°.•☆Nora•.° @sp00kedkitty - Tumblr Blog

This is a short horror story I’m working on, so more to come but this is the first chapter (it may change and notes welcome!) - it’s psychological horror.

CW: mention of suicide, discussion of death, death of a close loved one/death of mother + father, OCD tendencies/thoughts, trauma flashback.

Unwelcome visitor

Chapter 1

It’s so normal, death, but when it happens to someone you know, or knew I suppose, it shifts the focus of your life completely.

If I was a poet, I would say a good rain always knows when to fall, to force your skin to feel the cold numbness already hollowing your body from the inside out.

I could relate it to the cold unfeeling body being lowered into the ground, but I can’t picture my mother any other way than how I found her lying motionless in her bed 2 weeks ago. Death is so hauntingly close to sleep I haven’t been able to sleep on my back since. I can’t help but think of my father, but his coffin was empty when it went into the unforgiving ground. Everyone thinks he killed himself, but I don’t believe that. He wouldn’t do that, not to us, not to me. I push away the nagging thoughts about how they were fighting more before he disappeared and how distant he became.

“She went peacefully” they tell me. But I know it’s bullshit. They’ve never seen the true fear of a woman who couldn’t figure out why her youngest daughter was in the family photos. I stopped trying to remind her when she asked me why I was calling her mum. She got so angry but there were tears in her eyes, no sparkle like there used to be. Just fear and anger at the rotting of her own mind. I don’t think I called her Mum for moths before she died. I spent less and less time with her, I regret this now of course, but it was just too much to see her look at me like a stranger. It broke my heart more each time she called me ‘nurse’, while my sister sat by her side. She was still my mother, but I knew I was never going to be her daughter again.

It’s so picture perfect; the smell of freshly dug soil, my own sniffling sobs that merge with the symphony of sadness that surrounds me and the ever-present smoky shifting shape that lurks behind a far tree in the graveyard. It’s closer than usual today. Its’ distance worries me less that I think it should, but I already have too much to think about today. Why would I worry about something that’s nearly always been there.

The handful of dirt I grab is too wet to sprinkle; it hits the coffin with a hollow thud as it’s lowered into the cold earth. Why is everything so cold underground.

I tangle my muddy hand with my sister’s and the small squeeze she gives my shaking fingers crumbles whatever wall was left. My ceaseless tears join with the rain as we say our final goodbyes. What if I was to jump in with her, bury my body in the cold soil. Let is crawl into each orifice, suffocate and choke me until the weight of life is gone. Let it take me and become one with the dark ground. Maybe there, I’ll finally find him.

I wipe my face pointlessly with the back of my hand, the rain smears on my glasses and I shake the thoughts away before I get lost in the comfort of a cold grave. Another pile of dirt is dumped onto the coffin. I decide to focus on the sound because if I look up, I know the smoke will be watching me. It’s eyeless stare and presence feel heavier now. Was Mum the last thing keeping it from finally reaching me? The image of being shredded to ribbons by a smoky beast fills my mind as Amy tugs me away from our mother. We begin the solum walk back to Amy’s house but I can’t tear my eyes away from the human sized hole being slowly filled by grave workers. They seem to be friends with the rain. I refuse to have this be my last memory of her, I imagine her sitting in Amy’s kitchen, drinking coffee and waiting for us to walk in. She’ll laugh out some joke about us being soaked and make us a cup of tea. The rain and tears soak the ground and begin to slowly swallow my blue wedged shoes like the ground is trying to eat me too. I numbly follow my sister out of the graveyard and back to her house. Heels don’t suit graveyards.

There are no words to be spoken as we make our way to my sister’s house, a procession of quiet processing. My mother always said she wanted colour at her funeral, I think about us sat with her when she still lived at our childhood home, alone.

“No lilies or gloomy colours!”

I remember the warmth in her cheeks and the chip in her front tooth; a physical reminder she was a teenager once too.

“I want happy memories and tears, none of this sulking around because I’m not here anymore. It’s a part of life, don’t let the end of mine shut any doors to your own adventures.”

She made It sound so comforting but now here we all are, colourful mourners, like a wilting bouquet. Shuffling and talking quietly. It’s gloomy and I hate it. I can’t take another distant aunt telling me how sorry they are for our loss; I lost my mother long before she died.

I break from the rehearsed and stale conversations, hunting for the pastel blue of my sister in the sea of sadness like a shark, if I stop, I think I might die too. I pass the lounge window, bracing for the dark form that’s been ever present in the corner of my eye, my hunt pauses as I see it’s impossibly shifting form. It can’t be closer, its not real.

