Sisters

Boredom. It eats away at the brain like a fly on a carcass, alone in the desert. Devouring and salivating at the next morsel of energy it can find. Well, that’s at least how Eliza and Meghan saw boredom when waiting for their parents to get ready for an outing. Downstairs they sat in their old, creaky house of heritage which had been passed on as many times as a deadly pandemic. Quiet and lonely sat the house, with not a friend in the world, leaving it bitter and cold on the tip of a hill. Like an old spinster, the house now held secrets and stories unwilling to share with anyone, except the impressionable.

That, is where our story begins. Because you see our little friends, Eliza and Meghan were so bored they decided to play a traditional game of hide and go seek. But what these sisters didn’t realise is that they would seek something they should have been hiding from. Eliza believed she was the best at hiding so insisted she would have her turn first, to which Meghan agreed; as she also knew she could find Eliza easily in their house full of creaks and giveaway noises.

And with that, Eliza fluttered with excitement and adrenaline to find her secret hiding place; the empty grandfather’s clock. The mechanisms were emptied the year before, so there it stood like a fox’s skin, waiting to be stuffed and put on a mantle; not quite complete but intriguing all the same. This was Eliza’s special place to hide, she felt butterflies and anxiety from the potential fact she may lose the game and her secret may be ruined. So why did this fear excite her even more?

The loud counting from Meghan echoed throughout the hallways like a gong in a Buddhist temple. The house listened and soaked in the youthful energy like a bath sponge. As Meghan counted down to one and released those hounding words from her lips; ‘Ready or not, here I come’, Eliza froze and held her breath as though she had been hit with rigor mortis at an instant.

Although there was no ticking from the clock, Eliza felt her heart pound to the beat of what should have been there inside, instead of her body. If you were standing on the outside, you would think it wasn’t broken at all. She heard the pressure of the brittle floorboards move closer to her hiding place and as those noises travelled, the hairs on her neck stiffened, sending a shiver down her spine. Finally, they stopped outside the clock. As Eliza heard the latch lift upwards she knew it was over, her hiding place had been demolished along with her pride. Because of the light from outside of the clock, she could not see Meghan’s face, only the outline of her long, blonde hair and her little frock. Meghan turned without a word seeping from her lips and quietly walked away. Eliza believed she was simply jealous because it was such a clever hiding place. Eliza followed Meghan through the hallways of dusty red wallpaper; peeling down the walls like mouldy fruit and reeking the stench of decay.

Meghan walked into a guest room within the house that had not been touched in decades. Even when they moved into the ancestral house, no one ever walked into this room. It held an atmosphere of sourness and rage, only which could be held by something not from this world; something inhuman. Eliza stood in the doorway, she tried to call her sister’s name. But when she opened her mouth, only a slight whisper trailed out as if her voice had been ripped from her throat. Meghan turned to look at Eliza, and when she did Eliza knew something wasn’t right. Meghan’s eyes were not the calming blue they usually were. They were red. Not a warm red, a sickening red. A red so thick you could drown and suffocate within it. A red so dark that it hit you deep in the chest, stopping the air from reaching your lungs.

She wanted to run, she wanted to scream for her parents to take her away, but she was frozen. She could not move a single muscle in her body. Her face had frozen so tight; her cheeks began to twitch. The one thing she could feel was a small, warm teardrop fall down her face and into her gaping mouth. She did not even notice the salty taste of the tear, because at that moment Meghan had begun to walk towards her. Slowly and ominously. And with every step, Meghan’s head dropped lower and lower. By the time she was only a few steps away from her sister, her face was so low yet her eyes stayed locked on Eliza. So much so that they nearly rolled to the back of her head. A grin slid across her face as she was inches from Eliza’s body. Her head titled like a wondering dog, curious and entertained at the sight of a little girl frozen with fear. Her hand slowly raised to Eliza’s mouth as if to take her soul from her chest. Before Eliza could even let out a fragment of noise, she was silenced.

Meghan dropped the limp body on the floor of the bedroom, allowing it to slowly convulse as the life drained from its eyes. Meghan closed the door and walked away as if the bronze door handle had never been touched. She walked back towards the secret hiding place, opened the latch once more and climbed into the grandfather clock. With only her red eyes keeping their form. Yet there is one thing I must tell you. This was not Meghan. For you see, Meghan was searching the garden for her sister. So who was the creature that led Eliza to that bedroom? Was it even a creature at all? What did want and why?

Now, we know who was really hiding in that clock when the real Meghan ventured towards it, but do you know who Meghan saw? That’s right, her sister Eliza, just as expected. At that moment before they could even interact, their parents called them to leave the house. As they walked towards the front doorway together, holding hands as always, Meghan looked over to Eliza who simply looked back and smiled an eerie smile. Present in figure, but dead on the inside. The one thing Meghan noticed that was especially odd about her sister; her eyes were no longer blue.