The Pharmacy (UNEDITED)

Chapter Five

        A week has passed since I've last seen Fabian. A week of restless studying, torturous customers, and too many aspirins. But it was fine, partly because of him. He was what reminded me of home, his warmness, his gratitude. Though we didn't speak much, he never once complained of his condition, and I regard that with the utmost respect.

   Auntie and Uncle were downstairs, likely doing what I've seen them do for the past 3 weeks. Their routine is horrendously boring-- Wake up, eat, work on medicine, eat, leave for buying more ingredients, eat, sleep, replay. Since today was a weekend, they jazzed up their day a bit. Instead of working, they're discussing the world. Yep, discussing the world. I had to escape the living room before I would start hibernating on the couch.

   Now I'm just bored in my room instead of the living room. The only difference between here and there was that there was no speaking of 'the new policies' and such. I've been staring at the painting on the wall for about 20 minutes in a row, flipped over, stomach down so my face was stuffed in my pillow, and groaned loudly enough to feel the little cushion vibrate. The boredom is unreal.

   I huffed, unknowing what to do, and at a loss of stimuli. I cursed myself for being so dependant on events to happen for me, rather than getting up and finding them myself. 

   A rich, deep diiiing-doooong sound filled the house, and I was, quite pathetically, over-enthused to see who was coming. I perked up, listening in to see if I could recognize the voice of whoever was there. I tuned everything out to listen in on the floor below, but there was silence; I didn't even hear the sound of the door creaking open. Maybe I was undergoing an auditory hallucination? 

   Diiiiiiing... Dooooooong... The sound rippled once again, this time, more drawn out. Looks like the person was left outside, probably as confused as I am.

   Still, the sound of the door was unheard. I began feeling second-hand embarrassment from the ignorance of my own Godparents. 

   "Uncle Hermann?" I called out, seeing if he was, perhaps, upstairs or distracted by something. No response. I did it again, but to no avail.

   I furrowed my brows, but shook off my worries, thinking that Uncle was probably just napping or something of that sort. I tried the next best thing.

   "Aunt Elena?" I shouted, elongating her name a bit as I did so. Again, I received no answer. What in the world?

   "Auntie? Uncle? Hello?" I asked again, getting up from my bed and poking my head out the bedroom door, looking side to side to see if anyone was there. There was nothing. It was creepily empty, and yet, as weird as this sounds, I didn't feel alone.

   Ok, at this point, I'm getting a bit scared. I'm alone in this house, there's someone at the door, and lunch isn't ready. Not to mention I feel some odd presence, like some kind of lunatic. Wonderful, just fantastic. 

   The ringing of the doorbell now continued in a series of ear-piercing ding-dong ding-dong ding-dongs that I just couldn't stand. I wanted to ignore it so badly, I hoped that the person would just leave, that I could search for my Godparents, but I couldn't. I was concerningly close to tearing my hair out by the time I began stomping down the stairs, nearly smashing my foot through one of the steps in the process. The thumping of my feet began to overpower the sound of the incessant doorbell, and I could feel my breath getting more aggressively heavy by each ding. 

   I grasped and pulled the doorknob so brutally that I nearly let the screws holding it inside fly off. I pulled the door open, still unbelievably annoyed, huffing, and in my pajamas.