THE ROAD

THE OLD PHOTOGRAPHS

The next morning I woke up with a heavy head. Till now I didn't believe what I saw, 'that was horrible and oh god, there's no treasure over there. There are more like them there. It's..'

 ' it's..?' my mom said.

' Oh, mom you're back, how come? I locked the door.' 

' this is my house and I got the extra set of keys. And by the way who were you speaking to?'

 ' no one, probably myself, like what's my task for the day, nothing more.'

 ' okay cool, freshen up and come for breakfast. And yeah your Aunt was asking about you, I told her you were at your friend's house.'

 ' oh, thanks mommy, and yeah, I'll be downstairs for breakfast, 10 minutes.' Well, the things I encountered yesterday, scared me from within. One thing was clear now that the gate was the barrier otherwise they would have been out and the second thing I realized why no one came away alive. I went downstairs for breakfast, it was 10 am and Friday, it was 'our family day'. Whenever mom and dad took a leave from work we celebrated it as a family day. I saw dad and my brother looking at the vintage photo album, so out of curiosity, I asked, 'hey dad, what's up? What's all this?'

 ' well, your aunt gave back some old photographs of our family. She took it along with her when she last time visited us.' Well, she visited us last time when  I was 7 and she took these photos along, I always wanted to see them and now after years, I got the opportunity.

' vintage, black and white, like how old are they?' I commented.

 'just from the early '60s.'

 ' wow, that's kinda interesting. We had cameras back then.' 

' oh, come on sista, we were royals and we are and we'll always be.' my brother Jake answered; --the obsessed kid- 

'okay, rest this photograph stuff and come for breakfast all of you.' My mom said. I was really hungry like I am forever. Dad and Jake went into the dining room and I was about to leave too but I got distracted by an old photograph, it seemed familiar, I looked closer and my mouth remained wide open and I was in a complete dilemma. I exclaimed, 'Shoot, it's Stephanie!'

 'What happened, Eabha? come on now.'

'ye... yeah... a mom, coming.'

The old photograph was of Stephanie, or I may say vampire Stephanie. She was in my family photo album. She looked young, the same as I saw her yesterday. I used to fantasize about such things yet I believed in reality but what happened yesterday made me wonder even my own existence. We owned a big library in our house which had all the books from the '60s and to date. I read many books there, old folklore and history. Some folklores describe that vampires or wolves and witches exist but at present, we possess no trace of them and if they are somewhere, nobody would believe in their existence. I remembered a book which stated that vampires cannot sustain light, but I saw them in the sun and they were all okay, I guess.

I went to have breakfast and after finishing we went back to see the pictures, I wanted to know about it, so I searched for more but I couldn't find Drake and Nelie, there was just Stephanie in many photographs. So I asked hesitantly, 'umm.. dad, who's she in this picture?'

'oh, she's your great, great, great I don't know how much great but grandma.' My mom answered laughing.

' dad, would you mind telling us about our family history. Like since when do we own this town?'I was suspicious and asked it out.

' wow, I didn't see that coming; you had no interest knowing it.' My brother stated. I didn't know why he invariably has to poke his nose into my business.

' That was nothing, dad I wanna know. Please.' I insisted.

'Okay, kiddo but, what you'll do after knowing.' My dad asked.

' Dad, I am proud of our family history, but why I should be, I wanna know that. And I am free and interested to hear.' Well, I was never good at making excuses. All I knew was, it was important.