After Monday

2 | Story

Liam had been sure that Monday was going to be one of the stupidest idiots he'd ever know the moment she spoke to him for the first time. After their unfortunate first meeting, he tried to avoid getting seen by her in the hallways at all costs. He always ignored her creepy staring and smiling when they inevitably shared classes. Sadly, all of that effort was for naught since the beginning as the troublemaker had already firmly decided to bother him for the rest of their lives.

"MONDAY!" Liam roared as he pounded his fists on the wooden door to Monday's ancient house.

He eventually decided to give up wasting his time and energy avoiding her. As soon as Monday noticed that change, there was never a day where she didn't find a way to annoy the hell out of him. Every time he glanced in her direction, her annoying face immediately lit up like a Christmas tree on the 25th. He just knew that smile was going to bring most of all the trouble in his life. She was a magnet that attracted nothing but misfortune.

"Please don't kill me when I open the door," Monday's muffled, sheepish voice came from the other side of the door. "Wouldn't want another case of murder, right, Liam? Heh."

For unknown reasons, Liam gradually stopped feeling so irked by Monday's mere presence. He could finally tolerate her weirdness, and it was starting to seem more like a normal friendship. That only made the latter's constant smiley-face grow bigger every time he happened to be looking her way. It took a few months to get used to all the trouble she caused him, though. There were the small troubles like the detentions he'd had to attend because their teacher blamed him for Monday talking to him during class. Then there were the marginally bigger troubles, like those few times they'd nearly gotten arrested for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"You seriously shouldn't be joking right now," Liam warned and grabbed the door's handle. "Now, let me in or I'm going home to pretend this never happened!"

Although it was only around 3 AM, the sun already seemed to be preparing its grand entrance on the horizon. It sure was a good thing the closest neighbor Monday had lived nearly a mile away and the whole surrounding area was just plain fields. Still, there were so many things that could go wrong, and Liam had just stormed out of his house without considering any of the risks.

"All righty," Monday said, unlocking the door. "Oh, but we're closed, sir! Please come back in two hours!"

Liam shoved the door open and right into the troublemaker's head.

"Ouchies!" she hissed, rubbing her forehead with her sweater while glaring at him. "What if you'd wiped my memory, you tall fool!"

"I'm starting to think that would've been better," Liam muttered. He noticed Monday's pajamas had blood on them. "Dude, what the hell?!"

"Goshies," she groaned, sniffling as she pulled Liam inside her house. "You're just my best friend, Lime-Boy. I knew I had nobody but you."

It was darker inside than outside.

"Monday, I swear, this isn't the time for jokes, there's literally no worse time for jokes than now, so stop," Liam hissed, closing the door behind him.

"Sorry!" she said with an inappropriately bright smile before grabbing his wrist and leading him to her kitchen.

Liam felt stared at by all of the eerie paintings of people hanging on the walls in Monday's house. He could've sworn the corners of their mouths weren't always pointing downwards and their eyes didn't look that soulless the last time he was in this old house. It was like they all knew he'd made the worst decision of his life, so now they were looking down on him, judging him for even picking up his phone. He'd once asked Monday if she didn't feel creeped out by any of them, and all she did was shrug and say 'they're nice'.

"Fucking hell," Liam muttered at the sight of a very dead-looking person lying right in the middle of the kitchen. "I was really hoping you were just using murder as a messed-up excuse to make me come to your house. Shit."

It was a man, presumably in his 40's, dressed in a blue shirt. A pool of blood on the floor surrounded his torso and stained his shirt right where his heart would be. Liam didn't spot any weapon.

"'Kay, so, I went to sleep in my bed and woke up right here in the kitchen about ten minutes before I called you," Monday began, demonstrating how she woke up lying on the floor across the room. "I was confused, tired, had a headache, blah blah, and then I noticed I had blood on my clothes! Then I saw this guy over there, and I kinda screamed because, like, dead man on my kitchen floor."

Liam cupped his own face and started pacing around the kitchen. A part of him was really starting to regret showing up at his friend's house.

"He was in the exact same condition now as when I first found him," she continued, sitting against one of the cabinets. "All this blood and no weapon, blah blah. I thought there was a murderer in my house and I was being framed because most people who know me kinda hate me. I searched my house but I couldn't find any murderer or gun or knife or bazooka or anything. And... that's when I called you."

"How thorough was your small investigation?" Liam asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Uh." Monday lifted her arms above her head. "This thorough? The house isn't that big and I don't have that much furniture, y'know."

God, Liam thought. This is a living nightmare. My life is over.

"Do you get why I didn't wanna call the police?" Monday asked quietly, hugging her legs. "You probably don't even believe me."

"It just doesn't make sense," he groaned, crouching down against a wall far away from the body. "You woke up in your kitchen. There's a dead guy. No weapon. No murd-"

The sound of a loud crash interrupted Liam's summary of the situation, sending shivers up and down his spine. For a moment, he felt like the world had stopped moving. He then watched in horror as Monday soundlessly opened a drawer and pulled out a butcher knife.

"That sounded like Mommy's vase," she whispered, giggling as she sprinted past Liam and out of the kitchen.

"Monday!" Liam whisper-shouted when he failed to grab the girl before she could let herself get killed. "Are you crazy?!"

She might've been a reckless, trouble-causing idiot, but Liam wouldn't be able to live with himself if he just hid in the girl's kitchen in fear while she was out stupidly risking her life to get answers. He grabbed the side of the wall, got up from the floor on trembling legs, and ran to get to Monday before it was too late.