Leave the light on

Candle 7

Cathrine Day wasn’t the kind of person who was easy to surprise. But today had seemed like a surprise in itself, and in that moment she was truly stunned. The door to the clubroom had been forced open, splinters of tree covering the floor like needles from a spruce, and they made the sound of withered leaves in the fall when she stepped on them. Something inside had seemed to capture the light she’d seen from the hall, and she shivered lightly as it made a sound like an animal. The door had even been broken up, and it looked like an animal’s doing. She desperately wanted to run, but her curiosity wouldn’t let her, so she took a peek into the room, and immediately stepped back, her heart hammering like thundering hooves of horses

Meena was in there, making those noises and once in a while she would laugh like an insane person, ripping pages out of the book as she read them aloud. The floor was a mess, but compared to Meena, it was nothing. Her clothing was ripped, but her focus was exclusively on the book, lit up by a small candle. Her flat toned stomach was showing, as were parts of her skinny legs, and her left shoe was missing, but that wasn’t what caught Cathrine’s attention the most.

Every time Meena laughed and smiled, even when she spoke, she flashed a set of long sharp teeth. She tittered a small laugh as she ripped another page out of the book, and Cathrine just stared, and suddenly realizing she was standing in the middle of the doorway, she moved back with quiet steps. Maybe the animal could smell her though, but Cathrine had no intention of being anyone’s dinner just yet. Or ever.

With a hand over her mouth she kept walking backwards. Whatever had happened to Meena, was terrifying, and Cathrine’s body seemed to grow numb. More pages flew out of the open door. But now something else was moving inside. It was like steps, but they came to a halt, and a loud scream pierced the air. Cathrine’s hands flew to her ears instinctively. The temptation to run was growing bigger, alongside her fear, but she stopped moving, and watched Meena. The girl had collapsed on the floor, clearly in pain as her hand clenched and unclenched.

“Meena?” Cathrine asked moving closer. One step. Then another. Until she was close enough to see the long tangle of the other girls’ hair, covering her face. The form started tittering again, as it raised itself from the floor. Judging after its height it was a much older girl, and she was wearing a long white dress with a long skirt, and no sleeves, leaving her bare arms like white marble against the black fabric. Her hands were scarier than what Cathrine had just seen, as she gazed at the beings hands. A finger were covered in reddish liquid that looked suspiciously like blood, and the nails were long, looking almost like claws. From her wrist there seemed to be a black line on the skin along the arm, and up to hide the end behind her dress.

Cathrine tried to move, but the girl who had been standing still jumped at her, reacting faster than humanly possible. Cathrine’s head hit the floor hard, and a loud ‘crack’, plus the pain, made it seem like her head had split open. It made her vision blurry, and as she was distracted by the pain in the back of her head, cold small hands easily snuck around her neck. While cutting off Cathrine’s air supply, the girl, the thing, laughed viciously, and insanely, and Cathrine felt all resolve go out of her. She could do nothing now, nothing but twist on the ground, her hands on the other girls’ arms. Her chest started to burn, and her eyes watered as dark spots appeared in her sight. It blurred out the world, covering the manic, sharp toothed smile of the thing that was killing her.