𝙃𝙪𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙤𝙞𝙙

It all started here.

It was a peaceful night. Lima was curled up on the couch hugging Dixie, her pet dog. Mom and dad sat together on the floor watching TV.

"Did you do your homework?" Dad asked as he was nibbling on a stale piece of bread. Lima always found it funny that her father would eat absolutely anything, he didn't care what it tasted. he just ate it. Mom would jokingly call him the human compost pit, eating everything the others didn't want.

"Dad, it's the summer holidays?" 

"Right... How's the summer goin' kiddo?" 
This was something that her dad did often. He'd wake up one day and think that he's not connecting with his children well enough and asks them dumb questions, for the sake of conversation.

"It's doing just fine." Lima said, and got up from the couch and went upstairs. She felt bad for always being distant to her dad, but she couldn't help it. Not after what he'd done. It amazed Lima to see dad trying to act like nothing happened, even though he slept with another woman. She forgave him, but she never forgot. Mom forgave him. And forgot. 

That's her mom. A kind, caring soul. And being too kind is not too different from being stupid. She forgave everything. "Turn the other cheek". That's what she always said.

She sat on her windowsill and stared at the deep blue sky. Almost black. Stars speckled the skies as if someone decorated the deep blue canvas with white paint. Suddenly she felt queasy. A sick, heavy feeling in her belly. Almost as if something bad were about to happen. A premonition. 

She dusted the thought aside and decided to annoy her little brother who was in the room right next to hers.

"Hey hey hey little man!" She said as she swung the door wide open with a grin on her face.

"What do you want Lima? Go away and stalk Stu Mayback's Instagram or something" Said Dennis, sneering.

"Oooh, someone's in a  bad mood!" Said Lima trying to act unaffected. 

"GET OUT!" shouted Dennis.

"aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!" the scream of their mother echoed through the house.

Dennis looked at Lima with a terrified look on his face.

Lima motioned Dennis to stay where he was and tip-toed downstairs.

The sight that awaited her downstairs was something straight out of a nightmare.

Her mom lay on the kitchen floor, a truly hellish person, no, not even a person. It looked something similar to a human. But what she saw before her, that  was not a human.

It's skin was rotten and peeling, the creature's face was blank. Just skin. It didn't have any facial features except for a big gaping mouth, seeping blood.

The creature was.... eating?

It was eating her mother. 

Lima stared in disbelief as she watched it eat her mother brutally. The brutal crunch of her mother's bones breaking between the monster's teeth is what shook Lima out of her traumatized trance.

She screamed with all her might and ran to the living room, to only see a pile of flesh and bones, and a ripped apart face. A face resembling her father. 

She opened her mouth in pure terror, but she couldn't scream. She couldn't cry. She just stood there.  She felt the world slow down around her, until all she could hear was the flesh squelching as the monster ate away at the flesh of her mother.

She buried her face in her hands and sobbed hysterically. 

She didn't know where, or what the creature was doing now, but she didn't care. Her family, everyone she cared for was gone. 

"Holy shit. Dennis!" she screamed as she remembered that her brother was still upstairs. 

She ran upstairs past the clearing to the kitchen, so much in a hurry that she didn't notice that the creature wasn't there anymore.

Dennis stood by the doorframe of his room, eyes red. 

"Dennis. Something bad has happened. Really bad. And, We should call the police. I'm scared too, I don't really know what to do eith-"

"Lima. I came downstairs. I saw it. I ran back upstairs cause I'm a scaredy cat. I saw everything." tears welled up in his eyes as he said the words. "What the hell is happening here?" 

He broke into tears and hugged her desperately.

Neither of them could believe what had just happened, but it did. They wish it didn't, but it did. 

Lima and Dennis cried themselves to sleep in the closet. The peaceful chirping of the crickets echoed through her ears hauntingly.