When Clara saw death for the first time, she threw a chair at it. This may not be the typical response to recognising one's sudden demise, but it was Clara's.
"BACK BACK! BACK!" she yelled, showering it with crayons from the nearest table at hand.
"You're coming with me," the spectre growled in a low, inhuman voice. "Dead or alive."
That was when Clara began to feel genuinely frightened. She had hoped, as you do, that it was merely one of her friends being a terrible human being and trying to give her a fright, when she regularly made it quite clear that she absolutely hated frights. But she didn't recognise the voice, and as it had said dead or alive, she felt quite sure that she could safely assume there was, in fact, a living human being behind the queer mask. Humans were arguably more terrifying than death.
"I am not in the habit of being kidnapped, thank you," she said sternly, and fled from the room, surprised by her own audacity.
Of course, the footsteps followed. She ran upstairs to the second floor. They followed. She ran down the second set of stairs to the first floor. The footsteps pursued, and her thighs began to ache.
More than a little concerned, now, she ducked behind a door, and when the hooded figure stepped into the room, she slammed it shut on them with all her might. Her attacker cried out, but Clara didn't stick around to apologise - but nor did she run far.
Her breath wasn't coming in right - and it wasn't leaving right - and her heart convulsed as she realised the awful truth: she had used the one door in the whole building that had a balcony attached to it.
She was trapped.
Clara spun, hoping to find anything to use as a weapon - praying that maybe she had bought herself enough time to escape back into the building - but no such luck. The doorway was blocked.
"Did you think -" the figure snarled, and Clara did the only thing she could think of: darted forward, ripped the mask off, and tore the hood back. At least if she died -
To her complete and undying disgust, there stood her sister, grinning sheepishly.
"Hi."
Clara slapped her so hard her hand went numb, and stormed back into the building, wiping the terrified tears from her face.
"Clara!" Cassandra called. "Clara, I'm sorry! It was meant to be a joke... I know you hate frights, but I thought a voice distorter would be hilarious, but then you ran away, and I followed to explain -"
"I don't want to hear it." Clara found a corner and sat in it, barely able to breathe, squeezing her ears. "I don't want to hear it."
Cassandra hesitated for a moment, then slowly sat back-to-back with her sister. "I was horrible. I'm sorry."
Clara let Cassandra hug her while she sobbed, but it was something she never forgot.
