Christmas Morning

Afraid and Dangerously Curious

Despite my late night conversation with Thea and her friends, I made it through the next morning's family breakfast without falling asleep in my cereal bowl. I was too wired for that, because between Thea's teasing words, Elijah's haunting eyes, and my own underlying dread, I felt like I was on ten cups of expresso. It was the strangest phenomenon, when I was with the five of those kids, I had felt scared... But safe. But without them- just my family and I in the chilly white kitchen eating breakfast- I felt exposed.

Nora suddenly spoke up from in between gulps of chocolate milk and bites of cereal: "Are you excited for school, Emmy?", She asked enthusiastically.

My eyes narrowed, and my glance shifted to my mother suspiciously. "Am I ready for what now?"

My mother cleared her throat. "Well, Emma, I decided Nora is going to start at her new elementary school a little earlier than we'd planned, since the other children her age have already started. I really would rather her not be around the house doing nothing when she could be getting caught up with schoolwork. And that goes for you and Peter too. So, after breakfast, get dressed and ready. The school bus gets here at 7:15.", She concluded, with a look that said that there was no arguing allowed. I set my lips in a tight line, annoyed, and pushed my cereal around the bowl with the spoon nervously. If I felt paranoid in the comfort of my solitude here at the house, then I couldn't possibly imagine how bad it would be at school. I already couldn't help but imagine that I was like a rabbit out in the open where a wolf or worse could get me at any second. My stomach tossed with annoyance and anxiety.

"I'm through.", I snapped at all of them, loudly clanking my spoon into my bowl, and then promptly dumping the other contents into the sink. Milk, clumps of cereal, and all. I quickly made my way upstairs, I only had three minutes to get ready before I was off on the bus to hell.

The door to my room creaked when I opened it. I was wearing socks, but the floor was still colder than I expected, and I entered carefully. The weak winter sunlight was coming through the open window, and spilling across the room, barely brightening it at all. Why was the window open? It was too cold outside for that. I went to close it, rubbing my arms absentmindedly. Then I saw a little black marking, a symbol, on the inside of the window sill... When I looked closer, my breath hitched in my throat. I recognized it- Sort of. It felt so familiar to me but I'd never seen it before in my life. The feeling of seeing it was like... Hearing Thea's voice of smoke, or looking into Elijah's intoxicating eyes. Familiar. But it looked old, maybe even ancient. A sort of half-circle, made up of five spikes, with something... Maybe a face? In the center. I couldn't really describe it, it was chilling.

I shook myself free of the feeling. Pulling slacks and long sleeved blue and white cotton shirt out of my cardboard boxes of clothes that I hadn't bothered to unpack, I hastily got dressed and grabbed my blue snowflake sweater. I took one last look at the symbol, and shiver ran through me.

I slipped into the hall through the door quickly, taking care not to let it creak, because in truth, every little thing was scaring me at that point. "I'm going to go wait for the bus outside!", I called to my family, my voice shaking slightly. I trudged down the stairs. When I got to the front door, I shoved my feet into my boots and tied them swiftly, before glancing back at the kitchen for half a second and leaving the house as quickly as I could.

Once I was outside, a pit started to form in my stomach. I walked down to the sidewalk, my feet feeling like pins and needles. I looked down the street, checking for the school bus, my eyes darting from side to side. I still felt eyes on me, coming from somewhere, watching me. I didn't see the school bus yet, even though I knew it had to be close to 7:15. I looked back at the woods, contemplating the choice Thea had given me. I had just decided against it, my gut was telling me that they were dangerous somehow, when-

I suddenly heard a loud car screech, a blood-curdling scream, and a soft giggle. I whipped my head back around and saw nothing but the empty and still road ahead of me. But the sound had come from right in front of me...? I started to run back inside, but then I smelled something burning... Not burning like Thea's thick campfire smoke, but something burning nonetheless. Something like... Gasoline. I felt heat like a fire coming from the road, in the direction I had heard the screech and the scream. I turned back around, and walked hesitantly toward it, feeling more heat and smelling more gasoline as I walked onto the road. I still saw nothing, but started to hear something sharply cracking and breaking underfoot. It sounded like broken glass... The smell of gas started to make my eyes water, so I closed them tightly, and went to rub them. But as I did so, I found that I didn't see the darkness of the insides of my eyelids. Instead, I saw a road in front of me. But not the road in front of my house, it was a different road, and it was suddenly much warmer outside. The source of the heat and the smell was no longer invisible, I was now standing two feet from a devastating car wreck. I opened my eyes quickly, my heart racing, and found myself back in the wintery Wisconsin town in front of my house. No wreck. As relieved as I was, something was calling me to close my eyes again. I tried to resist it, but my lids got heavier and heavier, forcing me to shut them tightly and to once again look at the wreck.

At second glance, it was even worse. Against my will, my legs began to move, closing the gap between me and the car, and giving me no choice but to peer into the shattered window. It looked like the airbags had deployed, but the two adults inside the car were dead. Their faces and were bleeding, covered in gashes from glass. It was terrible. But I looked closer, and saw that that wasn't all that was wrong with them.

The dead man in the driver's seat, presumably a dad based on the pink flower patterned child's booster seat in the back of the car, had rope wrapped around his neck and arms, tethering him tightly to the steering wheel. The dead woman, who I thought might be the mom, was hanging limp, with her neck tied securely against the head rest. They both had looks of terror frozen permanently on their faces. But there was nothing in the road for them to crash into... Why would they have been scared? How were they killed? Before the crash they were trapped in their own vehicle, headed for certain death, but why? I then looked over to where the doors to the backseats were. My legs didn't have to move against their will this time, because I was genuinely curious now. The door on the side of the child's booster seat was open.

I walked over, countering the open car door, to see that the seat was empty, and a strip of film was left behind where a child would sit. Something whispered to me to take it, and when I reached out and took it, my eyes snapped open. I was back in wintery Wisconsin once again, shaking and afraid, but more sure than ever of what I had to do. And I knew I wasn't going to school that day.

A.N. ~

Hey y'all! Chapter 8 of Christmas Morning is complete, yay!! Any story predictions? 😉 Anyway... I'm having a lot of fun working on this backstory to one of my favorite characters, the Magical Evil Snowflake Emma herself, and I'm hoping you're having a lot of fun reading it, too! If you have any suggestions, comments, concerns, or questions, I would LOVE to hear about them in the comments.
Bye, Sinister Kids!
💙, Lion