Moving to Hell

Love makes blind

I've slept in his room that night and also the night after that. I couldn't sleep alone, and Johnny didn't mind. I liked falling asleep in his arms. It feels safe. It has been the first time I felt safe in a very long time. That night he'd told me it wouldn't take long before we'd figure out who the mother of the demons is. 'We'll get out of here soon,' he said. I don't know if I should believe that, but I also don't want to take away his hope. His hope is all we have left. I sure don't have hope myself anymore, so we should keep his. It might be our only way of surviving. What we didn't know is that the person we were looking for was right in front of us and that we knew here better than we thought. Or maybe the fact that she's the one who trapped us here, makes we don't know her at all.

Johnny went out picking up some groceries. Right before he left, I wanted to tell him something. 'Johnny?' I ask hesitantly while he's grabbing his coat. 'Did you know Lulu was here?' Johnny walks back into the living room. 'No, I didn't. Why was she here?' 'To help me save you, but she had to leave.' I sound hallow. I'm playing with the necklace Valentino had given me before he died. I think I remember where I know it from. 'What if she never left?' I ask my brother. He scratches his head. 'You said yourself she had to leave otherwise she'd be trapped here. Why would she stay then?' I raise my shoulders. I didn't know the answer to that. I look at the neckless. I'm almost sure she's worn one just like this. Only with less blood on it. 'I don't know,' I say, 'something just feels off.' Johnny softly chuckles. 'With you, something always feels off, Jackie. Don't worry so much, okay? I'm sure it's nothing. I've gotta go now.' He wouldn't believe me. He didn't listen to me. He was going to regret that.

Being home alone has never been my favourite thing. I always thought the worse things happened when you were home alone. I was proven to be right. I was sitting on the couch, watching tv, when I heard a door opening somewhere in the house. The squeaking sound appeared to be the front door and I assumed Johnny was back from the store. Although that would be fast, considered he didn't leave much longer than 5 minutes ago. I didn't look up from the tv when I heard footsteps getting towards me. Maybe I should have or maybe that would've only made me terrified or shocked. I wasn't prepared when she placed her hand over my mouth. My heart was almost beating out of my chest. I jumped from the couch and turned around. The neckless dropped on the ground. My mouth fell open when I saw her standing in front of me. She was smiling, but it wasn't a nice smile. It made me feel terrible and scared. 'You,' I said in disgust. I couldn't say I was surprised, but I wasn't happy about it either. 'Me,' she replied. I don't know what she was planning on doing to me, but I wasn't going to keep standing here until she'd done something horrible to me. I decided to run. I wasn't wearing any shoes or a jacket, but I didn't care. This was a matter of life and death.

