|| Silent Eyes || Tamtori fanfiction Quiet Place au ||

Chapter One: the Darkness and the Dead

Last year, when Ell said we were leaving, I was mad.
Maybe it was because I was still handling the grief of Matilda's death, or the fact I'd have to resign my job as a bartender, or maybe I was just being petty, but I hated every minute of moving. It was too much work. like, c'mon, fuck paranormal activity.
I'm going to die eventually.
I mean, it probably sounds petty to you, but I had to get myself out of college and everything. My Rehab Psychologist said it was the best thing for me, and I swear I was doing well, but everyone was either randomly dead or moving, and I didn't even end up pulling out or anything anyway because as soon as I got my bag Ell had pulled me into the car and texted me not to speak at any cost.

Last year, when Matilda died, I was mad.
She was never really considered to me as a friend, but I didn't really know how close we really were until I couldn't tell her that she was as beautiful as she said she was. She was naive and and narcissistic and dumb, and was going to die for some dumb shit eventually, but when she died (if she died like Ell said she did) she died from next level bullshit.
Even though Ell looked way too traumatised for it to be a bloody car accident.
Ell wouldn't have gotten the extreme mental shit that she did.
She wouldn't scream in her sleep or frantically texted me "they were coming" when I calmed her down in the padded living room of our tiny underground bunker.
She wouldn't not let me go outside.
She wouldn't forbid me to talk.

I don't know if Matilda died from a car crash at all now. If she did, it wouldn't suddenly make it okay for me steal. It wouldn't make random sand paths. It wouldn't make the last time I saw sunlight more than a self assigned day, let alone four months.

And it might of been longer if not for the fight Ell and I had.
Ell hadn't let me out. At all. She wouldn't let me talk, or she'd cover her mouth and start crying. If we ran out of food I'd tell her and she'd come back with tons and drop it on the ground and immediately make sure I was okay. If we needed power she'd go upstairs and come back a day later and everything would be fine again. If I needed a book, she'd go and get it.
But even though I tried to cheer her up with books and food and shows, she'd never be happy. She sat on the couch and cried. She'd sleep with me. She'd never let me out of her sight, unless it was to get something from the surface.
But I couldn't do 11 months of that and just be fine.

I eventually threatened to scream at the top of my lungs outside if she didn't let me go outside. I can still remember the blood draining from her face and her gripping to me and my mouth furiously shaking her head. It had happened before and I was hoping she'd let me go this time. Eventually she nodded and texted that she had to come with me. I was fine with that.

Now I'm lying down on the floor of the Petrol Station, poking my tongue out at Ell and watching her smile for the first time in forever. This is so dumb. Why is no one here? Why is Ell so paranoid? I go to open my mouth by she starts shaking her head and mouthing "New horse dink."
"What?" I mouth back.
"You can pink" she mouthes, frustrated.
"Whaaaat?" I respond.
She points at me "You" she shakes her head "can't" she points to her mouth "speak."
I roll over "OOOOOOOO" I mouth back, then realise I'm lying in sand. I giggle. Barely audible.

Ell turns to me slowly, white as a sheet and visibly shaking. I walk over to her and hug her and she covers my mouth. I'm suddenly realising how eerily quiet it is. It smells weird too, like cheap perfume with a thick, cold smell. I let go of the hug.

"It's okay, calm down woman." I mouth to her with an eye roll.
She tilts her head "Salmon?"
I sigh and take out my phone, typing "for jehovahs sake, whos the dumbass that decided to mouth shit"
She takes her phone out and replies "Me... was that an insult?"
I put my phone away and she starts desperately waving her arms, clearly pissed.

I walk away, grinning, to go see if there's any alcohol (or weapons) and end up taking a pair of headphones off the shelves instead. Suddenly trying really hard not to hum "It must be love" by madness, I walk down to the counter and take out two donuts. Maybe if I took them back to the camp and showed Ell she'd be happier. Probably not. I took them anyway.

Our backpacks full and the dark getting closer, Ell texted that we should stay here. So this is why she barely ever came home. I agreed and said we should probably sleep on the carpet. She grinned and agreed. We walked behind the counter, taking off jackets and shoes and dumping them like blankets behind us.

Laying on the ground, she put my hand on my arm. She does this every night, like she's scared I'll go away. I turn and watch her, and she drifts off.

I look up at the ceiling and try to go to sleep, but that sickening smell, the neon lighting and actually having free access to-

Alcohol.

I look over; Ells still asleep. I try to very slowly remove her hand from my arm and put it gently on my shoe, and grab my jacket, and she shifts. I'm probably going to have to be quiet to get her to stay asleep. I gently get up, leaving my shoes off, and walk to the sacred place of my holy water.

I shut the door gently behind me, and turn to walk down the rows to alcohol and mixers. Finally see what I wanted, Smirnoff. I take the bottle from the shelf. Then I take another and place it in the bag and put a cloth between them so Ell won't realise I took them. I don't want her to get mad at me, she's already sad enough.

As soon as I come through, I breath in and gag. The smell was so strong, it was almost hard to breathe. I walked to the counter and it got stronger, so I covered my mouth with my shirt and walked closer to the counter to see what it was. I peek over and stumbled forward, horrified.

It was a corpse of a young woman, barely sixteen looking, with three long, red, violent gashes across her chest. There was blood coating the ground, most likely the source of the sweet odor, and it smelled like rotten meat. The gashes didn't look like a knife, or a wild animal, they were way too deep and way too jagged. Her left arm had been entirely ripped off and discarded. Her face way pale and rotten, a permanent look of pure terror fixated on her face. Her brown hair ripped out and bloody.

I screamed.

Almost immediately after, I heard running and screaming from Ell and something who sounded like it was clawing at the ground. Ell got to the door, screaming, and tried to open the door.
Shit, I locked it.
The clawing didn't stop though, climbing up the roof as I whimpered at the poor girl on the floor. I fell to my knees.

Two things happened very fast at almost the same time. First, the roof imploded and for a millisecond that was surely quality nightmare material, I glimpsed at a black, wet looking shadow-like creature, and I screamed again. The second, I heard a bang on the desk behind me and a mop of auburn, reddish hair and a gun jumped over my head, ran straight up to the monster, used a massive knife to flip off what looked like a scale and emptied a full barrel of bullets into the creatures skull. 

Then everything thing went quiet again.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hello! I'll try not to put too much at the bottom of these stories, but I'd just like to say I couldn't find the artist for this picture of The Quiet Place's Death Angel.

Yes, I'm really sorry but Matilda's dead. And sorry for the short chapter (1378 words), I'll try and make it longer next time. Also book title names welcome. Silence is kinda lame.
Stay safe,
Tam