Monsters

Chapter 1

Jinx's P.O.V

I can see another truck driving by the apartment, yet another one taking building supplies to the Wallows mansion. It's been three months since it all happened, and for the past two and a half the place has been getting done up, some contractor or another working on it every week day. The realtor who's got their hands on it desperately wants to sell, but it wont happen, not with all that's went on up there. Only the seven of us know that what's been causing it all has gone, we even saw a stray dog on the grounds the other day, but after what happened to me, plus them finding Drake and Roy's bodies, and... And Amanda...

I can't go into her room anymore. I can't even pass the door without staring at it. I've been close so many times, but the furthest I've gotten is taking a grip of the handle. I can't believe it. I know I saw it happen, but part of me still hopes it was an illusion, that I'd stumbled onto another one of the symbols and imagined it all happening. But it did happen. I remember laying in the hospital bed as Fred came in to break the news, not knowing that I already knew. The whole reason I fought with Brian over custody over her is because I thought she'd be safer with me. But I screwed up. I screwed up so bad. And now she's dead...

My eyes fall from the window a second before I stand from the couch where I've been curled up for the past few hours, gaining the attention of the others. With nowhere to stay, Denis and John have been living with us ever since their unexpected survival, but of course we only live in a three bedroom apartment, and it's not like Amanda's room could be used. To start off with John bunked on the couch while Denis took my bed since I was in the hospital, but that ended fairly quickly. By the time I was discharged John was sleeping next to Phoenix in her room.

~ Flashback ~

"I'll just get my stuff out of here and leave you in peace." Denis said, gathering up the few items he's come to posses over the week he's been out of the mansion, like clothes and shoes, as we stand in my room late in the night. "No, it's alright." I say, shaking my head as I head over the the bed, perching myself on the side by the window, placing the tablets I got from the hospital down on the table while Denis looks over at me. I'm too tired to care at the moment. "Do you mind if I, eh..." I look over at him as he speaks, pausing in slipping under the covers as I make eye contact with him. "I'm not making you bunk on the couch, if that's what you're asking." I say with a small smile, one which he returns with a slight chuckle, beginning to head round the other side of the bed.

I breathe in deeply as I close my eyes, trying to focus on something other than the pain in my stomach, which should apparently be fully healed within the next six months according to the doctors, but all that my mind settles on instead is Amanda. I feel the covers shifting as Denis pulls them back, and the weight on the mattress changes as he sits on the edge, and again as he lays down. I open my eyes as I listen to him breathing once he's stilled after shifting a few times, but eventually his breaths even out. He's asleep. My eyes close again as the tears, like they have every night, start to fall. It's all my fault. I saved two lives, and set free thirteen others who were stuck, I suppose, but I caused the deaths of three more. And one of them was the one I was supposed to look after...

~

The forth night of being back home was a restless one, not that the others have been all that peaceful, but something was different about this one, I felt like I got a good sleep after I finally drifted off. I don't want to admit it, even to myself, but I have a theory on why it was... When I open my eyes I feel a smile pulling up onto my lips as I gaze out at the clear early morning sky, which is unusual for the past little while. The smile I mean, not the weather, although it is rolling into winter now. I don't want to move. I mean I normally don't, even before I got the injury, but the lure of coffee is more often than not already pulling me towards the kitchen, but right now I... Wait... What's-?