image [https://imgur.com/3SRRe7r.jpg]

Indena and I were flipping through the pages of the almanac at the kitchen table. The scribbling were a lot harder for her to read then it was for me, but she noticed some things I hadn't.

She noticed something that spooked me a bit. It didn't have to do with anything written in the book, but something drawn.

"See this?" she pointed to a scribbled blob in one of the yellowing photographs. "Doesn't that look a little like it's supposed to be something?"

It kinda made me think of a ghost blocking the sun. I could just barely make out a pair of eyes. This guy might not have been much of an artist, but he definitely knew how to convey a creepy feeling in his work.

"You think something spooked him?" I asked

"Maybe this place really is haunted."

Eeek...I wish she hadn't said that. Now I was really creeped out!

She did say she'd scare off any ghosts earlier though, so that made me feel a little better.

I started thinking about the carvings we saw before. They depicted a being suspiciously similar to what we were seeing sketched into this book. With both of those things, it couldn't have been a coincidence.

Something was in this valley. Clearly people of the past were trying to warn us.

“Beware the harbinger sirens…” how many times was that scribbled in here, along with “Beware the Reaper..."?

I didn't want to think it, but this boogeyman we kept seeing refrenced...it couldn't have been the Grim Reaper, could it?

THUD!

CRASH!

A loud noise outside freaked us out! We both turned to look out the kitchen window.

Flakes of snow had started to glide down from the sky, quickly turning into scattered flurries that covered up anything that was visible to us.

It was getting really dark outside because of that, so it was hard to tell if anything else was happening. I couldn't even see very far using my night vision mode for some reason. That was weird.

“Snow…” she breathed out, shaking like a leaf. “Shit…”

Her nails were digging into the wooden window sill, clawing away at the already chipping paint.

My hand went over her arm, both to comfort her and check her heart rate. Her pulse was through the roof.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Y…yeah.” She pointed me to the other room while she locked the window and closed the blinds. “Make sure every window is shut and covered. Every single one!”

That order was coming from a place of fear. She was really scared.

“On it!”

I ran around the house, frantically locking up all the windows and closing the blinds. Eventually I worked my way upstairs.

Some of these windows didn’t have blinds, or the shades were old and falling apart, so I strung up blankets to cover them.

That was when a noise tapped my ear.

Tink tink tink…I heard outside a window.

At first I confused it for a tree branch tapping at glass, but there was a pattern to it.

Tink tink tink…

I followed the sound into the hidden room where I found the almanac.

It was a little blue bird outside. He was pecking at the base of the window sill. When he noticed me, he started tapping at the glass again.

Birds weren't usually smart enough to communicate with people, but this one was clearly trying to get my attention for some reason. Maybe he was trying to get to shelter?

I opened the window, letting the little guy hop right in.

"Peep!" he chirped. "Peep peep!"

He did a few little frantic hops around, almost like a cute dance. The little crest of feathers on his head was sticking up.

The longer I looked at him, the more it looked like he was glowing. Not only that, but his body was almost see-through. Come to think of it, he looked a lot like that moose we saw earlier with that eerily similar blue aura.

"What's the matter, little guy?"

I wondered if Samael was making him jumpy. Snakes and birds don't exactly get along in nature.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Yo, Shrimp!" Indena walked into the room. "Why’d you open the window!?"

Indena’s voice startled the bird, causing him to fly back outside.

SLAM!

"What was that?" Indena shouted as she slammed shut the window and locked it. "I told you to keep this place locked up tight."

"Hey!" I shouted at her. "That bird was trying to tell me something!"

"Just...keep the windows shut, nature girl!" she stormed out of the room to finish her job.

Could she sense something was coming? I've never seen her so freaked out before.

Still. That blue bird was also a mystery here. I'm sure he was trying to communicate with me. What did he want?

~☆☆☆~

Indena took even more precautions of protecting the house by turning on every light and cranking up the heat way too high. Heat doesn’t bother me, but something was bothering her.

It became silly when she made a fort out of some of the pillows and blankets in the front room. I had to figure out what this was about.

“Why are you so worried?” I asked.

“You want the truth? I…it was the book. That book freaked me out. Then we heard those noises outside.”

She was definitely lying. Not that those things weren't freaky, but there was more to this.

