who lives; who dies; who tells your story

d o s

it happened again.

it's been happening for over a week now. ryan's convinced himself that he's just forgetting but deep down, he knows the window was shut last night.

what the actual fuck?

is it broken? has the latch snapped and caused it to open again without him realising? no, that was extremely far - fetched.

(but he was too freaked out to care).

i should get mike to have a look. yeah, mike'll find the problem and then he can slap himself for panicking so much.

the only good news is his window was pretty hidden and looked over the back garden; no one could see him freaking out as he paced back and forth. before waking downstairs, ryan attempted to calm himself down. the others didn't need any leverage to make fun of him. imagine what they'd do if they found him like this, over a window of all things?

the thought made him feel a little better and he wandered out of his bedroom. the boy scoured around the house until he spotted mike in the lounge. the care worker was sorting out an argument between sasha and jody,

"that's so not fair mike! she ripped my book first," jody exclaimed. sasha smirked at her annoyed expression,

"my decision is final - go clean the bathroom jody and sasha, sort out the toy cupboard. go, go, go," he ushered the grumbling girls past ryan and the boy quickly took hold of mike's arm,

"can you take a look at my window? i think something's wrong with it,"

"now? really?" mike asked exasperated. he did look fairly tired but ryan couldn't wait any longer,

"yeah, it'll only take a minute. c'mon," he tugged on the man's sleeve and smiled when they started moving upstairs,

"what exactly's the problem?" mike queried.

"i uh, i don't know. i reckon it's not shutting properly but i don't know why,"

ryan opened his bedroom door and guided mike towards the issue. the care worker stepped closer in the hopes of finding the problem. he fiddled around for a bit, making ryan impatient.

"ah, here's two problems," he pulled out a small screw and a twig.

he held up the screw, "this was extremely loose. the lock seemed like it was working but nothing was actually happening," he then pulled the twig up to boths' eyesight, "this was lodged in the corner. even if your lock was working the window wouldn't have been properly closed,"

what? how'd they even get like that? maybe i could understand the twig but surly screws don't come loose that easily.

"and if that wasn't enough," mike continued, gesturing towards the outside of the window, "see these marks? i bet some bird or a squirrel's had at it,"

ryan traced them with his fingers. they didn't look like any type of animal marks, they were too deep and thick for them to have come from a bird or a squirrel.

even more so, since when did birds and squirrels try and claw their way through windows? it just didn't make sense. ryan pushed down the worry and thanked the care worker instead.

"no problem. i'll fit the screw back in later, probably when you all having tea so don't be surprised if i'm here then," he smiled. the boy returned it with less enthusiasm, too many thoughts running around his mind.

he watched mike's retreating back and collapsed onto his bed, a confused frown etched onto his face.

what the hell is going on? i have a really bad feeling about this.