Its’ shifting, semi translucent smoke seems to mimic the rough shape of a child. I can barely make it out in the rain but it can only hold this form for a moment before it breaks the mould. Now frowning at me somehow, it stretches, growing taller. I feel a deep sense of long buried dread at the shape it seems to be trying to replicate.

I hear the singsong tone of my sister’s voice and turn away before it can reform, dismissing the changes as tricks of my fragile emotional state and shitty mascara in my eyes. My mind is filled with self-deprecation at the madness in the idea of that thing. I find my sister with our cousin, sipping sweet coffee and exchanging pleasantries. Something like true concern pulls her brows together and her focus off our cousin as I make my way to her. I see her reddened eyes glance towards the window then back to me. “Get your shit together, it’s always been there.” I throw the images of the smoky darkness out of my head and focus on the ring that’s too tight on my finger, nearly walking into my sister as I try to make it fit right. Amy takes my hand, gently linking it with her own. Our rings make the quietest sound as they clink together.

She makes small comforting circles with her thumb; I look down at it numbly but all I can think about is all the hands we’ve touched today and how I need to clean them or we’ll get sick. I don’t know where I left my bag and the hand sanitizer is in it. With a squeeze I realise she’s been saying my name. Her head tilts and she looks at me knowingly, asking me every way but verbally if I’m ok, because of course, I’m not. I nod and take a breath, ready to put a plaster on this gushing wound. I nudge Amy in the shoulder and our cousin takes this as a sign we want to be alone and leaves to not talk about death somewhere else.

“This shit is too gloomy.” I say with a weary smile.

She returned the sentiment with the first real grin I’ve seen today. With a breathy half laugh out her nose she nudges me back.

“What’s up with these people, it’s like someone died.” We share a teary laugh and sit at the dining table. Too many empty seats now.

“If I hear I’m sorry for your loss, one more time I think I might just lose it. Only happy silly memories from now on, I’ll go first.”

She looks at me with happy surprise as I continue.

“Do you remember a couple years ago at Christmas she made a game with the new toilet plunger she got? We took turns trying to throw the brush in the pot,”

I can’t help but let out small laughs as I retell the story.

“But she just kept telling really bad toilet jokes the whole time and no one could even get it into the pot because we were laughing so much.”

Amy stifled a laugh in the mumbling, quiet room and started telling her own story. We continued this until we were laughing and crying and the rest of the room seemed to follow. Like finding fool’s gold, the sorrows of the day were coated in some temporary joy.

The next couple hours are a blur of silly stories and such warm sadness, but not too long after the preferred food ran out people started to leave. Each wished us love and strength and shared their own personal stories. After a few more hours of pity, true laughter and crying memories out to family and friends, the house was quiet again. I put some music on and helped my sister clean up. I found myself thinking about how clean mourning people are, and thankful there was barely any food I had to touch. What there was Amy cleared away, she knows I hate touching it.

I find myself lost in all sorts of thoughts; some of mum, some of dad and some I wished I could forget. Memories sharply sift like looking through an old dusty photo album, nostalgic and faded. I can’t help but bring it up to her.

“I’ve been thinking about dad.” I say, still facing the dishes in the sink. The vibrant yellow washing gloves protecting me from the dirty contaminated water.

“Oh yeah?” she responds while she ties up the last bin bag. Uninterested in the topic but letting me bring it up for the sake of grieving daughters.

I pause, thinking my words over carefully.

“I just can’t stop thinking about how his grave is empty, it feels wrong.”

She drops the bag gently onto the floor, the breath I hear her loosen tells me she doesn’t want to have this conversation again, but I continue before she can tell me to stop.

“I just think if we look for him again, we’ll find something we missed and—”

She interrupts me with less restraint than usual.

“You can’t be serious? It’s been years Ella. No one has seen him since he walked out on us, Mum said he was suicidal after Uncle Joel passed and there’s no trace of him!” I can hear the exhaustion of the day in her voice.

I can’t stop the words now they’ve started.

“But there must be! He has to be somewhere, he wouldn’t just leave us without a word!” Warm tears retrace the stains on my face, and I feel a headache creeping across my temples as I turn to look at her.

I’m ready to fight for him again, the father I barely know, but the words catch as I see her crying too. I take a step towards her, and she sags into the island chair. It squeaks on the floor, and I know it will leave a mark.

