The Lovely Suicide Children

Chapter 29: Shadows Below

When I arrived home, I found that I had a missed call from Vlad. I sat on my bed then called him back. He finally picked up on the fifth ring. "Hello," he said, a little confusion in his voice.

"Hey, it's me," I said.

"Dude," he yelled into the phone. "I tried calling you!"

"Just recently got my phone back from dad," I said. "What's up? And why do you sound so out of breath." There was a long pause on his end. In the background, I could hear someone typing. "Vlad? Everything okay?" I said again.

He let out a sigh. "Remeber that night when we fell asleep on Skype, and I asked you if your dad had a daughter or something?"

"Yeah," I said. "Amber. What about her?"

"I found something weird," he mumbled in a low voice. "Really weird."

"What are you talking about?" I asked him. I mean, not much could have freaked me out by now. I've been visited by a ghost, I've been possessed, and I saw my mother kill herself. What could have bothered me now?

"Well, my boyfriend and I were doing a little research about your dad," he said. "We looked your dad's name up on Google, and the mansion came up along with it. When I clicked it, my boyfriend told me that he knew about that house. There was a murder there. We found old pictures of it. We found..."

He was cut short by someone whispering in the background. I figured it was his boyfriend. There was silence for a good minute before Vlad returned to the phone. "We found pictures that were related to a crime that happened in the house. A little girl was killed there."

I smiled into the phone, glad he didn't tell me any new news. I knew that Sunny took her life inside of her house. "I know about that. Her name was S-" I cut myself off mid-sentence when I remembered what he said. "Did you say murder? The girl who lived there killed herself?"

"There were two girls," Vlad said. "Sisters."

I swallowed. "Wait, wait. Are you saying there was another girl in this house and she was murdered?"

"That's right," Vlad answered back.

Before I could ask the name of the other girl, there was a loud noise on the other end of the phone. Vlad's parents started yelling, and by the sounds of it, it sounded bad. Vlad abruptly hung up the phone. As the minutes passed, he didn't bother calling back. I just sat there wondering about what they had told me.

 Curious, I got up and walked into Amber's room. Her head shot up when she saw me. Amber was dressed in a large T-shirt with no pants on, combing an old doll's hair in her bed. "You should knock more," she only said without looking at me.

"Did someone else die in this house besides sunny?" I asked her.

Still not looking up at me, she continued combing her doll's hair. Not a care on her face. "Who told you that?" She said in a monotone tone.

"I read about it online," I lied not wanting to bring Vlad into my situation.

"No one else died here," Amber sneered. "Not that I know of. It was probably something that happened long ago. Something that happened before Sunny was even born. Nothing I would worry about."

I stood there, feeling dumb. Perhaps she was right. It was probably something that happened years ago. I turned around and headed towards my room, but Amber stopped me.

"Olivia," Amber called.

When I turned around, Amber was already standing in front of me. I hadn't heard her take any footsteps. She looked at me with no emotion what so ever on her face. The look she gave me was mean and unwelcoming. "Don't go digging your nose into something that is already buried. Or else, you'll end down there too."

She then walked away to her doll then continued combing her hair. I quickly left, went into my room, shut the door and locked it. That was clearly Sunny who took over Amber's body. What she said to me made me shiver inside. I put some music on, Good Charlotte to calm me down. After I was calmed by the music, I did some homework and waited for Rose.

...

One hour after dinner, I heard the pebbles hitting against the window. Shayla and my father were already in their bedrooms. I snuck downstairs and opened the door for Rose. We tiptoed to my room, and I locked the door. I told her if someone were to come in to just hide in the bathroom.

Rose had already been wearing her karate outfit and handed me mine. "You can keep this by the way," she said. "It doesn't fit me."

"Thanks," I said.

The next two hours we did our best to quietly practice the dance. We were doing good, and practice was smooth. The name of our dance was going to be called the Praying Mantises of Mercy. The plan was to dance as if we were sneaking up on one another. We see each other, and we make eye contact, then act like we didn;t. One sneaks up on the other and then the other sneaks up on the other person. In the end, we decided not to kill one another, and we make peace.

"We are going to crush this contest," Rose plopped down on my bed.

 I sat next to her. "I hope there are not too many people."

She laughed looked over at me. "Are you kidding me? The school lives on talent. Everyone is coming to see us. They may not like us, but they'll see us."

"I don't know how I'm going to do it," I shook my head.

"Imagine everyone in their underwear. It doesn't work for me but-"

The two of us laughed, knowing that hadn't worked for anyone. As I sat in the bed, I wondered if that used to work for some people. I wanted to know if there was a secret of overcoming shyness. It seemed impossible. To me, there were naturally outgoing people, and then there were those individuals who are just born shy. I've heard people tell me that I'd grow out of it, but here I was, a teenager who was as shy as ever.

"The only bad thing you'll probably hear is that we're lesbian lovers," she chuckled then sat up.

"What?" I asked.

She shrugged. "Well, you are dancing with the school's notorious lesbian. I swear the school acts like I'm the only one there. Rumor has it, I like all the female teachers, and I've slept with the female gym teacher."

"People suck," I said.  "I don't see the fun in always making up rumors. Rumors destroy people."

Rose stood up and placed both of her fists on her waist. She stuck her nose in the air. "Just ignore them. Ignore the boys, it means they have a crush on you." She said, mimicking a teacher's voice.

The two of us laughed, and she sat next to me again. She unexpectedly placed two hands on my shoulder while placing her head on mine. "Don't worry," she said, mimicking a guys voice. "When I make fun of you, that means I like you."

I felt her warm breath against my neck, sending strange emotions and feelings in my head. I can't explain that feeling when you liked something and hated at the same time. We as humans have a body that we're in control of, and sometimes we just can't control it. Part of me had the urge to push her off me, but the other part of me wanted her to stay.

"Yeah," I quickly said when she stood up. "That doesn't make sense to me either."

She looked at me and smiled. "Guess I'll get going then," she said. "Good team work!" We slapped each other's hands for a high five. 

Rose and I were about to walk out of the door, but I heard the singing coming from outside. To me, it was clear as day. However, I didn't think Rose could hear anything.

 "One second," I said then walked over to the window. To my horror, the shadows were down there. They stopped singing as soon as they saw me, or at least I thought they saw me.though,

"Come on let's go," Rose whispered then opened the door.

I didn't want to go downstairs. Not at all. I knew that this was trouble, way beyond my imagination.