When Tessa Wilkins walked in, all the lights were switched off. The door creaked momentarily, and immediately when it stopped, the house harbored a sinister silence. Amidst the quiet came the prominence of everything that was birthed by darkness. The sound of her heart palpitating against her ribcage, the sound of her respiration and the sound of her swallowing tugs of fear bounced off of the walls into the atmosphere where it echoed against her ears.
Silhouettes of surrounding objects – of the coatrack on the left wall, the staircase right ahead and the artificial plant on her right – were larger than their actual size. Her imagination did not remain untouched; it ran to very terrifying places. Places where all the most grotesque thoughts were housed together, gathered and tamed to be dormant, only to awaken at the presence of fear.
Tessa's job should have guaranteed for her to be accustomed to this. To some extent, it did. There was a certain rush of adrenaline that came with danger. An excitement that abandoned terror and called for quick and swift action. However, that only happened on the job. This was her home. This was hers and Allison's home. Adrenaline was overshadowed by worry. Swift and quick action was diminished by the fact that Allison had been there all day. In their new house. In a new town. All alone.
Tessa's hand reached for the wall to the light switch. She turned the light on and took in a breath. She proceeded to take slow steps. Silent steps that only got louder the more she attempted to quiet them down.
Northridge was safe. It was nothing like Chicago, a city where the streets came alive every other second from all of the activity, some of it too unbelievable and horrifying to imagine. Northridge was nothing like Oakwood, a town that was deceptive in its coziness and false in its serenity, only to be eerie in its true nature. Northridge was quiet. The crime rate was so low that Tessa questioned why they had even offered her the position in the first place. A detective was unnecessary in this town. The only crime, according to all the research she had done, was the foolish and petty kind. Underage drinking, trespassing and shoplifting. All sorts of teenage rebellion that could easily be stopped with a bit of a scare here and there by police.
Northridge was the closest to utopia that Tessa had ever seen. It was the perfect environment for her to start afresh. For Allison to get better.
Perhaps it was the fact that she was frightened, but every bone in her body completely disregarded the facts and concluded that something was strange in her house. This was intensified when she was about to arrive closer to the dining room where she heard the sound of a chair rub aggressively against the wooden, tiled floor.
"Allison, are you in there?" Tessa called out. The sharpness of her voice clouded her anxiety. She had no gun. The one was back at the station, and the other was upstairs in the safe. She had no handcuffs. Only herself and her cellphone in the pocket of her oversized coat. The more this dawned on her, the more her confidence decreased bit by bit. She had done this so many times, yet she felt unprepared. Every move she made was the wrong move. Tessa heard yet another sound of objects being shifted around. That was her limit. She walked faster towards the dining room.
"What the hell is going on?!" It was stern and it was fearless.
A lot was going on when she was arrived. The dining room was dimly-lit in candlelight. A white tablecloth sat atop the dining table. Moreover, there were three red roses set inside clear, small vases. There were two candles, one on either side ahead of two chairs that were neatly put across each other. Silver cutlery was placed aside two dinner plates and there were rose petals spread out on the floor. The scene was absolutely romantic. Tempting and hypnotic.
And then there was Allison, who stood behind one of the chairs with the most breathtaking smile. She was truly stunning. She let her hair roam freely over her shoulders, and on her neck was a pearl necklace. The anniversary gift Tessa had gotten her the previous month. She wore a red dress, strapless and silk, and even in the dim light her skin glowed. Even in a room filled with so many beautiful trinkets, Allison outshined it all. She was so magnificent; Tessa was falling in love with her all over again.
