Psychopath

Her father lay dead on the floor, neck twisted in a way that shouldn't have been possible. Her mother hung from the banister, her bare feet brushing the carpeted floor. Crimson soiled the clothes hanging around her thin frame. Adaline wasn't sure whose it was.

"I'll find you soon." Her young, honeyed tones resounded through the house, coming from everywhere and nowhere. Adaline sprinted to the front door, fumbling with the lock. It wouldn't budge, just as she'd expected. The girl's laugh echoed through the hallway.

"You can't escape the inevitable."

She stood at the end of the hallway, ghostly pale nightgown billowing behind her, dark, rich blood dripping down her pale brown skin, yet no wound was to be seen. Moonlight glowed like a halo over her head of dark, long, wavy hair. She was anything but an angel. Ethereal beauty, and eldritch grace so absolute it suggested an inhuman presence.

"Please," Adaline pleaded.

Not an ounce of mercy in those mesmerizing brown eyes.

The nightmare had come true.

A whisper of wind, the click of a finger, and the icy embrace of Death finally held Adaline.

Another story finished.

Another fragment of pain floating away.

Silence downstairs, so absolute it was suffocating. But, like a deep-sea fish, I'd adapted to it, maybe even relished it. I don't think I could survive without the quiet.

Soon enough, I heard the familiar call of 'Dinner!' through the music blaring on my headphones. I descended the rickety stairs, counting the each of the sixteen steps like I'd done since... about as far back as I can remember.

I sensed it before I saw it. The smell of iron sent my skin tingling.

Nothing I could ever write could have prepared me for the sight I was met with.

I walked into the kitchen and found a little boy, maybe eight, bent over my father.

I couldn't move, fixated on the boy eviscerating my father.

Finally, he noticed me. Tufts of fair hair stuck out from behind his ears like bat ears, curling softly at the ends. He had a small face, with soft features, a rounded jaw, and a delicate nose. He stared at me curiously with eyes that shifted and glittered like the ocean, and were as many shades of blue. Cerulean, azure, navy, every shade of blue I could imagine and more.

"Hello," he said amicably. He had a well-articulated, hard-to-place accent. "Who are you?"

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. Instead, I found myself approaching the corpse of my father.

His warm, brown eyes were open and glassy; I could still see the residual terror in them. Blood ran like water down from his stomach, and a small pool of it lay near his head, presumably from a wound on the back of his head. His skin was pale, cold to the touch. Hesitantly, fearing I already knew the answer, I pressed a finger to his wrist. No pulse.

"What did you do to him?" I cried, horrified.

The boy tilted his head to one side, as if he was confused.

"He wanted to play with me," he responded, like this should explain everything. He perked up, as if he'd had an ingenious idea. He smiled a beautifully empty smile, flashing flawless white teeth with no emotion. "Would you like to play with me?"

My feet moved without listening to my brain, but it wouldn't have mattered; they said the same thing: run. I stumbled away from the boy with a knife in his hands, away from the corpse of my father, and towards the closest exit, the front door.