The Raventown Woods

Chapter Two

Silence. Complete silence. Not even the buzz, that static sound which is always present when everything else around you is muted, can be heard. My eyes are starting to sting from being open for too long- staring at the broken glass that shimmers with the morning sun which seeps through the kitchen window.

My mind is clouded with only a single unexplainable realization;

The nightmare was real.

Slowly, a faint and distant tone rings in my ears. It is distorted, shifting from one pitch to another until it finally comes together to form one word that brings me back to reality.

"Kiara," my mother's sweet voice is a whisper. Then I remember why she is whispering. She feels sorry for me and is trying to make me feel better. That only manages to spread the pain from my heart all throughout my body. I feel the love, gratefulness, and trust that I felt for my grandparents dissolve. It mixes with my blood to create a dreadful feeling of hopelessness which runs through every vain within me. With no room left to hold all that pain inside of me, it is released in the form of tears.

I sob, huge tears spill from my eyes like rainfall in a spring thunderstorm. Jaw clenched and head shaking, I slam my hand on the table. Instead of the hard wooden surface meeting my palm, something soft and sticky surrounds my hand.  Without looking down, I know that my hand landed on my breakfast platter, but I don't care. All I want is an explanation. Why did God take my grandparents from me?

"Kiara, I know it's hard-" my mom begins but I interrupt her.

"Don't!" I shout, "Don't you dare try to make me feel better because I will never get over this. I don't care how it happened. All I want to know is why it happened." My voice is quivering badly, my hand uncontrollably shaking, and tears still pooling on the table.

"Oh Kiara please," Mom says with squinting eyes. She still talks softly but with a hint of annoyance in her voice. "You're taking this news way too personal. It wasn't your fault and there's no answer to your question. Things happen the way God wants them too and only He knows the reasons behind it, so please try to work with me here."

At this, I stop crying as I feel a dark shadow loom over me. A fake laugh wheezes out of me and I shake my head.

"I can't believe you said that," I say, trying so hard not to scream at her, but my voice only crescendos. "You have no idea what it feels like to lose someone who has always been there for you since the beginning. You're never around!"

"And I can't believe you just said that!" Mom shouts back with matching volume, "I have been there since you were conceived. And what about your dad? I lost him too!"

"I still don't know what you were expecting me to do after you told me this, Mom. Feel sad for a second and then get back to eating my pancakes!"

"This is my house you are living in and I won't let you yell at me. And I didn't expect you to be calm with this news, but I was expecting you to take this more maturely because right now, you're acting like a twenty-year-old baby!"

As if I were a puppet and someone were pulling my strings, I grab the plate of food in front of me and haul across the table with brute force towards my mom. Her eyes widen and she ducks just in time before the platter hits her.

Just after the plate flies over my mom's head, I see a silhouette of black standing behind her chair. The plate crosses through the shadow and it vanishes in a blink, right before the plate shatters on the kitchen wall. Pancakes and eggs stick to the chef design wallpaper, while the rest flies everywhere, leaving a big mess.

"What the hell is wrong with you!?" shouts Mom, this time not bothering to hide her anger.

My eyes are still fixed on the spot where the shadowy figure stood. Goosebumps plague my skin and I feel a cold draft from behind. Am I imagining things?