Not Alone

The thing about being alone is, when you are alone there’s a deep gash in you that no food, medicine, weapon or armor can cure or protect you from. And that gash is the absence of a companion. However, I wasn’t alone on that day. I had friends. However, they weren’t actually alive anymore.

September 20, 1995

7:00 PM

The raindrops beat down against the roof, and the thunder rumbled through the skies above. Outside of my window I could see the almost nothing through the rain and the pitch-black dark. The lights were out too meaning the TV, refrigerator and microwave would not work, and I had to live in this abyss of darkness. In addition, the telephone lines were down too. Mom was probably in her office working in her late-night shift. Her office was about 2 miles away from our house. Meanwhile, the nearest neighbor was a mile away. And dad? He wasn’t even in this town ever since mom and dad’s divorce, and my brother was living with dad. To comfort me, all I had was a candle, a matchbox with only four matchsticks, a piece of paper, a pencil and a chocolate bar. When dad and my brother came to visit us, brother would always joke, “Emma, I’m telling you, there’s something twisted about this town.” He was probably right. All the cold feelings of trepidation, anxiety, and boredom perfectly mixed together to devour upon my sanity.

7:30 PM

After a short nap, in my candlelit bedroom I started to sketch out a drawing of me and Charlotte playing in the backyard. When I was seven, mom and I had moved into this house and a year later we started to hear stories of the disappearances of children in the town. Charlotte was one of these children, in fact she was the first. It was a year ago, when this occurred. Just a day before her disappearance we were playing in the park. It was fun, and after an hour of playing, when the sun was dipping into the horizon, Charlotte said she had to go home. I insisted for her to play for five more minutes, but she refused. And the next day she was gone.

7:45 PM

Finished with my sketch of me and Charlotte, I started to think about the three other kids who had vanished, John, May and Tyler. All of these kids were my friends. John and May were siblings and they got along quite well, and their disappearance was quite similar to Charlotte’s. The day before their disappearance we were playing in the same park, and we played for the same amount of time. When the sun was dipping into the horizon, John said to May that they should go home. Once again, I insisted for them to play for five more minutes, and again they refused. The next day, they were gone. Some people started theorizing that the park was cursed, but then came Tyler’s story. Tyler’s disappearance was completely different. You see, Tyler was a very kind, intelligent and athletic boy and in school our school he was very popular. We were friends for a while, but then Tyler stopped playing with me. When ever I would approach him, he would just push me away. Finally, one day I confronted him in the school’s hallway by asking why he stopped playing with me. Then he just casually replied that I was very clingy and dependent, and he didn’t like it. After that he just walked away. The next day he was gone.

8:00 PM

I started to get thirsty and decided to get some water from the kitchen. I lit up the candle and walked through the corridor our house. It was a relatively empty house indeed. Though, it had most of the necessary furniture and appliances for any average house. It just lacked feeling. No, family photos, paintings or maybe even the small crafts kids would make in kindergarten. The lack of feeling and shadows of black coalesced to form a feeling of uneasiness. The only sound that filled the house was the rainfall and thunder. I fearfully looked behind only to see nothing. Ever since the disappearance of children had started, I had always stayed wary of what was there and what was not. I assured myself that no one was in the house except me, but I knew that wasn’t exactly true. I quickly walked towards the kitchen and got a cup out of the shelf. Our kitchen wasn’t much. We had a fridge, microwave, stove, oven, shelves and sink. As I walked towards the kitchen sink, my candle blew out, leaving me in the gloomy dark. I searched my pockets for the matchbox, only to realize I had left in the bedroom. Swiftly, with my memory of the house’s layout I filled my cup with water and drank in only one gulp and proceeded towards my room. CRACK! A momentary flash of lightning… revealed the dark silhouette of a girl. I gasped in horror and dropped the candlestick even though I was sure that it was just my imagination, but I didn’t want to roll the dice. I ran towards my mom’s room but bumped into the dining table and fell backwards. A window crashed open to my side and allowed the cold wind and rain into the house.  I quickly got back up and without knowing where I was going, I ended up in the garage. How was I supposed to stay here? The garage was filled mom’s unusual inventory of items and was occupied by spiders and snakes. In fact, I felt something crawling up my leg. I shrieked and smacked the thing crawling on to my leg, and heard it scurry into the dark.  I remembered that the garage had a matchbox somewhere in the drawers. I searched for the drawers in the large and dark room while bumping into a few things. Eventually I found it. I immediately opened the drawer and started feeling through it to see if I could find the box. I grabbed something small and hairy with an unusual shape. Suddenly, it started wriggling in my hand and I realized it was a spider…

I shrieked and threw it on the ground. I put my hand in the drawer again hoping to find the matchbox and finally felt the shape of a matchbox with hand. At last I had found it! I never thought I would be so happy to find a match box. I snatched it out of the drawer, took a match out of it and lit it only to regret ever coming in the garage. The light from the matchstick uncovered the face of girl with, pitch black, empty eye sockets with black circles underneath them, grey, pale skin, and black hair. I screamed in terror and fell backwards towards the wall. Fear devoured me. My match had gone out, meaning I could not see and that I would die without knowing. And there I sat curled into a ball, keeping my eyes tightly shut, waiting for my death. For a while nothing happened. I opened my eyes only to see the same darkness. With whatever courage I had left I got up and put my hand in front of me to feel my surroundings. My hand touched something, and immediately, goosebumps ran down my spine, as I knew it was the girl’s face. I was about to scream and run back into my corner, but I noticed something odd. The skin of the girl felt like… clay? And she hadn’t moved either. I realized that mom had a hobby of sculpting and this may have been one of her sculptures. I searched for my matchbox on the floor. I found it near the drawers and lit a match to see the face. My inference was correct. The face was held on a rod with a flat base on the bottom. I sighed in relief. Why would mother make such a hideous thing? I thought, and then headed out of the garage.

8:15 PM

With my matchstick, instead of going to my room I headed toward the attic upstairs. Whenever I felt alone, I came up here because I knew I wasn’t alone here. I liked it here in the attic. It contained a small bed, a desk, a chair, two drawers filled books, sketches I drew, a photo of my family, some old antiques that mom had collected and a big cabinet. I suddenly remembered the day when I asked mom to put her antics in the attic. Mom thought it was a very strange request, but in the end she agreed. Mom kept the antiques preserved in various chemicals that produced a strong odor. The only people who ever came up here were Charlotte, John, May and Tyler. They all came here on the last day they were seen. They said it smelled weird, but through the flaws of this room I could only see its strengths. I walked towards the cabinet and opened it revealing 4 figures piled on top of each other. It was my little collection, and with it I never felt alone. After looking at my collection, I went to bed, waiting for the next day when I could add on to my collection.