Weeping Angel: Malvada (Book 1 of the Weeping Angel Series)

Chapter IV

Friday night was tense, to say the least.

I couldn't sleep properly at all; I couldn't shake off the strange feeling I was getting every time we passed by the angel statue in the living room. It looked so innocent and harmless sitting beside the fireplace, but there was something else about it that was unexplainable, and it made my heart want to rip out of my chest. The fear would flow through my veins, but it never made its way to my face because I didn't want to get mom all riled up. I knew Clarice didn't either, but I could sense she was feeling the same way as me; her gaze lingered on the angel statue for a long time before she would shrug it off,

Mom spent a good hour or so polishing the statue on Saturday, trying to make it look new so she could show it off to random guests and her friends while Clarice and I spent the day binging on snacks and catching up on our favourite shows.

Sunday was pretty uneventful besides the fact that I finished packing my school bag and forced Clarice to help me pick a cute outfit to start my senior year of high school. As of now, I was getting ready for bed in my room. There have been no other strange occurrences from mom or the angel statue ever since Friday, so I pushed my fear aside and got inside my covers, turning my night light off after putting my alarm for tomorrow morning.

It's all in your head, Emma. Stop overthinking and go to sleep.

Feeling my eyelids getting heavy, I slowly drifted off into a peaceful slumber, hoping to dream of Mr. Make-Me-Sin-Gorgeous.

***

A riotous noise wakes me up from my sleep. It sounded like metal clashing together or glass breaking.

I groan and pat my hand around my bedside table until I feel my fingers graze my phone. I tap the screen and lift it up. The blue light illuminating from the mini screen made me hiss as I narrowed my eyes, trying to keep them open as I checked the time.

It was way past midnight, and I had to be up four hours.

I slowly slide myself out of bed with my covers and drag myself to Clarice's room. My brain was on low battery, but the obnoxiously loud noises wouldn't let me sleep. I was tired as hell, feeling burdened with the weight of my eyelids that were threatening to close on me as I dumped my body on my sister's bed and snuggled into the covers.

"Emma?" Clarice asked groggily, her back facing me.

"Can't sleep," I mutter, feeling my eyes softly close, my body becoming floppy. That's when I heard a loud thump, and my eyes flew open. Not again.

"Mom and dad need to stop getting it on at this time." Clarice groaned, and her voice was followed by a crash as if something shattered into pieces. Okay, what the hell?

I sigh in defeat. I need to see where this stupid sound was coming from so I could sleep peacefully. I slowly push myself up to sit on the bed and shake Clarice's body. "Come on, Claire, let's go check." When she doesn't make a move, I shove her covers off her body and drag her by her arm, forcing her to sit up.

Clarice rubs her eyes tiredly. "Why do you need me? Are you that scared?"

I roll my eyes. "I'm not going to clean up the mess all by myself. Let's go." We both get out of her bed, and she grabs her phone, turning the flash on. We tip-toe out of her room and into the hallway. The light in my parent's room was off, so it wasn't them making noise. I grab Clarice's arm as we both run down the stairs, and that's when Clarice's phone dies, and her flash turns off.

I shake my head at her. "Help me find the light switch." We both started patting the wall to find the light since it was pitch black. I could only see Clarice's face since she was standing so close to me. We started wandering around the house, sticking close to the wall when I suddenly bumped into a wall. Ouch. I bring out my hands to try to touch and see where I was. My left hand grazed a wall, but my right hand was grabbing onto nothing. I immediately recognized that this was the hallway entrance to the living room. Suddenly, the lights flicker on, and we take in our surroundings. Thankfully one of us found the lights.

"Thank god you found the light switch, Em," Clarice says to me, and my heart drops. Huh?

"I thought you turned on the lights?" I raise an eyebrow at her, feeling my heartbeat accelerating.

She blinks at me and shakes her head. "I thought you turned on the lights."

My eyebrows draw together in confusion as I feel the adrenaline flowing through my body, pumping and beating heavily. Clarice's eyes widened with fear, her state of shock mirroring mine when we realized that none of us turned the lights on, and we didn't hear our parents come down either. I suddenly get a strange feeling like someone was watching us.

"Emma," Clarice gulped, her breathing getting heavier by the second. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" That's when it hit me like an eighteen-wheeler.

The angel statue.

We both slowly turn our heads and see that the statue isn't beside the fireplace like where it's supposed to be. It moved to stand beside the glass table in the center of the living room, but this time, its hands were not covering its face. Its arms were placed on either side of its stone body, and it was staring right at me with its empty eyes and a straight face. Surprisingly enough, the statue looked taller than before. By the fireplace on the ground, mom's favourite vase is shattered into pieces.

"What the hell?" Clarice breathed, her voice cracking with fear. My quivering body felt hot all over as the tiny beads of sweat trickled down my temple. I wanted to run, but my legs were glued to the dark wooden floor, and all I could do was reach out and take my sister's trembling hand in mine.

"Why is it looking at me?" My voice came out tiny and squeaky. My adrenaline was surging so fast, I could practically taste the saliva thickening in my throat. "Let's get out of here." Clarice tightens her grip on my hand and takes me away from the angel statue staring at me. The lights kept flickering as we hurried up the stairs, trying our hardest not to miss a step and fall. I was breathing heavily by the time we got inside my room, feeling the oxygen flooding in and out of my chest as I flipped the light switch on.

I turned around to look at my sister, looking at me like she couldn't believe what she saw. I take a reassuring step closer to her and place my hands on her shoulders. She was looking at me with her wide cat eyes filled with shock. "Claire," I start, trying to keep my voice steady and calm.

"We're only seeing things, alright? What we saw can't be real." I wasn't sure if I was trying to convince her more or myself, but Clarice shakes her head at me and looks at me with disbelief in her brown eyes. "I don't know what you're saying, but I know what I saw, Emma!"

"We've been hung up on that thing ever since Friday. Of course, we'd see things if we're going to think about it all day!" I exclaim, trying to convince myself that we were just two overthinking freaks. Clarice obviously wasn't convinced, and I couldn't blame her; even I don't believe myself, but there wasn't much we could do except go back to sleep and pretend like we didn't just witness a statue made of stone change its position and location all by itself. We didn't know for sure if we were hallucinating or not, but it all felt too real to be just a fragment of our insane imagination.

Feeling mentally and physically exhausted with the angel statue drama, we decided it was best to forget about it and get some sleep since we had to wake up in a few hours. I snuggled inside my blanket, feeling the sweat drench my skin and the loud thumping against my chest as I sigh internally.

I wasn't going to sleep tonight.