I'm at home. Like actually at home, I know this because I can smell pepper soup and the scent of citrus.
Then I see her, black her tied in a pony tail stirring the pot I assume has soup inside. But wasn't I sleeping on Jayden's bed an entire hour ago?
"Mom?" I ask and she turns to face me.
"Jade, oh you're up early." She chrips but there's something off about her. Her eyes look lifeless like their eyes alright but there's no light in them, I look at the window and the sun is already up.
"I'm not that early, the sun's already up." I point out, at home she would have scolded me for waking up this late unless it was a weekend so why the change? Her smile becomes a bit tighter like she's being forced to smile and interact with me.
"Won't you eat breakfast?" She asks me, I look at the table to see- waffles?
I blink once and look at her confused, waffles on a weekday? When the food roster always says cereal on Tuesdays. I still sit down and take a bit, I know I'm chewing waffles but I taste nothing.
"So where's Dad?" I ask, Mom just freezes like she just stops doing everything she was doing.
"Jade? What do you mean by where is Dad?" She ask and I just stare at her back. My dad isn't at home and I'm just asking where he is.
"Did he go out or something?" I ask because he's not here. She finally turns to face me, her dull brown eyes suddenly looking black and completely dead, her smile is gone now.
"He came for him." She says eerily cheerful.
"Who came for him?" I ask, my voice comes out shaky because none of this makes any damn sense.
"The pale man of course" Mom replies matter of factly, then I feel something piercing through my skin like a needle going through my skin but multiply it by a thousand. My eyes drift downwards and now I wish I wasn't home because there's a spike going through me, like it pulls out and thrusts right back in like nothing. I open my mouth to scream or try and say something but nothing comes out just this broken sound, I feel light-headed.
Then I just vomit out blood, I'm gagging and choking and I don't know what is wrong with me. Mom comes out as a blurry figure but I see something like claws gripping her neck.
"Mom?" I think I'm saying but she doesn't hear me. The claws draw out a faint line of blood.
"Mom." I try again but louder and yet it comes out as a whisper, the claw draws out a deeper line of blood.
"Mom!" I'm practically screaming now because the claw actually slits out my mother's throat and she's just smiling, her blood splashes on my face and I just jolt-
"Finally awake." Kristen says, I look up and see him in a red blazer with a black shirt and trousers, in one hand he held an empty bucket and in the other he's clutching a box. I look down on myself and realise I'm wet, with water not blood and I'm actually grateful.
"Huh?" I say a little confused, I look around and Luke isn't around, neither is Jayden it's just Kristen.
"My mom sent me to give you your uniform because you'll be attending school with us from now onwards." Kristen explains and puts the box on my lap. "You have fifteen minutes to get ready." That's his concluding sentence as he leaves, I guess that means everyone else is ready then.
Wait.... fifteen minutes? Isn't that a bit too much? I use five minutes to bathe, and maybe six to dress. Wait,time is running so I finish doing the necessities and head down stairs in my uniform, it's similar to Kristen's own the only difference being the black skirt and stockings and we're allowed to wear our own type of shoes so I wear these green sneakers. Everyone is already seated in the car except for Christopher; who's about to wear a motorcycle helmet. He sees me and waves so I naturally wave back before entering the car.
"Your parents still aren't back from the meeting?" I ask Chris because he's the only without ear phones on, he nods without looking at me before eating into his burger.
Jayden is planning video games and trashing talking what I assume to be his teammates because I hear him say: "dumbass you don't know the difference between CC and AOE? How the hell did you graduate elementary school?" Luke has his Air Pods in and is practically sleeping again and Kristen.....
He's staring at his violin bow with weird intensity that's highly unsettling, as if he's plotting to kill someone with the stick.
I take in a deep breath and pull out my phone only to see a notification from Discover. (This app that contains information about every character in the game). I tap to open it only to see a message from an unknown number.
Unknown number: You're so boring it hurts