"The place is almost done" she chirped like a soft singing bird. her hair, long curly deep red like a forest in the midst of fall, skin pale but glowing with life, freckles slppered on her face, and a large smile. She skipped to the living room and turned to a door. "Only one last place to clean, I wish I did this sooner." she exclaimed. Opening the door she was greeted to a familiar scratching metal noise "oil, that's what I frogot to buy". Old stairs that squeal when stepped on, no time passes to get to the bottom of them. A little string attached to the cleling is pulled illuminating a large, once dark, unfinnished basment. "So many boxes" she sighs and pulls out a dark green scrunch from seemingly nowhere and puts her hair up "time to go to work".
About an hour later she comes across an old phone "I thought I lost this" she said in disbelief. "Oh I wonder how cringy I was back then" she cringed at the thought. She opened the phone and to her suprize it was fully charged, she dosent pay much mind. She immediately goes to her camera roll and scrolls stright down two the bottom without hesitation.
She slowly goes throw the photos with old friends, family, pets, and the really old cringy trends. Then there is a point where she scrolls and its black, then overexposed with a faint person, then it's another one with a person sleeping "yeah, I remember I use to take photos of my friends when they slept to tease them in the morning" she said hesitantly. She scrolls to the next and the next, and their taken in very strange angle's, like their from a hole, a crack, some bars, there hard to make out but there is one photo that was alot more clear, it was a girl with red hair, opening up her new phone. By this point she was not smile and has stopped scrolling "I-I dont.. understand..." she scrolls to the next one, it's her, sleeping, holding someone's hand. Her breath becomes heavy, she starts to frantically scroll. She sees dozens is not millions of photos of her in bed, in the washroom, at work and around her house. She reaches the end the most recent photo beeing not surprisingly her, exept this was taken a coupple of hours ago, she starts to stand up she can barely think. She doesn't know what to do, this person could have been taking photos of her for years, and then it set in "a-are they.. still in here" she freezes. She slowly looks around. The silence is deafening. Without warning a groan from the pipes and vents scare away the silence, in the sheer terror of her situation she screams but everything goes silent, "ha.. this old house really does know how to sc-" she stops and looks, two wide eye's are staring at her from a crawl space coverd by a vent. She sees a small droplet of blood at the base of it. Her mind goes blank, her vision gets fuzzy and seems to be going dark, but she is still conscious and can move sloppily. She starts to walk to the vent as the darger like eyes pierce her, shuffling her feet breathing that echoes in her head pounding more and more as she aprotches, she reaches for the vent and at this point she isnt thinking rationally "Why. What are you. Who are you. Why are you here. Get out" this repeats in her head on a loop. The adrenalin takes over and she grasps the cold wretched vent.
I am greeted to the sound of soft rain and chirps in the morning. I take a deep breath one that gets a little more difficult every morning. Listening to the rain I feel at peace, drip, drip, drip and then a splash socking yet familiar. I watch him run and play untill he has no more energy left. He walks in with the biggest smile on his face, oh how happy it makes me feel to see him joyful. I make his favorite, french toast. I dont know if it's the cinnamon making it hard to breath or the fan above my head breathing in all of the oxygen around us, it doesnt matter. I feel tired today unlike most, I sit at our table and hand him his food, he looks so happy. After he finish his food we go and sit on our old and worn out couch, I wish I could afford a better one, but he likes it so it doesnt matter. We watch his favorite movie, We must have seen it more then a hundred times by now and I still dont get it. Now it is time for me to get his things to head to school, but I needed to sit down. tick, tick, tick, my eyes open to see that I passed out, I check the time it's been three hours. I go to check on him he's slumped on our couch weeping, I try and apologize but he wount let up. "Well stay home and you can play with me" I asked "I hate playing with you mommy!" He yelled "I want to play with my friends and not with boring old mommy". His friends were always very deer to him and he always gets upset when he cant meet with them. "Its ok deer, you'll see them tomorrow" I assured he wouldn't respond, he looks so cute when hes grumpy. I sighed and said I love you, still no response. I walk to my room it's become a very difficult task, I lay down listening to the drips slowly fade, drip, drip, drip... and I can feel myself leaving as the last one drops, my vision going black I whispered to myself "if only I had more time" I hope he wount be angry with me, the last thing I hear is silence, but then a faint "sorry" as it all disappears.