Alexandra was in the kitchen making a bologna sandwich for Raphael. It was a little late, around 1pm, but he and she had been outside since nine and lost track of time. Now, she was making lunch for him while he watched some mindless video on the TV. Although she didn't enjoy spending her free time watching her younger brother, it wasn't the worst thing she was told to do. Besides, he was a fairly easy kid compared to some of the other ones she had met.
"ALIEEEE!" Well, most of the time.
"What's up, Ralph," Alexandra called back, still focused on finishing his lunch. She had added a few chips to his plate and was working on chopping up some carrots as a side as well. She made sure the portions were very small, for he was not very big on eating, mostly due to his size and age, and usually left most of it when he went to go play again.
"I'm hungry," Raphael whined, which just caused Alexandra to roll her eyes. This is the third time he has said that. In the past five minutes.
"Be patient buddy, the food is almost done, geez." She poured a cup of water before bringing both the food and water to the dining room, which was connected to the kitchen, almost a part of it.
She went into the living room and gave her brother a stare down. He was transfixed on the TV, which had some mindless kids show on it that she hated. Unfortunately, every time she tried to change it to something even slightly more educational, her brother threw a fit and started screaming at the top of his lungs. So she never did, and as much as she hated the shows, it was not her job to keep her brother from watching them.
"Hey, the food is at the table." Alexandra said while standing in front of the TV.
"No! Move!" Raphael looked at his sister and pouted.
"You have been asking for food for the past hour, sit down and eat!" Alexandra demanded while walking in his direction. He promptly got up and ran into the dining area. She sighed and sat down on the couch.
She looked down at her phone. Her parents had been gone all morning at work, and her other brother was out searching for job applications. That left her watching Raphael until at least three, when her dad got home from work. She didn't know what she was going to do for the time, though. Her parents didn't want her going out to the boardwalk, for obvious reasons, and they didn't want her to have friends over either. She had occasionally sent a text or two to Paislee while watching her brother, but she had been busy all morning either playing with him or making food that she never really had the time.
Around ten minutes went by of her scrolling through social media before her brother started calling for her. Assuming he was done with his food, she got up and went into the kitchen. She knew at this point that there was a routine for him to follow: brushing his teeth, reading a book, and then taking a nap for an hour in the parents room一where he had started sleeping for the past couple of nights because the woods scared him.
After finishing up in the bathroom, Alexandra and Raphael went to the parents' room. He was babbling about wanting to bring trucks with him to bed, which Alexandra had to remind him he couldn't do because he was about to go to sleep. He crawled into their bed, and Alexandra walked over to tuck him in. They said goodnight to each other, and Alexandra went to go turn the light off. Suddenly, she tripped on a loose board and crashed into the wall.
"Ow, good God!" She shouted while grabbing her leg, which had scratched against the wood floor. She was tearing up and pulled her knee close to her.
"Alie, are you okay," Raphael asked while sitting up in bed.
"Uh, yeah I'm alright," she responded while looking down at her leg. It did not look nearly as bad as it felt, just slightly red and scratched. She peered over her knee and noticed that the floorboard had been torn up when she tripped on it. "Oh... oh no."
She crawled over to it and saw that it was nearly broken in half, the board was disconnected with the rest of the floor, and cracked at the end. Worried about the damage she caused, she got up to go and text her parents. Until she saw something under the floorboard.
She got back down and examined closer. It appeared to be a journal, backed by leather backing and covered in dust. She reached in, very carefully as to not hurt herself again, and grabbed the journal from under the board. It did not look like anything her parents would own, and if it was, they certainly would not keep it under a random floorboard of the house. There was a key attached to it, but there no lock to go with it. She peered back into the hole and didn't see anything that resembled a lock either. Quickly flipping through the pages, she realized that it was probably from prior owners of the house, especially because the writing was in complete cursive.
"What are you doing?" Raphael had gotten out of bed and was standing in front of her. She looked up, looked at the floorboard, and instantly picked him up and pulled him away.
"WHOAH, careful buddy. The floor just came up."
"Oh." She put him down, and he crawled back into bed. Then, she turned to flip the light switch and walked out the door to go to her room, where she planned on studying this new journal she had acquired in detail.
YOU ARE READING
Family (WIP VERSION)
ParanormalWIP DESCRIPTION It was late and Alexandra was lying in bed thinking about what had happened over the past three days. She spent the first couple of days unpacking, which wasn't that fun but needed to be done. That isn't what she was mainly focusing...
