Nobody noticed the bloody handprints that decorated the windows. Who would, in a night as cold and dark as this, where the only people awake were those who were more likely to take a hand than to lend one?
Inside the small house that lined the street, Wanda Solace stared at her mother's body.
"Mommy?" Wanda asked, her teddy bear still securely attached to her arms. Her fingers tightened around the bear's furry body as if determined not to let him go. She still couldn't understand why mommy wasn't waking up.
"Mommy?" she asked again. And this time she noticed it. The blood. It slowly, painfully, seeped out of Mommy's open wounds. The silence seemed as deafening as a scream as she walked forward.
Like many five-year-olds, Wanda's mind had not yet understood the concept of death. It was alien to her, something far away that couldn't hurt her in the little bubble she called home. But the bubble had been shattered; the lie exposed.
"Mommy!" she shouted, this time letting go of her bear as she ran forward, too stubborn to believe what had happened until she saw it for herself. She couldn't believe it. She wouldn't believe it. Mommy couldn't be gone. They were a family! A team!
She's dead, child, said a voice from the shadows. Wanda ignored it. Her mother had told her not to listen to the shadows. It wasn't good to listen. It would not aid her here.
"Help!" she screamed.
Nobody can hear you, child
No! She shot back. I'm not listening to you! I'm not alone. Mommy's gonna wake up any second!
If you say so, the voice told her, the darkness moving around her. It slithered across the walls, circling them like a serpent gauging its prey, trying to discern whether or not it was worth the effort. A cold chill filled the air with no source in sight.
Black ice covered the entirety of the ceiling. It shimmered in the dark like obsidian crystals. Snowflakes of the same material danced on the breeze, landing in Wanda's pale, tiny hands. They coated her hair, turning it even darker than it already was.
She stifled a gasp when she realized they weren't coating her hair...but coming from it.
A sob caught in her throat. She'd failed. The shadows hadn't done this. She had.
"I'm sorry..."
Your apologies won't bring her back, the voice stated. We're all you have left
She balled up her fists. The shadows were right. Her apologies would never bring back her mother. All she could do was hope to be better. She would be better. She had to be. She had to remember what her mother had told her.
She took a deep breath, and pulled out the necklace.
The shadows roared in defiance, but it was too late. She'd allowed them to tempt her once before. Not again. It took her a few tries to clasp the pendant on properly, each time followed by agony worse than the last.
The locket hurt her more than anything ever could. Steam hissed as her flesh burnt from the locket, exacerbated by the herbs contained within. But she knew she had no other choice. This was the only way. She had to.
Stop, you fool! You will destroy us all!
No, Wanda thought. Only the worst parts of me.
The flashes of red and blue were the last things she saw before blacking out on the hard, stone floor.
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