Miedo

Susanna cut some peppers and slowly tossed them to the simmering oil in the pan. She was preparing supper, as it was already eight in the evening, when all of a sudden�

***CRASHH***

The sound broke the infinite silence that engulfed the vast house, that Susanna accidentally cut her left index finger. Blood poured on the pepper and onto the frying pan. The hot pan produced an oddly colored smoke.

"MOMMM!!!"

Susanna forgets what she was doing at the sound of Jamie's voice, her eight-year-old daughter.

"JAMIE!!!"

She rushed off to the living room to find shattered pieces of the old glass sculpture on the floor. On the other side of the room, Jamie was sitting on the floor, looking at her left hand drenched in blood. Susanna noticed the blood on the floor, and she traced the trail left by blood in her carpet, to Jamie.

"What happened, Jamie?" Susanna's eyes were wide open in fright.

"Mommy," Jamie said while crying. "I saw a ghost."

"What?" Susanna opened the top drawer in the nearby cabinet, trying hard not to take off her gaze from Jamie, and the window above her.

"But Jamie, dear, there's no such things as ghost, haven't I already explained that to you?"

Susanna cleaned the wound on Jamie's hand, while barely catching on to her own breath. Images suddenly filled her head-images of her old house being torn down. As she was applying bandage on Jamie's wound, her eyes were fixed on the outside, as if trying to look for something that wasn't there. They'll never do that, I won't let them. She grit her teeth in anger.

"Mommy," Jamie noticed the strange expression on her mother's face.

"Huh, oh." Susanna was catapulted back to reality. "Now, look Jamie, I'm saying this for the last time, there is NO such things as GHOST."

"But, mommy�"

The pair of pale, gray eyes stared onto Jamie's, daring her to speak. Jamie instead looked down, as she realized that her mother had had enough of her foolishness.

"NOW GO TO YOUR ROOM!" The pale, loving eyes suddenly turned to dark, hateful eyes that seemed almost to burn with anger.

Jamie could do nothing but obey. Jamie climbed the worn staircase up to the second story, where her room was. She could still feel her mother's burning eyes upon her as she was climbing the stairs.

The place hasn't been cleaned in years, and the cobwebs hung on the ceilings, as well as the handles of the staircase and the doorknobs. Even during the day, light would not even dare to enter the house, as if it is being drawn out by an unseen force. The faintest sounds could be heard within the house, as though the house resonates it with its own will. On the outside, the house seemed haunted, and people haven't been scouring inside its walls for decades.

Over the years, for as long as she could remember, Jamie was never allowed to go outside. She was held within the house, like she was some prisoner. She even didn't go to school like the other "normal" children. She could only stare out her window and watch the children pass by, riding their bikes. Sometimes, the children would ring their doorbell for fun, when Jamie was about to open the door. But Susanna would stop her, saying that the other children would only "make fun of her". Jamie never even saw the sunlight.

Jamie walked pass the first door when a peculiar sound broke the immense silence�

creak�

creak�

Jamie tried to ignore the strange creak coming from the wooden floor. But it was far too hard to ignore as it was growing. It dared Jamie to look back.

"Who's there?" Jamie paused in the middle of the first and second rooms. She really had no explanation why to do this, but she tried not to breathe.

Unexpectedly, a gush of a wind passed through her, blowing her long, dark hair. She turned around, but she saw no one. She knew that it was the "ghost" again, and she made it mad.

"HUH-"

Jamie saw papers and pencils and other objects fly around in a whirlwind motion. Jamie wanted to scream, but she was held back in fear. The objects were being thrown about from the second story to the hall down below. Glass objects were again being shattered, and Jamie's wound was bleeding deeply again.

Jamie could no longer control herself�

"AAHHHHHH!!!"

to be continued...

Copyright 2001 by Dominic Sanchez.

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