Wilted

Chapter 1

One, two, three. The Sharp knock at the door caught the attention of a young woman in her bedroom, Rose. She jolted up and out her mindless spree of Social Media and Netflix to look towards the foreign sounds of the door. The Netflix she had on masked the sounds of Rain scratching at the glass. It was all the more vivid once pausing the cocaine-fueled comedies of Japanese highschool where all the girls were born with fantastically coloured hair and impossibly large eyes to match. The rain created swirling distortions of the Hedge Maze outside and Rose began to consider the idea of it just being the cacophony of raindrops which created the illusion of knocking. It was the middle of the night and the sky was a deep murky black, the moon was shrouded behind the clouds tonight. There was nothing much to see anyways but the forest to the north. Rose lived in the countryside on the outskirts of London in a large and old house, which was modernised before her family moved in. She was in her room sat on the white leather couch, knees to chin, looking outside at the rain. The Gutters spewed some awful fluids onto her balcony. Rose's Father has yet to get Travis to fix the gutters which had fallen last month. There were some loose plastic pipes and dead leaves sprawled out all over the place. It hindered her Father's ability to smoke in her area which she was glad for. The smell drove her nuts. They weren't here right now and were gone for a month. They always seemed to leave under vague circumstances year by year but Rose never minded that. Rose was left at home with the house workers, she preferred them over her Mother and Father anyways. So, as anyone in her position would, she abused the more tolerant attitudes to parenting from the Workers. She was engulfed in layers of cushions, plushies and her bed duvet for good measure. Of course, no homework was done that night. why would she? All her newfound freedom pleased her.

The vast emptiness turned the balcony doors into mirrors almost and Rose could see her slender legs contained by cutesy pyjama bottoms and her frizzy brown hair. She quickly covered herself with the duvet again to avoid the sight of that and to save Satori's eyes as well. Satori being the anime cut out peeping from behind the curtains. She took a perverse pleasure in knowing the cut out was at least 6' 3"; he was very much taller than her. Like a puppy, Rose would talk to Satori and hold him tight sometimes as if he was her pet man. She likes him to watch her from behind the curtains because she feels safer as Satori was her guardian. She never intentionally hid him behind the curtain. In fact, It would scare her from time to time when his arms would seep out from the edge of the curtain but she knew in his universe he was sworn to protect people so she'd only get spooked a little. Despite this, she'd never really do much when it did happen. Laziness overcame fear and that meant Satori was being left behind the curtains for another night. Another knock came suddenly. One, two and three quickly follow each other.

'Who's there?' she demanded. The 'ere' syllable echoed about the room. No response came from the door. So she continued: 'Diane, is that you? Hello?' surely if any of the Maids had been up they'd respond? Saying that makes you assume they had an expansive crew but really we're just talking about Diane Brooks and Bernadette Brown the two maids their family employed. They weren't necessarily maids, let alone hard workers, they were rather strict grandmas who cooked all the food. But even that doesn't do them justice. They weren't necessarily as strict as Rose's parents but were still fairly practical. Between the pair of them, they managed to keep everything prim and proper from the house to Rose. This knock wasn't from them. It resonated within her and gave her goosebumps. The knock was harder and sharper, definitely not the rain this time. Luckily she had a lock on the door so no one she didn't want to would be getting in. Rose whipped her head around to face the door which now seemed so malicious. It was hiding the unwelcome visitor behind its thick wooden body. The whole situation seemed odd. She knew that whatever was behind this door didn't belong here and it made her freeze. Her mind began hastily racing around possibilities. You can't just explain away the continuity of the Knocks. Not easily at least. She squeezed her legs, looked down at her feet and waited for a long time just to make sure whoever was there wasn't anymore. She had considered checking behind the door after an hour or so just to be certain but ultimately ended up avoiding the door in general. It was safer to keep it locked and secure. She did approach the door at one point and was even tempted to open it. The karndean floor was cold against her naked foot. Rose's room seemed to always be the coldest later in the year. Pressing with her body against the door, she grasped the lock and listened against the door... It was still there. Soft exhale from what lurked behind the barrier, although faint at first. Her hand let go of the lock. No way could the door be opened. It was quite foolish to think her force alone would hold back the beast behind. That thick door was heavy and Satori barely fit through so she stood no chance. Rose thought that it heard her feet pat along to the door so she became scared.

