Annabelle Comes Home (The Warren House of the Unholy)

Chapter 13 (What Did you Do?)

The lights within the room started flashing, green, yellow, blue, and red in rapid succession. The room door opened once more, revealing the chaos and the enraged screaming which lay behind it. The three girls ran in terror, Diana still had her cross tightly clutched in her hand as she dragged both Mary-Ellen and Judy downstairs toward the front door. 

The bell of the front door suddenly rang, and the door began to rattle and shake, echoing throughout the house as Diana reached for the doorknob. Judy clutched the back of Diana's shirt to prevent her sister from touching the metal. "Go out the back!" Diana yelled, the three girls scrambling to the kitchen, only for the blinds to aggressively swing closed, blocking them from exiting via the glass door. Skidding to a stop, the three girls looked at each other.

"We're trapped," Judy glanced at her sister, reaching out for a hug which Diana did not hesitate to give. "Not yet," Diana assured determinedly.

Only moments later, the three girls were huddled around the telephone that hung upon the wall, waiting for the call to pick up as Diana cradled the phone to her ear. The receiver picked up and the three girls sighed in relief. "Hello?" the voice of Lorraine Warren answered through the call.

"Oh thank god! Mom?" Diana breathed a sigh of utter relief. Now that her mother was on the phone, this hell of a night would be over with. "Mrs Warren?" Mary-Ellen cried out tearily, happy to have an adult on the line.

"Mary-Ellen? Diana? Judy? Is everything okay? What's going on?" Lorraine's voice sounded through the phone, calm yet worried and motherly.

Diana frowned. This wasn't her mother. There were too many things wrong with what just happened. First of all, her mother was clairvoyant. She would've known of the situation by now. Recalling back to the Perron case, she knew her mother's clairvoyance was strong enough to alert her if her daughters were in danger. Second of all, she sounded too calm. Paired with her mother's obvious talent, her mother would've raised hell on earth to make sure her daughters were alright like she had when Judy and Diana had been terrorised by Bathsheba back during the Perron case.

"Judy's fine," Mary-Ellen intervened when she realised Diana had started zoning out again. "Um... something is happening inside your house, and I don't think it's safe to go outside. We're not really sure what to do," Mary-Ellen tried to explain. She didn't know why the situation was as such, but she did have an idea. Then again, she wasn't the type of person to throw someone under the bus without knowing the full story.

"May I speak to Annabelle?" That was enough to snap Diana out of her daze. "I'm sorry?" Mary-Ellen asked again, confused by what she had heard. "You need to give her a soul dear," Lorraine's voice sounded through the phone once again, motherly and soothing, as though a façade to gain just that. A soul. Mary-Ellen gripped the contraption tighter, her knuckles turning white from the amount of force.

"What?"

Diana snatched the telephone away from Mary-Ellen's hand and placed it against her ear. "You're not my mother, don't you dare take the voice of my mother and use it for your personal gain demon," Diana snarled into the phone.

"A soul. She wants her soul," Lorraine's voice spoke, finally revealing its true colours as a manipulative demon.

"Give me her soul," the voice was no longer Lorraine's, but the tone held the same intent. She needed a soul. She craves it.

Only moments after the voice spoke, the bell that Daniela had pointed out earlier in the day rang in the living room. The bells around the house soon followed, creating a cacophony of shrill ringing that rose with every ring, the sound becoming deafening to the three girls. 

Whilst this was happening, back in the artifact room, Dianela had resorted to crawling into a corner hugging her knees as she tried not to panic in a room full of dark objects, sobbing and sniffling at the utter fear that held her hostage in both mind and body. The TV that stood in the room continued to play, and this time TV Daniela stood from her hiding space and reached out to the phone near where the TV claimed its spot. Picking up the phone, she held it to her ear. The screen glitched, and the black and white stripes sizzled, until another precognition showed itself with TV Daniela silently screaming, blood coating her entire head and face. Daniela herself hadn't looked back at the TV, still silently rocking to soothe herself.

In the hallway...

Diana's clairvoyance had acted up at that very moment, blinding her as it showed her a vision. Blurry figures of a woman in a dress rushing toward her with a knife in hand, and she held out a hand to protect herself, only to come face to face with no particular being. But what surprised her was that the hand she had held out wasn't hers. The colourful sleeves that ran along the length of her arm resembled someone whom she had met before. Daniela Rios. Stumbling out of her vision, her brow furrowed into a face of fury as she stormed into the one place she knew Daniela would be. The Artifact Room.

In the Artifact Room...

Suddenly, the phone trilled loudly, making Daniela jump up in surprise at the sound. The TV's premonition was coming true, not that Daniela knew. Crawling out of her hiding space in the corner, she tentatively stepped toward the ringing contraption, reaching out a hand to grab the handset of the phone. It was then Diana came rushing in, yelling out at Daniela to freeze.

"Wait! Don't!"

Daniela backed away, arms wrapped around herself as she began to tear up once more. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, frightened.

"What're you doing here?" Mary-Ellen questioned. But before Daniela could answer, the phones in the room began to ring, and the typewriter began to click and clack as it wrote out line upon line upon line of 'miss me?''s onto the paper.

Judy turned around to face Daniela and Mary-Ellen, whilst edging closer to Diana, clutching the pant leg of Diana's pyjamas. "Annabelle. The doll, She's the one who's doing all this," Judy explained, her eyes bright with tears of fright. Only Diana stood strong, holding on to Judy tightly.

"A doll?" Mary-Ellen, still a little sceptical, asked, confused.

"She wants a soul," Diana explained. Diana gently ushered Judy to Mary-Ellen, before rounding on Daniela, who stood there, silent and shaking, her face pale and tear-stricken.

"I just wanted to see him again," Daniela reasoned, her voice shaking as she hugged herself.

"What did you do?" Mary-Ellen asked, holding Judy tightly in her embrace whilst Diana stood, silently fuming at the girl's stupidity.

"I wanted to tell him I'm sorry. I know it was my fault," Daniela rambled, leaving Mary-Ellen's question unanswered. "Daniela..."

"What did you do?" Diana asked, harsh and unforgiving, glaring at the brunette who shivered in her own skin.

"I let her out."

"What else did you touch?" Diana questioned, her posture fuming and angry. "What else did you touch, Rios?!"

"Everything."

Diana stomped forward and gave her a tight slap across the face. "I knew of your intentions, and I still let you in, because I thought someone would have taught you well enough not to snoop in people's houses. Everything that is happening, it's because of you. You let her out, and you've traumatised my little sister. Your carelessness may cost a life today. You-" Diana yelled, only to be drowned out by the barrage of haunted items squealing and cracking and buzzing. 

Daniela had touched everything.

A/N: OKAY I MAY HAVE BEEN A BIT HARSH AT THE END BUT THAT SLAP WAS VERY WELL DESERVED. I'VE BEEN WAITING TO WRITE THAT EVER SINCE I STARTED. Like pLeAsE sToP ToUcHiNg EvErYtHiNg DaNiElA.