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A shrill cry formed at the boy’s lips as he was forced into his final gasp of his short life. Hiccupping, he coughed a pool of red. His blood shot from his mouth as if it was the bullet of a fired gun.
A young girl, only eight years of age, looked on with a petrified expression. She was forced to watch as her own brother was compressed, his ribs cracking from the invisible force around him.
In slow motion he fell, collapsing on the floor as if it were a movie. Drops of the internal liquid staining his open lips flew off like red wine from its cup. Flailing through the air, his head crashed onto the roughly carpeted basement floor, cold and lifeless before contact was even made.
…………………
Now, in that same house, in that same room, sat the only witness, the eight year old. The only difference now was age.
Twenty years had passed since Laura Reynolds had been at the scene viewing her teenaged brother’s murder. Here she sat at an oak desk in the far right corner of the room.
What drew her to the room? What had been the cause of her dwelling in the home of her haunted childhood? Why did she insist on allowing her eyes to graze the irregularly shaped spot on the carpet by her feet where the stain still remained?
No matter how many times she washed the floor that had been home to the passing of her beloved brother, the faded red color wouldn’t come out.
After the drama of her brother Tyler’s death had subsided; Laura found that her curiosity was taking over. She needed to learn what had done this to her family. Her brother had always been there for a laugh or some encouragement. She had idolized his moderate personality. For a while it had been frightening, but eventually, she figured whatever had killed Tyler was long gone.
The desk was where she spent much of her time, as she was an aspiring horror novelist. Her workspace was equipped with overstuffed drawers, a dim lamp, more pencils than a schoolhouse could hope to contain, and a fairly recent Dell model.
A creaky tapping noise emitted from the aged pipe system of the house, startling Laura, who was intent on a particularly frightening chapter. Laura knew nothing was wrong, but it didn’t stop her from rounding the corner, tracing her way softly to the staircase where the pipes had given off the interruption.
She saw nothing. Sighing, relieved, she turned back. Swiftly, a cloth vanished into the secluded area where her workspace was located. Fear pricked at her heart as she told herself her eyes were deceiving her mind.
Cautiously, her conscience warning against it, she worked her legs along the wall. She turned her head over into the other room of her basement.
Everything was normal. Her Dell hadn’t moved. The familiar mark that had been there for twenty years came through the carpet as dimly as the room was lit. Nothing was even slightly extraordinary. She trod, heart racing, into the center of the room.
“Laaaaaauuuuuuurrrrrrrraaaaa,” a voice hissed nearby, dragging out her name the way it had been when people called for her as a child.
Her eyes went wide as the departing fear found its way into her yet again. What was she supposed to expect?
Apprehensively she pivoted, summoning all of her strength to proceed.
Not a thing in the world could have prepared her for what she met next. The boy was shoeless, toenails yellowed, caked with crusted over blood matching the color of the blemish on her textured carpet. The hair on his legs was only starting to come in, signifying that whoever this was had been a few years into adolescence. His once nice pair of khakis was cut off along the kneecap. Loose strands billowed behind in his wake when he moved. Most of the right side of this teenager’s old unwashed gray shirt was torn off and held only by a sleeve.
What was most nerve-racking was his face. The boy’s neck was long and thin, leading into dirtied features. A thin moustache was beginning to show through his tanned skin. His discolored teeth were gnarled, entangled together like weeds. His nose came out in a familiar way. The nostrils widened yet the rest of the skin seemed to cling onto the small amount of bone that it could reach.
Two balls of nothing but robin’s egg blue pierced brightly through the dull, eerie room. That color she had come across playing with Crayola crayons at five years old was all that shone from his eyes. His gaze unsettled her to nearly a point of breakdown. Who was this? It couldn’t be happening!
Recognition blew through her like a gale kicking up. She peered into his details. Beyond his many supernatural changes, she knew who this was.
“Tyler,” she uttered softly. How was she to feel? Was it actually him returned from being dead? Something about him was different though. He seemed evil and twisted.
“That’s right,” her brother grinned wickedly. He spoke slowly.
“H-How?” Laura stammered, her delayed reaction settling in finally with disbelief. Something claiming to be her departed brother stood before her. Not only was his physical appearance altered, but he was supposed to be dead!
“Nobody leaves Earth, Laura,” Tyler claimed suddenly. Laura was still unsure of this situation. Tyler continued though. “The departed go nowhere, trapped on the soil of this planet, invisible to all unless they choose to expose themselves.” He paused to gasp in oxygen. Did he still breathe though?
“B-But who killed you in the first place?” Laura broke in hesitantly.
“My friend,” he replied. “You know Josh.”
Laura did know. Josh Perry had known Tyler for only a short time. As if a friendship wasn’t meant to be, a member of Josh’s family had unknowingly left the stove unattended while everyone was asleep. The tragedy claimed only Josh.
“He wanted us to still see each other,” Tyler grinned as if Josh had made the greatest decision ever, stealing away Tyler’s life. “And it worked.” Tyler paused and began again. “All those times when you looked at me for guidance…I miss them, Laura.”
Tyler’s plan became clear to Laura in that instant. Her life seemed already to be collapsing in on her. She only wanted to turn and sprint out and leave this in the past. As she stood whimpering to herself, a plan of her own struck her mind like a match to a candlewick. She did her best to feign a mask of bravery. “What will stop me from telling the whole world these truths after you kill me? I can reveal myself just like you are, right?” She demanded boldly.
“The code stops you.”
So now there was a code.
"You can’t stop this, Laura. You don’t want to either. We can always be together just like before.”
“But we’re together now!” Laura shrieked. She didn’t care that after death her brother’s personality was turned inside out. She would not succumb to this fate he made for her.
“You know the truth now. I’d violate the code letting you live with the facts,” Tyler explained. Tears flooded Laura’s eyes just as images of her life flashed through her mind. She tried to tell herself that her brother was dead. This ‘code’ was just some nightmare.
Tyler’s palms had reached her ribcage before she knew what was going on. He gave only a light shove but still sent her sprawling into the wall. Her head smashed into the green paint with a force that could easily have dented the construction.
Her world grew faint. Her hope to escape perished along with her desire to struggle. Laura suffered through all that she had witnessed with her brother. Her ribcage shattered. She was compacted and restricted from breathing. She spattered her own marks of coughed up blood on the walls and the carpet. At least she wouldn’t be the one washing it now. It was time to learn the code Tyler had so kindly informed her of. How sweet it was of him to want her back around him. The life of Laura Reynolds was suddenly no more. She had joined the ranks of every single once living creature of the world. She had become a fiend like the rest.
They were everywhere.
They saw everything.
They were waiting.
They read this over your shoulder.
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