Thick Smoke

Once Upon a Dark Day

In Clifden, West Ireland was a house just like any other house built for a large family and hidden between thick trees. It looked like whoever was living there was a very private person with quite a large bank account.

It was a sunny day, that one, which was the first after a long series of gloomy days. A girl about 4 years old with short brown hair and bright green eyes was running in the garden. She was playing with her mother. Ophelia Molley was a woman whose pale green eyes attracted attention right away especially since they were complimented by her long black hair.

They were both smiling happily, playing a game of chase. Everything was perfect. Well, as perfect as it could be. The woman caught her daughter and tickled her, making the little girl laugh loudly.

As the mother was playfully glaring at her daughter, a tree fell down right in front of her house. She stopped playing and took in the change of environment. Dark clouds were slowly moving over the ground, the wind pushing them particularly towards the house.

She smiled kindly at the child and grabbed her hand. "Honey, let's go inside."

They entered the house in a hurry and Ophelia led her daughter upstairs, inside her room. Even for a 4 years old child, she knew something bad was going on. Her mother's green eyes darkened and fear spread through her entire being. The house seemed to have gotten colder and the bed where the little girl would crawl to sleep with her mother seemed to have lost all comfort.

Once the kid got inside the room, the woman closed the door and locked it. There was only one problem: she didn't enter.

"Liz trust mommy, alright?"

The child placed her hands on the door and tried to open it. The doorknob wouldn't budge and the harder she tried, the harder it was getting to unlock it.

"I know it may sound weird but I want you to do something." The woman mumbled from the other side of the door. Liz nodded and waited. "Under the bed you will find a broom. Did you find it?"

The girl hurried and searched for the supposed object.

"I found it!" She exclaimed happily.

"Good. Now, listen to me closely. Get on it and leave the house." The woman said firmly.

Lizzy frowned and looked at the mirror. She wasn't sure what game that was but she did as she was instructed. She got on the broom and walked closer to the window but wasn't sure what to do next. Even if she waited for the broom to magically fly, nothing happened.

The front door suddenly opened and even the kid could hear a number of people walking through the house.

"I came, just like I promised I would, Ophelia"

His voice was echoing through the whole house even though he wasn't yelling. It sounded so cold and firm. Whoever that man was, he was intimidating.

Ophelia glared at the stairs before she opened a secret compartment in the wall from the far back of the hall. Her hands were shaking as she grabbed an elongated object that looked like a stick and grasped it. She had to be strong for her daughter. She had been entangled into his web for far too long and she had so many regrets that were still haunting her. That man tainted everything in her life and she didn't want that to happen to her daughter as well.

The person who got first in the hall was a woman with strange and messy hair and with a terrible expression on her face. She was content and cocky, in a bad way.