All My Old Writing.

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

“Thana! Thana! Thana! Wake up”

I bolted up but collided with a small, yet slightly bulky item.

“Ow…Thana that hurt.” I heard a small whimper, followed by a soft crying. I sat up, rubbing my eyes. Opening my eyes, I saw Seraphina crying into her hands. Immediately, I pulled her into a hug, mumbling things like “are you okay?” and “it’s okay, baby”.

“I’m fine Thana.”

“Then why are you crying?”I asked as if she were stupid, but then again she was only about six.

“A weird lady with fire hair came in and said I was dead! How can I be dead?!” She looked up to me and I was staring at her beautiful, dull eyes. They glimmered, but seemed to be missing something. Were my eyes like that?

“You’re not dead.” I said, not exactly confident in my answer, “We can’t be dead. That lady was just crazy.”

She wiped her eyes and cuddled into my chest, “Does she drink like daddy?”

It was such a question of importance, stated in such a casual way. Such a scary way.

“Daddy?”

“Yeah, daddy. He would come home smelling like beer, and then he would hurt mommy. Sometimes Dante would try to hit daddy, but he would always end up bleeding.”

“Okay.”

“Let’s play Thana!”

“Um…sure?”

Her daddy? Was he the man in my dream? Are we really dead? No, stop thinking like that. I’ll never get out if I keep telling myself that. I will get out, and I’ll bring Seraphina with me. No matter what.

“Thana, let’s play Barbies!”

“Where’d you get the Barbies?”

“I stole them.”

Again, the way she said that so casually surprised me.

“Just kidding! I really tricked you!” She said, her melodious laughter echoing across the room.

Gosh, this kid is gonna kill me. I watched her laughing, smiling, realizing I couldn’t lose her. If I did, I would have nothing again. And I just couldn’t deal with that. Not now, where I couldn’t even remember why I was here.

“Uh, Seraphina?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you want to come explore the building with me?”

“Like on an adventure?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I hate adventures.”

“Okay then. How about an…uh”

“Investigation?!”

“Yup, an investigation. We’ll be super sleuths solving mysteries day and night!” I proclaimed, as I put my hands on my hips.

“Thank you so much, Thana!”Seraphina screamed, hugging me tightly, “I LOVE youuuuu!”

I had almost forgotten how easy it was to make a six-year-old happy.

“Well, come on. Let us go on an investigation!” I said in a singsong voice.

I jumped off the bed and immediately fell to my knees. Had I really been asleep that long? Nah. I stood up and noticed I was in pajamas, when did I change? Who cares? I was going on an INVESTIGATION! Wow, that sounded dorky. Eh, whatever.

“C’mon Thana! Let’s go!” Sera yelled as she pulled me out of the room.

Immediately, I felt a change in the atmosphere. It felt different. Like we shouldn’t be there. I was starting to get second thoughts when Sera started dragging me down the corridor.

“Wait, Sera.”

“C’mon Thana! You promised!” I did?

“But-“

“No! We’re going to investigate!”

Wow, I never noticed how bossy she was. But what could I do? I guess I’m going on an investigation. Only if I knew that going on this investigation would almost cost us our lives.