What the Storm Washed In
*The following contains violence and death.
I rolled over in bed, pulling my duvet tighter around my shoulders. Rain pounded against the window and every so often, the sky would rumble and light would filter in through the cracks in my curtains as lightning exploded across the sky.
I stared blankly across the room, the darkness creating shapes and trying to trick my tired eyes into believing there were people or monsters waiting to attack. I closed them, and rolled over again, trying to get comfortable.
Another crash of thunder, and I jumped when my door creaked open. I turned to face it, expecting to see a shadowy figure. Thunder storms always put me slightly on edge. Instead, there was a small head poking through the gap in the door.
"Cathy? Are you awake?" my little sister, Daisy, half whispered, even though it was very clear I was half sitting up in bed.
"Yeah, come here," I pulled up my duvet, waiting for her to close the door and run over. She climbed up into my bed, and I tucked the duvet over her as she snuggled into my pillows.
"I don't like the storm," she mumbled and I held my arms out to her, letting her curl up in my arms.
"It's quite noisy, isn't it?" I asked, and she nodded.
"I saw a man."
"Where?" I asked, smoothing her hair.
"At the end of the hall. It was all dark."
"I'm sure it was just some clothes," I soothed. At the end of the hall, we currently had clothes hanging up to dry, as a broken tumble drier and bad weather demanded we find room to hang them up to dry inside. And it wasn't an uncommon thing for the darkness to steal clothes and morph them into people.
"It wasn't. It was a man." she said and I nodded.
"Okay, well I won't let anything happen to you. You're safe in here." I pulled the duvet tighter around us. "And nice and cosy. So try and go to sleep, okay?" I said and she nodded, closing her eyes.
It didn't escape my notice that Daisy's thumb quickly found it's way into her mouth. She might be seven, but some childhood habits stay for much longer. I still had a blanket that I curled up with when I was sad, or in need of comfort. Sometimes, we must choose comfort over being grown up.
I sighed, staring up at the ceiling as Daisy slept. My arm was starting to go to sleep, but if I tried to slide it out from under her, I was sure to wake her. I heard footsteps in the hall outside my bedroom, and listened as they made their way towards my parents' room. My Dad must have got up to get a drink.
I turned my head towards the window as a flash of lightning wormed its way through the curtains again, and I waited for the thunder to follow it. The wind had started to pick up, and the rain was practically being thrown against the glass now, the howling of the wind whipping around the edges of the building sounding out into the night.
Trying to turn over a little to potentially wiggle my arm free, I saw that Daisy hadn't closed my door properly, leaving it slightly ajar. I stared at it, willing it to close by itself. There was no way I was going to be able to sleep without it closed, and I didn't want to get up and wake Daisy up in the process to go and close it.
The next flash of lightning highlighted a figure standing just outside of my doorway, and I frowned. There were no clothes there, nothing that my mind could've interpreted as something other than what it is.
"Dad?" I said softly, trying not to wake Daisy. "Is everything okay?" The figure was too tall to be my stepmother. It had to be my Dad.
The door creaked open, my Dad's hand on it, pushing it slowly, and he stepped into my room, his other hand behind his back. I watched, wondering whether he was going to pick up Daisy and take her back to her room, when the lightning flashed again, the light dancing over the face of the man standing over my bed.
The man who was certainly not my father.
My scream echoed around my room, bouncing off the walls and battling with the wind and rain for dominance, but the man didn't even flinch. I clutched Daisy to me, her eyes wide open as I pulled her as close to me as possible. Somehow, if she was close, I could protect her.
I tried to shuffle away from the edge of my bed, pulling Daisy with me, but my bed was against the wall, and my back flattened against it, Daisy pulled to my chest.
The man dropped the hand that had been behind his back, and my eyes followed the object he was holding. He raised it slowly, above his head, and I rolled over Daisy, pushing her against the wall and covering her body with mine. I closed my eyes tight, tucking my legs up around Daisy, shaking as the thunder rumbled around the room again.
The object sliced through the air, the sound barely registering in my ears before I screamed in pain. The blade was pulled from my side, causing me to whimper as my head started to spin. I couldn't move my legs. The wound throbbed, and I found myself wondering, as the warmth of my blood slid from my body over my duvet and over my sister, whether I would've been sliced in half if my spine hadn't stopped the weapon.
"Cathy?" Daisy's voice whimpered in the quiet, and I shushed her, trying to pull her closer into my chest, but my arms were starting to grow too heavy for me to move them properly.
"I love you, Daisy," I said, my voice cracking and my eyes fluttering with the exertion of talking.
"I love you too, Cathy." She sobbed, and I pressed my lips against her head as the man brought the blade down again, stilling my kiss, and forcing my life from my body, and out, into the cold, dark, wet night, leaving Daisy alone, with nothing but the shell I left behind as a shield.
And done!
I remember writing a story like this ages ago, but I didn't go into quite so much detail. In fact, I think I still have the story in the notes app on my phone, and I could probably find it if I looked.
I just looked and found it. I never named any of the characters, and the story is rather terrible in itself.
I wanted to include the cliche that a child tells someone something, and it is passed off as the child not seeing something properly, or miss interpreting something. And yes, the man did kill their parents first, which is why no one came when Cathy screamed.
That's all for now...
Bye!
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