Illusional

The Indiscernible

I figured I could probably use the wood on the hammer to scratch it against something to create a flame, and this wasn't a bad idea, either, because nothing else flammable other than the hammer had to be required, other than herself.

I remember where I dropped the hammer, so when nobody was looking (or chasing me) I quickly grabbed the hammer and tried to find rough wood to scrape the hammer on.

I found an old drawerstand in the closet connecting to the sleeping room, so I tried to rub the hammer against it in a manner you would use to light a match. Now, the hammer was also made of rough wood.

    I'm guessing the hammer was really flammable, because it only took one light strike against the drawerstand.

    The fire started to spread fast throughout the hammer. I'm guessing I probably should've thought this plan through. I had to find Mom as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, she kept running away from me while chasing someone else and the fire was spreading faster than a pandemic infection. My hands started to feel really hot and the fire was centimeters away from my hands.

    Eventually, I caught up to Mom, so I whacked her down with the hammer, and dropped it on her stomach. Just like I had wanted, she started catching on fire throughout her whole body. She started to scream very loudly, but it was so distorted it sounded more like a prolonged groan than a scream.

Her body became fully burnt within 1.5 minutes. Only... her body was still on fire, but fortunately there was a fire extinguisher nearby (and the case it was in didn't require a hammer or something to break the glass with. Otherwise, this probably would've ended horribly...)

    By the time I was done extinguishing her, her body was burnt so much to the point that her body looked (and felt) like black dirt.

    I dropped the extinguisher from my sweaty palms without a care in the world, and fell down on the hard, wooden floor due to being quite exhau

    Hey, guys. I'm back.

    Yes, I'm Mason...

    I guess it was kind of rude of me to steal... erm, take back my journal from Marleigh.

    But... our troubles didn't end there. Well, it did, but we found a note on Mom's body. The note said, "Thank you."

A million questions raced through my mind. Why is she thanking us? What is she thanking us for? Did she want to be burned like this? Does she have multiple personalities?

Although I had so many thoughts about this, I suspected that this note was probably going to end up being the least of my problems, only serving as a curiosity and a distraction.

    But despite this, there didn't seem to be any more dangers, and there likely won't be any until we all go to sleep. At this point, I'm willing let any anomalies pass by, because they've been pretty easy to fight off, and I'm not willing to lose an hour or two of sleep per night just to lessen the chances of an anomaly. I'll sleep right past the anomalies and let the others handle them if I'm daring enough.

By the time everything was settled, we were all quite hungry for lunch, so I decided to cook burgers for everyone. You'd be surprised by the amount of meat patties and burgers buns in there. Perhaps the owners of this cabin decided to stock up on food reserves in case anyone got trapped someday?

While I was eating, I was already starting to feel sleepy. Another anomaly was being prepared. If only we had electricity, I could brew some coffee to help keep us awake... but then again, we would all probably get tired due to the after-effects of coffee.

20 minutes after eating, I was struggling just to keep my eyelids open, and they felt like iceboxes. My eyes would produce a stinging pain every time I blink and excessive tears would produce from hard yawning. I told the others I would "rest my eyelids" but warned them about not falling sleep also (so as to not let anything bad happen), and they all understood.

December 24, 1:44 AM

    It seems we all have fallen asleep again... I was the first to wake up, too. When I saw the time, I was surprised that I slept for such a long time. I genuinely don't know what to do at this point...

    ...except for finding out what anomaly we have to face with now.

    When I walked out of the sleeping room, there were dim, purple lights illuminating the cabin with no direct source, providing the minimum amount of light for us to see and navigate the house clearly but make it hard to see what numbers we press on the microwave or what the letters in my journal say, so I apologize if I accidentally make any grammar mistakes in my journal.

After a minute of exploring the cabin, the others woke up. They said I was making too much noise, and I personally couldn't blame them. I just wish it was quieter when I step on wooden floors such as the ones in this cabin.

The cabin was also noticeably more chilly than what we all remember. We immediately suspected the lighting, which perhaps gave off a color to make us feel colder, though some of us thought the lights actually produced some sort of "air-conditioning" breeze.

Even Bill woke up. He felt oddly defenseless as he stepped outside his bedroom door.

"Kids! Are y'all okay?" Bill asked us with worry.

We all replied tiredly that we were fine, but we couldn't tell what was going on. Bill stated that he woke up from another nightmare, yet he forgot what it was about. I don't know how one could forget about a nightmare they just woke up from.

While we were discussing what might be happening, I guess we all were so focused on our conversation, because none of us noticed that we actually had an unwanted guest. Roughly 1.5 minutes in our discussion, a voice behind us softly, yet ominously, said:

"Hello."