✓ | OVERNIGHT ( ORIGINAL )

xvi. frozen within time

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

[ xvi. frozen within time ]

     LAYLA STEPPED UP the last step and landed onto the second floor flooring. Harriet continued to shine her flashlight to guide the way. The second floor smelled like a rotted animal. A smell that reminded Harriet of the time when her brother brought in a deceased squirrel nonchalantly, saying how the squirrel "needed surgery". The God awful smell was in the house for days.

Harriet's father had to explain to him about the squirrel already passing. Her youngest sibling cried himself to sleep. Blaming himself for killing the squirrel but in reality, it was horrifically ran over. It was just the circle of life.

     You get brought into this world and end up dying at the end of it all. Harriet's father never liked the idea of death, finding it a bit nerve racking. He always talked to Harriet about the possibility of him dying and if it ever had to come to it, she and her brother would have to be put into foster care. She hated the idea and suggested living with her grandparents, but the grandparents on her mother's side lived in a different country. The grandparents on her father's side were too ill to take care of children.

     Dying gave Harriet chills. Although, she found it remarkable how many ways you could die. How easily it was to die. Even if it sounded crazy, Harriet wondered what happened when you died. Would you see the light everyone theorizes is real? Would you greet the supposed God that made Earth and everything living in it? Would you wake up into another body, living a new life as that said body? Or was it all a simulation? A cruel, sadistic simulation?

     The dark-skinned girl tried to push the thoughts away. She was more focused on finding the missing girl. Layla looked back at Harriet, holding her nose. "Where did the scream come from?" Layla whispered as she squeezed her nose. Harriet didn't answer, but instead, felt for her recorder. She thought about documenting more about her time at the house, thinking of how detrimental the information would be in her findings.

     But she also didn't want to have something to remind her of the insane events that had happened right in front of her eyes. "I'm not sure," Harriet whispered back fearfully. She dropped her hand off the recorder, feeling that it was most likely best if she didn't record anything.

"Delancy?" Layla whispered loudly, pinching her nose tighter. Layla looked down at the ground. The wood turned to black due to the dirt and termites. She kicked a loose wood panel out of the way. When she did, she saw something that made her freeze.

The skeletal remains of a hand. A small hand, child size. Bugs were crawling all over the bones, eating the marrow since the flesh was all gone. The light from the flashlight shined down on the remains. The coloration of the bone was brown, releasing a potent smell of rotten milk.