“...Melly?” Melly asked. She was Melly now? The girl hadn’t noticed her new name until they reached the crosswalk. As they waited for the red hand to turn into a walking guy, she pondered which name was better. Next to her, Daan led Charlotte by the hand. They were pressed to each other like melted gummy bears. Melly was a bad name, Melissa decided. She didn’t like it.

Her expression must’ve been funny, because Daan laughed. “She gives nicknames to everyone. Well, she just shortened your name this time, so it isn’t too bad. Could’ve been a lot worse. She always calls me ‘baby’.”

“I don’t like it.” Melissa frowned, but she wasn’t really mad. Melly sounded too much like jelly. “I hate jelly.” She tried it once when her mother was still alive and threw up real bad.

Before Daan could respond, the red hand turned into a walking guy. Cars parted along their path, emptying the crosswalks. Melissa trembled as she stepped along the white lines. Cars growled quietly as she passed them, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice. She didn’t understand why Daan was smiling, staring straight into their maws, much less the look of unconcern on Charlotte’s face, who couldn’t even react if they decided to ambush.

She squeezed Teddy, who squeezed her in return. Once they were below the walking guy again, Melissa finally remembered to breathe.

The rest of the trip was much simpler. Melissa led the way, clambering up the corrugated metal stairs. Their steps bounced metallic echoes along the alleyway below them. She pushed open the apartment door, revealing the sight of home.

Instantly, Charlotte pinched her nose. “Baby, how bad is it?”

“Bad,” Daan answered. His eyes widened as he comprehended the sight before him. He glanced at Melissa and wordlessly took her hand. “It’s worse than you thought.” He went on to describe the most notable aspects out loud so Charlotte could ‘see’ as well. Piles of beer bottles spread into carpets of broken glass, scattered mounds of filth, mulch, and other rotting trash. Splintered furniture, torn pillows, cushions vomiting old foam stuffing. Suspicious stains of all sorts of colors. And, oddly enough, a single half-eaten cake on the only unbroken table, placed in the center of the room.

Charlotte pursed her lips. “Teddy?”

I didn’t notice… I-it wasn’t this dirty before, I swear! It wasn’t like this before!

“Teddy?” Charlotte repeated. Her voice was dangerously light.

I’m sorry, Teddy whispered.

An apology. Melissa set Teddy on the table, distancing herself.

“Not to me!” Charlotte exclaimed. “Who should you say that to? Don’t you know? To your own goddamn-!”

Shut up, Teddy growled. I’m sorry, Melissa.

Another apology. “Why do you always say sorry to me, Teddy?” Melissa wondered. “I don’t get it. I don’t want it.”

See? Teddy remarked pointedly. I’ve said enough to her. She’s fine.

Daan nudged Melissa, raising his eyebrow. She tried her best to explain the conversation. “Um, your mommy is angry,” she said. “Teddy is angry too and says sorry again. I don’t like sorries.”

The boy gave her a strange look. “Mom, what’s going on?” Melissa felt a stab of betrayal as he turned to Charlotte for a better answer.

“Oh, nothing,” the woman muttered as she covered her eyes. “I was just confused how Teddy could let this happen, especially to her own dau—”

SHUT THE FUCK UP! Teddy screamed. Her fur writhed and shivered. Melissa leapt back. For a moment, Teddy reminded Melissa of her father.

“Why won’t you let her know?” Charlotte asked softly. “Doesn’t it hurt to stay away from her, knowing she’s right next to you? Doesn’t it hurt? How can you bear the pain?” Melissa squeezed close to Daan, utterly confused and quite scared of Teddy. Now, she felt, would be the worst time to interrupt them. But she wanted to so badly. Who was right next to Teddy, and why would it hurt? Melissa sensed that she had missed something really important.

Teddy was silent.

Charlotte scooped Teddy from the table. “Daan, could you go with Melissa and buy some treats from the store? Teddy and I have things to discuss. Woman to woman.” She handed Daan a pale-pink wallet, and her attention barely shifted from Teddy as she shooed them away.

