"It's not funny anymore, Brad," I complained as I ripped up another one of the notes my younger brother had left me.
I'd been waking up to poorly written messages scrawled on strips of random paper every morning for the past month and a half. They always said something he'd hoped would be scary, such as references to my skin or my scent. Today's, (or rather last night's), message was, "You look so pretty when you're sleeping."
"I swear I'm not the one doing it," he retorted tiredly as he slid a pair of socks on to his feet and bounced down the stairs.
"If you say so," I groaned, grabbing my book bag and tagging after.
I slid into my place at the table just seconds after he'd taken his.
"Mom, tell your loser son to stop leaving notes on my desk," I said, dunking a spoon into cereal. "It's not scary, it's not funny, and I'm starting to get annoyed."
"I'm telling you, it's not me," he persisted, adding sugar to his corn flakes like only a true American would.
"Brad, stop picking on your sister," my mom half-assedly admonished over the clatter of dishes in the sink. "And Ashley, stop calling your brother a loser."
This was our new daily routine.
Breakfast more or less followed the same script slightly altered. Each new argument about the letters wore at my mother's patience more and more. I think she let out an actual sigh of relief when we finally left the kitchen, thus leaving her with a chance to finish her coffee in peace before work.
As usual, I broke away from Brad to walk the few blocks to school, and the day passed by in its also usual fashion. I made my way back home nearing 3 pm, and ran upstairs to change into comfier pants as soon as I crossed the threshold. I heard Brad do something similar just minutes after as I sat down on my bed and leaned back to stretch. I only noticed the new note when my movements blew the shred of an old research paper off the edge of my desk.
One side said something about the education system in Finland, and the other...
"I could stand here all day and watch you."
I rolled my eyes and balled up the paper as I stood up to walk to Brad's room. I stopped myself very shortly.
When would he have even had time to do this? The more I wondered, the weirder it got. He had been downstairs before I had that morning, and I had gotten back home before he did. I also highly doubted he was committed enough to a prank that wasn't working to circle back home and leave me a new one.
I decided to let the subject rest and head back downstairs to watch some cartoons.
I turned to close my door behind me, and something caught my eye.
The door to the attic in the corner of my room was slightly ajar. It was only open a crack, but that slice of darkness stared back at me like a black hole, slowly sucking the air from my lungs. I'd been afraid of that attic ever since I was child and spent many nights plagued by nightmares of this very occurrence. Early on, I'd grown into a habit of piling laundry baskets and other hefty possessions in front of the door because of them. I was angry that Brad had gotten the normal room, and that wasn't something I had outgrown.
I don't know what possessed me to do it, but instead of just shutting the door and retreating, I decided to move the clutter away and open it up for a look. I reached around to flick the light on and slowly leaned my head in. What met my eyes at the top of the staircase was...nothing. Nothing but boxes of old junk and dust orbs.
I chanced a feeble "hello?" and audibly snorted at myself when nobody answered. The scariest thing that could have possibly been up there was years worth of collected dust and cobwebs, and maybe the hollow carcasses of long gone spiders and bugs. I turned off the light and re-barricaded the door feeling silly, but not silly enough to go up for a proper look around.
