setting things ablaze was becoming a habit — outside of her usual flame treatment of bonsai deadwood branches. On the other hand, this time she actually felt like she was starting to get things under control. She had a path in front of her — not a good, secure path by any means, but, a plan of sorts, or rather, a vague idea of how to move forward; or if not forward, maybe at least somewhere. Once she got rid of the bodies, she had one thing less to worry about, and then she just had to set some booby traps. Not like she knew how to build any, though… which reminded her of the fact that she needed a phone.

When she arrived at the estate, she opened the gate, then walked through the garden. Things seemed very calm; almost serene. The birds chatted in the large oaks surrounding the building, the fresh morning air was just as sweet here as it was in Emika’s own garden. Most of the house was made out of wood. Emika suspected it would go down easily, but first, she wanted to inspect the inside, so she put down her immense backpack on the terrace next to the door.

How was she supposed to get in? She didn’t have a key to Mina’s place, after all… Of course, usually, Mina didn’t keep her doors closed, but Mina wasn’t here anymore.

Either way, Emika tried to push down the handle, and… It opened with its familiar creak.

Lucky, she thought, and as she went inside, she was immediately greeted by a wall of warm air, as the house must have been heating up under the sunlight. But also, she was met with the nostalgic scent of her best friend’s home… A smell she had already started to miss.

On the other hand, just being in here again made her stomach turn, as all the things she had lost now became that much more apparent to her. Maybe all this wasn't such a good idea after all…

As she walked up the stairs, though, she realised that the bad feeling in her guts was not entirely due to sadness and nostalgia; there was something unusual. Something… uncomfortable, about all of this.

When she had climbed the stairs half way, she slowly came to a halt.

That’s right… All of this was off.

For one, the state of the entry door didn’t make any sense? When Eva and Emika had run away together, they for sure didn’t take any time to close the door behind them; at least, Emika didn’t remember them doing anything like that. So, why had the door been shut just now? Maybe the wind? Was there an open window in the house?

No, that wasn’t a good explanation either, because when Emika had entered Mina’s garden, the gate had been closed as well. There was no reason why she and Eva would have closed both the gate and the door while running away… right?

Stolen novel; please report.

Also, it was summer, and it had been two days since the incident. Why was there no awful smell? No smell of rotten food or decaying bodies, or anything. It just smelled… nice. Like it always did.

These thoughts made Emika feel slightly dizzy, and she tried to brace herself for what she’d find at the end of those stairs. And then, slowly, she started moving again. The wooden steps creaked loudly under her feet. It was nigh impossible to move around in this house without radiating noise everywhere. Thus, more than ever before when being in Mina’s house, she became aware of herself — maybe because this time was the first time she was in here alone.

And when she finally stepped onto the wooden boards directly connecting to the upper end of the stairs, what she found there was terrifying.

It was Mina’s living room, in its best ever condition. No wild plants. No flesh. No human remains, nor disarray. It was as if that fateful day had never happened. Emika found neither human remains nor human activity; and as she stood there, looking at this perfect scene in utter disbelief, she had a choice to make. A choice that her mind desperately wanted her to make; to either run away immediately, or to inspect the house to find clues as to what in the world could have happened since she was last here.

In the end, she opted for the compromise of running through the house and taking a cursory look in each room. If anything, she had to find a phone. Having a phone would help her out tremendously.

It’s not like she remembered too well how the house had been left, so a quick glance didn’t give her too much to go on. One important part was that the kitchen was clean, even though they hadn’t cleaned up after making food together on Saturday.

Other than that, she didn’t find anything of immediate note. All she could say was that any traces of the get-together with her friends and its aftermath had been wiped from the house. She also found no phone. There was Mina’s PC, but didn’t know the password, and she didn’t want to spend any more time here. She felt uneasy; even more so than when she had found the open window in her house the day before.

As Emika left the place and took a look at her backpack next to the door, she was faced with another choice: To either burn down the building anyway, or just go home. It felt so defeating. Her plan had been to take matters into her own hands, and now it truly seemed like she was completely powerless.

Emika sighed. Since all traces had already been eliminated from the building, she decided not to burn it down. This was Mina’s home, after all. She would have never deserved to have all traces of her existence erased, and now there wasn’t even a logical reason left to do it.

However, just as Emika was about to go, as she swung the backpack onto herself, she suddenly heard a wooden creaking noise.

For a moment, she wasn’t entirely sure if she had actually heard it or not, but she turned around slowly, looking back into the entry hall through the open door. That noise… That noise, had it not been from a footstep from inside the house…?

So… Did that mean there was someone inside? Someone she had overlooked on her shallow search? Emika gulped.

If there actually was someone inside the house, could they not have potentially seen her? No, rather, with how noisy Emika had been, that person must have noticed she was there, and hidden from her.

Emika just stared at the corridor for a solid five minutes, waiting for the sound to repeat, but it didn’t. In the same moment she decided she had to make sure and made a step back into the house, with an alarmingly convenient timing, she suddenly heard a cough from behind her on the streets. Turning around, she saw a figure dash into the woods.

Fuck, Emika thought. In a split second, she decided between either looking for the person in the house or going after the person running into the woods, and her choice fell on that figure she had actually, really seen, so she darted off. She jumped down the few stairs that led up to the door, ran out on the street and disappeared into the forest, just as she had together with Eva a few days before.