I stayed outside the next morning so I didn't have to face my father's over what had happened yesterday.
Shame burned at the back of my neck while I focused on trying to pick the perfect flower I could put into that sludgy black vase on the verandah.
Suddenly, shade focused over my patch of plucked stems, causing me to peer up at the intrusion.
"Your burning again" my dad smiled with a sun hat held over me.
His blue eyes smiled at me when he placed the hat over my head and gave it a good, forceful twist in jest.
I laughed out and saw him squat down beside me to check my halo of destruction.
"Are you going to become one of the flowers out here?" he teased "I haven't seen you at all."
"Im good here" I mumbled and plucked another to have it wilt over "I'm practicing."
He tensed, glancing at me.
"Practising?"
"To pick the perfect one!" I exclaimed and held up a wonderous yellow that looked like it was fighting the disease feeding it. Dad got a look at it before it bent over and died.
His smile was in relief. His hand rubbed the hat on my head playfully again.
"I've got a beautiful field outside the window every day" he spoke to my hands smearing the broken flowers into my puddle around me "you don't need to waste your energy and precious talents trying to bring it to me."
I huffed at the sadness stewing inside me. It bubbled up my throat and squeezed it, sliding up and down.
He didn't understand. He thought it was all some cute joke I was out here day by day trying to achieve the impossible.
"I just want one in there" I mumbled while staring at the smeared glass beneath the painting "just one."
"And you will" Dad laid his hands on my shoulders that burned in response "when it isn't so hot. You'll be a puddle too if you don't come inside."
I sighed and looked up to Dad again. His blue eyes crinkled back when he held out his hand towards me.
I drowned it, dropping my eyes down as the disease slopped down onto the ground between us.
We walked away from each other's side so none of the mess stained our clothes. All of mine already had some sort of black smear around where I pulled them on for sleep or unconsciously rubbed my hands down whenever something got stuck to them.
Maybe it wasn't going to be so bad after all?
"There she is" Dad called out with a smile when I entered the house "why don't you have a seat? We've got some things to talk about."
His red eyes kept the smile sincere. I glared to my other father who meekly took a seat at the table and dragged out one for me.
He had bloody tricked me.
I dragged my feet the whole time, scuffing up the floor, before dumping myself into the seat and huffing to dad beside me.
"Hey, it's not so bad" he whispered to my sour glare.
"Now, while you are out of the sun, let's enjoy some cold water, ok?"
A glass was placed before me that I took carefully. I was still mad at my Dad's, but too thirsty to not accept the bribe.
"Your dad and I were talking... " he started as he dragged out his own seat on the other side of me "...and we'd like it if you didn't have contact with the man who was around here yesterday."
I let the water I was drinking slip back out of my mouth into the glass.
"My real dad?" I gasped out, looking to them in disbelief "how come? He's a bit scary, but he's not a bad guy."
Dad looked to my other dad; red eyes meeting blue.
"He's not a good influence" blue eyes softened to me, with a comforting hand reaching out.
"We've raised you not to chase after strangers" red eyes frowned back "and he's making you act out."
Because I chased after him and cried at the fence? Because he was telling me about a mother I never knew?
"Why don't you tell me about my mum?" I accused them both "Dad told me about her! She's just like me and I don't even know her! I've never seen her, or him, until now!"
I wanted to yell at thier concerned faces just staring at me. I wanted to cry and slam my fists, everything; without being scolded or feeling like I was being unreasonable.
"Zennie" Dad sighed back. His red eyes fixed on me as he held his head now "we've kept you from these things for your own good. You can't be chasing things you think are good for you."
"Your father and I did that" Dad muttered to my left "We did what we thought was good, and what we were told, but it wasn't what was supposed to be."
"So, that's it?" I snorted and leant from my left, then from my right, before pushing myself out from between them "I'm not supposed to w-want to see them at a-all?"
I couldn't keep the tears from choking me. They ran down my cheeks that I wiped, smearing the disease over my burnt skin.
I didn't want to see them or hear them anymore. I just wanted to be alone with my bitter thoughts and anger.
"Zenith" Dad reached for me "we're trying to keep you safe."
"From what?" I whined back "you keep saying that and I keep having to deal with this!" I flung my arms down to splatter the table "I don't need protecting! I don't need this! And I don't need you!"
I stormed from my seat to the cupboard past the kitchen. An old faded green bucket was dumped on the floor inside with stained black plastic from where I had been dripping into the damn thing.
"Where are you going?"
"To the creek" I snapped back and barged out the front door that snapped open for me before I halted blindly, glaring to the blurred figures "don't follow me!"
