Deadly

Chapter 5

Someone rang the doorbell.

Well this is unusual, the man thought. None of his regular customers were scheduled to come by today. And most of them knocked. Oh well, back to business as usual. The man sighed. He had been hoping for a day off.

"I'm coming!" he called to the person waiting outside. He walked upstairs, in no hurry to answer the door. The door opened, revealing a very confused young man. He had his hands behind his back, and as soon as the door opened, he started talking.

"I'm sorry that I wasn't really able to call before I came," he began. "But see, I have an emergency and I saw that you were a paranormal doctor and I need some help..."

This boy is a rambler, the man decided. "Here, come inside," he said in an effort to get the boy to stop talking. "Do tell me, what is the problem?"

"Well you see it's my hand... I can't remember what happened but I know it's not normal and I was wondering if you could take a look..." The boy mumbled the end of his sentence, and extended his hand for the man to see.

Doctor Owen's eyes lit up as he instantly recognized the familiar black spirals.

-

As soon as Ethan left, Mia grabbed his rose and ran out the door. She lived far from the restaurant, and had no one to drive her back, so it took her a long time to get home. Still, her parents weren't expecting her back until much later.

When she arrived back at her house, she ran to the door, fumbling with her keys in her haste to unlock it. She barely noticed when the keys and doorknob turned black.

She had to find something to stop it.

Gloves, Mia realized. I need some gloves. She looked around the entrance, trying her hardest not to touch anything. There was a table next to the door, and Mia remembered that she had stashed her winter gloves in the top drawer when the snow finished melting. She used one of her talented feet to open the drawer, not wanting to turn the table black with her hands. She grabbed the pair of winter gloves and put them on. They were the puffy kind that she used to play in the snow, but they were all she had.

She began walking to her bedroom to start planning her next move, creeping past her parents' room in a vain attempt to not be noticed by them.

"Mia sweetie, is that you?" Her mom asked as she stepped in front of the door. "Did your date end early? What happened?"

"Um, yeah it didn't go so well," Mia answered, thinking fast. "I don't really want to talk about it."

"Okay sweetie just don't eat too much ice cream," her mom called back.

So she thinks we broke up. Mia made a mental note of this. If she decided to shut herself in her room while she figured out what to do, she could use that to her advantage.

She opened the door to her room, which proved to be a challenge with her gloves on. Mia quickly reminded herself to get new gloves at some point, and plopped down on to her bed. She put the rose down on her night table. It doesn't need any water, she thought sadly. I killed it.

After ten minutes of trying to think, Mia found herself scrolling through her phone. I'm not focused enough to think, she realized, and continued scrolling, deciding that she had enough excitement for one night. Tomorrow she would figure out what to do.

Still, she couldn't sleep. She played games on her phone for hours, another near impossible task to do with gloves on. After giving up on games, she decided to look at some of her old pictures. She scrolled all the way down to the bottom,and clicked on one of the videos. She realized that the video was old, from when Mia was eight, and this phone had belonged to her mom.

Mia's dad was filming Mia and her mom as they sat by the fire, sipping hot chocolate. There was plenty of room to sit on the couches, but they had chosen the floor as their seat. Mia's cheeks were red, and her  mom had a red nose.

"Mmmm, you make good hot chocolate Daddy," Mia exclaimed as she took another sip from her purple mug.

"Do you remember when you were younger, and we built snowmen like this?" Her mom asked. "And then we would come back in and sit by the fire, just like we are now." Melissa smiled at the memory.

"Sorry Mommy, but I told you before, I don't remember anything from before." Mia furrowed her brows in concentration, trying to remember the snowmen she had built when she was younger, but the wall stood strong.

Mia gave her mother a sad smile, and Melissa just sighed.

The video stopped. Mia stayed deep in concentration for a few minutes. Then she suddenly looked up, realizing that she had missed the end. I must be getting tired, she decided.

She put her phone down, and settled into bed. Soon enough, she was asleep

Another crack appeared in the wall of memories, and Mia dreamt that she was a little girl again, playing in the snow, and sitting by the fire.