Mythical Link ▸ Link Neal {Book One}

116

He pulled off on some random exit and merged onto a street, rolling past some decent family homes. He tapped the steering wheel happily, whistling a random toon that came to mind. It was more than likely My Hair Song. He pulled up in front of a house and turned the car off, staring at the rickety worn down place. The outside looked exactly like the front cover of a horror movie home. The paint was peeling in places, some of the siding splintering away from the wall. Parts of the roof looked caved in from years of water damage, and the windows were tinted with something dark and ominous.

Trees embroidered the outside of the place, dead to nature even though it was the beginning of spring. There should have been some sort of sign of budding, but no such sign presented itself. Link opened the door to the car, not realizing he had parked too close to one of the trees and smacked the door right into it.

His eyes widened as the tree creaked like a rusty hinge, toppling over. It hit the ground with a thud and he could hear the sound of crackling wood. If all of the trees were as dead as that one that it could be easily knocked over, then he hated to see a wind storm roll through the area. Not that anyone was inhabiting this place to begin with. He paused, staring at the house. The shadows through the broken glass of the front right window beckoned to him, calling through a gentle wind carrying in the breeze.

He tilted his head as he tried to listen to the whispers. Link wasn't a stranger to hearing strange whispers as of lately, and for once he just wanted to understand what he was hearing. Why he was hearing it. What it could possibly mean. He remembered reading somewhere that taking away your other senses could hone in on the one that you're trying to focus on. It was the same concept with the sensory deprivation tank that he and Rhett had experimented in for their show.

A sensory deprivation tank is an enclosement that you float in, the water salty. There's no sight, no sound, the only feeling you have is floating. You experience some paranoia from not being able to see or hear anything, essentially being trapped in your own thoughts. When Link was in the tank, he talked with Rhett and the mythical beasts through the show how it went but there was an important detail that he left out.

He could hear something. He heard whispering. He didn't know what the whispering was, who or where it was coming from, and he couldn't decipher a word of it. He didn't want to tell Rhett because he didn't want Rhett to think he was crazy, and as he remembered it, he frowned to himself. The whispering continued full force, and he closed his eyes. He even held his breath. He held this pose for several seconds and that's when it hit him.

"Allison, there's something we need to tell you."

That was a male voice, it was very evident. It was gruff and deep, and there was an ounce of disdain. Link wanted to open his eyes and celebrate the fact that he finally understood the whispering, but he couldn't break his concentration and mess it up.

"You're not going to tell me that we're moving, are you? Or that I'm not going to dance practice this afternoon? Don't tell me that my great aunt died. She's like my grandmother," a little girl's voice whined, and Link assumed this was Allison, the girl the guy had mentioned previously.

"None of the above," a woman's voice answered rather curtly. "If you wouldn't interrupt us when we're speaking, that would be great." He heard the little girl sigh.

"As I'm sure you've already gathered, you're not like us. You don't look anything like us, you have none of our personality traits or interests, and you're just all around different in every way. That's because you're not our daughter."

Allison gasped. "If you're really not my parents, who are you? Where are my parents!"

"They didn't want you. Your mother especially didn't want you. She found the need to hide you from her parents so she wouldn't get into trouble," the man began.

"But she wasn't going to be getting away with everything as she normally does. No. We were going to find the child that she had, take her away, raise her for a while and then murder her in her name."

Link's eyes widened and he staggered backward. He heard what sounded like a drawer being opened and then some rattling as if somebody was rummaging through utensils.

"Please don't kill me! I'm still too young!"

Link busted toward the house as fast as his legs could carry him and then he burst through the front door. The front room was completely disheveled. The couch was torn to shreds, fluffs of white filling scattered throughout the stained carpeted floor. It was overturn, springs sticking straight out of the bottom and causing more hazards than Link could hope to think about. The wallpaper was peeling, the ceiling was hanging in front of him by the tile, wiring hung from the walls and through the ceiling. The insides of the walls looked like they were stained by tar, but he couldn't stay long to admire the area.

He stepped through cautiously and found himself in the kitchen, and it didn't look much better. The table was overturned, the wood being eaten away at by termites. The counters were cluttered by dirty dishes, garbage, used bottles, and unmentionable items that gave off a potent stench that made him wriggle his nose and feel sick to his stomach.

The refrigerator and stove were stained and he shook his head, feeling the disgust creep in. Who could let their house get this bad? He paused, hearing the whispering again. He closed his eyes again, trying his hardest to blot out the stench.

"Why are you doing this? I'm just an innocent child please. Please!"

Link stepped over the piles of garbage on the floor, noticing a break in the flooring underneath a large black garbage bag. He took the bag by the handle and gave it a tug, noticing that it stuck to the floor like glue. He assumed there was something tacky keeping it stuck to the floor, but he sooned realize that was so far from the truth that it was disgusting. As he peeled the bag away from the floor, he revealed an earthly opening through the floor and he saw the most horrific sight that nobody should ever have to see.

The remains of a child. Decayed past recognition. Stench beyond belief. Matted and knotted hair. Eyeless sockets. Link's lips trembled as nostrils flared, his chest quaking. He suddenly opened his mouth to scream, his eyes widening. He found himself hitting the floor and writhing out of his own control as if he were being possessed.

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