Stuck in Starlight

Chapter 1: Momentarily Stunned

The sickening, foul smell of blood wafted through the air of the small town house. The air was infected with the nasty smell, the small child inside was curled up on the ground, crying their eyes out.

On the floor next to the child were two adult bodies in pools of deep red blood, multiple wounds scattered across the bodies torso, head, and legs.

The child continued to cry on the ground, not daring to move from the spot on the ground. The child didn't know what to do. The child didn't know what was happening. All they remembered was that they found their parents in a pool of blood in the middle of the living room.

A figure dressed in all black approached the girl slowly, bearing a knife coated in what seems like the same blood of both parents of the child.

The figure continued to walk towards the child, taking it's time to gaze down at the child sobbing on the floorboards. As it crept closer to the child, it didn't bother to raise the weapon it had in its hand. It stopped in front of the small child and leaned down towards them. It didn't speak and it didn't move after that. It just stood there. Staring at the child. The child, who was peeking out of their hair and watching the figure approach, curled into a ball in fear of what the figure may do.

The possibilities were endless. The figure could kill her, sell her, torture her, maybe even use her as a laborer. But it just doesn't.

After a few moments of silence as the figure stared at her, the child, realizing the figure wasn't gonna do anything, looked up at it with slight hesitation. When they looked up at the figure's face, they noticed there was no facial feature in sight. Nothing. Just a blank, black void in the place of it's face.

Even if the young child was afraid, she slowly started to stand up while staring blankly back at the figure. her legs bent straight as she finally stood up straight. The figure continued to stare at it, not moving a muscle.

It was quite odd for the figure not to do anything to the child even though it had just caused quite a bit of bloodshed upon her parents. The child, compelled to know what was happening, slowly made her way towards the window above the brown couch in the living room.

She stepped off the floor and slowly placed her knees onto the cushion of the couch, looking back at the figure to see if it was still watching her. And in fact it was. She looked away from the figure and moving her gaze out the window. She looked around the street she lived on, and low and behold, there was more than just one figure. Walking down the street was another black figure, but not the same.

The figure outside was more hunched back, with black onyx spikes sticking out its back while the figure inside her home had a smooth back and stood mostly straight up. She watched the black figure walk around the street, moving it's head to the left and right. Then it stopped. It froze, and all the spikes retreated into its back, and it stood straight. It had just become just like the figure inside her home.

Was this all a trick? Was this just a bad dream that she would wake up from if she just closed her eyes. She was too scared to believe anything else. She tried to get out of there, shutting her eyes tight so that no outside light source would find it's way through her eyelids.

Moments passed as she waited for all the sounds in her head and the thing she felt would be turned into her mother calling her down for breakfast and the soft feeling of her blanket on top of her. She waited, and waited, and waited. She stayed there, kneeling on the couch with her eyes closed for what it felt like, 20 minutes, before something happened. The sounds went away. But that was it. The child didn't know if she should open her eyes to see what happened or if she should just keep her eyes closed and let the process complete.