When The Lights Go Out

Chapter 5: Una

Una runs out of Wendy's bedroom, she ran through the kitchen and the living room before finally ending up in her bedroom. It had a bed with silver bars on it that made it look similar to a princess carriage, with pink, lacy bedsheets and a hot pink pillow with white polka-dots, and a small space behind it with a sapphire basket full of  miscellaneous toys; a large, white dresser with bubblegum, heart-shaped knobs; a daisy shelf with taffy, cloth drawers; a white dresser with a bubblegum, heart-shaped knob and was overflowing with papers; a closet with dozens of coats and jackets hanging up with a large pile of shoes on the ground; a fuchsia chair with a tiny green, striped pillow in it; and a giant pile of stuffed animals in the corner.

               Una dropped her flashlight on her nightstand and jumped to the area behind her bed, she giggled "Sissy will never find me in here!". She dumped out the basket of toys and started playing with them, she arranges a playset up complete with a small orange building; a small forest consisting of a few plastic fir trees; a circular cobalt lid to represent a lake/pond; a little piece of brown cloth to represent a bed; a tiny box full of toy goods such as milk, cheese, hay, water, corn and eggs; and she held a small turtle in her left hand and a tiny terrier puppy with brown and white fur in her left. She played with them for a bit, pretending that the turtle was an honest farmer trying to sell their wares to a market worker who was also a dog.

            She played for a few moments before putting down her toys and asked herself  "Where's sissy? She usually finds me by now." She poked her head up from the space behind the bed and peeked around the room, she saw nothing but her room filled with darkness except for the area near the two windows which was illuminated by the moon and the stars outside. She shrugged and went back to playing with her toys. She looked up out of the area and peered around the room, making sure no one was around to see her, she lies flat on the ground and reaches underneath the bed, she searches around for a bit and pulls out a tiny purple bird with a white chest and a red plumage. She plays with her toys for a little bit more before she hears a whisper come from the other room "Come and play." Una looks up quickly and asks "Is that you Daddy?" she peers into the computer room across the hallway buts sees nothing. The voice responds with "Yes, sweetie, it's me, come here." Una nods and replies with "Okay Daddy, just let me clean up my toys." Una lies back down on the floor and shoves the bird toy underneath the bed as far as she can put it while still being able to reach it. She tosses all of the rest of the toys into the sapphire basket and sits back up, she climbs out of the area behind the bed and jumps onto the bed. She rolls onto the floor and lands crouching down. She sneaks up to her nightstand and grabs the flashlight that she laid next to her lilac and baby blue piggy bank and watermelon alarm clock.

             She sneaked up to the door and peered around the room, pretending to be a ninja sneaking up on her target. She opens the door, attempting to not make it creak, she rolled forward across the hallway and into the computer room. She hopped onto her feet and screamed "Got you!". She turned on her flashlight and peered around the room but found no one, she gave a confused look and turned around. The door to the computer room slams open and something jumps out and screams "No, I've got you!" Una screams and drops her flashlight on the ground.

             Her father walks out from behind the door and reveals himself "Hi sweety." Una's face lights up and she runs to her father, she squeezes him tightly and looks up to him. "Daddy! Why wouldn't you let me play that game with you, Valeri and Xera?" He looks down at her and scratches the back of his neck "Well,..uh..I didn't think you would like that game." Una nods then asks "Why did you want to play this late at night?"  Her father scratches his neck and says "Well,.. I..uh." Una giggles and says "It's alright daddy, I"

         Wendy runs up to the computer room door and shouts "Una! No! Don't talk to him!" Una and their Dad turn to face Wendy and Una replies with "It's alright sissy, it's just Daddy. He snuck in here while we were playing hide and seek." Wendy shakes her head and runs up to Una "No,no,no, that's not Daddy. Come with me." Wendy grabs Una's hand and tries to pull her away, but her father pulls her back and gives her a bad look "What's the matter, sweetheart?" Wendy tries to pull Una away again and asks "Well then what's wrong with you?" she wrenches Una out of her father's arms and then he says "Nothing, sweetheart. Come on, come here and we'll sort this out." Their father takes a few steps closer and holds out his arms. Wendy keeps pulling away from him and states "No, never, you're not my father, I don't know what you are, but I'm not letting you have her!" Their father walks even closer to them and asks "No dear, I swear it's me." Wendy shoves Una behind her back and shouts "I know it's not you! And you wanna know why?!" he walks closer and says "Why?" Wendy holds up her flashlight and says loudly "Because, you've never called me sweetheart, you call me bumpkin!" She shines the light in the creature's face and it reveals two dark chasms for eyes that were oozing gray smoke with no nose and no mouth. Wendy pushes Una even farther away from it and pulls the mandrel out of her back pocket. It lunges to Wendy and lets out a terrifying screech, she slashed the mandrel into its shoulder. It just sifts through its body and it does absolutely no damage. Wendy and Una scream, they both trip on the leg of a nightstand in the living room, they fall to the floor with a loud thud and they turn to face their imminent demise. The creature leans over to Una and they scream a piercing bloody murderous howel , it grabs her by her long, black hair and pulls it up to its face. Una screams in terror, the creature holds her mouth shut and forces her to stare into its eyes, or lack of eyes. She stares deep into the chasms that took up half of their face, there was nothing there yet it seemed like it was filled with something that didn't seem human, something that was void of all empathy and love. The chasms expanded to take up its entire face, the smoke begins to pour out of its eyes and surrounded Una's body, she shivers in fear and peers around frantically. A light blue aura began to illuminate from Una's entire body, she tries to escape her captor but to no avail. The aura that shined from Una's body slowly began to dissipate and as it disappeared the life drained from her face, her skin grew more and more pallid, she stopped resisting and went limp. This went on for a few moments while Wendy lay on the floor, paralyzed with fear. The creature dropped Una's lifeless body on the floor, Wendy couldn't do anything but stare in horror, the creature looked over to Wendy. She shivered and tried to crawl away from it but she couldn't will herself to move. Its eyes shrunk back and it gave an expression so vile and wicked that it couldn't be described. It stood back up, still with that same sinister expression. It stared at her as it dissipated into the air, she sat there in absolute shock until it was completely gone, she slowly crawled to her lifeless sister's side, she clutched her cold body in her arms, she stared deep into its eyes. What once were two emeralds filled with hope and love had been replaced with cold, dead husks of what they used to be. She held her head to her chest and softly wept tears filled with the last bit of her innocence.