Daan led Melissa away, closing the door behind them. “That was weird,” he remarked. “My mom was really angry. She was talking to Teddy, right?” As Melissa nodded, his expression turned pensive. “Then, was the ‘her’ she said, referring to you, Melissa?”

The girl tilted her head. That was the most confusing sentence she had ever heard.

Daan explained further. “Because the person right next to Teddy is Melissa. If Teddy was ‘you’ and Melissa was ‘her’, then my mom meant that it hurt Teddy to stay away from Melissa, which is you. But that doesn’t make sense, because you two are always together, like she just said,” Daan muttered, stumped by his own ramblings. “Right?”

Melissa nodded dutifully. She only understood ‘that doesn’t make sense’ and figured the rest wasn’t supposed to make sense as well.

Daan squinted at her. “Hey, I don’t get it either.” He lifted the wallet in his hands. “Do you want to buy anything? I've been in charge of groceries ever since that monster took my mom’s eyes.” At the mention of the smiling man, the boy scrunched his expression.

They were down the stairs now, but Melissa didn’t know what she could buy from stores, nor what groceries were.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Who’s Teddy?” Melissa asked, remembering what she wanted to ask him. How was Teddy so old, and how did she know so many things?

“What’s Teddy? She’s a spectre,” Daan replied, changing her question into something he could answer. “A pretty weird one too, stuck in a teddy bear. And she’s fully conscious, judging from how you guys talk to her. Do you know what spectres are?” Melissa shook her head. “Spectres are basically ghosts. If you die in really bad circumstances, or under really high emotions, you can turn into one. Like making diamonds from pressure. My mom says high emotions are key.”

“Oh,” Melissa said. She blinked as she processed the new information. “So, like mommy? Was mommy in a bad stance? Or high emotions?”

Daan squeezed her hand. “Didn’t she run away? She’s probably out there living her own life—Ow!” The boy bent over as Melissa suddenly punched him in the stomach. “Again? Did I say something wrong?”

“M-mommy didn’t run away!” The girl’s voice trembled with tears. Her father said the same thing, and she would never fall for his lies again.

“She died then?” Daan glanced at her, but he froze as she stared blankly at him. “Wait, what? I thought she ran away. You said she wouldn’t come back…” His voice faded as he realized his mistake.

“Mommy was put in the freezer,” Melissa said. “Is that a really high emotion?”

Daan’s expression dropped. He covered his mouth. “...Freezer?” His throat swallowed and shivered. The boy yanked her away, sprinting back to the apartment. They moved so fast that Melissa didn’t even have the chance to ask what was wrong.

“A-ah, that hurts!” Melissa complained as Daan sped up the stairs, leading the girl to stumble and trip. He didn’t seem to hear her.

When they reached the fourth floor, Daan abruptly froze. He hid her body behind him. Melissa peeked around. Her eyes widened.

“Good morning,” the smiling man said. He stood in front of the door, his knuckles cocked back in the perfect position to knock. “Did you sleep well? I was about to check up on mama. You came just in time.” He looked at Daan. Charlotte’s laughter giggled through his teeth, shrill and joyful.

Daan clenched his fists. “I already said I’d go. Stop messing with her. When I get her eyes back, and if I see you again after that…” Melissa stepped away as two silhouettes flickered beside Daan. Shadows crept along the walls like ropes and vines. She blinked, and the illusion disappeared.

However, the smiling man had already vanished. Daan furrowed his brows. “Was that just my imagination?” the boy whispered to himself. Before Melissa could say ‘no’, he pursed his lips. “Forget it.”

Daan pounded on the door. “Mama, can I come in?”

A second passed before Charlotte assented. Daan burst through the entrance, tugging Melissa behind him. “Her mom is dead! She didn’t run away!”

Charlotte looked at him, then at Teddy. For some reason, she simply laughed. She laughed for a while before she realized she shouldn’t be laughing. “Oh, sure. I mean—what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised, too?” She looked at Teddy, who was nestled in her arms.

Can you stop already? Teddy asked. She didn’t sound angry anymore.

