vox mortem; the conjuring

ƒσυя; ∂уιηg яσѕєѕ

Once breakfast came around, Jane had dozed off in one of the armchairs in the living room.

After a cup of steaming tea, sleep had come quicker than she could even hold off and Lorraine, seeing how exhausted the girl had been, had no heart to wake her and direct her back upstairs. From where the children had slept, she took two thicker blankets and covered Jane to grant her as much of the warm she was missing as possible.

And with her breakfast plate now empty and discarded, she was sitting at the table by her husband's side, both holding cups of coffee. The tapes and developing photographs were strewn out before them.

"How're you feeling, honey?"

Ed yawned at the question, rubbing over his eyes with one hand. After staying up all night he sure was tired, but considering that this time, someone else had been in the center of the spirits' nightly terror, he was not as shaken as he usually would have been.

"In need of a few hours of sleep. But I'm alright. You?"

Lorraine nodded in return, unable to stifle a yawn as well. "Me too. The night was not too bad."

"It's nice not being in the middle of the danger for once, hm?"

Looking at each other, both quietly chuckled, before Lorraine turned her head to face the back of the armchair. She could see one of Jane's hands hanging over its side, strands of unkept black hair peeking out from behind the material. The woman's tired smile faltered a little.

"It was a bit too much for her first night, I think."

Ed merely hummed in agreement, following his wife's gaze. He could tell that she was worrying like she would worry over a daughter of her own; but maybe that's what instincts did to a mother when her own child is absent. He too, felt an odd sense of responsibility, obliged to look out for Jane and make sure she stayed out of harm's way. A task, at which he had already failed a few hours ago.

He shook himself out of his thoughts, gently placing a hand onto Lorraine's shoulder. "Let her sleep. We should check out the tapes."

Lorraine took a second before finally turning back, nodding at Ed with a small smile. "Alright. Let's do it."

Three tapes had been recorded in the course of a night. Choosing the second one, Ed carefully placed it into the player, before exchanging one last look with Lorraine. The woman nodded - he pressed a button.

"Time, one am. Three hours until the end of haunting hour. Up until now, we've had no signs of activity."

A short pause, in which Ed had contemplated whether to stop the recording. But he had decided against it in the end, figuring it would then be just a waste of tape. Thinking back, he was glad he didn't.

"Jane, are you getting anything up there?"

The faint buzzing of the radio sounded grainy in the recording, before Jane's voice rang through."No, nothi-"

What the girl had heard after, had been too quiet to appear in the recording. Ed leaned closer to the player, careful not to miss any details.

"I heard a movement in the hallway."

"I'll go see."

The radio sounded again, it was the moment Jane had discarded it and left to investigate the noise. In the recording, Lorraine's voice then sounded closer than the girls'.

"Jane, don't go. I repeat - don't. They want to trick you. They want to lure you out."

The pause in which the Warrens' waited for Jane's response. It never came.