Help! She's here!

Chapter 2 She's Arrived

 Aly woke up suddenly in the middle of the night. It was freezing in her room, and she was sweating profusely. She wrapped herself tighter in her blankets, shivering. Then she noticed something odd. Her night light was turned off.

This was confusing because her parents never turned the night light off. They respected her understood that she was afraid of the dark, so they left it on for her all night. Aly thought back to right before she went to bed and remembered that she had turned it on before climbing into bed. So then was it off?

Aly decided to go ask her parents about it. "And while I'm up, I can turn up the heat," she thought, still feeling cold.

Wrapping herself tightly in her warmest blanket, Aly clambered out of bed and stumbled into the hall, still half asleep. It was even colder out there. She walked to the thermostat in the middle of the hall and was shocked at what she saw. It said that it was 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the house.

"It must be broken. There's no way that it could be that hot in here!" she thought, walking to her parents' room. To Aly's surprise, they weren't in their room as they usually would be so late at night. She shrugged, guessing that they were likely downstairs watching a movie or something along those lines.

She decided she would ask them about the night light in the morning. For now, she would just turn it on and go back to sleep. Aly turned around and left her parents' room. Behind her, a black cat slunk out of the shadows. 

Aly was on her way to her room when she was stopped by a voice, her mother. It came from nowhere and everywhere at once, echoing through the hallway. "Aly! Run! Leave the house! I was too late, but you might not be. If you can't get out, hide in the-" The voice was suddenly cut off and the house was once again filled with silence.

"Mom?" Aly called out, "Mom!" There was no response.

Confused and scared, Aly ran down the stairs. Her mother had never sounded so frightened. She dashed to the front door and threw it open. In place of the outside world, there was a brick wall. She stared at it, not knowing what to do. She heard a light giggle come from somewhere behind her and whipped her head around. There was nothing there. 

As she thought about the need to escape, Aly sprinted to the windows in the living room and tugged the curtains away. The windows had also been replaced by bricks. She ran to another room and found those windows were bricks as well. It didn't take her long to realize she was trapped in her house. Not knowing what to do next, Aly looked around. That's when she heard it.

Someone was singing a song similar to a round Aly knew from elementary school. It was a little girl. Every time she sang her little song, she would stop, giggle, then repeat. Whenever she started again, it sounded like she was getting closer. It sounded like she was upstairs in the hall nearing the staircase.

Aly stood, frozen. She stared at the staircase in terror, as a little girl appeared at the top of the stairs. Her eyes were completely empty and her smile spread from ear to ear. Her hair was tying into high pigtails. The dress she wore was purple and torn.

Snapping back into reality, Aly ran to the kitchen to find a hiding place.  She could hear the little girl downstairs now. She looked around and quickly stuffed herself into a cabinet. She held her breath as the voice of the girl entered the kitchen.

"Die, die, die again,

Join your mother soon!

Play with me, run with me, fall to your doom

Say goodbye to life"

She giggled, gleefully, "Aly! I know you're in here."

Aly listened closely. She could hear the little girl skipping  around the kitchen. She heard cabinets opening then shutting. Then all the noise stopped. Everything went silent. Aly held her breath, straining her ears to try and hear what was going on in the kitchen outside of her cabinet. Suddenly, there was a loud bang on the counter above the cabinet that Aly was in making Aly yelp.

"I FOUND YOU!" the little girl screamed giggling maniacally, "Come on out!"

To Aly's terror, the door slowly began to open. Through the crack in the door, Aly saw one of those empty eyes appear. It blinked and disappeared back behind the door. The door flew open and there stood the little girl from the abandoned house across the street.

Aly screamed and dove through the door into the kitchen. Without thinking twice, she got up and sprinted out into the open. She turned to face the little girl, who was slowly floating towards her. Aly glanced over her shoulder and saw the basement staircase only a few feet behind her. She leaped down the stairs and continued to run for her dear life. After rounding a corner, Aly stopped to catch her breath.

She couldn't hear any giggling behind her. It seemed that she had lost the ghost. Aly saw that a door that was usually locked was open ajar.

She slowly crossed over to the door and pushed it open. Her heart was pounding out of her chest. She looked around, and found that it looked like an extra bedroom. There was a bed with a bunch of toys on it. Aly walked to the bed and shoved the toys onto the ground. Then she flopped down onto it, exhausted.

Before she could close her eyes, she noticed a slight movement in the corner. She shot up into a sitting position to see a black cat sitting on the floor, licking it's paws. As if it had sensed her eyes on it, the cat looked up at her with mysterious blue eyes. Something about the eyes almost seemed human.