The house shakes as another burst of thunder vibrates through the building, causing your rising nausea to spike. Sitting on the edge of the bath seemed like a good idea at the time, and now, as your hands cover your eyes, you focus on your breathing. Adrenaline has you anxious, your lungs still only letting in short gasps of air.

You had seen it, yet it can’t be real.

It isn’t something your brain is understanding. How can it be? It was beyond anything you could have expected. Peering through your crossed fingers at the sink, part of you is frozen in place, unwilling to glance at the paper and message again. Your phone is just sitting there, still illuminating part of the bathroom in dim light. While your brain wants to put a pause on everything and remain in place until normal order is restored, you knew it didn't work that way.

You should take a photo of the tiny scroll while you still have the battery power. Who knew when the grid would be back up? Not that you really have anyone that will believe you if you sent them it and told them the story. You don't believe it, but at least having proof was a step forward.

Finding some amount of courage, you decide to stand. Better to face it and approach things logically, you think. Even if it defies any sort of logic. As your hand reaches for your phone, your gaze snaps to the contents of the washbasin.

The small kit with hastily discarded tweezers laying atop it is there.

But no piece of paper.

Instead, there's a small dark scratch of something laying stark against the white of the ceramic. A small wooden splinter.

You take probably the deepest breath of your life and sigh, shaking slightly—you’re cold and possibly losing the plot. Wanting to be sure, you turn your left hand toward the light once more. Rather than a circular wound, there is a small pink dot. About what you can expect from a sliver of wood the size that now lies in the sink.

Pneumonia or some kind of flu, you ponder. You raise the back of your hand up to your forehead, but it doesn’t feel especially warm. Even with a fever, hallucinations aren’t that common. You glare at the empty space for a few moments, just to see if the message will suddenly appear again. A flash of lightning brings you out of the trance, and you shake your head.

“Fucking hells,” you murmur, before looking over to the side. On the back of the door are some towels. Rough rectangular shapes of gray, outlined thanks to the light your phone is providing.

The desire to get some proper illumination helps your brain along in trying to find a plausible explanation for what you just witnessed. Did you really see that? Perhaps you haven’t been sleeping enough lately. Too many fantasy novels. Your active imagination probably went into overdrive due to your anxiety over the storm and getting home. All partially reasonable thoughts.

You pull a towel away from the rack and look at the mirror. Drowned rat still present, but now you can pick up on the dark circles around your eyes. You knew the word for it. Escapism. In trying to avoid your unhappiness in your current living situation, you are trying to drown yourself in stories. You roll your eyes.

Now, of all times? Perhaps that is one thing you can take from this terrible event. Some figurative self-reflection while you look at yourself literally.

The towel is somewhat comforting, and you rub your thumb back and forth on the fabric to get a feel of the texture. It is one you had brought with you, rather than the abysmal ones your parents used, which often doubled as sandpaper. With a sigh, you dry yourself off, top to bottom. It is a process made uncomfortable by the lack of paper-bound message in the sink. As much as you try to continue on, business as usual, the doubts are still sitting in the back of your mind.

Now your hair looks a lot worse, but with most of the chilling dampness wicked away from your body, you feel much better. Still in need of something stiffer than a coffee, but once you get into your room and under the covers, you can shut everything away and feel better.

If your phone battery doesn’t run out before you got settled, that was. There is a process to these things.

The items in the sink can stay there. You have better things to do than tidy up after yourself right now. As the storm lit the house briefly once more, you grab your phone. Best to check those messages on the answerphone before heading to the kitchen. Maybe it was something for your parents. Your aunt always calls your mother, but perhaps left a message since they aren't home this week. She lived out-of-state now, but in their childhood they had been pretty close - not even having the usual sibling rivalry most kids had.

You walk out of the bathroom and roll your eyes at the bedroom opposite, towel wrapping around your neck still. It was damp, but managed to give you some warmth. Enough for you to feel slightly less miserable, or perhaps the familiar fabric just grounds you a little. With a brief glance into the dark kitchen, you continue to the small lobby by the front door.

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The rain is battering at the door, and you grimace at seeing that some of the water is seeping in underneath it. Your towel becomes a sacrificial lamb as you roll it up and wedge it down at the edge of the door. Not a long-term solution, but hopefully the storm will pass before any permanent damage can happen. You turn your eyes to the blinking red light.

Two messages. Why is this still on when the electricity is out? Are the phones on a different system to the rest of the house? Eager to know, you lift up the receiver to your ear. Silence. A press of a couple of buttons, and other than a short beep, it doesn’t do anything. A question for your father, no doubt. If you even remember by the time they get back.

You wrinkle up your nose as you place the receiver back down and press the play button.

