Not Your Average Hero

•3• redux the cat

"We're home!" Axel yelled as we opened the front door.

"How was your first day?" Mom asked from the kitchen as we removed our winter apparel.

"Okay." I said at the same time Axel said "Amazing." My day was pretty great, but I was still mad at mom for moving us across the country against my will, Axel recently turned eighteen so he can move out whenever he wants.

"That's amazing Axel!" She beamed, "Ashlyn, I promise it will get better." My stomach growled in response and I headed for kitchen, determined to calm the wolf that thrived inside me.

"Where's good food?" I asked, scrunching my nose in disgust when I couldn't find anything that wasn't healthy.

"In the basement." Alden answered. He wasn't in the kitchen but I knew he was smirking. He knows I've hated going down into the basement ever since he first showed us the place.

I was alone in the house because Alden took Axel and mom for a tour of his college last summer. I didn't find touring the place appealing at all considering I was a sixteen year old girl, not interested in going to a college in such a small town.

I got bored, decided to explore the house and long story short, somehow ended up locking myself in the basement with whatever rodents surrounded me in the darkness, for two hours until they came home and found me curled up in the fetal position on top of the freezer.

I walked down the hallway passing various family portraits mom must have hung up. One of them was from when the four of us went on vacation to Sandron Springs. I was six so I don't have much recognition of the trip, however, I do recall it was the first time since dad left that we were having fun, also, it was the first time since he left that mom genuinely smiled.

I opened the door and gulped as I starred into the black abyss, I ran my hand against the cold cement walls until I found the light switch. The fluorescent lights flickered on and off as if I was in a horror movie.

I could feel my heart pounding as I descended the stairs that creaked with every step. Goosebumps formed on my arms as the cool air enclosed me, the frigid flooring stung my feet through my socks.

The basement is a small, square room only big enough to hold one freezer and a few shelves. The only thing close to a decoration is a circular drain in the middle for if it ever it floods, which I find unsettling.

My heart thumped out of my chest as something crashed behind me. Doing the inevitable, I turned to see a pair of glowing yellow eyes staring back at me.

I screamed my way upstairs and into the living room where I found Alden jumping off of the couch, rushing towards me.

"What happened? Are you okay?" He interrogated, holding me by my shivering arms.

"There's a monster in the basement." I said, ignoring the fact that I sounded like a five year old crying for mommy because she heard a noise in the closet. His face twisted up in confusion when I retold the events.

"It's not a monster." He stated with a lazy grin moving its way to his lips.

"What do you mean?" I asked but before he answered, he was already sprinting down into the basement.

"I mean," the sound of the creaking stairs signalled he was on his way back up, "that you didn't see a monster. You saw Redux."