“Come on Stacy, it’s time to go.”
A mother in her forties and bags under her eyes, a visible sign of stress, reached out a hand to her fifteen year old daughter. Stacy’s face was similar to her mother’s. She had the same long face with small facial features and the same dark bags under her unblinking, eyes. Her hair was the same light blond as her mother’s but was down to her shoulders and not in the pony tail her mother had.
Stacy had been like this for the past five months. She wasn’t sleeping, she wasn’t eating. Lately she’s just been siting there on her bed, staring forward at nothing, with a look of terror. The kind you feel when you know something is out to get you. You don’t know who or what or even when or where, but you know it’ll happen at some point.
Stacy’s mom had just taken her to a psychiatrist to see if there was anything he could do, but was told that all he was able to do is get her to turn towards him.
“Stacy, we need to go,” Monica repeated. Stacy stood rooted to her spot for a few seconds and followed her mother out the door. After helping Stacy into the car, Monica sat at the steering wheel and sighed. “Oh, Jared. I need your help. I don’t know what to do anymore,” she breathed with her head resting on the steering wheel.
~~~~~~
Time ticked by on the clock on Stacy’s wall. Tick, tick, tick. That’s all she heard. She knew that It heard too, but she wasn’t worried. She didn’t worry anymore because there wasn’t much left It could do to her. It had taken her comfort, her safety, her childhood believe that hiding under the blanket will save you, the thought that hiding under a blanket would keep you hidden from any danger no matter the size. She had thought that, and had been swiftly proven wrong when the fabric of reality was ripped right out from underneath her. Next went her logic. Nothing made sense to her. “And why should it?” She soon began to think as the possibility of some other worldly entity existing to mentally torture her until she was a husk of human skin and bone and muscle tore at her mind from the inside and SNAP!-there went her sanity. The last thread of any rhyme or reason, gone in an instant. But she wasn’t worried.
She sat there staring at the wall unblinking, waiting, listening. Finally, she heard It. “You’re here. I can feel it,“ she said softly.
“Hhhhhhooooowww, does it feeeell,” a high raspy voice floated into Stacy’s ears hugging them like they were in need of protecting of some sort of storm, “to knoooowwww?”
Silence.
“You were my firsssst, and it feeeeellssssss gooood!” It said with a giggle. Stacy could hear the volume of the voice changing continuously as It caressed her face and flited about the room. “You’re mine now, you wench.”
“Yours,” Stacy repeated.
“Now, be a good girlllll, and go to the kitchen. I’m hunnnnggggrrrryyyyy,” It was in her mind now. She was completely under It’s control and she was well aware, but her lack of sanity, prohibited her from doing anything.
Slowly she rose from her bed and trudged to the kitchen. It was dark outside and the only light creeping into the kitchen was the full moon outside. “Stacy looks pretty in the moonlight,” It thought, "Too bad.”
It forced Stacy to open the top most drawer and pull out a six inch long steak knife. It was freshly cleaned that day, and shone brightly in the moonlight.
The stairs were near the kitchen so it wasn’t a far walk for It to go. “Up the stairs we go!” It thought giddily. The carpeted steps that usually felt welcoming to Stacy’s feet now felt strange and foreign. A sickening feeling began to form a ball in the pit of her stomach. She had a feeling what was coming next, and she didn’t like it at all.
She felt the wood of her mother’s door touch her hand, and what felt like a liquid flowing down the back of her throat joining the pit of dismay in her stomach. It slowly approached Monica and shook her awake.
“St-Stacy? Is that you?” She asked still half asleep, “What are you doing hun?”
Stacy stepped back a foot from the side of the bed her mother was laying and waited for her to look at her. “Stacy, what are you doing?” Monica said, panic rising in her voice.
“Making you happy,” Stacy said plainly. The knife was settled under her own chin, indenting her unblemished skin with the point of her knife. Before Monica could even open her mouth, Stacy sent the dangerous beauty into her chin. The point speared through her tongue and sat there, a tiny metal spike with blood the color and consistency of cherry syrup. It flooded her mouth, and true to the markings on the knife of being stainless steel, the knife remained clear, the overwhelming taste of copper and steel filling her mouth. Stacy was crying as the pain took over her body and simultaneously laughed as It took complete joy in its actions.
All in mere seconds, Stacy was dead. Her mother was too stunned to scream which allowed It to whisper in her ears, hugging them close, “Tag, you’re it.”