“You were scared even before we saw the book,” I mentioned, remembering she was a little worried while walking home. Both times had to do with snow. “Are you scared of the snow or something?” I asked.

“Damn…kids pick up on stuff so easy,” she sighed. “Fine. Yes. I’m scared of the snow! Happy?”

I let out a snicker, causing her to give me a mean look.

“Laugh it up, Shrimp. But it’s true.”

Just the thought of someone being afraid of snow seemed silly to me.

“But, how can you be afraid of it? I don’t understand.”

“I bet it reminds you of fun stuff like snow angels and crap…but for me…” she slapped around a pillow a little bit. “Gah…”

This was really bothering her now. I started feeling bad for thinking her fear was funny.

“You can tell me, you know,” I scooted up next to her in the fort. “I’m sorry for laughing.”

She side-eyed me, then looked away.

“When I was little, I almost froze to death out in the cold. Mom abandoned me and everything. I was way to small to fend for myself, if anyone could in a blizzard.”

My heart sank as I realized her phobia was justified. That's definitely a good reason to be afraid of snow.

“Sorry…” I admitted. “It’s just, when I think about it, it usually reminds me of Christmas and stuff.” Who wouldn’t think like that, especially at my age?

“Again with the Christmas stuff?" she said, covering herself in a blanket. “Just leave me alone.”

“I’ll be careful not to bring those things up then, if that’ll help,” I said.

“No!” she threw the blanket off her head. “Don’t treat me like I’m weak! I gotta beat this. Walking on eggshells for me won’t do any good.”

“But, you're scared of it. It’d be mean if I talked about it in front of you.”

Her body twisted toward me and she gave me the most nasty scowl yet.

“Oh shut up! Not all of us wanna’ sit here and live with fear our whole lives. Just treat me like normal, damn it!”

Her shouting scared me. I started crying.

Now she was feeling bad for scaring me. She let out a sigh and carefully rubbed my shoulder.

"Sorry. I'm just not good with this stuff."

Her apology made me feel a little better, but that didn't change that she was still hurting on the inside too.

I don’t think that her brute force approach was going to help her here. She was sad, and scared. Those are things that always make a person pretty upset with life as a whole.

When we're upset, we need to be cheered up. That way, we can be happy and get over what was making us upset. Simple logic, really.

To be honest though, I’m not really good at cheering people up. The most I have under my belt was getting an AI to stop wanting to kill me. Maybe that's more experience than I'd like to admit.

But I know when I want to cheer up, I play games to feel better. Usually video games, or something. We didn’t have those around here though.

Another thing that helped me, which I was doing right now, was petting Samael. His leathery skin was actually pretty good at making you forget your worries.

I pulled Samael carefully from my hair. He struggled a little at first, but allowed me to take him down.

“Don’t worry…” I whispered to him. “I’ll just let her pet you for a little while.”

“Ss…” He hissed, slithering toward her hand.

He playfully coiled around her fingers. She was a little nervous.

“Whenever I get scared, I play around with Samael,” I said with a smile.

“You play with a stupid snake?” She poked his head.

“Sss…” He sounded aggravated.

“He doesn’t like being called stupid,” I told her.

“That’s right, you apparently speak to nature,” she grunted. “Why do you even have this thing in your hair? What's a little girl doing playing with a snake?”

She’s one to talk…

“What’s a big girl doing acting all mean and cursing at a snake?”

Yeah, that got her!

She was taken aback by my remark. A smirk dawned her lips.

“You know, snakes and women don’t go well together. These guys caused us a lot of trouble a long time ago…you think you can accept that?”

Trouble? Women…snakes? I didn’t understand.

“Well, a lot of people are scared of snakes…but Samael is nice. So if every other snake is scary or evil, at least I know he isn’t.”

“Ha!” She let out a loud laugh. “You’re alright, Shrimp.”

A tinge of pride tickled my chest knowing I was getting closer to her. I was also glad she didn’t seem as worried about the snow now.

That pride soon faded as a twisting anxiety caused me to feel sick. Waves of some invisible malevolence held my mind hostage, demanding me to cower to it in the wake of its madness.

The crackle of lighting boomed outside, battling against my perception of a silent snowstorm.

If only the thunder was all we’d heard, because another sound soon accompanied the booms.

*Weeeeewwweeeeeeooooo…*

W-was that… a siren?