Uninvited Guests

The screams began before dawn.

From each house echoing down the barren road, the screams occurred in canon. When one string of screams ended, another one began, it happened for hours, with not a single living soul stirring. The cacophony of low wails, screeches and screams battled each other, some occurring from the pits of people's minds and some from the raging snowstorm outside.

The boy sat up in his bed. Goosebumps crawled up his arm. Another nightmare had wrenched him back to consciousness. Nobody wanted to be woken by a nightmare on their sixth birthday, especially him. As the faint rays of sunlight trickled through the iced over windows, he took deep breaths and allowed his heart rate to slow.

He took a trembling step off his bed. His legs wobbled as he attempted to steady his racing thoughts. The floor board was icy, and creaked under his footsteps, and something swept him off his feet. He felt the air rush out of his lungs and was replaced by a large inhale of freezing air. His eyes widened in shock and darted around, looking for any sign of what had made him trip, a flicker came from the corner of his eye. His heart pounded, he swore he saw the doorknob open. He swivelled around and his mouth dropped in horror.

His sister stood in the centre of his room, just a few metres from him, with a small smile playing on her lips. His sister who had perished years ago, due to a case of bubonic plague. He could still hear her writhes of pain as she took the final breaths, before Death permanently trapped her in his suffocating grasp.

This wasn't right, none of this was, she couldn't be here. She just couldn't. He rushed to his window trying to force the words or sounds out of his mouth, but nothing came out, it never had. He risked a look behind him, and the flashbacks of her death began ringing in his mind.

They had her strapped to a bed, sweat beaded around her forehead and her clothes were drenched. She was burning hot, she thrashed about, black swells covered her throat, her breathing became more ragged, almost like a wheeze. He knew, even at the young age he was, every breath she took, she came closer to the end. She shuddered and coughed up yet more blood, this time her eyes didn't open and for the first time in those few months of agony she looked at peace.

He shaked himself out of the memory, he began relentlessly pounding at the window, not even recognising the blood that began seeping out of his knuckles.

He felt her near and all the memories both good and bad swallowed him whole, when the world went black.

He was not the one one that day, through the crisp, cold air the town had witnessed horrors that they had hoped had been banished from their minds. Why were these uninvited guests here?