My Dark Scientist

56| Intruders

E L L O R A

I finished his stupid set of problems almost an hour ago.

It usually would have taken me atleast two days to complete all these, but I did it in a day. Because....just.

Only good girls get rewarded.

Yeah, me finishing his problems in half the time had nothing to do with last night.

I look at the digital clock on the bedside table.

19:32

Yawning, I lie back on his bed, surrounded by a sea of papers and books.

He would be home any minute now. But I could use some sleep.

These problems wrecked my mind. I feel so braindead. I have been awake since last night, and working on these problems non-stop. Where on earth does he get these questions anyway? Not even chat gpt could answer these.

But if I don't sleep right now I am going to collapse. My eyelids slowly close...

My eyes open faster than lightening a few seconds later on hearing a door close somewhere.

I sit up straight.

Professor Langdon is back home already?

But I am so attuned to his presence, his mere footsteps or the way he shuts a door is enough for me to understand that it's him. Even if I don't see him for another couple minutes, I feel him.

Right now, I don't.

I scoot down the bed, trying to hear more.

Nothing.

The mansion is back to being completely silent.

But I am pretty sure I heard a door shut.

It takes me a whole two minutes to contemplate if I should go explore, or just get under the blanket and pretend to sleep so if it's a ghost or a burgler they won't harm me. What? Ghosts can't touch you if you're under a blanket, it's a popular belief among five year olds.

Finally I decide to go out and check it out. It probably was just wind.

That assumption was proven wrong soon enough, when I hear another door shut somewhere upstairs.

I freeze on my way to locking the bedroom door.

Even if my intuition was wrong and it is professor Langdon, the first thing he does on getting back home is check up on me in his room. He rarely ever even goes upstairs.

Oh my god. It's a ghost. Or a thief.

I need to run.

So I do.
I don't care if people think I'm a coward, but I'm not going to be like those horror book protagonists who go investigating alone when they hear sounds in the house that are not supposed to be there. And then dies. No thanks. As it is, my life is in peril, I don't want to play with fate anymore.

I break off into a run through the corridor, across the living room, the hall to the door.

Another huge bang of a door being shut off somewhere.

My eyes briefly go to the shoe rack. Professor Langdon's shoes aren't there. His duster isn't hung in its usual place. No umbrella in his umbrella stack.

Yeah, definately not him. Or Willy- because the shoe rack is empty, and she isn't supposed to be back for another week.

In a millisecond I'm out the door and running. I run for my life, through the cold night air, barefoot. Dry leaves and twigs crunches under my foot breaking. It pricks the soft skin under my foot, making me hiss. But I don't care. I need to get out of here as fast as possible.