The Haunting of Sunshine Girl

Chapter 68

She had a dream last night.

Sunshine was there. And when she says there, she means the sacrifice. She saw it all. Just like the black-and-white footage she found from so long ago.

Where Anna's dad killed her?

She'd just been standing, inches from where Anna fell, and her mask wasn't on. And Anna had looked at her and kept saying, "Help me, help me, why aren't you helping me?"

Sunshine begins to sob.

Then Anna'd reached out, desperate for a life-line, but she couldn't do anything. She couldn't help because it was a dream.

It was a dream.

It was horrible.
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It's a week after the Anna dream and Sunshine isn't exactly feeling better, but she's trying.

And then—well. As usual, she'd been sleeping when she heard a noise downstairs. She's going to be stupid and go find out what it is, because why not?

The house is swathed in shadows that make it nearly impossible for Sunshine to see her hand an inch away from her face. Thankfully, the red light of the camera slightly illuminates the ground, but doesn't exactly soothe Sunshine's nerves.

Still, the living room is empty. Sunshine can hear a soft ringing in the background, almost like a microwave going off, and then there's the voice in the vent and Sunshine can't move. "Do you guys hear it?" she whispers to the camera. "It's there again." She flips the camera around and a figure stands behind her, brows furrowed.

"It's time for you to tell it to leave," a voice says.

Sunshine gasps and whirls around, coming face-to-face with Victoria. Her eyes widen and she takes in the appearance of her—friend?—mentor?—and begins to shake profusely. "Victoria?"

She can't believe it. Victoria is here.

Victoria is back.

"Honey?"

Sunshine whips around to see her mother exit her bedroom, rubbing tired eyes with her knuckles.

"Mom?" Sunshine asks.

Kat immediately senses something. "What's wrong?"

"Victoria, she's—" Sunshine turns, but Victoria isn't there anymore. The only thing that greets her is open air.

Kat frowns. "She's what?"

"She was right there."

"Did you have a bad dream?"

"No!"

"What did you—" Kat walks up to her daughter and brushes hair out of Sunshine's face.

She closes her eyes. "I heard a noise."

"Okay. I mean, Victoria's, like, in the house?"

"Mhm."

"How? The door's locked."

As if that ever stopped her.

"I don't know."
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So, after Victoria just kind of showed up the other night, Sunshine is left wondering what to do. And now she thinks she might need her help, but she doesn't know how to get a hold of her.

I mean, she's not readily available. She's not in the phone book, not like Santa, she can't track her with the thing on Christmas Eve—anyway, it doesn't matter, but Sunshine feels kind of weird doing this and, well, she's going to just talk out loud.