Rotten On Us

Chapter 2

11am. It's a shame. She was sure she had woke earlier; yes she did. Her curtains were wide, beaming the morning sun into her room. The poor girl was quite forgetful and foolish, she couldn't remember waking up, but of course, she must have. It wasn't as if her mother and uncle had done it she thought, they never set foot in the room because of its constant state, nope she surely did it herself. Unless someone else got into her room, she laughed at her own stupidity; her uncle, very old-fashioned and protective, had padlocked her windows from the inside and her doors from the outside from 10 pm - 5 am.

Emma had stood up, and as she did had heard a buzzing, like a thousand wasps had environed the home trapping the poor girl inside. A sharp buzz and then a vibration? She had walked into her ensuite bathroom, planning to have a wash, yet the noise, she had identified as an engine was too distracting. So instead she opened her opaque bathroom window and tried to force it open; it was quite tight. Failing to open the window and giving up the girl did not discover the source here, so instead she wandered back towards her bedroom window, opened it easily and then looking right to notice what used to be known as "the empty house next door". It wasn't that the house was haunted and it wasn't that it was derelict and perilous. The house was fine, perfect actually, and Emma believed it looked way better from the outside than her own. She was a baby when her parents explored both houses, apparently, the inside is not as flattering, so obviously her parents chose the most suitable one. What others thought didn't matter, but Emma felt embarrassed. It's the outside people see, not the inside.

Nevertheless, the houses were neither old or modern but made out of brick with a garage door. They were identical an extension with a window above the garage door, two large bay windows; one upstairs and the other down; all PVC and double glazed, a door, also PVC with an archway, Old English Red brick on the walls and paved driveway; large and separated by a fence in the middle, and both houses alarmed.

Just behind the moving van, in front of "the empty house next door", was the new residents' personal van. This was the first she had seen of her new neighbours, on first sighting, the man appeared dishevelled...one could consider it a miracle that he had even had his girls, Emma noticed them in the grey van he has just stepped out and away from.

Her eyes instantly shifted, as she came face to face with a bold and distinctive blackness at the passenger seat of the empty van, a woman, she assumed his wife's hair. Her energy had been sucked out of her soul, she wore an unreadable mask, with tense muscles. She was a passenger to Earth. She was a passenger to her own grave. Curiosity soon overpowered as she looked at the other seats and found a young girl with platinum locks forcing her to hide. The young girl was perched higher on a booster seat, a way to make her less vulnerable in the world,

It was indeed a miracle.

His hair was beginning to thin around his temples but still a dirty lank brown along the back and sides. He seemed quite tall, over 6ft, he towered over the SOLD sign he now had pulled from the earth. Despite his pale skin, his hands were grubby from constant work.

Emma moved from the window and trotted back into the bathroom. Heavy flows of water fell from the tap and splashed onto her bare skin. She cleaned herself delicately, gently rubbing her bar of soap onto her body, making her skin smooth. With decency, I didn't watch anymore.

Walking out of the bathroom with clean skin and fresh clothes, she smiled at me. An angelic glow radiated from her onyx skinny jeans and blood-stained shirt. Not injured, of course, her physical body influenced nothing in her life. Often thinking aloud the girl began visualising what the new residents would be like, what their professions were and especially what they'd think of her and her parents.

When considering this she couldn't help but float back to the window and again look at the family. This time, two more figures had come into focus, a man, and a female. Her mother, and her uncle.

Braxton Arthur Philip Taylors stood before his new aspired friend with broad shoulders. Not as tall as the neighbour, and not as tall as Emma's mother, who was an extra 5 inches in the high heels she always wore; I was surprised she hadn't developed osteoarthritis in the knee.

Hillary Bay Taylors, as well as her brother, stood thin and proud. It was always a tricky question to where Emma's hips had come from, and one like many, which would never be answered. Emma fell back onto her wooden floor, intimidated by the sudden glance of all 5 at once. She looked at me with slight concern, before going back to the window and finding them staring still.

They likely expected her to introduce herself. But Emma, for the first time in years, felt shy. She wished she could refuse to go down.

What if everything went wrong?