He Sees You When You're Sleeping

23rd December- The Christmas Spirits

We did two slightly different stories for these but with almost the same plot. The first was mainly written by DevastatedArtist and edited by me, the second by me and TheFangirlInBlack. Hope you enjoy both of them!

Martha stared at the wall of her bedroom. It had once been quite a nice wall, but that had changed a while ago. Part of the wallpaper was torn off. Her floor wasn't much better. Heaps of junk and pieces of ripped paper were strewn across the carpet. She didn't even try to cover it up anymore. She just wanted to end it.

      Christmas used to be a time of joy, but to Martha, there was no point in celebrating it anymore. She hated it. She didn't care about it anymore, to be honest. She didn't believe in Santa. And tomorrow it was Christmas. Her most hated time of the year. People expected her to be kind and happy, but she just couldn't be, and then people just stopped visiting her at all.
      She closed the shutters to her room and sat on her desk, drawing. She used her artistic skills to take out her anger and despair. With a growl, she ripped the page out of her notebook and threw it on the floor to pile up on the other scraps of paper. She pushed her chair away from the desk and stood up, slumping onto her bed. Then Martha fell asleep, her dreams disturbed.

      A shout awoke Martha from her slumber. Martha heard a knock on her door.
     "Who's there?" Her answer was soon to be provided. A figure came towards her. A light beaming from its head kept flickering and moving, its face somehow both young and old at once. Before Martha was able to demand answers, it said,
     "I am the spirit of Christmas past. Your past, to be precise. Come with me. I have some things to show you." Martha thought she was hallucinating, but then she agreed to it and took the spirit's hand. That walked into a void. As Martha opened her eyes she saw thousand of memories flash before her then vanish, like they were never there. She stopped as one memory halted in front of her.
      It was five year old Martha. She was holding a teddy bear, and was wearing a dressing gown with tiny unicorn slippers. She was in her room and was trying to listen to her parents. There was shouting, screaming, and crying coming from downstairs. She opened the door of her room as it squeaked and grabbed her teddy tighter as she went downstairs. The shouting increased.
     "Mummy? Daddy?" Martha stood innocently between the two parents. Her mum was crying and her makeup was smeared, and her father sat on the sofa holding a bottle of beer. He was clearly drunk.
     "Martha.. go upstairs. Mummy and Daddy are just having a small argument." Martha turned around and started walking out of the room, but she peeked through the door, and then she saw her dad pick up a knife and stab her mother. Blood splattered onto the carpet and stained the floor, then her father gave a drunk laugh, grabbed the knife that his dead wife had lodged in her back, and slit his own neck.
     "Daddy? Mummy?" Martha stared, astonished and in tears. "Wake up!" she crouched on the floor, where the puddles of blood were growing bigger and sobbed.

     "Bring me back!" Martha screamed as tears formed in her eyes. "Now! I don't want to see my past!" The ghost only sniggered.
     "Martha, it was all your fault. You killed them.  They were arguing because of you."
     "Shut up!" she grabbed the spirit and held it to her eye level. "Bring me back." She hissed through gritted teeth. "NOW."
     "As you wish." The ghost tapped its face three times, and then Martha was back in her apartment. The ghost was gone. She ran to her bed and sobbed until her eyes were red and she could cry no-more. She screamed into her cushion until exhaustion took over.

      Something crawled over Martha's shoulder and she shuddered, opening her eyes. Rings were under her eyes from lack of sleep and as she turned over she saw someone dressed in dark green musty robes.
     "I am the ghost of Christmas present." He announced in a booming voice. "Come. Now." Before Martha could utter another word, the ghost grabbed her hand and started levitating as she ran to catch up with it. They stopped at a house. There was a conversation taking place and as Martha listened she became more and more transfixed. A family was gathered round a table.
     "New neighbours?" Martha wondered. They had moved a long time ago and never came to visit her anymore.
     "It's all her fault. She did this. Good thing we changed houses before she killed us, too." Then another family member muttered,
     "I heard she kills people just for fun."
     "And I heard she kills old ladies every Chrismas eve."
     "We would be better of without her. She is such a creep. She would have killed us, too. No wonder we moved out. I feel somewhat safer now."
      The kids in the family started chanting; "We want Martha dead, we want Martha dead, she probably is planning her next victim." Another kid whispered,
     "Stay away from her." Then the mother of the family came to the table.
     "Tim, Lilly, that is NOT a nice thing to say-even though it would be better of to live without her, it is still un-kind."
      Martha's face turned red.
     "This is all a lie. I never killed anyone." She spat at the family. But they couldn't hear or see her.
     "Is it really?" the ghost questioned. "How about your parents?"
     "I didn't kill them. I had nothing to do with it!" Martha shouted.
     "Say what you want, but you know it isn't true."
      In a last attempt to hide this hurtful truth she punched the ghost, and then it disappeard and she was back in her room.