ALEX
It was a Sunday afternoon, November 6th to be exact and I was walking home from Derik's house.
My phone rang in my pocket. I pulled out my phone and looked at the number.
"That's odd. why would Mom call me?"
I answered to call saying, "Hello, Mom?"
"Hi, Darling. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You coming home soon?"
What the heck?! What is wrong with her? "Oh, yeah, I'm fine. I'm coming home right now."
"Do you want me to pick you up?"
Again my insides were screaming for answers on my my mother was acting so strange. "No, it's fine. You don't need to pick me up. Derik only lives ten minutes away." There was a pause for a moment. "Hey, Mom, are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine! why would you ask such a thing?"
"Oh, your voice sounded a little strange, that's all." I lied.
"Oh, okay. See you in a few minutes then."
"Okay. bye."
"B-" I ended the call before she could even finish her sentence.
"That was..... weird." I continued to walk to my house, not in a hurry, like usual, but more so this time.
***
Seven minutes later I opened the door only to find my mother standing right in front if it, ready to embrace me.
She came at me. I yelped and tried to get away before the hug came, but I was too slow. She wrapped her boney arms around me and hugged me so tight that I could no longer breathe.
She let go of me and said that she was about to start dinner. Weird. She never makes dinner.
"Okay. Um, I'm going to be upstairs, in my room to work in my homework." I crinkled my nose. "Why does it stink of rotten eggs?"
"Oh, I was cooking eggs and it turned out that they were rotten."
"Oh." I turned away from her and ran up the stairs as fast as I could without tripping. When I got to my room I ran in, quickly shut the door and locked it.
I leaned against the door and said, "What is up with her?! Why is she so nice all of a sudden?!"
I decided not to ponder on it too much and came to the conclusion that she might just tell me what's going on at dinner and started my homework.
An hour later my mom called me for dinner.
I slowly walked down the stairs and into the kitchen, hoping that my mother wasn't just playing some sick one sided joke on me and poisoned the food instead of putting salt and pepper on it.
Throughout the entire dinner all my mom talked about was how good her day was and how much she missed me when I was at Derik's. She said nothing about why she is so nice or that she realized that she was so cruel to me this entire year. Nothing.
***
Around 9 that night I heard a knock come from outside my door.
Yet again, weird.
"Yeah?" I said worriedly, "Come in."
The door opened behind me, but I did not take my eyes off the computer screen.
I heard footsteps coming towards me. "How are you, Alex? You've been in here all day. Are you ok?"
"Mom, I'm doing my bloody homework. I'm fine, I just need to finish all of this."
"Okay."
I heard her walk closer to me, thinking that she might want to give me another big hug or something.
When I could almost feel her body warmth her arm wrapped around her right arm around my neck and the other around my waist, creating an extremely awkward hug.
The strength in her hold tightened and soon it became hard to breathe.
I brought my hands up to my throat and tried to rip her arms off. They wouldn't move, instead in response to my struggle they tightened even more.
I managed to let out a strangled "Mom," before I was out of breathe and there was no more air coming into my lungs. Suffocating me.
I felt claws on my cheek and face and when I strained my eyes to see why it was it was exactly what I thought it was. My mother's fingers had morphed into giant claws scratching my face.
My eyes widened as I continued to stare at the clawed hand on my face. My vision started to turn gray and hazy as I started to lose consciousness.
My mouth opened and shut like a fish out of water trying go get air that would never come.
My eyes started to close as darkness over took me. My arms slipped from the arms around my neck and I could feel my head become heavy and limp as consciousness continued to leave me.
All of a sudden the arm that constrained me was ripped from my neck. I felt my body fly off the chair I was sitting on and fall to the ground. Air rushed into my oxygen deprived lungs and my eyes flung open.
I found myself sprawled on my back on the ground. I rolled over, coughing and wheezing until my breathe stabilized. When I looked up I saw a flash of light that dragged down on a black figure a couple feet away.
I felt warm liquid splatter on my face. Blood.
