(flashback)
Dan stared out of the car window, watching the trees go by as the rain falls.
"Why do I have to visit grandma and granddad? It's better at home." He complains.
He hears his mother sigh from the seat in front of him. "Daniel, you're father and I are going away for a while and you need to stay somewhere." She turns around to look at Dan, a smile across her face. "We can't have you just sit at home alone doing nothing all day, now can we?"
Dan furrows his eyebrows as he looks at his mom. "Yes you can! I'm old enough." He sighs resting his head on the window. "It would be more fun than grandma and granddad's house anyway."
"Hey." Dan's mom scolded. "It will be fun. I promise you Dan." She turns back around in her seat. "Besides, it'll do you some good to stop watching that TV all day."
"You should listen to your mother, Daniel." His father chimes in, keeping his eyes on the road.
Dan rolls his eyes, knowing exactly where this is going.
"You're 9 years old Dan. You should be going outside and playing with friends. Not spending all of your time watching cartoons. You know when I was your age we actually had to talk to people to get entertainment.."
After that point Dan decided to tune out everything she said. He's heard it all before, he doesn't need to hear it again.
Instead he watched the rain fall. He liked to pretend that the rain droplets are having a race from one end of the window to the other and he likes to bet on which will win. It's entertaining and relaxing at the same time.
So that's what he does. He watches the rain droplets race and continues to wish he was back at home.
-
"Come say hello to your grandparents Daniel." His dad says. Dan slowly walks over and goes behind his mom.
He waves, "Hi." He says quietly.
"Don't be shy, Dan, come on." His mom says in a soft voice. She puts her hand on his back and softly pushes him a forward.
His grandma smiles, "Oh you look so much bigger from the last time we saw you. That was only- um 2- no 3-"
"7 years mom. It's been 7." Dan's mom speaks up.
His grandma lightly laughs and smiles, "Right." There's an awkward moment of silence before she speaks again. "Well, we should probably get inside now."
Dan turns around and hugs his mother tightly. His mom pushes away Dan for a second and crouches down, holding onto his hands. "You're going to be a good boy, right Danny?" She asks.
Dan looks at his mom's brown eyes, "Yes I will."
She nods, "That's my boy." She brushes her fingers through Dan's hair before placing a kiss on his forehead.
When she pulls back Dan asks a question. "When are you guys going to come back?"
She gives a small smile, "You'll see us soon. I promise you." She waits for some type of answer which Dan doesn't give. "Okay?"
Dan nods, "Okay." Dan wraps his arms around his mom as she wraps hers around him. He buries his face into her neck. "Bye mom, I love you."
"I love you too sweetheart."
They pull away and Dan looks to his dad. Even though they didn't have the closest relationship, the young boy still wanted to say goodbye.
His dad looks at him for a moment before looking at the mom instead. "We better get going or we'll miss our flight." He begins to walk to the car. Dan looks down at his feet, feeling a wave of sadness hit him.
Dan's mom nods and stands up. She waves goodbye to the young boy before turning around and getting into the car.
Dan waves goodbye to his mom, not leaving his spot. And he stays right there as the car drives away until he could no longer see it.
-
So far, Dan has spent the whole day doing nothing except staring at walls and eating whatever food they made him. They don't have a TV except for one really bad one that barely even works, and all of their books are either too big or too boring. The only thing even remotely entertaining was the fireplace in the living room. The way the flames looked and moved, Dan thought was the most beautiful thing. He hoped that when he grows old he could have this house for the sole purpose of the fireplace.
But unfortunately the fireplace wasn't enough for the boy, so he decided that he was going to take himself on a tour of the house, desperately looking for some other type of entertainment.
He walks down the hallway, his fingers tracing the pattern carved into the mahogany wall as he walks. Everything was completely silent. He didn't know where his grandparents were at the moment, he assumed they were in the kitchen or taking a nap or something. The only sounds to be heard were the creaks of the floorboards everytime Dan took a step and his quiet breathing.
He made a turn and decided to walk up the stairs. With every step up Dan looks at the pictures on the wall. They were all very old and basically the same thing. Just pictures of grandma and granddad, then at the very end there was an old picture of the house. Nothing that caught Dan's interest.
Finishing walking up the stairs, he looks down both ends of the hallway, wondering which one to go down first. And after a quick game of eenie meenie minie moe he started walking down the left side.
Dan was only halfway down the hallway before stopping in his tracks as he hears the squeaky noise of a door opening behind him.
Turning around he sees a door at the very end of the hallway opening. Dan furrows his eyebrows as he stands confused.
He watches as someone slowly moves from a room next to it and into the room that just opened.
Dan couldn't really make out who the person was, just that they were dressed in very dark clothing. It looked like a woman but Dan wasn't too sure.
"Grandma?" Dan calls. No response.
