Number 667

Chapter Eleven

Vivian slammed herself against the door, again trying in vain to get in the old house. She had expected the door to break on contact, but it was made of a strange substance that was neither metal nor wood, nor anything Vivian had seen before. The odd substance was covered with a thick coat of peeling green paint, giving Vivian insight to the material below.

Again, Vivian slammed her quaking frame onto the door, hearing a slight crack from inside. She was making progress, she thought.
Vivian had come to the strange house to look for Maple. Well, not exactly. She had been looking for Maple, but she had noticed a rustling in the curtains of the window. So, she assumed that Maple was inside the house. And, of course, she was incredibly agitated with the door, because she was used to the world bending and twisting to fit her will. But this door?

Apparently not.

Vivian leaned against the door, picking up a stick - one that was the least dirty in the yard, mind you - and tried shoving her body into the door as the same time as the stick. She cried out in frustration.

Just as the door opened wide and she fell.

The fall to the basement floor was not long, but Vivian could see light streaming from the hole of splintered wood that she had made in the floor. The basement floor was not hard, it was old, rotting carpet, and other than that there was nothing else in the room except for a door. She could see a shaft of light from under the door, so she assumed that it could be a way out. She clambered up from the floor, not even noticing the dirty streaks across her clothes, and opened the door.

It was not the way out.
Behind the door was a white room, white walls and white floor, with white furniture everywhere. And everything was just so, the way Vivian liked it. The candle as perfectly in the center of the table. The bowl was right in the center of the birch wood coffee table. And Vivian liked the use of modern furniture as well.

Vivian sniffed, smelling a wonderful, intoxicating scent from another room. She wandered there, looking around, but no one was there. Suddenly, someone spoke.

"Oh dear, come with me, you're all dirty." Vivian turned around to see a tall, skinny woman with straight black hair and bright orange-brown eyes looking at her. She wore a tight dress that was all white, and she held another Academy uniform in her hands. But... For some strange reason, Vivian felt like she knew this woman. Yes, she did, she was... Her aunt? Yes, that seemed right. And she trusted her. Of course she did. And she was... Staying here? Right! While her parents went on a trip! A long trip.

The woman, who said to call her Auntie, led her to a room that looked exactly like Vivian's old room. White walls, white everything, almost, and with her shining all-A report card tacked to the wall. Auntie left for Vivian to change - which she did, and she thought it looked better than her other Academy uniform - and then returned to give Vivian a cup of tea - chamomile, her favorite.

As Vivian lay on the white queen-sized bed, a thought occured to her: Didn't she come in through... Number 667...? No, no, that was yesterday. She remembered perfectly. Yesterday.

Vivian sat up. She needed something to do. Something to focus on. She stood up from the bed, the matresses's springs creaking. She crossed the room, clutching the doorframe of the white-painted door. "Aunt?" She called, refusing to call the woman Auntie. Obviously, Vivian was not one for nicknames. She tiptoed out into the hall, her eyes... Focusing? The wallpaper suddenly appeared cracked and peeling, and there were large holes in the ceiling that led to infinite darkness. The floorboards were broken and creaky. It almost seemed like...

"Vivian! What do you need, dear?" Auntie appeared, and suddenly the world was right again. Vivian was fazed, and puzzled as to what she had come out for. "Oh - right. Do you happen to have any-" "Puzzle books? Of course," Auntie said right away.

Two Weeks Later

Vivian opened her eyes to bright sunlight streaming through the window. She yawned, stepping out of her bed and onto the hardwood floor. She heard a scuttle of feet, but she dismissed it to be a sound of one of the many machines in the kitchen. Auntie was probably just making her breakfast.

As Vivian started to walk out of the room, she heard a squeak, then a flash of fure right by her ankles. She wrinkled her nose. Mouse. She despised mice. Filthy, scavenging creatures.

Then, the grey thing turned around and sunk its small, sharp teeth into the tender skin of Vivian's ankle.
And Vivian's eyes focused again.
The walls wee falling apart, the cieling caving in, everything either covered in layers of sticky dust or rusty and moldy. "Vivian?" A crackly, hoarse voice sounded from the kitchen. Vivian, shaking with a terror, a fear that she had never felt before, tiptoed cautiously down the broken hallway to where the 'kitchen' was. All of the appliances were rusty and broken, and broken glass reached across the dirty floor to Vivian's toes.

The woman in the middle of the kitchen put a long-rotten pancake covered in a thick coat of slime on a half-broken plate, adding a fork so rusted it looked like it was made of soil on the plate. Then she turned around.

Vivian looked at the monstrosity in horror. It was a bony creature, the taught skin stretching along the cheekbones, and her thin scraps of the remains of a black dress did not hide her protruding ribs and sucked-in stomach. The eyes had no color, as they were bottomless pits, and Vivian swore she could see the pits of hell in them. Her bony fingers had long, yellowed claws for fingernails, and her back was hunched, as she was much too tall for the room. She had to be over ten feet tall, Vivian thought. Her skin was whiter than cream, and she had no lips, her mouth was just a gash on her face. The only thing that was humanlike about the beast was her hair, which hung loosely around her shoulders in glistening black waves.

Like Vivian's.

"Dear?" The creature whispered hoarsly. "What's the matter?" The creature brought a hand to Vivian's cheek. She screamed in horror, her legs finally working, and sped away from the monstrosity. "Oh no you don't!" The thing shrieked in a baely human 'voice'. It dropped to the ground like a centipede, using its straw-like arms and legs to crawl like a spider along the rotted wood.

Vivian dashed through the halls of the building, trampling stairs and hoping that she didn't fall through. She threw open the door, she could hear the creature chasing her, its claws clacking against the floor. As her hand brushed against the door as she ran out, almost tripping over a thick green vine, she realised what strange material the hard, hollow door was made of.

Bone.

Vivian looked behind her, seeing the creature following as goosebumps popped up on her arms. She didn't care about the cold, just escaping. Her feet hit the forest floor littered with rusty brown pine needles, and for the first time she noticed her clothes. Wrinkled, smeared with dirt and dust. Scratched. Ripped. But she had no time to care. She could care when she was safe at home. All her memories had come flooding back.

Auntie was a ruse. What the horrofying monstrosity wanted, she wasn't sure.

All she knew was that the creature wanted Vivian.

And wouldn't stop until she got her.