She could barely see; everything was blurry. Still, she could just about make out a house, a cream cottage, she thought. The roof was thatched, and she saw flowers draped over the doorframe, though they disappeared after a few seconds. All in all, it was a very pretty cottage. She felt at home even though she wasn't inside. Lifting her bare foot to step towards the cottage, she thought she heard someone call her name. Electing to ignore it, she moved forward.
Except she didn't. She had placed her foot in front of the other and stepped forward. So why wasn't the cottage getting any closer? She had to get there, she had to!
Again, she heard her name being called, louder this time. Heart thumping, she tried to run to the cottage, but it only got further away. What was happening? She tried again, only to trip over.
She tried to get up, but the more she tried the further she fell, into the deep, dark black waiting to swallow her whole-
'ELLIE!' Screamed a rough voice 'ELLIE, GET DOWN HERE!'
On the second floor of the grand house, a girl emerged from a pile of blankets on a grubby mattress, her spiky brown hair sticking up on end.
' ELLIE! HURRY UP!'
'Coming,' Ellie mumbled, pulling herself upright. She looked at the time- and groaned. 6AM. Why didn't people get up at normal times anymore?
Whilst Ellie didn't care about tidiness and being prompt, the people she lived with very much did. You see, Georgina and Seth Sharp were the most pristine and well kept people you could have the misfortune to meet. Because of this- this, and a boatload of money, quite literally- they felt as if they had the priviledge to do whatever they pleased; including mistreating their adopted daughter.
Seth Sharp was the CEO of a law firm, and he was very well paid, and highly respected everywhere in London. He was very well off in all ways, yet he never showed any sign of being grateful for what he had, and he looked down his bony nose on everyone below him.
Georgina Sharp was no better. Her voice was unnaturally high, and her hair unnaturally blonde. Her spare time was spent watching cheesy cooking shows and lavishly decorating cakes. Her hobbies included pretending to not notice Ellie existed, and fussing over her other children, who were just as insufferable as their parents- except maybe Molly.
Ellie was used to this, and had grown to bear it. She didn't particularly mind being left to her own devices, nor that her birthday and Christmas presents consisted of a small cupcake and a single present.
' Ellie, if you aren't down here in the next two minutes, I swear to God I will come up there and pull you down by the ear!' Seth roared.
' Charming,' Ellie muttered, speeding up her attempts to comb her wild brown-black hair. Giving up in a matter of half a minute, she threw herself out her bedroom door and into the grand hallway. Even in this house it was strange to be woken at 6AM on a sunday. What could Ellie possibly be needed for at such a stupid hour? Perhaps Molly had her head jammed in the cutlery drawer again. Or maybe Rebecca wanted her room repainted. Ellie feverently hoped not. That would make the second time in a month.
As she burst rather dramatically into the posh living room, three snide faces looked down at her in distaste. One belonged to the defined face of Seth, another belonged to the Sharp familys' eldest daughter, Emily, 16 years of age, whom took after her mother with flat and pinched features. The last was the face of Kai, 17, who would be very good looking, with floppy pale blonde rockstar hair, and bright blue eyes, if it wasn't for his abnormally large nose.
' Took you long enough,' Emily sneered, flicking her dyed brown hair.
Ellie looked at her with an eyebrow raised. ' I took less than two minutes!' She protested. having timed herself, she knew she'd taken only a minute and a half. She also knew arguing back was pointless, but it was instinct.
' Nope definitely three,' Emily snickered, smirking in an extremely irritating way. Ellie opened her mouth to retort, but closed it again on the sight of Seth glaring at her. She settled for sulking moodily.
' That's what I thought,' said Emily smugly. ' Anyway, we need you to fix this.'
She held up a mash of tangled metal and rubber. It wasn't distinguishable as an object.
' And quickly, I need to use it.' Emily finished, pursing her glossy lips.
Ellie stared at her in disbelief. ' You want me to,' she said slowly, making sure she had it right. ' Fix, this?'
Kai spoke for the first time since Ellie had been in the room. ' Are you thick or something? Actually, don't answer that, we all know you are,' He laughed loudly, obviously proud of his joke. ' Of course we want you to fix it,' Kai grinned, evidently trying not to laugh. ' After all, you said yourself, you were "happy to help the family!"' he said in a bad impression of a girls voice.
Ellie fought the urge to make a very rude gesture, restraining herself only because Seth was watching her every move intently. 'There's this thing, called sarcasm,' she muttered, not loud enough to be heard. 'Fine.' She resigned, staring at the floor dejectedly. ' What's it supposed to be?'
' A bike. A good bike, at that.' Kai sighed, glaring at Emily. ' And if a certain someone hadn't crashed it sneaking back from Shellies, then it wouldn't be in this mess.'
Emily huffed and threw the pile of metal and rubber at Ellies feet, which it hit. Painfully. ' Fix it,' She whispered as menacingly as she could before stalking out of the room, shortly followed by Kai.
Ellie rolled her eyes.
' Don't smirk, you little brat,' Seth growled, looking at Elllie as though she was a blemish upon his italian loafers. 'Now, you will have this done by 9AM, and if you don't do so,' he paused, clenching his hands dramatically. ' I promise you, you will regret it.'
And with that he followed his childrens lead, and stormed out the room, probably to carry on sleeping.
As soon as she was sure he was out of hearing range, she kicked the shapeless bike as hard as she could cutting her foot in the process. Ignoring the angry red liquid that sprang from it, she started to pace. How in the bloody hell was she supposed to fix this? She'd been given a lot of ridiculous tasks to do from the Sharp family before, of course, but this took the cake.
