10 Months Missing

Chapter 1 - Post-Chaos

Not a sound could be heard from outside, and inside Giovanna was the only one left. Even her energetic and lovely dog latte had been taken, and Giovanna refused to make a sound. Scared from head to toe, she had hidden herself in her bedroom closet, which she knew was an obvious hiding place, but it was the only one her terrified mind could think of and it had worked so far. For three hours she hid in there, counting the seconds under her muffled breath. Somehow she knew that they had gone, and that her whole family had been taken. Slowly she raised a shaking hand and placed it on the closet door. After sucking in a deep breath, she pushed it. A creaking noise echoed around her bedroom, and she cringed at it. Before she stepped out, she stuck her head out in front of the door and looked around. Everything seemed normal, everything except for the fact that Natalie was not parading around the bedroom and the fact that there was a huge design graphitised on her ceiling. The paint that had been used to create it was a crimson red and automatically reminded her of blood. As a matter of fact the seal had been painted in blood, but that was something that she came to discover later.

Another two hours were spent inside her bedroom, just staring at the massive sprawling art work. She recognised it from somewhere, but couldn't remember where from exactly. As the time wore on she realised that she would have to leave her bedroom eventually, especially if she was going to find out what had happened and where her family had been taken to. Cautiously, she exited her bedroom and walked into the hallway where a mass of furniture had been smashed together to form some sort of fort-look-alike. Confused, she surveyed the scene with a sense that she could deduct something from it. Unfortunately, Giovanna was unable to deduce as efficiently as Sherlock Holmes, despite being the same star sign, and so she ended up making a more John Watson conclusion. Disappointed, she managed to wriggle through a small passage that had been left throughout the centre of the unusual furniture made fortress, as she had decided to leave it so that she could inspect it later when she wasn't feeling massively insecure and nervous.

For a while she did nothing. Half of that time she spent looking out the window at the abandoned street and houses and for the other half she just sat on her sofa and wondered what she could do. It wasn't until the eerie reminder of the ever present silence crept up on her that she decided to see if any of her electric devices were working. Due to the fact that she was sitting in the living room and that it was the most obvious choice, Giovanna decided to switch on the television. At first nothing happened, and it stayed just a black screen looming over her, mocking her with its stubbornness to not be useful. Annoyed (and with the emotion playing clearly over her face), she flicked through the channels. At first nothing happened, but when she pressed another random button, the screen suddenly turned on and a loud sound screeched into her ears. Immediately she turned the noise down and was then able to concentrate on what was happening on the T.V. She hadn't seen this program before, but she remembered that one of her friend's siblings had been watching it when she came over.

When she eventually found a phone (all the landlines had gone missing and she couldn't find hers or any of her families, but it turned out that her father had left his), she decided to dial each of her friends to make sure that they were okay and for information on the program. Logically she called the friend who was the one with the family who had watched the program whilst she was there first.

When the phone rang she breathed out a sigh of relief. At least her phone is on, Giovanna thought.

When the second ring chimed into her ears she bit her lip and prayed that she wasn't the only human left on the planet.

With the third ring she felt the frustration boiling up inside of her and was about to shout out "Answer the goddamn phone," in a sort of P!ATD (Panic! At The Disco) way. However, before she could, the ringing stopped and she heard a voice whisper something at the other end.