Message One, the robotic voice crackles. Hi-i-i-I… storm and… storm-safe… days… f-f-fridge… garage… you!

That was your mother. The line is terrible, and you barely made any of her message out. She must have tried calling when the storm was rolling in, just before the lines went down for good. Sounds like she was telling you to stay safe and then something about the fridge in the garage? It hasn’t been used in months, so you have no idea what that can be about.

Message Two, it interrupts your confused thoughts. Weather warning. Please seek shelter. Power and communication networks are likely to be affected. Remain in place until the storm has passed.

A generic message that they had sent out earlier. Probably what the librarian had gotten, although you don’t remember hearing the sound of her phone ringing at any point. In fairness, you were pretty absorbed in the book. You let the storm sneak up on you. Nothing on your cell to warn you, either.

You lift it up to double check. No signal whatsoever, and the battery is not looking too peachy after running the light for a little while. It isn't even that bright, yet always seems to drain the power like some kind of hungry monster.

With one last glance at your dripping jacket and sodden clothes still on the floor, you move out of here and take a left into the kitchen.

One of the biggest rooms in the house, and something of some pride to your mother. At least, she keeps bringing it up—even if she doesn’t really cook that often. Counters running along the left wall, the windows looking out to the front yard. An island in the middle of the room, and then the stove, fridge, and more counters on the right. The decor was bland. Deep gray and oak wood. In the gloomy light, everything is shadowed and grim, as if the life has been sucked from every surface.

You walk up to the center counter and lean your phone up against the wooden block that housed all the good knives. Well, they will be good if they are ever sharpened. They are just the biggest and most flashy, for as useful as that is. You stretch out and consider whether you want something to eat.

The march through the mud and rain, and then the shock of imagining whatever bullshit was in the bathroom, has set you in an odd mood where you feel both ravenous and too sick to eat. It is good to keep your energy up, but you don't want to feel even worse. You walk over to the fridge and pop it open, rather disappointed that the usual light doesn’t greet you. Splitting the difference between your current moods seems fair, so you grab a few slices of cheese.

You shut the fridge and turn around to the counters, picking your phone back up. The items you need will be under the sink, if your memory is correct.

The hinges of the door creak slightly as you pull it open, causing you to wince. Old houses were terrible for random noises. You'll have to dig around for your headphones and tune everything out.

Dropping into a squat, you hold up the phone to illuminate the inside of the cupboard. A shape moves, a large shadow darting across the back wall. You fall onto your backside and swear, realizing too late that it was a spider.

“Fucking spiders,” you mutter. You push yourself up and move the light, clearly picking up the disturbed arachnid now hiding on the left side of the cupboard where it was darker. It isn’t even a big one, all things considered.

After giving it a well-deserved glare, you turn your attention to the actual contents in front of you. A bucket, several cleaning material bottles, but just to the side—a small box. Candles, matches, and a torch with spare batteries.

You give a silent apology for all the disdain you have had for your parents today.

As you lift it out, the cardboard sticks to the base of the cupboard slightly, tearing some of the box off. Not enough to have anything fall out, but it was just another thing to tidy up once this was all over.

The cheese was good, at least. You pick it back up from the counter and take a bite as you exhale through your nose. Today can’t get any worse, but at least you have enough candles and light. The storm flashed and rumbled in the background.

Inside the box are a few candle holders as well, to keep them stable and catch most of the errant wax. Last thing you want to do is burn the house down, so that is handy. Do you really need to put them up now? The plan had been to retire to bed and pretend nothing existed. It will be a bad idea to leave candles unattended even if the holders were supposedly safe.

They can perhaps wait until needed. Instead, you bring out the torch. It feels cheap and old, as if it was a relic handed down from your grandparents. That isn’t that unlikely. Even the simple switch to turn it on grinds against old grime as you push it forward—but it does produce dim light.

Before then fading after three seconds. New batteries needed already.

You pull out one of the thick cylindrical batteries and hope it only needs one or two. As two are all that is left in the box. The black plastic shell of the torch squeaks slightly as you unscrew the base, allowing the spring to relax and eject two batteries.

Well, it can be worse. In saying that, you narrow your eyes as some of the connections look corroded. You pop the fresh power in and screw it back up. Another resisted click and the light comes back on, now slightly brighter.

It flickers slightly as the grime obscuring the switch tries to reset it back to off. You press your thumb against it, holding it on. It will have to do. You pick your phone up and switch the flashlight off, putting yourself at the mercy of the decrepit flashlight. In fact, it will be best to turn it off for now. At least until you know when the power is going to come back on.

You hold the button on the side and wait for the screen to go dark. Five long seconds of just the rain pelting at the windows being the only sound, until finally the phone switches off.

From somewhere in the house, you hear the brief creak of a hinge, before the clunk of a door closing.