The Curse of A Lifetime

Chapter 2

SARAH

Our family drove over to my dad's business partner's house for dinner. They wanted us to have a home-cooked meal for our "travels," as they said it.

Let me tell you this. Their house was no house, it was a fucking mansion.

Big circle driveway with huge blossom trees lining up and down their yard. Two, four-car garages with a pool and huge field in their backyard. Get this, there are only two of them that live there. The man who is named Chris Johnson and his son, Carter Johnson.

Before dinner, my mother gave my brother and me a lecture on being polite and behaving ourselves to our hosts. She didn't have to tell me twice. My dad and Mr.Johnson are in the lounge room talking about upcoming projects. My mother is talking to one of the cooks, there are seven so far that I have counted. Soran is talking with the boy from earlier, Carter.

I am sitting with them, but not saying anything. Just listening to them talk about sports and such. I learned that Mr.Carter Johnson is quite the party goer and is a sophomore.

"Honestly it's not too bad here besides the winters, but you're probably used to that." Carter says.

"Yeah, but we lived closer to the suburbs." Soran said as I smelt the delicious food waving from the kitchen.

My mom came around the wall and said, " Dinner is ready." The men got up and left for the kitchen, Carter followed.

Holy shit! The table was filled from corner to corner with a variety of colorful foods. On one side there is ham, turkey, chicken, salad, and other vegetables. On the other there is assortments of fruit, sandwiches, and things I have never seen before.

"I didn't know what you all liked nor could decide on what I wanted, so I ordered everything." Mr.Johnson chuckled.

"This is plenty, thank you." My mother says. My dad said, "This could feed an army."

To my right, I noticed an open chair, so I slid the chair out and sat down. "You can't sit there." The bad boy with a temper, hissed at me."No, she can sit there, Carter." Mr.Johnson scolded his son, "It is okay, I can move." No one said anything after that, I stood up and scooted the chair back in. I grabbed the one to the right of it, for shits and giggles, I made eye contact with Carter and he just rolled his eyes.

Rude.

We all sat down, out of habit, my family all grabbed each other's hands and we began to silently praying to the lord.

Dear Lord, thank you for this food and safe delivery to our new home. Amen. Short and sweet. Kind of like me.

Talking among themselves, I could feel a pair of eyes on me, so I looked up and made eye contact with the party boy.

I awkwardly looked away and turned to Soran. "Do you think we could watch a movie tonight?" He didn't respond so I asked again, "Soran, can we watch a movie tonight?" Without looking at me, "yeah." Soran and I loved watching movies together. Every Sunday night we watched a movie. Even though today is Saturday, I think it would be nice.

Throughout dinner, my dad and Mr.Johnson talked and my mom chimed in every once in a while. Soran didn't say much and Carter sat quietly eating dinner. I could tell something was off with Carter. From him being so adamant this morning he is now silent. I mean there are strangers in his house eating his food, but there is something else.

After we all finished dinner, the table was cleared and the dessert was brought out.

The whole house has high ceilings and the walls were pretty much bare except for a couple of paintings or photos that could be famous. There was one painting in particular that grabs my attention. A young boy riding his bike. The colors were abstract, not matching realistic standards. There were purple and blue mountains in the background, the boy was riding his bike on this green dirt path. The bike was yellow and the boy himself was red. Kind of an odd mix, but it looked cool.

"I really love that painting," I pointed to it on the wall.

"Thank you, my wife painted it many years ago." Mr.Johnson said. Suddenly, Carter stood up and excused himself. He walked out of the kitchen into a different room.

"I'm sorry about him, my wife passed away two years ago and he still has trouble coming to terms with it." He explained.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that." he nods his head, "If I knew I wouldn't have said anything."

"Don't be silly, we miss her dearly, but it's nice to talk about her." He went back to finishing his dessert.

Dessert was over and my family was about to leave back to our little cottage home. "Thank you for dinner, we very much appreciate it." My dad said. "Thank you for making the move here to help with the company. It is the least I can do for you." He waved us goodbye and we got into the car.

Soran and I are watching a movie we found on Netflix. We are about one hour in when I get an off feeling in my gut. Maybe it was the food from dinner, I had an apple walnut salad with raspberry vinaigrette dressing. Maybe the lettuce was bad. I made my way to the bathroom and kneeled over the toilet. A wave of nausea and black drained me. I stayed there for five minutes and nothing happened. I felt cold and hot at the same time, it was touch and go.The feeling went away and I got back up and went to the couch again.

That was weird, it was getting kind of late, so I went up to my room for the time being. It was huge. Even though it was the smallest out of all of the bedrooms. It was a lot nicer than my old room, I think that is just because the negative entity would always knock things over or take my stuff and hide it. I never had anything valuable sitting out unless I was using it.

I haven't unpacked anything yet because I was too scared to. I didn't want to risk anything happening to it, nor did I have the majority of my things with me.

I sat in the silk sheet bed and looked out the glass doors on the balcony. Yes, I have a balcony attached to my room. I think that is pretty cool. Besides my parents, I am the only one that has it, Soran doesn't. I don't think he cares though.

The walls are bare except for one painting of a sunset on the far wall closer to the door. I have a walk-in closet that is decent-sized. Since we will be here for a month, I decide to start unpacking. I took my headphones out of my backpack and plugged them into my phone. I put my phone in my back pocket and opened up my suitcase. Halfway through unpacking, my music stopped. I took my phone out and noticed my music was paused. "That's weird." I played it again and it worked.

I kept unpacking until I was finished, I looked at the time and it read 1:33 am. I must have lost track of time, I think I started around 9 pm. I turned off the light to my room and headed over to Soran's room. I knocked on the door and didn't hear anything, so I walked in. Soran was asleep in his bed. His leg was sticking out of the covers, so I pushed it back in and covered it. His phone was laying on top of his chest, so I plugged it into its charger on the side table next to the bed.

I saw he got a notification.

Carter

We can get breakfast tomorrow at the dinner in town, I'll pick you up at 9.

Since when did he get his number? Why wasn't I invited? I walked out of his room and back into mine.

Okay, you can do this. I walked over to the side table and turned on the lamp. Next, I turned off the ceiling light and got into bed. I don't think I am ready to sleep with the light off yet. Especially if I am sleeping alone in a new place.

I lay awake looking at the ceiling until sleep took over me. I woke up about two hours later sweating my ass off. I had a nightmare about the entity in the old house and I couldn't fall back asleep.

I didn't want to wake Soran because this is the first time in a while he had gotten decent sleep and me sleeping at all. I stayed in my room and decided to draw while listening to music.

For the next four hours, I drew whatever came to my mind. I drew some flowers, and portraits of people, but they turned into melting flowers and disoriented people. I heard Soran walk out of his room, so I decided to go see if I could go the diner with him and Carter. 

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