Skeleton Beats the Clock (ONC ENTRY-2020)

Chapter One: Tales of the Miserate Fault Line

The little girl was in her room playing. Zin didn't disturb the girl but watched her for a moment before heading onto her new room.

Zin took off her shoes and socks and lay down on the bed. She heard the hardness of footsteps on the stairs. She got up from the bed and walked quietly and cautiously to the doorway. She peered around the corner.

The uncle didn't break stride. He had dark brown skin and wore a short dread hairstyle. He went into his room and turned on the light. His room was next door to the little girl's on the opposite side.

Zin left her room, staying quiet. She stood between the uncle's room and the little girl's. The brother seemed oblivious to his surroundings and so did the little girl. He was having a rant to himself but the words couldn't be heard. It was like watching a silent film in color. The little girl was still playing in her room.

As Zin moved over a little further in the corridor, she saw shadows of children moving along the right side of his wall. She moved back over next door and saw the same shadows on the same side of the wall in the little girl's room. This was like watching shadow theatre.

But how could these shadows show in bright lighting?

These are no typical shadows, Zin thought.

The next night he was gone job hunting again. Zin, the mother and the oldest daughter sat at the table in the kitchen.

"I want you all to switch rooms, except for your youngest daughter she can stay in her own room. But I want your oldest daughter to take the spare room. I want you to take your brother's room. And I'll take the oldest daughter's room and let your brother take your room," Zin told the mother.

That night the little girl played in her room as usual.

The little girl's uncle now had the room across the corridor from hers. He stood in the doorway of his room watching the little girl as she played. The light was very dim in his room. There was a rumbling sound and the pictures on the wall started to turn sideways. The bedding was pulled back as if someone were getting up from the bed. The walls started to quake and bend like a pretzel. Zin watched the shared wall in her room warp its shape. The mother and the older sister ran to the little girl's room. The little girl was clutching her doll as she moved backward away from the walls as each one came down. Her mother and sister took her by the arms and hurried her out of the room.

"Run! Outside, quickly! Zin shouted.

The sisters and their mother ran down the stairs and out of the house, across the lawn to the building under construction across the street where they took refuge.

They looked through the glass double doors of the building at the tall, red brick townhouse they used to live in.

They watched as Zin escaped their home. She stopped for a moment and looked back at the townhouse. A shadow of a child danced along the front of the townhouse. She watched as the shadow grew larger and disappeared around the corner of the townhouse. She looked up at the upper level of the house. The mother's brother stood in the window. He seemed to be ranting as if in a silent movie again. He was pressing his hands on each side of his head as if something was blaring too loud for him inside his head. He removed his hands from his head and seemed to rant again in the same manner.

Zin went to the building across the street where the rest of the family was.

"You can't just leave my brother in there. Save him," the mother said.

"I can't," Zin winced at the sting of those words she just pried out of her own mouth.

"I'm going in there," the mother said brushing past Zin. Zin grabbed her arm. "You can't your brother has been infected. The Shadow Kinder are inside him. It's possible they have been inside him for a while. He's too far gone. They spread fast throughout the being they inhabit. They wanted him to kill the little girl," Zin said looking at the mother's youngest daughter as she clutched her doll her older sister holding her hand. "But he resisted them somehow even at the risk of his own well-being. They made him suffer every time he didn't do what they commanded. And now they'll destroy him completely and he'll become a ghost in a shell of what he used to be," Zin said looking over her shoulder. "You won't ever be able to go home again. Both the townhouse and your brother are haunted forever. I'm so sorry for the losses you three have suffered."