Precious old house

"What is this!?" His wife screams from the attic, as if he knows what object she is talking about.

"What is what?" He answers, standing in front of the ladder, looking up.

He can hear his wife sigh, before she says with annoyance, "It's disgusting up here, can you do this?"

He shakes his head, as there is really nothing to do up there at this point. But, he can feel his wife's frustration, so he decides to climb up the ladder and see for himself what she is doing, "Wait one second, I'll come up."

It's a slim and old ladder, every step he takes on the ladder must be made softly with slow movements as the wood on the ladder seems to be rotten to the core.

"There is going to be a lot of work for us, fixing up this precious old house." He says as he is climbing up, but before he gets all the way up, a noice can be heard from the attic, he looks up and a small black book falls from a shelf, into his face, making him push down his weight, breaking the wood and fall backwards.

"What the..." he says as he falls back, hit the ground and everything goes dark.

'Am I blind?' he thinks, as he has his eyes open, but sees nothing but pure darkness around him.

"Babe, can you hear me?!" He screams, but expects no answer as his scream disappears in an echo.

She is nowhere to be found, as he is not where he was, he is somewhere else.

Whispers can be heard in the distance, multiple voices of whispers, none loud enough to be understood, but slowly getting closer and closer.

"Who is there?" He says with confidence as the voices are coming closer.

"Six" "Eight" "Eight" "Nine" "Five" "Eighteen" "Thirteen" "Twenty-one" "Twenty" "Three"

Multiple whispers, all around him, continuously repeating, "Six" "Eight" "Eight" "Nine" "Five" "Eighteen" "Thirteen" "Twenty-one" "Twenty" "Three" as they are getting closer, until he can feel them.

The warmth from their breath can be felt on his naked skin, in his ears, on his neck, as if their mouths are touching his skin, whispering, drooling, licking, all over his body.

Suddenly a sharp pain in his back, a fingernail is cutting deep into his skin and starts ripping it, in the motion of a six.

Warm blood can be felt pouring down his back, he turns around and swing at the air, but there is no presence there, and the fingernail never left. It continues to go around, number after number, ripping his skin deeper and deeper.

The warmth of the blood is combined with the warmth from their breath, as they continue to lick, drool, breath, and whisper all over his body.

"Six" "Eight" "Eight" "Nine" "Five" "Eighteen" "Thirteen" "Twenty-one" "Twenty" "Three"

Fingernails can be felt pressed into his skin at multiple locations now, behind his knees, feet, arms, ribs, back, forehead, every fingernail carving the numbers into his skin.

"What do you want!?" He screams in pain, "I Don't know what it means!? I don't know what you want!"

He cries, as his flesh is ripping, body bleeding, while tongues are licking.

"Please. I don't know." He says, and cries "Six... eight, eight, five, nine, eighteen, thirteen, twenty-one, twenty-three."

He wakes up.

His wife is sitting next to him, crying in the phone.

"He woke up!" She screams, "I don't know, he wasn't breathing, I don't... what should I do?"

He sits himself up, feel his pockets, find a pen, and starts writing down the numbers in the little black book, "Six, eight, eight, nine, five, eighteen, thirteen, twenty-one, twenty-three."

"That must have been it? I think that was it!"

His wife looks at him, as if she is staring at a ghost, "What...What are you doing?"

He looks at his wife with serious intention, "These numbers, I don't know what to do with them, but they seem important."

She looks at him, "Ok honey." and turns away a bit and speaks into the phone, "He does seem to be a little bit confused, what should I do?"

Before she gets a response, He stands up and says, "I'll be right back!" before dashing down the stairs, out of the door, and into the car.

"He left." She says, as the person on the other end turns quiet, both of them without understanding how her husband went from dead, to alive.

It doesn't take long before their car comes up on the driveway again, "Lottery!" he screams as the door opens, "That's all I can think off, if it's anything else, I'm too stupid to figure it out."

"Are you okay?" She asks him, as he sits himself down in the sofa, waiting for the lottery to start.

"I am." he answers, "I just seem to have missed a number, there was nine to be placed, I only had eight. The numbers I had first were... six, eight, eight, nine, five, eighteen, thirteen, twenty-one and twenty-three, right?"

His wife nods, "Sure"

"Yeah, but it was only up until seventy, you can't pick higher numbers, so i played, sixty-eight, eight, nine, five, eighteen, thirteen, twenty-one and twenty-three, but there was one more number to be placed that I did not have."

"So what number did you choose?" She asks him.

He stays silent for a second, "Three." And looks up at his wife, "I just felt that it should have been a three in there."

It finally begins:

"Welcome to tonights drawing, we will jump right into it!" The woman on the TV says, "First number of the night is... Sixty-eight!" and continues, "the next one is eight!" "Nine!" "Five!"

He looks at his wife, who meets his eyes, "Eighteen, thirteen, twenty-one, twenty-three, and three." he says and turns back to the TV.

"Eighteen!" The woman on the TV says, "Thirteen!" "Twenty-one!"

His entire body is shaking, he can't breath.

"And second to last we have... Twenty!"

"Last and least, number three!"

The woman on the TV turns to the scoreboard, his wife looks at him, and he looks into nothingness.

"Nobody won the twenty-million dollar jackpot, but we have some winners of the prixe of twenty thousand dollars! Congratulations to everyone who won tonight!

His wife starts jumping up and down, "Twenty thousand dollars! That's amazing!"

He still stares into nothingness, knowing now that he made a mistake that cost them the twenty-million dollar price. He can feel every single one of those numbers being carved into his body, he can feel the number twenty and three being seperatly carved into his body now, and it makes him want to puke.

"It might not be enough to buy a new life." He says, and smiles, while hiding his pain, "but it's more than enough to restore this precious old house."

As soon as he stops his sentance, his wife stops cheering.

She turns around to him, and look deep into his eyes with pitch black eyes, moves up close to him, enough for him to feel the warmth of her breath against his skin, and whispers, "Twenty..." "Three."