“I can’t do this today. You can’t possibly believe that even if for some miracle you found him alive, he would come back to us? I don’t care if he’s alive or not, he’s dead to us.”

All the rehearsed passion drains from my body with the tears as I sit with her, quietly. Our old wounds resurfacing. I want to let it go but I equally want her to understand my view.

“It’s just… hard, to accept that he’s gone. Without a word.”

My words trail off and she watches me as I cycle through such old emotions, raked up with this new empty space. Nothing can distract me from the holes they’ve left now.

“It isn’t, f-fair.”

I whisper into the space between us, fiddling with my rings in my lap. The tears have made them leave coppery green stains. We always disagreed about dad, but with mum gone the weight is too much and I can feel myself sinking. I see what looks like her arm in my peripheral and I brace for a hug. But as I glance over, I see a male figure dissipate into ash and then smoke, seeping through the tiled floor in the corridor like sand through fingers. My body stiffens and my lungs freeze at the closeness of it. My mind reels and my skin prickles like someone dropped ice down my back but Amy speaks before I can fully dismiss or comprehend it. She gently pulls my hands from my lap into hers, forcing my gaze away from what I’ve just seen like a silent blessing. Her pain streaked face has me back in the conversation, she didn’t notice. Good.

“It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that he left, and it’s not fair that we are left to deal with it all. But we will, together.” Her voice is softer now, the anger too tiring to hold onto.

She was angry for a long time.

Memories of listening to her shouting matches with mum echo behind the last image I have of him. I push the memories away; I can’t take anymore crying today. She pulls me into her, sharply and hugs me tight. She wraps her arm behind my head, tangling her hands in my golden curls like she’s holding all our broken pieces together. We stay like this for a long minute before I feel I can let go without breaking down again.

With a sigh and a pat on her legs, she stands. She hates our father, but she’s so much like him. She kisses me on the forehead and nods her head towards the unfinished dishes.

“You ok to finish those, duck?”

I scoff a laugh. She hasn’t used my nickname for a while. A small dig at my “need for cleanliness” as dad used to call it, but I know she doesn’t use it that way. I realise I must have taken the gloves off at some point and pick them up from the floor.

A tired “yeh.” Is all I can manage as she watches me.

Her question feels layered, like she can see I’m on the edge of an abyss and if she pushes in anyway, she’ll lose me too.

I dip my hands back into the water, I can feel the cool temperature through the gloves but the effort of refilling the sink requires energy I no longer have. I can feel her watching me for a few moments as she lifts the bin bag.

“Stay here tonight, ok?”

Her words are edged with something more than exhaustion, worry maybe. Is she scared for me or for herself? I think about her tone a realise I haven’t responded.

“Of course,” I say with a smile. “I’ve always been better at protecting you from the ghosts anyway”

She chuckles and continues the seemingly never ending clean up. We shift back into keeping busy to keep the emotions of the last 2 weeks away. I get lost in the calm clinking of plates and splashing of the water, it keeps me distracted from the thought that my hope isn’t strong enough to keep the darkness away anymore.

I finished washing up and sat down on the sofa, trying not to think about all the people that had sat on here all day. I sit quietly, listening to Ami hum as she finishes up whatever task she was doing and just letting my thoughts spiral. There is something so dangerously freeing about sitting and listening to music, getting lost in thoughts. I feel the familiar sense of distant smoky eyes on me and curl into myself on the soft cushions. Its agonizing being stuck in the past, being terrified of the future and lost in the present.

Vera Lynn’s ‘We'll Meet Again’ starts splaying and my wandering mind reminds me of slow dancing in the kitchen, in a shifting memory of a room that seemed so impossibly big. The smooth melody on the speaker starts to crackle, as it shifts to the antique resonance of a record player. I look down at my tiny bare feet on a pair of dad’s grey slippers that lift me with ease. His warm hands seem to swallow my own as we sway. We bob up and down to the beat and I can hear his voice but don’t look up as he tells me how the song reminds him of his mother, when he was a boy.

The memory shifts like my mind is rearranging files, and I’m sat at the dining table with Amy’s hands over my ears. She sings to me and I can hear muffled shouting through her shaking fingers.

The memory shifts again. I’m lost in the spiral but I let it take me, I’m too tired to fight its current.

I’m stood by the kitchen door, its dark but I can make out a fallen chair, something soaks my sock, it’s dark and warm. I hate wet socks. Something thuds to the ground, and I hear shuffling and panting breaths. The darkness being to swallow me. Shadows scurrying from under floorboards and a hunched silhouette in the corner drags me away, trying to pull the room and the memory from my view. The cupboards and walls bend and curl towards me, hinges and brick ready to eat me whole. I hear a cry and seem to mimic it myself and cry out.