She figured, whilst there was time, to lock everything. Rose stood up and checked frantically all the locks on the balcony doors. Looking outside to the cluttered space reminded her of her Father's smoking habits. She could smell it's artificial, manufactured odour as if it was real. Rather instantly, she tugged the curtains close and equipped her phone, ran across to the other side of the room and almost bounced when she dove into bed. She couldn't sleep that night. I don't know if it was because of her ridiculous floor to ceiling windows which she suspected would be broken easily or, maybe it was the fact she never checked behind the door and whatever was behind the door could want to kill her. Rose had her phone's flashlight on the whole time she was in bed. It was 3 'o'clock in the morning and still throwing it down hard.

Now it was time to play the waiting game. There were only 3 more hours until Mrs Brown woke up. She was traditional like that. It wasn't that long. She just needed to focus. She was listening very, very carefully. There didn't seem like there was any movement from beyond the wall. It didn't help that the foot of the bed pointed to the left wall, she had the peripheral and utterly dreadful sight of the door. Suddenly, a ping came from her phone and it broke the silence. It was a message from her mate Claire. 'What is she doing up this late' Rose asked as she looked at the message. 'Hey, Babe.' was typed out by Claire, lacking punctuation, followed by an XD and a Jk. she then continued... 'I'm really drunk right now.' Rose typed back: 'I'm so scared Claire, please talk to me.' she shrank even smaller into her bed. 'It's happening again, PLEASE!' She didn't want to move. She could hear its footsteps against the wood outside and they were heavy, lumbering leathery sounds. The ping of the notification caused too much commotion that Rose began to feel worried. Claire responded with 'My phone is dying sorry.' and Rose began to weep. The last thing claire left was a colourful array of emojis and went offline. She sobbed a bit more when checking her clock to see that only half an hour had past and that she had to wait another 2 and a half. She messaged her boyfriend Owen whilst she was still on her phone. 'Please message me back' followed by 'I'm so scared.' and then she laid there in bed. Rose and Owen had been dating for 5 months now and she felt like he was the Sun to her Earth. She revolved around him. Her parents would never understand the connection they had. He was the man she saw herself marrying someday. At just 17 years of age, Rose hadn't planned their future yet but always had fun looking for houses they could live in. Reading their past memes and messages, Rose let herself forget about the odd predicament she found herself in but before the mood had sweetened itself too much the small digital clock in the upper right-hand corner reminded her of the long night she has had. The tears felt sticky as they dried onto her face. She lay down in bed and put a song on. The song was the ending theme to one of her favourite programmes. It was melancholic but fairly heavy, the type of stuff that characters would emotionally break down to, and she broke down into more tears. Rose felt apprehensive to call the police. If she was to call the police and the situation turned out to be an illusion she'd never hear the end of it. It was better to just wait for Mrs Brown. 'This is pointless... ' she whispered. Any right-minded person would've checked the door by now but Rose thought that it was too cliche for the victim to approach the strange door. She felt her heart race by the chorus as the feelings of the show raced back. The final murder of the protagonist was so upsetting and unforeseen that it caused havoc among fans of the show who either liked the unique ending or wanted the main character to find contentment in the end. Satori was one of the characters who survived the show and Rose had an absurd attraction to him. The show made her fear death to a new extent. The thoughts of having life cut short and 'what comes next' were absolutely mortifying but in the end, it was stupid to waste time thinking about this. The rain had stopped pouring outside and the silence had begun to set in. There wasn't any movement outside. No Footsteps, no knocks, no noise. There was only the faint buzzing of the Xbox on standby and Rose didn't feel herself drift off into a deep dream. Half awake and half not.