Just Another Creepypasya Fanfiction

12. Family Game Night

        "When do you go back to work?" Liu asks me.
"Monday," I answer. "I have almost a week off."
He nods as evidence that he heard me before changing the subject. "You might need to make more of that pumpkin curry stuff."
I grimace. The pumpkin shrimp curry from Friday. Him and Alisper loved it, and I ended up eating frozen lasagna by myself. It turns out that I don't like that flavour combination. It was like attempted murder for my taste buds. "I don't think so," I say.
"It would make the girl happy."
It would. She was so disappointed when she saw that we were out of leftovers. I look at him in time to see him smirking. He knows he won. I laugh and shake my head. "Yeah, okay." He cheers. "But I need more squash and shrimp for it."
He offers to go get them for me. I tell him to pick up chicken so that I can have something I need. He makes fun of me for having a 'weak system', but promises to get me some anyway. When he leaves, I get up and go to Alisper's room. I find her lying on her bed and looking at one of the books we got for her. The door is open, but I tap on it anyway.
"Can I come in?" I ask.
She looks at me and closes her book. "Hi," She says as she sits up. "Yeah, you can come in."
It's only one step forward, but it lets her know that this is her space. She needs to know she has her own space. At least, that's what my parenting books say. "What are you doing?"
She shows me her book. "I'm... reading. Sort of."
I walk over to her bed and take it from her. It's an alphabet book. "Do you want me to help you?"
She smiles and nods enthusiastically. I sit next to her and open to the first page. She knows a few of the letters, but not even half of them. It's so easy to forget about the low-lives who used to be her parents with how happier she is now, but it's just as easy to get mad at them all over again. How can you care so little that you can't even be bothered to teach something as simple as the ABCs? I keep my annoyance down as I help her. She struggles with pronunciation, but I keep encouraging her. Eventually, she gets bored.
"Can we do something else?"
I close the book and hand it back to her. "Yes, of course. What would you like to do?"
Alisper gets her Peter Rabbit book and brings it to me. She asks me to read it to her. When I agree, she climbs back onto the bed. I can see her mouthing the words with me, so I slow down a little bit to make it easier for her. She has us read this one to her almost every night, since it's her favourite, but she seems to be enjoying it more than usual. She's trying really hard to follow along. When I'm done, I ask if she wants to try to read one. Excited, she gets up to pick out a new book. It's a struggle, but it gets a little easier for her as we go along. She tries her hardest and I only wait until she asks for my help to interject.
Alisper gets bored halfway through. She asks me if we can stop and is quick to thank me when I say yes. She leaves to go feed Albert. I put the books back on her little bookshelf, then make my way back to the living room. The amount of quiet is still eerie. It's silent enough in the house that I can feel the hairs on my neck standing up. I hope our cameras get here quickly. I'll feel more comfortable when the house is being monitored and I can clearly see anything suspicious. Right now, I can only feel my nerves. I can't trust those.
"When are we going to see Clockwork and Ben again?" Alisper asks while she puts up the fish food.
"I'm not sure," I answer. "Do you want me to see if they're available to come over?"
"Yes, please."
I pick my phone up off the couch and call Ben. He answers immediately. "Jeffy! My main man!" He cheers loudly enough that I flinch. I can hear a few of my old housemates yelling greetings at me.
"Where are you that you're able to just shout my name like that without any regard?" I can't help chastising him. It was their idea to never speak of me at the mansion.
"Don't worry about it. Slender's not here right now. It's just us; all alone and unattended."
It should help, but it makes the uncomfortable feeling in my stomach worsen. "That's cool. Alisper wants to know if you and Clockwork want to come over for a visit."
"Absolutely! Let me find and ask her. I'm definitely in!"
I listen as he starts stomping around the mansion screaming for Clockwork. I hold the phone away from my ear the whole time. I'm still too young to lose my hearing. After maybe five minutes, he finally finds her. I press the phone to my ear again to hear her agreeing to coming out. There's an exchange of small talk, then I get off. Alisper is incapable of containing her excitement. She can't wait to show Albert to Clockwork. Neither of us can remember if she's met him yet.
It doesn't take very long for them to arrive. And they don't bother with knocking when they do. They walk right into the house and immediately engulf Alisper in hugs. She talks happily with them both, telling them about everything that's happened since they were last here. She shows them her new books, then her and Ben run out of the room to play together. Clockwork decides to stay with me.
"How's she doing?" She asks.
"From what I can tell, she's good. She seems happy. And she's really enjoying her new books and toys and stuff."
"Good. And how are you?"
"I don't have much to complain about." I glance outside. "Aside from the paranoia."