Dad always had a thing for trying to keep an eye on me while thinking he was being sly about it all. His blue eyes always gave him away. They glowed in the darkness and made it too obvious.
I barged out the house, down the stairs, and out across the field.
The bucket helped collect some of the disease flinging into the flowers on my right. It snaked down the worn handle taped from years of previous abuse.
It had been my Pop's too. That's all I was told when I was gifted it so long ago. That's all they would tell me about my family who started this pointless generational curse.
Stupid parents. My real dad was out there with a way how to control this damn thing, and my stupid dad's were too dumb to let him tell me how.
Protect me. What a joke. They never needed it, so why should I?
Glaring up at the broken mountain while trudging over the slab of sizzling stone, I crouched my way down to the water to scoop my bucket through it and watch the blowing blackness be washed away.
If only it was that easy. This curse always stuck with me, no matter how long I stayed in the water and wished it was gone when I had to pull myself from it.
I couldn't have anything nice. I couldn't have clean clothes or body. My hair had to be brushed for me otherwise it would glue together, and anything I touched drowned or died in this disease.
I wished it would go away. Just like my dad's. I wanted to be with my real dad and real mum. We'd know how to get through this together, and I wouldn't be yelled at for doing something I couldn't help.
I just wanted my dad back around me the way he had been when our hands had touched. He made me feel safe and happy about this stupid blackness for the first time in my life.
He was nice. He understood me.
He also didn't follow me.
"I know you are there" I huffed without turning around "I told you not to follow me."
Silence. Maybe he was trying to make me believe I was confused about him lurking?
He was never good at hiding around me. His bright eyes gave him away.
I could sense something was off though. For my other dad, the air buzzed when he was close. Sometimes, I heard the wind whisper words that he hadn't said. He always stayed behind so it wouldnt be so obvious he was watching me.
This time was different. It was silent, but there was a pull like with Dad. It was still far enough to not be concerning, but I stood to scan the quiet surroundings anyway.
It was just the field and the dead flowers spotted in them. Bees bounced between the living plants, burrowing into the bigger ones that grew down along the creek.
I couldn't see the house from here. The ground arched too much to have a clear view of the house. I couldn't even see the roof from my little slice of haven.
They were watching me. I could never just be alone.
I returned to the water to scoop my bucket through it, pausing when the buzzing pickled at the back of my neck.
Turning, I saw nothing. My body was tense from the feeling of the unknown pressing its weight down onto me. I didnt like how uncomfortable it made me feel.
The water could wait. I had to get home and away from this gross feeling.
Heaving the bucket up, I tipped out the blackness across the rock below me. The water created a cooing path for me to hurry across for the mound blocking my sight of safety.
The wind was quiet, but the buzzing sawed through my nerves. It vibrated my blood and made a whimper escape my lips on my scamper up the patched grass.
I needed my dad. All those bad things I thought were true were gone in an instant now that I was alone and unprotected.
"ZEN!" I heard my dad call out in panic.
He was the one who could feel it too. His fear warbling out into the air only made mine intensify.
Nothing scared him like that.
"DADDY!" I cried out and clawed my way up to the top of the mound where he was finally in sight "DADDY!"
I could feel it on me, around me, and inside me. Whatever it was, it was approaching fast and unrelentlessly.
Dad bolted out the gate and towards me. He kept his red eyes everywhere but on me when he ran, scooping me up to press me against him.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, watching the quietness in terror.
"Daddy, what is it?" I snuggled into his neck.
"I don't know" he breathed out as his hands tightened on me "just keep quiet, ok?"
I whimpered and bit my lip while keeping my eyes glued to the silence behind us both.
Dad easily cleared the gate and verandah where he lowered me down so he could scan his surroundings.
"Stay here" he warned me with a light push into the house my other father emerged from "go to your room and close the door. Hide under the bed for me. Don't make a noise."
Hide under the bed? What was all this about? I didn't want to be left alone with a monster bursting into my room!
"Daddy!" I grabbed for his arm "don't leave me!"
The buzzing was starting to carve into my bones. The wind, wordless before, chattered in words mashed together.
"Get her upstairs" Dad barked to my other "keep the windows closed."
He nodded, tearing me from the arm I clung to so I could be rushed away.
The front door slammed as Dad tore from his skin into the monster with the same caved head as my feral dad's side. The fan along his back quivered before he scurried off towards the source he pinpointed.
"Dad!" I cried out.
"Shh, Zennie" I was hushed while being whisked into my room and lowered to the floor beside my bed "not a noise, ok?"
"W-why?" I moaned out while Dad ran around to close the window opposite us and the one next to me to my right, snapping the slats shut over them "c-can it hear me?"
