Bang! Bang! Bang! Startled, Kee jumped, looking up from the page she was colouring at the kitchen table. Someone was at the door. Twisting, she looked behind her to where her sister had disappeared into the bedroom they shared, but she didn’t see her.
Bang! Bang! Bang! More pounding made her gasp, and her hands clenched. The sharp snapping sound of the crayon she’d been holding made her look down at her right hand. Opening her fingers, she stared down at the two broken halves as they fell from her grip to land on the table with a little click, flakes of colour following. It was her favourite colour, the one she always chose first – Leaf Green. Tears welled up in her eyes as she stared at the broken pieces.
“Police!” A muffled voice shouted from the front door, followed by more banging. Her chin quivering, Kee looked up again, this time to see Ondra standing in the bedroom doorway. Clasping her hands in front of herself, Ondra’s eyes locked with Kee’s, the fear easy to read on her young face.
“Shhhhh!” Reaching up to press a finger against her lips, Ondra tried to fake a reassuring smile. Kee nodded, tears still running down her cheeks. Ondra rushed to her side. Bending, she wrapped her arms around the little girl, hugging her close. “Shhhh, Kee. It’s alright. They’ll go away.” She whispered, her voice barely audible.
Bang! Bang! Bang! “Police! Open up, Miss Chase. We know you’re both in there!” The voice shouted again. It sounded angry to Kee, and she buried her face in her sister’s shoulder, sniffling quietly. The feeling of Ondra’s arms around her gave her comfort, and she swallowed hard, trying to choke back her tears. She wanted to show her sister how big she was, how mature she could be. That she wasn’t a scared little baby anymore, and she could be brave, too.
“Shhhh, Kee.” Ondra crooned gently, her own face buried in the little girl’s soft hair. “It’s alright, I’m right here. We can’t let them in. They’ll take us away, and we’ll never see Mom and Dad again.” Her sister explained, not for the first time. “Mom and Dad would want us to stay here, wouldn’t they? To wait for them.” Nodding into her sister’s shoulder, Kee sucked in a deep breath. She held it for a moment, trying to calm herself before letting it out again in a rush.
“They’d want us to be strong.” She answered, mimicking the words Ondra had spoken so often in the last couple of weeks.
“That’s right. They’d want us to be strong.” Together, the girls held one other, waiting for the banging to stop. It did, but only for a moment before they could hear another sound. The sound of the front door being opened. Surprised and confused, they both looked up as the door burst open. But no one came in. Instead of the Police, like they’d expected, on the other side of the door was blackness. An empty void, it gaped where the door once was, now ripped off its hinges with a horrible screeching sound before spinning away into darkness. The furniture slid, moving across the floor towards the void, as smaller things, like books and toys, even the end tables, were lifted and sucked in.
Screaming, terrified, Kee clung to Ondra, her long hair whipping around her face. The vacuum felt almost like pressure to Kee, a force that both pushed and pulled her as she clung to her sister’s body. The shards of her broken crayon spun past, one piece hitting her cheek as she pressed her eyes shut. The table moved, bumping into them, but something seemed to be anchoring them in place. Unable to move through them, the far edge of the table flipped up, carrying it over their heads with a whoosh! It spun into the void, along with the couch and chair, the low table that had been in the middle of the living room, and the pots and pans from the kitchen. The cupboard doors snapped open, and in a flurry, everything was sucked out. Ceramic plates and bowls shattering into biting shards as they smashed together on their way into the void, showering over the girls before disappearing. Kee squealed as her face and arms were cut by the shards, drawing thin lines of blood on her pale skin.
The force was so strong it lifted Kee, her chair flipping out from underneath her. Her grip on her sister was now the only thing holding her in place as her feet began to flap in the air, shoes sliding off as she was pulled towards the void. Terrified, Kee looked down past her feet into the black, desperately holding onto her sister with everything she had. Wind rushed past her face as the air was sucked away as well, making it hard to draw breath, or even to keep her eyes open.
Clutching Ondra with what felt like nothing more than the tips of her fingers, twining them in her clothes, she tipped her head back and tried to open her eyes despite the harsh wind being created by the void. She was surprised to find that her sister didn’t look like she was supposed to. Kee had expected to see her older sister looking like she had when she was eleven, when they’d been alone in their apartment waiting for their parents to come home and the Police had arrived to take them. But she didn’t. Now, fully grown, Ondra stared back at her. Her eyes, normally a deep amber in colour, and so full of life, were now flat and dull. Her complexion, usually flawless, her skin a rich deep brown, was gray and waxy, eyes and cheeks sunken into her skull. Her thick black hair whipped around her face and shoulders, slapping Kee painfully in the face. As she continued to struggle to keep her eyes open and looking up at her sister, Kee was horrified to see something move under the skin on Ondra’s neck. It moved and writhed like a worm in the mud, pushing out with enough force to tear the skin. Blood spurted, spraying Kee in the face, as the thing burst out. A long black tendril that twined around her sister’s neck in a thick, wet strand, leaving dark red smears everywhere it touched. Heavy black wires, seeming to move of their own volition, whipped up the left side of Ondra’s face before plunging back into the skin of her cheek and curling out between her slightly parted lips.
Horrified, Kee watched as Ondra’s dulled eyes widened, as though she was just now noticing what was happening. Her expression changed from blank to a look of shocked pain. Mouth opening wide, her head snapped back, the muscles of her neck strained as she tried to scream. The wire tentacles forced their way out further, seeming to wave at Kee as though mocking her. At first, there was no sound as Ondra’s body convulsed beneath Kee’s hands. Then an inhuman, high pitched mechanical sound, mixed with a sickeningly wet gurgle, hit Kee’s ears, making her cry out in pain of her own. More wires were pushing their way out of Ondra’s mouth, exposed ends sparking as they wiggled and churned, reaching for her as her sister choked on them.
Reflexively, Kee’s hands flexed as she stared at what was happening, and seemed to release her grip on Ondra’s shirt without her permission. Immediately, she was sucked backwards, flipping head over heels as she screamed, desperately trying to grab onto anything that might stop her. She caught a last glimpse of her sister as she spun away, still crouched where she’d been comforting Kee beside the table that was no longer there, as more wires burst out in clumps all over her body, tearing through her clothes and enveloping her in a mass of whipping, sparking tentacles.
Spinning away into the void, Kee squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to see anymore. She expected to float on, spinning forever into the void, but the icy splash of water made her gasp, expelling the last of the oxygen from her lungs. Eyes snapping wide, she stared up into nothing, the shock of cold making her muscles contract painfully. Thrashing her arms and legs, she tried to gasp in more air but only succeeded in choking on the frigid black water. She couldn’t breathe! Lashing out, she tried to claw her way back to reality, her brain burning with the knowledge that this couldn’t be real, it wasn’t actually happening. It wasn’t helping. She was alone, floating in icy nothingness, hands reaching for something that wasn’t there anymore. Within moments, her limbs were numb, mind slowing from the cold and lack of oxygen. Her eyelids fluttered closed as consciousness receded, faster than she would have expected. She knew, without a doubt, that she was dying, and there was nothing she could do about it. She would die alone, here in the empty darkness, and she didn’t even have the energy to struggle anymore. Her body was limp and numb, and it was almost comforting to allow herself to relax into it, to just let it happen.
Out of nowhere, something grabbed her shoulder, jerking her back painfully. Reaching out of the darkness, harsh hands clamped down, long fingers ending in claws that bit into her skin cruelly. They dug into her arms, the warmth of them burning through her clothing, jerking her back into reality as someone shouted through the water.