The boy stepped forward, ignoring his mother’s outburst. “Just now, Melissa told me her mother was put in the freezer.” He walked to the fridge, reaching for the top handle. “Then—” He paled as a wall of rotten ice greeted him. A second passed before he slammed the freezer shut. Daan turned around, frantically gesturing for the witnesses to confirm his evidence. Melissa nodded silently. Teddy flopped in Charlotte’s arms, and Charlotte was too blind to see. Watching their lackluster reactions, Daan felt like he had wasted his energy. However, his embarrassment wasn’t enough to extinguish his dread. “It’s obviously a murder! Then, who killed her? It had to be…”

Charlotte reached forward. She mushed Daan’s face into her arms, silencing him instantly. “Shh. Mama will explain later. No need to waste your energy, baby.”

Daan popped his head out. “Stop calling me ‘baby’,” he muttered, but Charlotte only responded by cooing at him. The boy turned pink, burying his face back inside.

By the time Charlotte released her embrace, Daan had forgotten what he wanted to say. The woman pushed him forward. “Now you can help her pack! Melly’s going to live with us, so help her gather what she wants. Oh, and gimme back my wallet,” she added as an afterthought.

Daan grumbled as he handed off the wallet. Melissa was already on the ground, collecting the chip bags on the floor. Whenever he glanced at her muted expression, he was reminded that her mother didn’t run away like he originally thought. She was murdered. With a bit of logic, he deduced who committed it, and now he could barely meet Melissa’s eyes. Her father was definitely the murderer. Daan sighed, kneeling to stuff the chip bags into the bigger grocery bags. Speaking of, where was her father, anyway?

Melissa stared at him. “Thank you,” she whispered, but she didn’t know why. She understood that she wasn’t only thanking him for helping her collect chip bags. Maybe it was also because he opened the freezer and did his speech, and because he sounded like he actually cared about her. Sometimes Teddy also sounded like that, but sometimes she screamed at her instead. Melissa wished she could care about herself like Daan did.

“What else do you need?” the boy asked. He looked uncomfortable being next to her.

“Clothes and towel.” She stepped into her room, grabbing the damp towel she used to dry herself in the morning. Digging through the mounds of dirty clothes, she picked out a few more wearable outfits. Daan stared at the tattered dresses, shirts, pants, and socks she piled in his arms. From the mounds of clothes, vermin skittered away into holes in the bed frame, hiding their reddish-brown shells and tiny, tiny legs.

Melissa dusted her hands. She waved her room goodbye. “Bye! I’m moving!” As she returned to the living room, she snatched the spoon on the table, crusted with old sponge bread and frosting. “Wanna eat cake?” she asked Daan, holding out the spoon.

We can take it with us, honey, Teddy said from within Charlotte’s arms.

“Cake?” Charlotte looked around before realizing she couldn’t see. “Right, we can take the cake with us.”

“Aww.” Melissa set the spoon down. She really wanted to thank Daan by giving him cake. The boy helped her fit the cake into its box, packing it in another bag. Carrying the clothes, towel, chips, and now cake, Daan appeared to be struggling for his life.

“That’s everything?” Charlotte asked, hearing Daan stagger to the doorway.

“Yup,” Melissa chirped.

Charlotte squeezed Teddy in her arms. She faced the stuffed bear toward the living room one last time. “Say what you want. We aren’t coming back to this hellhole.” Melissa sensed that Charlotte wasn’t talking to her.

Teddy held a quiet vigil. For an instant, Melissa could see a silhouette of her father, transparent like glass, kneeling in prayer. Horror painted his expression. Sparkling tears stained his cheeks, filled with the instinctive desire to live.

Was this his last moment before he died?

For the first time, Melissa was not afraid of her father. Instead, her blood chilled with pure disgust. After everything her father did, now he dared to look human. The girl closed her eyes as a faint knot grew in her throat. Her father didn’t deserve to make her cry. He was completely different from her mother. But even now, even now, there was still a part of her that wanted to weep and break free of this nightmare, and she didn’t know why.

Teddy trembled. She concluded the vigil by breaking the silence.

I wanted to love you. Even when... Teddy paused. If Teddy had eyes, Melissa figured they’d be closed real tight by now, because her voice sounded like it.

Goodbye.

The illusion shattered, bursting into shards of light.