The Ordinary Dead

The End

"Come on," Ciara hurried Kyran and Anastasia, growing more and more impatient by the second.

Kyran could see that she was worried, perhaps by the way her lip kept twitching when she spoke, or that she was unnaturally twitchy. Anastasia, though it wasn't her father in danger, had a brooding expression on her face. Of course, she wasn't the only one worried - as stupid as it may have seemed, Kyran was also worried about leaving Muffin back in the Land Rover, but figured the cat could fend for itself.

The sun was beginning to set, and the forest had become cold, and the wind carried the chill in the air which beat onto their faces. Anastasia, Kyran and Ciara had all grown tired of trekking through the forest.

"Maybe we should just... give up." Anastasia said, and then yawned.

"No," Ciara defended,  surprised she replied so fast. "We can't just give up on my dad."

"Maybe she's right, Angel. We're not going anywhere." Kyran carried on with a tilt of his head, and lifted a corner of his mouth.

"Wait a second--" Anastasia ran in front of them both, catching sight of a small, grey brick house. It was covered with mould and ivy, and seemed derelict and decayed. From the outside, it seemed abandoned and useless - but who knew what could have been on the inside?

She stopped in front of the building, and knocked on the door. The sound echoed in the house loudly. Kyran looked over to Ciara, who perked up at the idea of her father being near, and then back to Anastasia, who was in front of them both. They both jogged to catch up with Anastasia, who seemed a little disappointed when the knock wasn't answered. Instead of  knocking again and louder, she decided to try the doorknob. She placed her hand on the cool, rusted metal, and turned the doorknob, and found that it was unlocked.

Creeping into the house slowly, Kyran took a quick look around the walls of the house. Even on the inside, the house looked as derelict as it did on the outside. The grey paint on the walls was cracked; spider's webs lined the corners; and where the stonework showed through the chipped paint, mould and moss grew in the cement. Ciara followed Kyran's gaze up to the spider's webs, and shivered with fear - she couldn't stand spiders, and being in a house with so many webs made her feel even more nervous than she was already.

"Suddenly," she began, shrugging Kyran's jacket and scarf off.  "I don't feel so cold anymore." 

"I'll take it for you," he offered, and held out his hand. Ciara handed over the jacket and scarf, and he put them on over his clothes. It was as if Ciara and himself had swapped eerie feelings all of a sudden - Kyran was now the cold one, and Ciara was the one that was too warm.

Kyran reached for Ciara's hand in order to hold it, and when they touched, she looked at him and smiled. Her hand was clammy from the heat and fear, but she let him hold it all the same. For that moment, he felt oblivious to any of the dangers that his instinct was telling him to watch out for, and instead he focused on Ciara: the way her dark brown roots had begun to grow underneath her pink hair; how her eyes had regained the sparkle she once had; how she was beautiful, despite being in a dirty, muddy forest for the last day, and regardless of the fact that she was wearing no make up.

Anastasia navigated her way through the house as if she had been there before. She lead Kyran and Ciara through the hallway, which had floorboards that stuck up, almost tripping them up. She then lead the pair into a rat infested kitchen. The smell hit the trio like a punch to the stomach - the pungent smell of rotting rat corpses almost made Ciara vomit. On top of the counters lay piles of unwashed dishes, which some of the rats were eating fermented food from. 

Anastasia decided that it was time to leave quite quickly, and she lead the pair through the kitchen into another hallway. She stopped abruptly at hearing a piercing scream, just in front of a wooden hatch. It was the kind of scream that made your blood run cold, like a wounded banshee, but male.