Are the doors unlocked?

[Part 9] 10/21/1990: 1 day to fade

Two days. Two days left for you to understand the destiny of my future. Not only mine, but my sister's as well. I really miss her, but I hope she's in peace with herself.

This day was different from the previous ones. Thankfully, there were no apparitions, but some things were going to happen.

10:23 pm. I was sitting on my couch, and my sister was in the kitchen.

The atmosphere was calm. Since the apparition of that group of people in the hospital, I have not seen or heard anything. Of course I knew something must happen, they weren't gone. I could feel them, I knew they were here.

The night was rainy. The sky was full of thick layer of clouds, and some thunder could be heard.

I still remember those balloons they had in their hands. I knew where they came from, I tried to remember, but I wasn't able. The look on their faces, like they were attempting to try something, but they didn't want me to be under disadvantage while they enjoyed what they wanted to do to my soul.

My sister was a little worried. She didn't sleep, eat or drink during the whole day. Several times I got up to see what she was doing. She was standing in the kitchen, in front of the open faucet, watching the water pouring out of it on its way to the pipes where it would be lost. She was standing in the same place I was the first time I saw Aunt Sylvia physically for the first time.

Although I was trying to stay calm, so as not to upset my sister, I was scared. It was late, and I knew these things could show up at any time. Behind my back, through images on TV, in the kitchen, in the garden, in any square meter of my house, which instead of being the place where any human can rest and feel protected, for my sister and me it felt like hell brought to earth.

My parents weren't at home. They told me that they weren't going to be back till the next day, after breakfast. I could see the expression on my father's face. He's got a new job, in a mental health clinic, not far from home, just a few miles away. He looked like he was finally going to pull through, but I could see in his eyes that he was only lying. His job was just an excuse to stay away from home.

He got this job so he could somehow understand my sister and me. We had been going crazy this week. We didn't eat, we didn't sleep, our eyes had worrying dark circles under our eyes, and we were a mess. Somehow he wanted to help, even though we knew he would not.

10:26 pm. I heard a noise. ''Not again, fuck'', I said aloud. ''What's wrong?'', my sister asked me as she was approaching the living room.

''I smell gas filling the house, don't you smell it?'' I asked her, worriedly. I didn't receive an answer.

I stood up and went to check what was going on. As I expected, it was broken. I didn't know how to fix it, so I started to get desperate.

All of the sudden, I heard some footsteps behind me.

As I turned my head, I saw her. Don't worry; she hasn't made her routine appearance yet. It was my sister. ''What are you doing?'' I told to her. She was standing, just like my aunt Sylvia always did. Her eyes were white, and she was totally paralyzed. I tried to touch her, to bring her back to her senses, but there was no result.

After a few seconds, she fell to the ground, and I tried to hold her. I saw tears coming out of her eyes. ''What had happened to you?'' I tried to ask her for information. ''Fire,'' she replied.

I remembered the vision I had in my dream, the day before. It was something about a forest, and it was starting to catch fire. There was some connection, and I sensed it. At that moment, a thud sounded from the living room.

We went, cautiously, to see what was happening now, while gas kept spreading through the house.

When we got to the living room, the TV had fallen to the floor, with the screen facing down. With my sister joining forces, we managed to put it back in its place. We stepped back a little, and we saw the face of my aunt Sylvia, her face was drawn on the screen. It wasn't done with paints or anything like that. When the TV fell, the screen had magically broken so that her face was formed, although we both knew that our own aunt had caused it.

Then, we turned our bodies in the direction of the couch, as we wanted to sit down for a little bit to calm down. But, before we could sit down, we saw some blood stains, and a kind of foam. I knew a little bit what it meant, and so did my sister. We proceeded to hold hands, which she had frozen and shaking. We nodded and closed our eyes. I remember feeling a strong connection, as if we were both merging together to figure out where what was on the couch was coming from.

It was the year 1976. Uncle Gary was lying on the couch. He had suffered massive cardiac attacks. At my young age, I remember watching him smoke at least 4 packs of cigarettes a day, and when I visited his house I always had to walk over a lake of beer cans. My aunt never helped him, even though they pretended to love each other. He was already in his 50's, but his quality of life was of a person over the age of 80. I remember my parents going to his house several days in the summers. We could stay alone for hours, with my sister, who was a few months old, and me, who was only a year and a few months old, with some provisions on the floor, to be able to feed ourselves. 7 or 8 hours could pass, with no trace of our parents. I think that may have fueled the madness we are in now.

My aunt was standing at the scene of my uncle's death, next to the TV, with one hand resting on it, as she watched her husband's life fade away in front of her eyes. My parents were there too, watching this man's life end. I also remember that there were about 3 or 4 doctors, trying to save his life, as there was no time to get to the hospital.

Suddenly, foam with some traces of blood would start coming out of his mouth, that same foam we would see 14 years later, fresh as if it had just come out of him.

When we got back to reality, the foam was not on top of the couch anymore, and the TV was back to its previous state, as if it had not fallen. In my bedroom, laughter began to be heard, as if they were laughing at us.

We ran up the stairs, knowing that something was there. I went first, because if something was there preparing to finish us, I wanted it to finish me first.

When we arrived, there was nothing there. But, from the window, I started to hear the sound of fire. Smoke was starting to enter my room. ''Could it be the gas?'' I wondered, having no idea what was out there and not knowing how the gas system worked.

We both looked out the window, but it was a little difficult to see the garden because of the smoke.

At one point I could see what it said: "Tomorrow". The word was made up of flares that joined together to form it.

''Tomorrow...,'' I said out loud, since my sister still couldn't read what was drawn on the ground of my garden.

I remembered the scream of that dream I had the day before. ''22 October,'' the scream said. It was obvious to me, they would strike tomorrow.

I didn't know if it would be just my aunt and uncle, or if it would be the group of people I had seen the day before from the hospital window. The point is that everything would happen tomorrow, today we were lucky.

When we went downstairs, the fire outside had gone out, but the word ''Tomorrow'' had been imprinted in the burnt grass.

I decided to go downstairs to check the gas, as I wanted to fix it. When I got there, the gas was fixed, and its smell was no longer permeating the house. I also saw, in the gas shutoff valve, some dust, the same dust that we have been seeing for the past few days. It was all clear to me now.

That night, after seeing what the flames wanted to communicate to us, we didn't sleep all night. We spent it chatting about what we would do once all this was over, although it wouldn't be anytime soon.