Dad dropped to the floor beside me and pulled me into his lap. His arms wrapped tightly, his hand covering my eyes.
"Whatever you hear, I'm not going to let it hurt you" he whispered "stay quiet, darling."
The words in the tangled air started to thin out. Like a finger plucking on loose ends, I started to understand the noise.
Omen.
"Omen" I repeated when the word nudged into my ears "that's a bad thing, isn't it, Dad?"
"It's a person" Dad quickly corrected "we shou...."
Omen.
Why are you here?
I see you.
I hear you.
I know you are there.
"It hears us" I whispered out and sobbed "I'm s-scared, Daddy."
I was gently shushed before the other hand clamped over my mouth. It was forceful, trying to stop the noise already being smothered from it.
Dad rested his head on mine. His body hunched over to shield me protected in his grip.
My hands gripped onto his arms, steadily staining the floor around us.
I see you.
The voice snapped the buzzing off, like flipping a switch. It was eerily quiet now, allowing me to hear every slow slap on the stairs ascending upwards to the door.
A low dragging accompanied it briefly before the slapping stopped at the top and started down to my door.
I could feel Dad tense around me. His body was rigid and his breath so shallow it was like he wasn't breathing at all.
I hear you. I smell you.
The slapping stopped outside the door. Dad leant towards it, bowing my body under his that let out a low growl.
I felt him tear around me to shed his false skin and rip into his monstrous form. The arms dropped from my eyes and mouth so I could see Dad not lunging for the door, but for something that had slipped through the window behind us.
His exposed skull had its jaw split open to snap around the intruding voice. His arms clawed into the black mass flinging black disease around the room in its writhing to try and escape back out the open window.
Dad's tail whipped through the air, the exposed bone on the top that spread up his spine just narrowly missing me when I slipped under the bed.
The door burst open and the feet came thundering towards the bed at lightning speed. They were pitch black and stained every surface like oil.
I could feel the bed crushing against the weight above me. The snarling of my father against the silent intruders bleeding black blood all over the sheets hanging over the edges was the only noise tearing through the air.
I had to be quiet otherwise they would get me too.
I can hear you.
The scream was pulled from my mouth when black clawed hands scooped onto the sides of my legs and yanked me from under the bed.
The mass of dripping disease formed a head right beside me; one with sockets for the eyes and mouth that gaped as it stared at me.
It tilted, focusing right into my eyes.
"DADDY!"
"Zen!" Dad flung himself for the wall sucking me inwards "leave her alone! She's got nothing to do with this!"
The disease recoiled at my own, choosing to let my arms hang out so they could swipe for my father being dragged back over the bed.
He snapped his teeth into the reaching monster, scrambling back towards me to try and reach me.
His claws brushed my fingertips. He was torn back again and forced away by the hands trying to snatch at his skin.
A figure of the same one sucking me in formed to stare at my father, surveying him.
Omen.
He isn't here.
They must die.
They aren't him.
"DADDY!" I wailed out when the disease decided to devour my own arms beneath it "its trying to kill me!"
"Get your hands off her!" Dad snarled back to the monster he spread across the floors and walls "leave her alone!"
With each severed hand or struck body, the black disease slid across the floor to reform to the one absorbing me into it.
I could feel it restricting me from within. Hundreds of slimy hands gripped onto my clothes and skin, tugging.
The blackness crept up my face and to my ears. It lingered there, branching across my nose so it could tickle my nostrils and threaten to fill my lungs.
"Daddy!" I whimpered and tried to pull against the force "please. Save me."
"Zennie" my Dad whined back as he latched onto the mass take his claws across the surface and dig me out "Im sorry. I love you."
"Daddy."
Jerking tears rolled over the darkness when I saw the open door blur over and my father's useless fight before his only exit. His words were silent now, as well as the monster who slowly devoured me through its oily body to die. I saw both heads snap to the door only moments before the darkness poured into my nostrils and leaked into my eye sockets.
It felt like my head was being inflated and my brain was dying with each moment the disease poured me into a weightless darkness.
My heart hammered through the emptiness the same way the buzzing had cut through my mind. It was all I could hear now.
I didn't want to die. I was so scared.
The thudding of my heart vibrated the restricting void I swiped within for something that could help drag me out of it.
I just wanted my Daddy. For all I knew, he could be devoured by this monster too. He could never be coming back to save me; neither of them.
The monster had come from nowhere. I had wished this on both of them without even thinking of the possibility it would actually happen.
I didn't want to die!
I reached out, feeling myself float further into the thudding darkness that bound me and feasted on my tears.
PLEASE! I DON'T WANT TO DIE!
HELP ME, DADDY!
ns 15.158.61.18da2
