What Lies Below (On Hold)

Chapter 1: Part I

Tia opened her eyes, expecting to see her elder sister, Tina, snoring in her peaceful sleep as always. She was so exited to execute her plan of tickling her sister as soon as Tina's eyes would open. But along with the bright rays of morning light, came a sight which Tia never, in her wildest dreams, had expected.

In front of her eyes was the most horrible face she had ever seen. Pale black in colour, it had shiny scales on it, which seemed to be outlined with pure silver. Its eyelids were closed, and they had dark black dots on them. Its hair was ginger red in colour, and so were her eyebrows, making her look more horrible. The figure lay peacefully under Tina's velvety covers, probably sleeping.

But that did not matter right now.

The first thought that came in Tia's mind was to run as far away as possible from that horrible creature, and that is what she did.

A few minutes of complete confusion followed.

Tia stood up on her bed after struggling out of her covers and then tried to dash out of bed, but fumbling in doing so by tripping on her covers a few times before finally succeeding in getting out of bed.

But then she realized that she had forgotten to do the most important thing.

She let out an earsplitting scream.

The figure seemed to be disturbed, because it rose half its body from the bed, facing the opposite direction to Tia's, and on not finding anything interesting there, turned its head around.

Tia gave out another earsplitting scream.

'What's wrong with you baby doll?', the figure asked sleepily, and then yawned with her mouth open, spreading both her horrible, scaly hands.

It then stared at Tia for sometime, with unexplained confusion in its eyes.

Tia was completely bummed out of her wits. She foolishly stood there, staring at the figure shamelessly. It seemed as if her legs were cemented to the floor and she could not move. A small scream escaped her mouth.

'Are you okay there Chika?', the figure asked.

Hmmmmmm..... Chika!
That was what Tina used to call Tia lovingly.

Tia studied the creature's face once again, keeping aside its ginger red hair and black scaly skin. Tia figured out now that it bared a striking resemblance to Tina. Its fiery red eyes bore the same shape as Tina's beautiful jet black, almond shaped eyes. Its nose was as sharp shaped as Tina's. Its scaly black right cheek had a small white spot exactly where Tina had her black beauty spot which she was extremely proud of. Its face was oval-shaped, just like Tina's. In simpler words, she seemed to be a black, scaly carbon copy of Tina.

Tia realized that she had been starring at the figure for a couple of minutes when the figure said, in the voice belonging to Tina's, 'Baby Doll? Are you fine? Why are you starring at me as if you are starring at a real ghost? Can you hear me? Arrre... apko hua kya hai? Mujhe aise kyun dekh rahi ho?Ab mujhe sachmuch darr lag raha hai. ( Ohhhh... what has happened to you? Why are you starring at me like that? I am really feeling scared now.)

Tia mustered up whatever courage was left in her, and said, in a trembling voice, 'A-a-a-are y-o-o-u D-d-d-d-eee?'.

The figure rubbed its eyes, and suddenly jumped, letting out a shriek while gaping at its ugly hands.