The moonlight trickled in through the window, slithering across the bleached walls and crawling down into the bleak room. Centered dominantly across the room stood a grand piano shrouded under a veil of darkness. As the light crept forward, slowly lifting the veil off of the piano, the monochromatic keys of the board expelled their own ephemeral flashes. With its veil thrown off, the lights uncovered the rest of the piano’s somber black hood. The light from the rest of the room circled around the piano, frightened of directly touching it.
Perched above the closed hood of the piano, a feeble patter of four footsteps stalked from the edge of the piano. Taking a few steps back from the edge, it gazed into its reflection crafted by the gleaming top of the piano. The piano fabricated a large and innocent pair of glowing blue eyes looking into it. Clusters of white against a solid backdrop of black covered the face of the reflection with a plush blanket of fur. Two long wisps of whiskers on each side of a tiny pink nose pointed up towards two pointed ears stemming out of its petite head. Moving it’s four paws back towards the edge, it peered down towards the key of the piano.
Against the minor keys, long locks of radiant platinum hair spanned against the minor keys of the piano. Moving up the scale, the keyboard revealed a lifeless head slammed against the piano keys with its long hair pouring down every which way of the keys.
The four small paws nimbly hopped off the top, onto one of the keys, bringing a note to life. Carefully treading over: it tripped over a black key, then a white key, and finally over another slender black key. The distressingly elegant sounds of the keys slowly reanimated the lifeless head back into consciousness.
Violently jerking her head from the keyboard, launching her hair back, she quickly scanned the room up and down around her with her fingers clenched and her spine rigidly shot up. As a cold sweat dripped down her head, reality slowly trickled back into her as her pumping stomach once again slowed. Peering down in front of her, she looked down at a kitten, staring intently into her sapphire-blue eyes before letting out a squeal. Clipped above the keyboard, she displayed sheet music for Salieri’s Overtures.
All of a sudden. her left hand began to uncontrollably convulse as the kitten hopped off the keyboard, past her lap, and deeper into the darkness of the room before stopping at the front door and turning back towards her impatiently. Tremoring faster, she looked away and towards the blinded window, as what was left of the sinister moonlight passed through. Hearing another squeal, she turned back towards the kitten, beginning to outstretch its claws against the door. Locked into a cryptic whisper, her weakened tongue managed to choke a few words out.
“You… want to go outside?”
A ringing silence fell over the room as she stared anxiously at the door before staring vacantly down at the kitten again. Dropping her guard, something suddenly encroached in on the silence, defiling it forever. From the recesses of whatever was held in the darkness, a soft tremor crescendoed down the hall into a deafening howl.
tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock
The sound launched an immediate assaulting strain into her head like the spearing tip of a bullet. As the crescendoing sound ravaged her ear, she felt briefly possessed for a moment as her legs shot up from the piano bench. Taking a long-vacant look at the door, she treaded discreetly over to her bathroom door, careful not to let a single noise sink out while carefully creaking the door open.
Forcing her weak legs forward, she scurried the darkness away with the flick of a light switch. Lagging a few moments behind, the mirror eventually displayed herself under the cover of the lights.
Two crimson eyes, shaded with engorged veins and capillaries were the first to appear in the mirror before the rest of her face emerged across. Her eyes, dreadfully bloodshot, showed a trace of a vivid sapphire-blue drowning under the mist of red. Scanning across the rest of her mirror, her skin appeared blotched and rashed as she stared in disbelief. Cloaked in a white collared blouse, pressed under a fitted black cardigan, she brushed back her streaming platinum hair behind her shoulders before leaving and letting the darkness swarm into the room again.
Another closed door now stood pridefully in front of her as she moved her convulsing hand up towards the knob, then back down, and up again. Faltering for a moment as the crescendoing sounds burst through the door as she braced her shoulders. Feigning a mask of confidence, she creaked the door open before poking her head through the crack.
tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock
The wretched snarls immediately swarmed her as soon as her ear creaked through, casting a painful wince across her face. Staring into the room for a few long moments, she waited for her heart to stop pumping furiously before she crept the rest of her body through.
Standing alone in a veil of shrouded darkness, she stumbled deeper into the room, noticing everything was just as she left it: a well-made bed, a mid-sized dresser balancing a broad mirror, and a small wooden cabinet adjacent to the bed. Atop of the cabinet, proudly stood the wailing clock. Its chants would pulse rhythmically, crescendoing sometimes and ebbing at others.
Stepping aggressively forward to disarm it, she felt her foot run into something as she lost her balance for a moment. Stumbling back into equilibrium, she looked down and found a checkered black and cat bowl with the number two plastered over it. Letting out a whimper, she swore that she always tripped on it every time she entered the room. Faltering forward now with a slight limp, her obscured reflection on the mirror began to magnify as she approached the dresser.
