Memoirs

The Death of Me [#FreeYourShorts - Horror/Thriller]

Reinie knew something was wrong almost as soon as he walked in the door.

His sister had been home when he'd left about an hour earlier, flashing him one of her tight-lipped smiles as she vacantly stared at the wall over the tv. It had been her turn to shop for groceries this week, but as she'd claimed to be feeling under the weather as of late, Reinie had taken pity on her and had offered to do it himself. She was pushing herself too hard lately, what with her crazy work schedule and all, and probably deserved some rest on her only day off for the foreseeable future.

Her sudden and unprecedented bout of silent contemplation may have also had something to do with that guy she'd been seeing after work for the past few weeks, the one whom he'd often spotted walking her home after late night shifts at the diner. She wasn't the type to fall in love so easily, as he well knew - but there had to be someone out there who could make it happen. Reinie had always been of the belief that there was someone out there for everyone, regardless of circumstance.

Even so, as he pulled out his house key to unlock the front door of their apartment, shuffling plastic bags of groceries to do so, he realized that she had been acting rather strange lately, even more so than a supposedly lovestruck girl might. She'd been unusually jumpy, for one thing, to the point where he'd scare her just by walking past, and had recently taken to closing and locking her bedroom door at night. Considering her usually reckless and confident behavior, it would have had him worried had he taken more careful notice of it - but like the idiot he was, Reinie remained oblivious, simply thinking it 'odd', and nothing more.

Perhaps that wasn't such a good thing in the long run.

The hall lights beyond the door to their flat flickered intermittently as he finally got the door open, pushing it forward to reveal the darkened interior of their residence. Strange. It was only eight in the evening; Emilé shouldn't have gone to bed yet, and even if she had, she wouldn't have turned off all the lights in the apartment. She had known he would be back soon - he had told her as much - and she would have left the foyer light on for him to see by, at the very least. A tense sort of feeling began to form in the pit of the boy's stomach, but he quickly pushed it aside. There had to be some sort of rational explanation for this; there always was. He was probably just over-analyzing the situation, like always. Emilé probably had just forgotten to leave on the lights this once. It was no big deal. There was no need to fuss.

The door soon eased shut behind Reinie, casting him into an unbroken darkness that, for some reason he couldn't name, sent a cold shiver down his spine. Ignoring that as well, he turned to his left, feeling across the wall for the light switch. Of course, as luck would have it, it was nowhere to be found. Wonderful. Grumbling under his breath, Reinie reached into his jacket pocket, intending to pull out his phone to use as a flashlight of sorts - only to remember that he'd left it in his bedroom to charge earlier on in the day, and hadn't touched it since.

Well, even better. What a night this was turning out to be.

Maybe Emilé was just messing with him, he reasoned, still stuck on figuring the whole scenario out. She'd done similar things before - like laughing at the stricken expression on his face when she'd thoroughly convinced him that she'd 'misplaced' his late parents' spell books, among other nasty tricks. She could be insensitive when she wanted to be. Somehow, though, after seeing the distant expression she'd worn earlier on in the night, he couldn't believe that she'd done this simply to irritate him, not tonight. She had just seemed too...out of it, maybe.

Perhaps there was more to this night than initially met the eye.

For now, nothing was really meeting his eye in the darkness of their apartment, and his fruitless searching for that damned light switch wasn't gaining him anything on that front. Sighing, he finally began to move forward in the dark, feeling his way against the wall as he desperately attempted not to run into anything. He aimed for the nearest switch he remembered the location of, which happened to be a few feet ahead at the entrance to the living room. Of course, he wasn't even sure of which direction he was headed in, so it was nigh on useless at this point.