Diary: 17th August 2012

Diary: 17th August 2012

I can’t sleep tonight. The wails from my parents have gotten louder. I have tried to comfort them, tried to explain everything will be okay and that everyone can live on as before. When I say such things pale masks cover their faces and their mouths open in deafening silence. Their sorrow is only spoken through tears.

I always wonder what I can do to help, to make it easier for them. Even I have a hard time looking at my sister’s grave, but I should, for I am starting to forget her face and voice. What will happen, I wonder, when our parents forget as well? I think only then will my sister truly be gone. Then it can’t be such a bad thing to forget the dead. You make room for the living. I should tell them that tomorrow… If I live that long. As I write those words a shadow crossed the window. I peeked outside and saw him. The same man that used to come into my sister’s room when our parents were sleeping. The same man that killed her.

He moves closer. Condense from his breath stain the window. His bloodshot eye appears and surveys the room. I wonder if he can see me through the darkness.

Yes, he can, for his gaze just fell upon me. A grin crossed his face before he disappeared. I hear his laughter move outside our house. He’s by the front door. It opens. The stairs creak as he climbs them. His whisper fills the hall. He speaks to me, wanting back what was his, wanting what I stole. If only I could give it back. It’s too late.

He bangs hard on the door to my room. The hinges moan in pain at the force they endure. It won’t be long before he breaks through. Before he reaches me.

There’s a sudden silence. The man leaves. He moves towards the second floor where my parents sleep. He mustn’t get to them, but if I face him he’ll take me away. Forever.

My mother shrieks from her room. She is cut short by silence and a thud. Terror boils into panic and adrenaline sends me towards my door. I put my hand on the handle, swallow in fear, and open the door. Shattered glass fills the corridor floor. I look up and see all light bulbs shattered. I flick the switch but no light comes. I ascend the stairs in darkness.

I stand on the final step. With my foot in the air someone runs by. The tapping of feet sounds clear but the darkness renders the runner invisible. I look in both directions but see only a frail light from the master bedroom. With hands against the wall I move to my parent’s room. The door stands ajar. Suddenly someone sprints towards me from the other end of the hall. I look over my shoulder to see a silhouette rapidly approaching. Terror evacuates air from my lungs into a scream of fright. I open my parent’s room, run inside, and close the door. I feel beneath the handle for a key to lock the door but it’s gone. It has been taken. From the other side I hear someone fiddle with metal moments before a key is thrust into the door – and it’s locked. I turn the handle and pull the door. It won’t budge. Laughter fills the hall outside. Laughter that slowly dies as someone walks down the stairs and out of the house. Our front doors slams shut.

A moan sounds from behind me. I turn around against my will and stagger backwards in fright, hand at the door, turning and pulling the handle in panic. My father’s torso hangs with his intestines tied to a spinning fan in the ceiling. A body, entrapped in bloody bandages, writhes violently in an attempt to breathe through the fabric.

As the fan spins illumination moves across the room. Words of blood are painted on the wall.

“Be silent or he’ll awake.”

I feel myself short of breath, fright suspends my body in time, yet I hear heavy panting to my right. I turn. Something stares back at me. It is not human.