She shifts awkwardly. "Yes, I can see that. Um, there's probably something you should know." I swear I can feel my heart skip a beat as she starts to walk over to the couch. Conversations that require sitting are hardly ever good. "I guess that Slender got suspicious, or maybe he just got bored. He's been searching everyone's thoughts. We don't know really know if you're why, but I don't know what else he'd be looking for. As far as I know, he hasn't found anything yet. But it doesn't seem like something that should be kept a secret from you either. Just in case, you know?"
A thousand different thoughts start swirling around my head. There's a lot of panic. I force myself to remain as calm as possible. Before I can say anything back, she starts talking about things we can do to be prepared in case something goes wrong. I listen to everything she says carefully. Reality is there's not much that we can do to prevent an attack, but hopefully we can defend better if one happens.
I take in a deep breath. I don't want to worry about this anymore. "We need to face the problem head on," I tell her. "I think that we should get him before he gets us."
She shakes her head vigorously. "No, absolutely not. That will cause a fight."
"There's already a fight."
"There's a threat. It could escalate, but there's still time for it to deescalate. He just needs to get over it first."
I roll my eyes. "I get what you're saying, but when has Slender ever let anything go? I think we should handle it head-on, get it out of the way now."
"I don't think it'd be a good idea. I know why you think it would be and why you want to try it, but that would just put Alisper more at risk. We need to wait until it's more obvious what he's planning."
"We know what he's planning. Why else would he be fucking with us like this?"
"Because he's an asshole?"
She's right, and I hate it. He could be doing this only to screw with my head. But screwing with my head could be part of a bigger plan to make me so paranoid that I go insane. Or to make me too paranoid to recognise an attack when it's happening. I feel shivers going down my spine. His plan is already working.
"You need to start doing yoga," Clockwork says. "It'll get all of that stress out of you. Keep your mind level."
"A level mind sounds flat."
She shrugs and lets it go. She forces me to talk to her about more casual things, such as how to prepare Alisper for her first day of school. I start to explain how we're helping to give her a little educating before we send her, but she cuts me off to explain that she meant in terms of how it's run. She points out that things are more controlled, which Alisper might have trouble adapting to. Not to mention the social struggle. We start coming up with some ideas on how to help her prepare for it.
We hear the car pull up a little bit into our new topic. I go to help Lui carry in the groceries and let Clockwork know that her and Ben can stay for dinner if they'd like to. She immediately agrees and calls Ben out to let him know. Him and Alisper love the idea. They decide to stay in the main room with us while I start cooking. Clockwork shares all sorts of stories from her school days with us. Lui and Ben jump in with a few of their own. I decide to stay out of the conversation. I wouldn't call myself a good person to get stories from. I was a slacker, and not even a popular one.
After some time, Ben gets bored with casually talking and recommends that we play a game. He goes through all the board games and cards that the old owners had, reading the names out to us. Eventually, we decide on Uno. Ben deals out the cards and takes it upon himself to teach Alisper how to play. Lui declares himself the handler of my cards for when I'm too busy to play for myself. It's slow and pretty boring at first, but once Alisper gets an understanding of it, it gets a lot more entertaining.
I gather up all of the bowls we'll need when I'm finally done cooking. I let them keep playing while I prepare the food. "Cards down," I announce as I start setting bowls on the bar. Clockwork is wary of trying it, but enjoys it once she does. Ben takes a bite without paying attention, and spits it right back out. We all laugh at him. He tries again. Even though it's obvious that he doesn't like it, he tries to force himself to eat. "I'm making a mini pizza for myself," I tell him. "Do you want me to throw one in for you?"
"No, it's fine! I can eat the curry soup."
"You don't have to eat it if you don't like it. We have plenty of other options, including microwave meals if you want something fast. You can take your bowl home to Smile instead."
He looks at me, seeming a little nervous. "You won't mind?"
"Dude, it's just food."
He sighs in relief and pushes the bowl away before getting up to go through our freezer. Not having my food choices controlled is another thing I like about being out of the mansion. I want to share that freedom. Some of the others get so mad when you don't eat or enjoy whatever it is they made. Some wouldn't even let us leave the table without finishing our plates. It was absurd.
Once we're all done eating, we go right back to playing cards. Alisper gets her first win after three rounds and we encourage her to cause a scene about it. She's always been told to 'calm down'. We want her to be excited and proud of herself. She cheers as loud as she possibly can, and we all clap for her. We do one more round of Uno, then we decide it's time for a movie. It takes us forever, but we finally pick one out together that we can put on.
I get put in charge of grabbing the popcorn from the microwave. When I turn back to go to the couch, I can see Slender through the window. He's standing in front of the lake and staring at me. The fear is too strong to ignore and I know that I'm tensing up, but I force myself to get through it. We've always gotten along before.
I breathe in for some courage and wave to him. He teleports somewhere else, somewhere I can't see. I go back to the couch. I pretend everything is as it should be.