Trees swinging and wisping ever so slightly from the racing wind of the family car going by. Kate was sitting in the back seat of the small Volkswagen, moaning and groaning about the move. Her brother, on the other hand, he was excited to move, to see new places and new people. He was bouncing with excitement. Kate was complaining on and on that she won't fit in or that people will make fun of her for her odd fashion. "How long will we have to be here for?" Kate said looking outside the window, staring out into nothingness, coming across a sign saying, "Darksville, home of the Dark Creek and the oddest oddities."Her mother, Eleanor looked back for a second to see her children, "Hopefully a while, You know what, your father and I grew up here. We used to play pretend in the park near the school, and go to the antique shop to look at the cute little Sock puppets the owner's son made for a small play he wrote."
Timothy, eagerly looking at his mother, with an excited shake in his voice he spoke. " Come on Kate, lighten up a bit. You'll make more friends here than you ever had, and from what Dad showed me, the house is way up your alley." He pulled up an image of a gothic style house on his phone. The Gothic house pierced the Gloomy skyline mincingly. The old worn paint that at one time in its life might have been called bright purple was chipping away from the woodworks of the house. The windows were grimy and rusty, and the door looked like it was coming off the hinges, silently threatening to fall down. Katlyn looked up with one eyebrow flying into the empty abyss of her spacious forehead. "You really can't be serious here, right?" She crossed her arms, " The house is practically falling to the pavement below, the door is almost falling to the janky wood pile called a porch. This house is more of a disaster than I anticipated." She sat back in the car seat staring at the town, well, the village around them. The market turned into the suburbs, quickly. The stygian house was an eyesore compared to the rest of the neighborhood. The other addresses were neat and in order, a simple cookie cutter shape of a house, from the same White wooden porch to the same rusty brown brick chimney. No matter how many alterations on your clone houses each one is just as bland as the rest.
The car came to a stop next to the sidewalk. The rickety old house looked over them unnaturally as if it was anticipating a new owner. Tim jumped out of the car and started up the stairs, but what caught Kates' eyes was a sign in the front yard. "Scheduled for demolishment" and a large ¨CANCELED" text stamped on it for a sort of comedic effect. On her way to the porch, she noticed a condemned notice on the door. She looked back at her mom struggling with the luggage. Kate tugged the paper off the door, it was from 4 years ago. Kate thought "Maybe the reason they didn't take down the house is that is a historical factor or an issue with the deed to the house or a will declaring the state of the house by a family member to preserve it." She shoved the small tattered paper in her tiny homemade pocket on her dress.
¨I can't believe that you got the oddest house out of all of them in this neighborhood,¨ Kate looked to see Tim running around touching and looking at all the previous owner's stuff that they left there. Their mother came in with her luggage, ¨Tim, Kate, please get your bags from the car!¨ Both of the children brought their bags in like how they were told. Eleanor stopped Kate and Tim from going up the stairs to the vast hallway of guest rooms, ¨ You know what, I think that you two should go out and adventure in the backyard, I'll take your stuff up into the hallway so that when you guys get back, you can pick out your rooms.¨ Their mother smiled sweetly as she saw them walk to the back patio.
The backyard was as poor looking as the front. It was unkeeped and writhing in an infestation of weeds. A lone tree placed in the middle of a small hill, the tree had a small homemade swing that was falling at the seems. The backyard property was separated by fences and the wild stream of trees, the Darksville's Dark Creek woods. A faint whisper of a chilled wind called out to the siblings like a siren's song, to go it to the heart of the woods. Katlyn walked to it with curiosity, looking deep into it as if looking for the source, she saw a faint red glow beyond the rows of dead leaves and crooked branches. Time seemed to stop what felt like hours, Timothy backed away from the sirens call. Small droplets begin to fall on top of their heads as their mother called from the patio, "Katlyn, Timothy come back inside before you are drenched!" The two walked back to the house slowly, Katlyn looked back at the area that had the anonymous red glow. The trees seemed to cover the path to the glow.
