The Black Dress

"Where is Makaylah?" I shook my head. She usually took long to pack her bags, but it had been almost an hour since she texted us. Ashleigh shrugged and picked up the bag of Cheetos.

"More snacks for us." She flopped on the bed, causing a couple of Cheetos to fall out of the bag and fall on the bottom layer of my dress.

"Dude! If I get this dirty my mom is going to kill me!"

"Shoot. Sorry, Bells." She picked up the stray Cheetos and quickly stuck them in her mouth. Thankfully, I kept my room spotless, so eating off the floor wasn't a complete crime in here.

"Ew." I muttered. She chuckled and continued eating the little orange dress-attackers. I looked at myself once more in the mirror, before beginning to search through my closet. I know I have the perfect pair of shoes to go with this... somewhere. While my room was in pristine condition - my closet, not so much. I'm surprised I was able to find anything in order to get dressed every day.

"I better go show my mom what it looks like before she decides to haggle me about it."

"I want to see her reaction!" We started towards the door, and started to get a funny feeling as we got closer. I placed my hand on the doorknob and gasped in shock as it was warm to the touch. Great. Emily probably started a fire. I stepped back and turned to Ashleigh. "Call 911!"

"What is the problem!?"

"Call 911!" I exclaimed again. I think the house is on fire!" I leapt towards my phone as quickly as I could and started to dial 911.

No Service

What the hell? My mom always needed connection for her job, and paid for the highest premium level possible. There's no way I had no service in my own house. I closed the phone app and opened it to try again. I typed in the numbers one by one and pressed call.

No Service

I scoffed and threw the phone back on my bed. Ashleigh looked confused as well.

"I don't have any service. Is your Wi-Fi down?"

"Not that I know of. I'm not getting anything either. I guess we will have to go check it out."

We walked towards the door cautiously. I laid my hand on the knob again. It was no cooler than it was before, but also hadn't gotten any warmer. hopefully that was a good sign. I grabbed Ashleigh's hand and opened the door. We stepped out. No smell of smoke, and the air looked clear enough. What the hell was wrong with my door then? And why was the Wi-Fi being weird? I marched across the hall with Ashleigh in tow to confront my mom about what was going on. And... to show her the new dress, of course. As I placed my hand on her door knob, it was ice cold.

"Something really weird is going on." I told Ashleigh. I gripped her hand tighter and opened the door to my parent's room. It was freezing. Mom must've gotten too hot and turned on the AC unit she keeps next to her bed. We walked through the small corridor that led up to the actual sleeping area of the room. The AC was off.

"Mom?" Silence.

"Mom?" I walked to the closet, where she often talked on the phone while rearranging everything she owned. For once, she wasn't there. We walked back out to the hallway and into her craft room.

"Mom?" Everything was scattered, indicating that she had been working on a current project.

I couldn't hear the TV downstairs anymore, so I assumed Emily had wandered up to her room. Probably to torture the poor hamster she just had to have for her birthday. I swung the door open.

"Emily, have you seen-" She wasn't there. The hamster cage was empty. She wasn't allowed to take it out of her room.

One thing to get her in trouble for later. I scoffed.

We turned around and started towards the stairs. It was silent on the first floor. No Emily, no Mom, no Dad. I looked out the window. The cars were still in the driveway.

Where could they be?