The Door

I told him not to go inside the door. I told him it was a bad idea. I remember saying that he would never make it out alive, and even if he did he would just lose his sanity and die from that. He didn't listen to me. Now look at where he is. Dead, in a casket, six feet under the old maple tree, next to where his wife would be. She died the same way. Except, they never found her body. It probably finished her off. It killed them both. Now It wants their only child, little Emma. I put it in Emma's father's Memory Box. Emma had sworn to never look through it because it was too painful. She is only thirteen after all. So I kept it there and pray to the lord I've once met that she wouldn't find it. I lost her parents to It. If I lose her then I'll never be able go back. I'll be stuck here forever.

I watched as Emma got dressed, two years after her father's death to this date. She was putting on her church clothes, and I already knew she was going to visit her father's grave. I know that she wants answers about how her parents died, since no one would tell her their cause of death. I would, but she's not allowed to see me. I can only speak to her to make sure she doesn't open the door. Other than that, I just stay put in the shadows as I'm told, watching over her like I'm supposed to.

Today when she came home from the cemetery, she brought her friend Charolette. Charolette is nice I guess, but she doesn't understand the dangers of her friendship with Emma. However, Charolette has been there to cheer Emma up, help her get over the loss of her parents and keep Emma distracted from her curiosity towards her parent's death. I guess Charolette wasn't feeling so generous today with the distractions.

"So Emma, I have a question... About your parents," Charolette said to Emma.

"W-what about them?" Emma stutters out, obviously not liking the topic of choice.

"Well, I'm your best friend, right? And, well... you never told me about what happened to them. I thought best friends told each other everything," Charolette replied with hurt evident in her voice.

"Well they, uh... actually, I don't know what happened to them. No one knows really. I know my mom died about four years ago and my dad died two years ago today. I've always focused more on the fact that they were gone, and I never really thought about how they died," Emma responded guiltily, as if not thinking of her parent's horrendous deaths was something to be ashamed of.

"Well have you talked to the police about it? I mean, if anyone knows about how your parents died, surely they would right?" Charolette asked thoughtfully.

"They said when Dad died that there was something truly terrifying. There was something about being paralyzed and dying from lack of oxygen," Emma replied airily, obviously trying to remember what was said about her father's death.

"Don't you have a box of your dad's stuff or something like that?" Charolette asks.

"Dad's Memory Box? Oh yeah! He put that together after my mom died. It's in my room somewhere, I just have to remember where I put the dang thing...," Emma trails off as she answers, standing from the couch they were sitting on and walking toward her bedroom.

I watched silently in the shadows, just as I always do, as they entered Emma's room silently. Charolette sat down on Emma's bed and watched as Emma searched through her room for the Memory Box.

She looked around for about ten minutes, not giving up. I beginning to panic as she got increasingly closer to where I stood, right next to the Memory Box, in the shadows of course. I couldn't let her find the box. Then she'll go around the whole house looking for the door that the key goes to, and if she finds it... I won't be able to protect her from It. My job is to make sure she doesn't find the key, otherwise I can't go back.