“Mum!”

I feel a tight grip on my arm and pull away violently. Amy’s terrified face is inches from mine, my chest is tight and breaths are racing in and out of my shacking body. I can feel hot tears on a face that does not feel like my own. My hands are wet as she gently pulls them from my face. My throat is full of barbed wire; no words are granted escape as my mind tries to ground itself in the present. But all I can focus on is the dark shadow creeping and shifting, barely visible in the dying light outside. I cry out again, but the sound is distant. I hear Amy trying her best to sooth me as I battle the adrenalin rattling through me.

“Squeeze?”

I barely hear the frantic word but force my body to nod and the next thing I feel is her arms wrapping tightly around me, catching my breathing and racing thoughts. The deep pressure gently calming my shacking hands as she tells me to follow her breaths. I breath in when her chest rises and blow out a shaky breath when I feel her body release. Slowly, my heart realises it’s safe and calms its gallop. I grip her arm and steady myself as the fog of the memory fully clears and I realise we are on the floor. I cant form words but she can feel my body relax and she pulls me against her gently. I rest my head on her chest a hear the rapid thumps of her heart. As my body and mind realign I realise the fear I must have caused her.

“sorry.”

Is the first word that mumbles from my shaking lips. She sniffs and I realise she’s crying too.

“Its been a while since we had some excitement huh?” she says gently, and brushing the hair from my face.

I babble out something that could have been a laugh and heave out deep sigh, making sure to keep my gaze away from the window. I try to focus on keeping my breaths steady and unlocking and relaxing each part of my body as she cradles me against the sofa. She doesn’t ask what it was about or what triggered my flash back as we’ve been here so many times. She just starts talking about who she spoke to today, that she’s glad it rained and other random things to calm us both. I always compare these moments to how mean we were to each other as kids and teens. Screaming insults and pulling hair turned into gentle affection and protection, we had enough turmoil to deal with. I think we silently decided to look out for one another after dad left.

I shuffle away from her slightly when I’m sure I can hold myself up again. I ask her to shut the curtains, and she looks at them surprised.

“Damn its already dark?”

She seems sluggish as she gets to her feet, clearly my ‘episode’ took what little energy she had left.

I wait for the sound of clanking rails before I look up fully, I’m taking no chances with what could look back at me through the glass.

She used to make fun of me for my fear of the dark, especially when I was in my later teen years. Ive always had the same purple flower nightlight, ever since I was 3. She used to take it before I went to bed, I think about the fits I used to throw until our mother made her give it back with a week less time to game along with it. I can’t help but giggle, which gets an odd look from her.

“Hey, I’m not losing you again am I Ella?”

The comment is half joke half serious as she comes and sits down on the sofa and pats the space next to her. I shake my head before she can get worried again.

“No, don’t worry I’m here. Just thinking about how you used to make fun of my… relationship with the dark.”

I sag into the space beside her, utterly drained and full of brain fog.

“Your fear you mean.”

“Yeah whatever.”

I say with a smirking sigh and throw my legs over her lap. We both sit quiet for a few seconds, letting the quiet notes of whatever song was on pass over us like a wave.

“Today sucked.”

I barely get the words out without my voice shaking and close my eyes, head resting on the navy arm of the sofa.

“Yeah. It really did. I liked telling stories about her though.”

Her voice is as shaky as mine.

“Me too”

The warmth of her body and the utter exhaustion of the day has me drifting off and next thing I know is she’s gently shaking me awake and saying something about sleep. Now all I want to do it melt into a warm bed and move on from today. We ignore the little jobs like teeth and showers and drag ourselves upstairs. I go first and leave her to turn off all the lights. I find the lamp in her spare room and plug it in. I turn the main light off and the lamp warms the room with an orange glow. Amy brings me some pyjamas and hugs me goodnight.

“Sleep well, duck.”

She says and closes my door.

I hear her click off the hallway switch, the line of light disappears from under the door and with that I’m trapped until morning.

Ive been dealing with this.. thing, for 16 years. Years of a having a constant following darkness, silently whispering on the wind for each shadow to watch me. When the sun goes down, every shadow seems to be aware of my movements and thoughts. I put on some old audiobook on my phone and force myself to close my eyes, hoping sleep takes me far away from this world, at least for a little while.