Creaking open the second drawer, she pulled out a gleaming Beretta hand pistol. Placing the firearm on the cabinet, it’s fresh coat twinkled under the darkness. Reaching deeper into the drawer, she pulled out a mid-sized box still encased in plastic. Tearing the plastic off with her teeth, she ravaged through the box, pulling out three bullets, tip first, before tucking the box back in. Awkwardly stumbling over the magazine release, she managed to load in two bullets plus the one in the chamber after what felt like an eternity. Stuffing the gun into a holster and then into her skirt, she pulled out a purse, shuffling through it and pulling out a scarlet licensing card before bringing it into the mirror’s reflection.
Scrawled across the scarlet card, in a bold black, the emblazoned letters spelled out “Sapphira”.
Lastly, she pulled out of the empty drawer a small vial of perfume before spritzing it liberally across her white shirt, flooding her nose with the fragrance of fresh crisp-petalled lilac. Securing it back into the cabinet, she walked off, forcing every ounce of her battered mind to ignore the clock’s antics.
With its shadow projected into the hallway, the kitten sat patiently ahead of the front door, with its eyes locked ahead like a famished lioness. As Sapphira approached, the kitten kept its eyes locked onto her, watching as she clutched her skirt. Pressed next to the door, it watched as she carefully approached it placing her ear onto it before knocking three times.
Knock Knock Knock
A minute of resonant silence flooded over the room, engulfing the two as Sapphira remained frozen with her ear to the door. Nothing but the firing shots of her heart spoke out. Moments passed before the kitten watched her head contort down to its eyes, she had collapsed into a fit of gasps, with a cryptic smile fastened onto her face. Breaking the silence, her tongue knotted together a hoarse whisper.
“Let’s go”.
Begrudgingly creaking the door open, she held her breath before stepping out into the corridor of her complex’s hall. Drenched in a familiar darkness, she waited for the cat to follow before carefully locking her door. She took a couple steps forward before stepping back to ensure it was locked. Once she was certain, she followed the cat down the corridor while meticulously scanning the area around her. Before approaching a staircase, she walked past a mirror fixed to the wall taking a moment to stop and look into her reflection. Capturing herself, alone, she stared into her engorged eyes for a moment, until the kitten began to whimper impatiently and claw at her skirt. Broken from her trance, her isolated reflection waved her goodbye before she approached the staircase down.
Pouncing from step to step, the kitten trailed ahead of Sapphira as she stepped down with her armed cocked back and pressed tightly onto her waist. Approaching the last set of stairs, she watched as the silhouette of a fly raced across the walls of the staircase. Continuing to scan the room, she could not find it despite how close it’s darting shadow was to her own, neither could she hear the familiar buzzing associated with it under the cover of silence. The wall painted the fly circling around her one last time before leaving undetected up the staircase.
Approaching the bottom, she found the kitten huddled up against the glass door, staring at the moonlit sky as she approached from behind. Cracking the door open, she immediately collapsed into a burst of shivers as soon as the frigid air pounced onto her skin with its claws drawn out. Unphased, the kitten immediately leaped out, as the sparse flashes of moonlight danced over its monochromatic coat. Suddenly unphased herself, Sapphira followed basking in the darkness of midnight sky as the wind whipped up into a piercing howl. She walked along the path of the apartment complex, taking a moment every few steps to look over her shoulders into the vast darkness. The predatory winds stalked from behind before rushing upon her and sinking their fangs down into her, drawing her face a gored crimson. Despite their mounting assault, she continued ahead, unphased by the pain.
To her right, in the parking space: her eyes locked onto a red Porsche, white Equus, green Ford Mustang, and a dilapidated pale-white Dodge Colt. As she passed, the headlights of all four cars simultaneously glared on. Disarmed, she quickly caught a glimpse of the Colt’s black license plate: 5:3.
Continuing to tremor ceaselessly, her right hand remained fixed to her side, fidgeting in response to every sound that her ears locked onto. She stood drenched in moonlight, the lampposts above her, inoperative, forcing themselves into submission as she walked further into the distance.
Suddenly, her ears picked up on something coming from the distance. Her right hand convulsed even faster, twitching her fingers violently up and down. Suddenly, every muscle in her body, but her hand, was suddenly fixed in shock as her legs remained fastened to the ground. The cries echoed louder, magnifying themselves into her ears as she attempted with no avail to reach for her pocket. The cries loudened, deafeningly high pitched and eerily anthropoid, whatever was around her wailed in agonizing pain, letting out its last shrieks into one final prayer that shook her down to her core.
