The Girl in the white dress

Moving

My father let go of me, leaving me free to run down the wooden polished cherrywood stairs and into the old fashioned kitchen with the brass pots and pans hanging from the yellow ceiling. 

Why was my father like this? 

Fear left me standing rock still in the same spot for over a minute, not noticing the change in the kitchen until I finally found the courage to move and head over to the stove, making as much noise as you could possibly produce while cooking and fixing up a scrambled egg in one of the old Teflon pans. 

I knew that Teflon pans weren't as good as they looked, they were basically stuffed with PFOAs and literally the most chemical thing you could eat out of. At least that had been what one of my history books had said up in my room. I had thousands of books. Well, not really thousands of them, more like a hundred or so. I was a real bookworm. 

My mom would buy me a book and I would have it fully read in two hours, no matter what the size would be. Mom. I sighed, thinking about the time she had had enough of this town. I still missed her. I couldn't blame her, though. It was grey all day here in Hollow Moore and sun was a rarity. It also always raining, which was part of the reason I was always so pale.

 Mom had run away from this "Hell hole" as she called it, and my dad had been heartbroken. They still loved each other, and they could've run away together with me, but my father didn't want to leave this town. It was...his home. 

So I had stayed here with him, that way he wouldn't be lonely. My mom would do well without me anyway, she had too much work to do and too little time for me. And to be honest, I hated this town too. 

But it was better than with my mom in the hottest country ever, to toast myself and turn all red in the face. She lived in Africa, in Morocco, where she would work part time as a Ranger in a park in the middle of a literal desert and part time in a restaurant. 

Anyway, enough with my mom. 

The Teflon pan started making crackling sounds and hot butter sprayed everywhere. I put out my hand and lifted the pan, only to let it crash back onto the stove with a floor shaking 'CLANG!', yelping with a cry of pain. Loud thumps from the stairs signalled that my daddy was coming down the stairs, but there was something wrong with him. Even more than before. The egg was turning black but I didn't move to take care of it. Daddy's footsteps were...different, they had a weird rhythm and it sounded dragging, like someone heavier than my father was coming down the stairs. 

I waited, my breath went fast and my pupils widened as I surveyed the kitchen for something heavy enough to knock the person out who was coming down the stairs. My heart thumped so loudly I was sure he could hear. If it was my father. 

A minute or two went by, all passing without even the slightest creak of a loose step or floor board. 

And then I heard it. 

My heart skipped a beat and I almost choked with fear of what was coming. 

Not wanting to look into the eyes of whoever it was, I turned around to face the grimy mirror above the stove, checking my pale complexion. My stomach twisted when I saw—

—a tall shadow, thumping towards me with heavy, dragging footsteps. I squinted at the mirror, the kitchen was too sparsely lit to make out anything else. Adrenaline rushed through my blood, but that couldn't convince my feet to move. 

My ears were ringing and my brain thinking through all the possible escape routes at such a quick pace my Oxford graduated math teacher would have been proud of in a test. What am I going to do?