Once inside they both went upstairs to start unpacking their clothes, but first picking rooms. " which one do you want Tim? I personally like the door on the right. It feels like something in there is going to rip my face off, I just have a hunch." Grinning while saying it, Kate opened the door slowly, Gathering suspense causing Tim to squirm in his shoes at what might happen. Katlyn walked in and the door shut behind her. She banged on the door, then tried the door handle but, it seemed to be locked from the outside. " Tim, Timothy, did you shut the door on me?!? I was just joking, open the door!?" Timothy didn't speak, instead, a deathly silence found its way through the house. The room was grey, the smell of newspaper print and dust was in the air. "What's going on here?" Kate looked around the grey dusty room, seeing a small bed with a porcelain doll on it, a tiny chair made for toddlers, some drawers next to the headboard of the bed, and two medium-sized windows.
She walked up to the window on the right, she could see the Street and her mother's Car park right where it was left. The house across from her was somewhat different than the rest of the clone neighborhood. The house was a sickly color of orange with what looked like burned marks on the sides of the house. Kate went back to the door after looking in the drawers for a key. Timothy came in with a loud thud, "Katlyn! I am so sorry that I got you stuck in here, I was just playing around." Timothy looked frightened, not from a monster or an intruder, but he was terrified of what Kate might do to him. Walking slowly to him, only paying attention to the floor not showing her eyes to him. " Katlyn is you o-" Katlyn interrupted him by looking one eye dead straight into his soul. "You had me there little brother, but I think you need a little more practice," she had a wicked grin on her porcelain face, you could mistake her as a life-sized doll. She started to chase Tim around the room until their mother started to yell at them for making the ceiling dust everywhere downstairs. When they got downstairs the clock on the wall rang to six, the rain outside was lightly sprinkling and the smell of wet grass was seeping into the house walls.
" Come on children, it's time for the best part of the day~, Dinner!" Eleanor practically sang it to the heavens above. " what are we having, Mother?" the siblings said in unison. " well, since you asked, we're having-" a sudden knock on the door silenced everyone in the building. " Who could that be?" Their mother walked out of the kitchen to the door, Muffled screams of delight could be heard. She came back to the table with Matthew Steiner, their father. His clothes are soaked to the point that his hair is sticking to his forehead. "Hey guys, Guess who's here~," She said holding their dad in front of them. " Hey dad, How was work." Kate asked. " good, I guess. Nobody showed up and there were only two employees other than me." He said taking a seat at the very heavily damaged table. Eleanor came in with a crate full of plates with food on them. "We have to go to the grocery store tomorrow, we have nothing to make here except pasta and rice, so we are eating just that." Everyone groaned in the disappointment of the dull, boring display of food, It was not appetizing.
After everyone finishes their dinner and the clocks rang nine throughout the rickety halls of the manor, they headed to their hand-picked rooms. Katlyn came across the grey, dusty room once again to live in. She sat on the small, surprisingly plump mattress to start her new routine of going to sleep when she noticed something off. The once small room looked to be engulfed by branches, dirt, and dead leaves. The more she looked around, more of the room seemed to dissolve under the forest ground, until she was sitting in the dirt in front of the spot where she saw the glowing from. She got up and turned around to see that the house was gone and the tree on the hill was yet a sapling. Above her were the bluest of hues and clouds so perfect that they looked fake. This perfect world was disturbed by a loud noise of crying and yelling coming from deep within the forest. A bright red beam shot up into the sky, Dark clouds swirling around it, consuming the once beautiful blue pristine horizon above.
Katlyn watched in horror as the display before she was a nasty one. She shut her eyes tightly when the wind started to pick up. Lightning struck next to the window, waking her up with a start. She sat up in the bed looking at the left window to see the street and the rain going down harder than a tree falling. The right window swang open, tracking rain in and soaking the grey rooms musky floor. Katlyn got up from the hard cold mattress and shut the raging window. ¨ I need to get going to dreamland¨ She whispered harshly as she stepped back into her bed. Ringing, chiming, a little red coo coo bird popping out, remarking the coming of midnight.
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