'Come out, come out, wherever you are...' I hear Lulu's shrill voice calling me. I swallow, close my eyes and try to hold my breath. Any sound could mean my death, it might cause her to find and kill me. 'Come on, Jackie... you can't hide out forever,' Lulu continues. It's dark. I'm sweating. I take a quick breath. The tears flow silently down my cheeks. My hands and legs are shaking, I don't dare to move. I hear her footsteps, but I can't place them. I don't dare to look. What if she sees me? 'Hide and seek always was your favourite game,' Lulu says smiling. Her long, sharp nails slide along the steel pipe of the sewer in which we find ourselves. Only now does the smell penetrate my nose. Maybe I was too scared to notice. I'm panting. I look down at my feet. I bite my lip. 'After all those games we played, you've become quite a good hider, if I can say so,' Lulu says. Her shrill smile echoes through the room and makes the hair on my arms stand upright. 'But,' she continues then. A rat runs past her feet. Lulu stamps on her heel. The beast makes a great sound in the form of a shout. Lulu laughs meanly. She picks up the poor animal between thumb and forefinger. 'Hmm... what do we have here?' She looks at it with a slanted head. She puts it in her mouth. I hear her jaws break the rat's bones. It sounds terrible. Even more tears begin to flow down my cheeks, but I still don't dare to make a sound. Lulu licks off her long, thin fingers one by one and sniggers. 'But...' she finally continues, 'I always found a way to find you. Just. Like. Now.' Her voice sounds threatening and you can also hear something devilish in it. 'You won't find me,' I say in a trembling, low-key voice. It is probably far from sensible to make a noise in this situation, let alone talk, and yet I do it. 'Oh so you do talk, huh?' Lulu says. She laughs. She's enjoying this, enjoying my fear, enjoying playing with me. 'Why are you doing this?' I'm breathing heavily, but I've finally stopped crying. I hear water dripping on the floor and I see drops sliding down the wall. I close my eyes, look up and lean my head against the carcass, which in my eyes looks the most like a big crocodile. The way I'm sitting here, behind that carcass, I m just not visible. 'Because it's fun!' Lulu's voice sounds higher than normal. Her bulging eyes are still searching for me. I shrug my nose and shake my head. 'No,' I softly say, 'that's not true.' I hear Lulu screaming, frustrated. 'How dare you speaking to me like that?!' I scare a little from her. Suddenly she starts humming something, it's hardly audible. 'One, two... Three, four... Five, six...' She stares blankly ahead, scraping her nails over the thick, dirty walls. Her footsteps are almost inaudible. I turn my head slightly to the left. Now I can finally see her shadow. That way I know a bit if she's getting close. 'One, two, I miss you, three, four, it's on the floor, five, six, you can't fix, seven, eight, you need to wait, nine, ten, you'll see me again.' I frown. What does this mean? What is she doing? 'One, two, I miss you,' she singing louder and louder. 'Three, four, it's on the floor, five, six, you can't fix, seven, eight, you need to wait, nine, ten you'll see me again!' I cover my ears with my hands, close my eyes. I don't want to hear it! 'One, two, I miss you, three, four, it's on the floor, five, six, you can't fix, seven, eight, you need to wait, nine, ten... You'll see me again!' she shouted the last sentence. I almost screamed, but I just managed to control myself. She stops walking and laughs. 'Think...' she whispers. 'Think, Jackie...' I carefully remove my hands and sit up again. The light flickers. Then it got me; 'You brought us here...' I whisper. I look in front of me, with glassy eyes. Lulu chuckles. 'Indeed I did.' In the pond that has formed around me, I can see the reflection of my terrified face. Drops of sweat are on my forehead. 'You need to surrender...' Lulu's whispering voice sounds in my ears. It gives me the shivers. 'You need to surrender to them, like I did...' My heart beats in my throat. 'I won't surrender to demons! Not like you did!' I say steadfastly. Lulu grinds her eyes into cracks. She slowly starts seeking me again. Tears are standing in my eyes. 'I said that too, Jackie. The first time I got here...' Lulu sighs deeply. 'It was a nightmare. Who wants to live here?' she laughs. 'But...' My ears focus on her voice and try to determine where she is, while my eyes try to find an exit. 'But I discovered something. You see, I am their queen, Jackie.' I shake my head and chuckle mockingly. 'Why would you want that?' 'You don't get it! You never get it! We didn't fit in, Jacklyn... They hated us! They bullied you, they all did! No one-' Lulu slowly starts sobbing, 'no one was nice to you! You couldn't protect yourself and more importantly... I couldn't protect you...' I swallow once more. 'You never needed to protect me, Lulu...' I whisper. Lulu smiles. 'Of course I needed to protect you! You're my best friend! And so when I got here, I did a ritual...' She starts her rhyme: 'One, two, I miss you... three, four, it's on the floor... five, six, you can't fix... seven, eight, you need to wait... nine ten, you'll see me again.' I gasp, my eyes turn big. 'That rhyme...' I whisper, 'it was the ritual.' Lulu chuckles. 'Now you get it! See, it isn't that hard to understand, is it?' I hear her footsteps heading into my direction. I try to stay calm. My only hope's that Johnny finds the neckless I dropped on the floor and figures it all out before Lulu finds me. She really is an incredible seeker. 'Did you kill my parents?' I ask. I figure it's the best to keep her talking. Maybe it distracks her. She chuckles. 'You sure ask a lot of questions you already know the answer to, my dear.' Her voice is sharp, like a knife. I don't want to listen to it, but it's the best I can do. 'You killed them all,' I conclude. Excited Lulu claps her hands. 'Indeed I did!' she's amused. 'What are you planning on doing to us?' The only question I didn't knew the answer of. 'Your brother has never been of my concern. Why did he suddenly start caring about you? I was so mad at him and I wanted his head on a spit, but you couldn't let that happen, could you? You found it necessary to save you even after he made your life misserable!' Lulu's frustrated. 'We argue,' I say, 'but we're family. We'd never let each other die.' Lulu chuckles, shakes her head. 'Well if you're so sure of that, then where is he now? Why isn't he here to save you? Face it Jackie; you're all alone. No one's going to save you. I'm the only one who truely cares about you.' I didn't believe it. I knew my brother was going to come for me. he just needed more time. And time is what I was going to give him. 'Then what are you going to do with me?' I was curious. If what she said really was true and she did what she did because she cared about me, why would she want to hurt me then? 'I want you to join me,' Lulu tells. 'Not interested, thank you.' 'Oh but you don't have a choice. I will find you and I will make you join me, rather you want it or not!' I've never felt so threatened in my life before than on that moment. She wasn't bluffing. She meant it and if Johnny didn't hurry, it was going to happen.

He arrived at the right moment. Would he've been a second later, I'd be like Lulu right now. Then he had to stop us both. I knew he could never do that, so my relieve was big when I say him standing in the sewer, right in front of Lulu. He had the neckless in one hand and a knife in the other. He was full of scatches and blood, but other than that he seemed fine. I looked at him from behind the carcass. 'This is going to end,' he says. He doesn't sound scared. Lulu didn't seem to care. She didn't see him as a threat. Maybe she should've. Johnny shouts and runs forward to her. He throws the knife right in her heart. I assumed that was going to kill her, but of course it doesn't. Lulu laughs and stands up from the ground. 'You didn't really think that little knife of yours was going to kill me, did you?' Johnny grabs a lighter out of his pocket. He holds it by the neckless. 'No, but this is,' he says. He holds the flame close to the metal. Lulu's chest is burning. She screams out in pain. 'That knife in your chest is made out of the exact same materials as this neckless. Therefore; kill one, kill both.' Lulu falls onto the ground, exclaiming in pain. Fire's coming out of her chest, until there's nothing left than a pile of ashes. I slowly move away from the carcass. I look at the pile of ashes which once have been Lulu. Johnny's out of breath. 'Jackie!' He says relieved. I run into his arms. 'Don't ever let me go!' I say. He kisses my crown. He was never going to let me go.

It was over. Johnny and I walked out of the gate and left the town behind. We walked to the nearest town, which was not scary at all. There we cleaned ourselves up and called a cap. We wanted to get out of this place. We wanted to get away from here as far as possible, as fast as possible. So we moved to Japan. There Johnny's has become a therapist after he finished his study and I'm studying to become a doctor. I already know how to deal with a lot of wounds, so medical school isn't that hard for me. Although we're both doing okay right now, this will always be a part of us. We'll never be able to forget about what happened to us and about what we've lost. At least we still have each other, and we'll always have each other.