'Murderer' He Whispered

2

Of course you're at the very bottom.

Megan cursed under her breath as she dove her hand under all the items and yanked hard on one of the key chains, causing it to snap in half as her keys finally emerged. Looking at the snapped key chain, Megan growled like an angry beast when she saw that one of the tiny jewel flowers that were attached to Bethany's name had broken off, causing the woman to fling her keys down onto the pavement below her in a fit of rage and stifled a heart wrenching howl.

Circling around her tiny patch of overgrown grass and weeds that had choked out every flower that had once lived and thrived there, Megan blew air out slowly through her mouth, trying her best to calm herself down before she went inside. However, once she circled around for the umpteenth time, Megan frowned when she caught something tall moving inside her home from the living room window.

Halting in her steps, Megan squinted her eyes as she tiptoed closer towards the window, crouching a bit as she moved so that she wasn't seen, which only made her feel ridiculous as she was acting as though she was about to rob the place when this was her own home.

But just as Megan was about to stand back up and mentally kick herself for acting so senseless, her pale, blue eyes widened in horror when she spotted the back of a man's head facing towards her living room wall inside the house.

Without a second thought, Megan snatched her keys from the pavement and dashed towards her front door, almost tripping up the steps as she ran.

Jamming her keys into the keyhole after missing it many times, Megan only became even more horrified when she realised that the front door had been unlocked.

SOMEONE'S BROKEN INTO MY HOME!

Almost flying through the front door with her shoulder first, Megan dropped everything, leaving the front door lying wide open as she ran into the living room without anything to defend herself with, only to blink in surprise to see that no one was in the room and everything seemed to be untouched.

Not wanting to risk it, Megan checked behind both of the leather couches and behind the door where someone could be hiding, but still, she found no one.

Before the panting woman could check the entire house for where an imposter could be lurking and waiting, Megan gasped when she saw that the wedding photo of her and Charlie had vanished from the mantelpiece.

As she stared at the empty spot on the surface, that same buzzing noise she had heard at the café when everyone stared at her droned loudly into her eardrums once again, causing pain to shoot through her temples like strikes of lightening.

Just as she was at her wits end, Megan spun around to search the entire house for the intruder, only to scream in absolute terror to see Olivia standing behind her. The young girl yelped in response to her mother's reaction and backed away slightly.

"Mum, don't do that!" Olivia yelled, lowering the kitchen knife Megan only realised now that the young girl was holding in her trembling hands.

"Why are you holding a knife?" Megan stared at her daughter with her eyes wide as the horror of what Charlie had done to that poor family raged through her mind once again.

He used a knife, just like the knife my own daughter is holdi- STOP IT!

"Why do you bloody think?! I just heard someone barge in through the front door panting like a total creep which sounded nothing like you and then I see the front door lying wide open! You scared the crap out of me!" Olivia explained with a high pitched voice before finally pointing the knife down towards the floor, barely holding it with her fingertips that she almost dropped it.

Staring at her daughter for a moment in silence, Megan finally calmed her spinning thoughts and relaxed herself. "I'm sorry, darling. I didn't mean to scare you like that. I've been all over the place recently"

"Yeah, no kidding" Olivia let out tiny laugh that Megan was able to join in with this time before Olivia left the room to place the knife back into the kitchen drawer.

With the sounds of her daughter's footsteps fading down the hall, Megan circled around the living room once again before going over to the front door to close and lock it, double checking that it was locked firmly. She then quickly checked through the entire house to make sure there definitely wasn't anyone else hiding, lurking somewhere, but she couldn't spot anyone. On the first floor up the stairs, Megan peaked into Bethany's room and smiled when she saw her seven-year-old taking her afternoon nap in her bed, the tiny strands of her copper-coloured hair sprayed out against her pink pillow case that held the animated image of Sleeping Beauty, her favourite princess.

Leaving the girl's door slightly ajar, Megan finally felt a lot calmer, especially now knowing that her two girls were safe. However, as the day dragged on, Megan could never get the picture of the back of that man's head out of her mind. She couldn't help but think that the way his hair was shaped and the white polo shirt he wore looked slightly familiar, but she brushed it off. Her mind was messing with her, making her think she was seeing things that weren't actually there. She had to ignore it and keep herself calm before she made herself even worse.

However, once she descended the stairs and took the corner that led back into the living room, Megan stopped dead in her tracks when she saw that the wedding photo of her and Charlie that had vanished from the mantlepiece, was lying in the center of the living room floor.

Glaring down at it, Megan knew for a fact that it was not there before. She'd searched every corner of the room when she'd been looking for that man she thought she saw through the window earlier, and hadn't seen the man or the wedding photo while she looked.

Picking up the photo, Megan's breathing turned into shallow gasps as she took baby steps back over to the fireplace and set the framed photo back on the mantelpiece. She turned her head back towards the window, expecting to see crowds of people staring at her again, but only saw the dry, empty streets greeting her back.

Am I losing it?