The lamppost ahead of her suddenly lit up as the lights crawled over a suffering toad entrenched in its final stages of agony. With its mouth contorted open, screaming anthropomorphically with its eyes rolled backwards, she watched as two fresh wounds poured out pools of warm blood. It attempted to crawl forward, only to slip on its own blood and cry out even louder. Something from behind, still entrenched in a veil of darkness, sadistically pecked at it, stabbing repeatedly at it’s bulging eyes so it could no longer pray into the light. Opening up another gash, now three, the blood poured out as the frog let out one final wail. From behind the cover of the diseased toad, a small silhouette crawled over the toad’s bloodied corpse, before finally stepping back down into the light. With its beak dripping in fresh blood, and it’s white head stained red, the light began to elucidate over the dove as it stalked forward.
As the screams of the toad faded away, the dove with its flaming red eyes, stared right through her like a piercing bullet as it approached closer. Stopping at the end of the light, it let out a deep-throated eerie call at her before tearing its flaming eyes off of her and flying back into the darkness.
With her arm still quivering uncontrollably, she felt her body fall back into her possession as she burst into a sprint away from the toad and back towards her house. With each step forward, the winds picked up, howling louder and stronger as they slashed at her face, gouging it a darker crimson. The winds tossed her hair every which way as she struggled to make it back to safety as the moonlight receded back into the obscurement of the furious clouds. Choked up in a series of gasps, she took a look over her shoulder before finally arriving at the front door of the complex. Stepping in, she pried the fangs of the voracious winds off of her before shielding herself of their assault with the door. She took a quick moment to catch her breath before immediately stepping on guard once again.
Stumbling up the steps, she felt her legs quiver and ache uncontrollably while her convulsing hands loosened up from the frigid air. Making her way into the dark corridor, she gazed back into her reflection again. Other than the ravaged hair, everything else was the same: her reflection was just as isolated as before- nothing changed.
Shivering down the corridor, she felt a sudden pit crash in her stomach as her ears picked up on something faint from the distance. Whatever it was, it sounded eerily familiar yet threateningly ominous. Slowing her pace down, she further tuned her ears in now brutally aware of what was happening as her fingers shot up and down, mimicking the keys of the piano. At that moment wisps of clamoring musical notes poured through her door and towards her.
The notes of the piano echoed off the wall and slithered down through the long corridor; each ring of the note robbing more of the light from the hall. Throbbing ominously, the notes boomed quietly as they crawled out from the door and up into her ears. With each step towards the door marked by the clamor of her heels clashing with the notes until everything was drowned out by the crescendo of the notes. She slowed her pace gradually as well towards the door until she froze, overwhelmed, as the notes circled around her. Attempting to let out a scream, she watched helplessly as they wrapped around strangling her neck, moving next to her tongue and crushing it against her teeth.
Helpless, she listened to the song play out, wincing in pain with each note of the song spawned by her own piano. A single tear emblazoned in her eye as she clutched her holster, ready to draw and fire at any moment.
As the notes finally began to trail away, unshackling her, she crept towards the door finally drawing at the Beretta as it let out an eager twinkle from within the darkness. Standing just ahead of the door, her arms shuddered uncontrollably, almost dropping the gun, as the corridor fell into another deafening silence. Moments of silence passed with nothing but her clanging heart as she attempted to take another step forward before freezing dead in her tracks.
Knock Knock Knock
Coming from inside and booming out into the corridor, she clutched the handle harder as her knuckles bruised purple. Ready to fire, she watched as the door creaked itself open. Sapphira watched as the walls illustrated the shadow of a fly flying out and into the corridor. Taking a step forward, she cracked the door further open with the pistol aimed dead ahead. As soon as she covered up her eyes in pain, blinded by every single light turned on in her house. Gathering her composure, she horrified to her left at what was left of the defiled grand piano. As the light elucidated over a series of sheet paper reading Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor as a few tears trailed down from her face.
Locking the pistol ahead, she pulled the trigger and fired, putting the defiled out of its misery. The sheet music dropped onto the floor as the piano let out an echoing wail of notes once the bullet pulverized through.
Another bullet made its way into the chamber as she listened to its wail fade away. Turning around, she made her way towards her bedroom, still clutching the pistol. The room smelled of wilting lilac.
tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock
Wincing in pain, she pounced towards her room still on guard. Her reflection magnified in the mirror as she approached closer with her ebony black hair flowing from side to side. With her right hand still twitching furiously, she faced the tempered clock with her hand cocked on the trigger.
tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock
The clock read 5:03. She pulled the trigger and fired. The bullet tore through the face of the clock, thrashing it off the drawer as it collapsed and shattered gruesomely on the floor.
With the last bullet loaded into the chamber, she turned towards the mirror and stepped towards it with the gun still locked ahead. Staring into her cold bloodshot eyes, she watched as the lights receded, slithering out of the door and crawling back towards the window.
tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock
ns 15.158.61.54da2