After about ten minutes of prodding the wreck and whispering curses at it, she decided it'd be best to make a start if she wanted to be fed some times this year.But the question was, where did she begin? She didn't know what to use, except maybe money to buy a new one- which she never had.
She was torn from her frustrating thoughts by a quiet tapping noise. She paused her inner monologue, and listened. Tap tap. It sounded close. Could someone be knocking on the Sharp familys' door this early on a sunday morning? For their sake Ellie hoped not. Still better to be sure.
She stood up and walked over to the door. Standing on tiptoes, she looked through the peephole. There didn't seem to be anyone standing there. Probably just the wind, she thought.
When she was walking away, there the noise came again. Curiousity got the better of her, and she unlocked the door.
When she opened it, again, there didn't seem to be anyone there. Biting her lip, she peered around the door frame. There wasn't anything close enough to hit the door from the calm breeze streaming in through the door.
As she went to step outside, something barged into her. So much so she went flying across the hall.
' S-sorry!' a male voice said, from apparently no where.
Ellie tried to find the source of the voice, but absolutely nothing appeared to have been disturbed except from Ellie herself.
Picking herself up, she frantically tried to search for whoever- or whatever- pushed her over. The front door was still blown open, swaying slightly in the soft breeze. She gulped.
'Is-'
Her voice broke and suddenly she was hyper-aware of her heart thumping erratically in her chest.
' Is someone there?' she tried again, her voice stronger this time. She didn't expect a reply.
' Can't you see me? Did I hurt you? Are you human?'
These questions came so fast Ellie could barely hear them. She reasoned that if the invisible man was a murderer, he would have killed her by now. It wasn't really very good reasoning. Well, there was another option; she had finally gone insane.
She cleared her throat. ' Um,' She said, more clearly than she expected. 'Could you repeat that? and, uh, slowly?'
' What? Oh, yes. I asked whether you could see me.'
' Well, where are you?'
' Slightly to the left of the front door.'
Ellie looked, even though she knew there was nothing there. Her mind was swirling with confusion.
' Er... No?' she replied, her voice going higher towards the end.
There was a fumbling sound, and a soft muttering. ' Sorry, just... Just hold on,' The voice called, resuming its muttering.
And then something extrodinary happened. A man popped into existence- no more than a metre away from where Ellie stood. He was balding and appeared to be quite normal, except he clearly wasn't, because the last time Ellie checked, people couldn't be invisble.
Ellie was struggling to process what just happened. You are hallucinating, she thought angrily, maybe living in this wretched house has finally driven me around the bend.
And yet, no matter how hard she tried to convince herself she had not seen a man appear out of nowhere, everytime she allowed herself to look up, the man was still there, staring at her and anxiously biting his lip.
Okay, she told herself, this feels pretty real to me, and even if it isn't- well it's a damn sight better than attempting to construct a bike out of rubble.
' What-' She started, and stopped, for her voice broke embarrassingly. Pull yourself together, she thought, clearing her throat. ' What just happened?'
And in a very abrupt change, the mans face went from confused to curious. He stepped closer to Ellie; whether he was aware of that Ellie couldn't tell.
' What is your name?' he asked, his eyes glittering with excitement.
'Ellie. Ellie Ember.'
The man practically hopped with glee, his aged and weathered face suddenly childlike. ' And does-' He almost shouted. Ellie started to fear Seth and Georgina would wake. '-Ellie, stand for something?'
It was a strange question, but not as strange as popping into existance out of nowhere. She couldn't say why, but she felt the need to answer honestly.
'Well, my adoptive- family,' she grimaced on the last word. ' Try and tell me my name is Elenor, and I believed it, till one night, I heard them talking about me; about my parents too, the only time I had ever heard them do so. They said a lot of weird stuff, about "Anti" I think it was, and that my mother and father are dead. Apparently they hadn't seen them for about 10 years before some man came and told them they were dead.' Ellie stopped, choking down the rush of emotion building up in her throat. She ignored the fact that the man looked like a child in a sweet shop, and carried on. ' Anyway, point is I know my real name, and it's Elita, which is weird, but actually pretty cool.'
At this point the man seemed fit to explode. 'Elita. You... You are Elita. Oh wow.' He appeared to be talking to himself, but he wasn't making any sort of sense to Ellie, so she let him get on with it.
'-Really isn't how I expected this day to go, I mean, I knew I'd found an Anathi, but I assumed it was one of those on vacation and had just lost track of time. But I never would have thought I would find one of them. Of course this means we must see the mayor; never a pleasurable experience, but nethertheless required and-'
' I don't understand,' Ellie interrupted, beginning to actually feel crazy. ' About anything you're saying, actually.'
The man paused in his reverie, and stared at Ellie as though he'd forgotten she was there. He seemed to gather his composure. ' Oh dear me, I've completely forgotten my manners. I will explain, I promise, but not till we are out of this house.'
Ellie stared at him wide eyed. Leave? What was he on about? Ellie couldn't leave. Just the thought of Georgina and Seths anger made her shudder. And yet, how amazing would it be to just leave, to get away form this crazy family, away from the girls who stole her lunch money at school. To somewhere no one knew her.
A loud creak from above made her jump out of her daydream. With an icy shiver, she realised that the volume of their conversation had risen considerably, and not even the Sharps could of slept through it.
Ellie began to panic. She flew forward and began to push the man toward the door, earning her a surprised squeak.
Another creak on from the stairs told her she wasn't quick enough. Closing her eyes she braced herself for the shouting. She was so dead.
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Feel free to leave comments, or point out mistakes I've made. If you have any questions, you can ask them on my tumblr. Thanks for reading!
https://www.tumblr.com/blog/imayormaynotbeacatsowatchout