The sound of the floor creaking becomes a little annoying to the boy as he begins to walk towards the room. "Granddad?"
No response.
Almost there, Dan thinks to himself as he takes another step.
Maybe it's mom. Maybe she wanted to surprise me.
The thought of that made the boy happy and eager to see who it was.
The small boy rests his hand on the doorknob , getting ready to push open the door wider and step in to reveal the person.
"Daniel!"
Dan stops and turns around at the person who called his name.
His grandma walks over to Dan from the staircase, she picks him up and holds Dan up in her arms. Slamming the door shut with her other hand, walking away from the room immediately after that.
"Why were you going in there?" She asks, scolding him. "You shouldn't be just snooping around like that ." They walk downstairs.
"Grandma, I saw someone!" Dan exclaims. He was disappointed that she took him away from the room because he wanted to see who it was. But he figured if he told his grandma, she would let him go back up.
"No you didn't, Daniel. There was no one up there except you."
"I did! I swear it! They walked into the room and- and they were very dark and- and..." Dan trails off, not knowing much else to say.
Once they got to the bottom of the stairs, grandma sets him down and sighs. She rubs her temple for a moment before looking down at Dan.
"I think it's time for bed, don't you?" The old lady says with a smile. She takes Dan's hand in hers, "Come on. Let's go."
"It's only 8 grandma." He complains. He tugs, trying to get his arm away from her grasp. "I want to go see the lady upstairs!"
Dan was quickly faced with a hard slap across the face.
The old lady's hand recoiled quickly. "Oh my god." She says softly and shakily, as if she was terrified of what she'd just done.
Dan couldn't help the tears filling his eyes, but he didn't make another sound. "I'm- oh my- I'm so sorry Daniel." She picks him up once again and holds him tightly.
Dan didn't speak, he was too scared and confused to say anything. So he silently just let the tears fall as he stays in her arms.
She walks into the guest room, still cradling Dan in her arms. Laying him down on the bed gently, she leaves a kiss on his cheek. "Goodnight Dan. Sweet dreams." She said, sounding like she was on the verge of crying.
He stayed silent.
-
Dan opened his eyes seeing nothing but darkness, realizing that it must be really late.
Dan huffs and rolls over in his bed, trying to go back to sleep. It was hard to stay asleep in that house. The fact that Dan couldn't go to sleep was mostly just from the bed's uncomfortable-ness but it was also the fact that he missed his own bed in his own house.
He thinks about things until he gets sleepy. His parents, missing his friend, missing his TV programs, and whatever else came to the kid's head at the time.
Almost ready to fall back asleep he hears a creak from across the room.
His eyes flutter open just long enough to comprehend that the door was open, letting a small amount of light from the hallway in the room. Assuming that it was just one of his grandparents, his eyes slam back shut, getting ready to go back to sleep.
There were a couple minutes of silence.
STOMP STOMP STOMP- SLAM
Dan jumps awake, now sitting up in his bed. The door was now closed, the room now back to being pitch black, and his heart beat starts racing.
The small boy starts to shake, goosebumps all over his body and he couldn't help the tears that fill his eyes.
Tears began to stream down his face. "I just want to go home." He whispers to himself, knees curled up to his chest.
He lays back down in a fetal position, having trouble breathing while he cries, his tears soaking his pillow. "I just want to go home." He says again in a whisper, even softer than before.
At the foot of his bed, just next to him, he felt the bed shift. Pressure was being put on it as if someone was sitting there but Dan was too scared to look to see what it was.
Dan sobbed into his pillow the entire night until he eventually fell asleep.
(present time)
Dan shivered at the memory. Shaking it off, he looked back down at the board.
It's been minutes and the planchette still hadn't moved.
It's almost like everyone forgot to breathe as they focused intensely on the planchette, waiting for it to do anything at this point.
The only sounds to be heard was the fire crackling and the summer breeze coming through the open window.
PJ let out a sigh, letting his shoulders slump. "It's not going to work guys." He relaxes a bit but still keeps his fingers on the planchette. "This whole fight was pointless, let's just put the board away."
"Just give it a minute, it'll work." Marzia says firmly, her eyes not leaving the planchette.
"Marzia," PJ says, almost like he pities her.
"I know you want to believe that it's real but you just have to face the fact that- OH MY GOD IT'S MOVING."
Dan's heart immediately stops as he watches the planchette slowly move towards the 'yes' in the right hand corner of the board.
---
I finally updated!
Sorry if this wasn't exactly what you were looking for in this chapter but I will be updating the next chapter next week, I promise I won't make you wait another month.
Anyways I hope you have/had an amazing day and thank you for reading, bye :)
p.s. dan is bisexual in this story so he's allowed to like marzia. sorry if y'all weren't too happy about me making dan have a crush on her, but it's gonna stay that way.. at least for.a while