Gavin rolled out of his bed at the sound of his alarm, heavy bags drooping from his eyes. With a thud, his feet hit the wood floor. Stretching his arms above his head, he let out a long, drawn-out yawn. He’d successfully risen from his bed, but it was going to be a challenge keeping his eyes open. Stumbling around his room, he started getting all of his things ready for his second day at his new school, all while his mind was preoccupied about what occurred last night. After a sleepless night of debating with himself, he thought it would be best to clear the air with his mom. She did open up more about his father more than she ever had, so maybe now would be a good time to ask her for more details regarding the sensitive topic: Gavin’s dad.

When he was finished getting all ready for school, Gavin steadily made his way down the stairs.

“Mom?” Gavin called out. He took a sharp left and entered the kitchen “Mom, good morning-” Gavin abruptly stopped in place. Adaya was sitting in her spot at the table, the place where Gavin last saw her the previous night, but she didn’t appear to be conscious at the moment. Her back was arched forward and her face was flat on the table top.

“... Mom?” Gavin was taken aback.

Is she asleep? Did she sleep here all night?

These thoughts crossed his mind, but he feared the worst. Nervously, he walked to his mother’s side.

“M-ma-,” Gavin’s voice quivered as he rested his hand on his mother’s shoulder and leaned forward to get a better look at her face.

Almost immediately, Adaya let out a long, lifeless breath. Gavin’s eyes widened, very concerned and worried about what exactly was happening to his very own mother.

Almost immediately, Adaya’s left arm grabbed the bottom of Gavin’s forearm, drilling her fingernails into his chestnut skin through his own uniform jacket sleeve. Gavin let out a yelp and tried to jerk his right arm out of her grasp. Adaya’s back straightened and her head limply fell backward and to the side, facing her eyes to her son. What Gavin was seeing was not his mother, but what he believed to be a creature who had taken refuge in her skin. The entirety of her eyes had turned completely white and her smile was wide and sinister. There was no more earnesty in her expression, nothing was comforting about her presence either. Gavin tried pulling his arm away with more gumption, but her grip tightened even more. His crimson blood began to soak through his clothes and drip down his uniform sleeve from where Adaya was puncturing his flesh.

Adaya, or what looked to be her, stood up and pulled Gavin closer to her. Her white eyes got closer to Gavin’s face. Stricken with fear, Gavin couldn’t utter a single coherent sound, holding his breath subconsciously.

The monster’s mouth slowly hinged opened and spoke in a darker version of his own mother’s voice “You’re what I’ve been looking for...”.

Gavin didn’t budge. His eyes were locked on hers. His body began to loosen, the fear on his face began to turn neutral, beginning to feel nothing at all. In fact, the pain in his arm started to feel almost pleasurable. His vision began to blur and all the stress, fear, everything he had felt a second ago—his entire life even—began falling away from him.

Gavin inched closer and closer to perfect bliss, eyes glossing over.

With immense force, Gavin had suddenly been yanked away from the void he was falling into. Snapping him out of the hypnosis, he found himself lying on his back in the middle of the kitchen floor. Arm—and now head—throbbing in pain, he cringed as he turned over onto his left side, holding his injured arm closer to him. Gavin glanced around the room to try and get his bearings straight, but to his surprise, he spotted his mom laying on the floor just a little further away. She was lumped at the base of the wall, already lifting herself up off the ground with her skinny, shaking arms.

“Get up,” A soft voice with a serious tone came from behind Gavin. He turned his head, jumping in surprise.

A small girl in a simple, white dress and adoring two blonde pigtails was standing in his kitchen.

“W-who are you?” Gavin was in a panic.

“Now’s not the time to question, but the time to act,” The little girl grabbed Gavin by the back of his uniform collar, forcing him to his feet.

Adaya started getting up off the kitchen tile as well, sliding her shoulder up the wall inch by inch.

“What’s going on?” Gavin panicked.

The little girl grabbed Gavin’s left hand “Come, we have to hurry”.

The girl appeared to be at least five years old, but she had the strength of a grown adult. She dragged Gavin briskly out of the room and up the stairs, all without hesitation. Blood that was still dripping from Gavin’s arm made an unpleasant looking trail behind them. At the top of the stairs, she took a sharp left into the bathroom. The little girl threw Gavin into the bathroom and then shut and locked the door behind them both.

“Why did you take us here? Now we’re trapped!” Gavin winced, grabbing his arm, he sat down on the edge of the bathtub. Blood began to gradually pool on to the floor and travel through the grooves in between the tiles. The little girl silently approached him, Gavin looked at her a little closer and noticed that, even though the lights above the bathroom vanity were off, and there were no windows, the cramped bathroom they were locked in was still filled with a bluish light, and he swore that he could see the girls big, blue eyes emit light. In fact, her whole body seemed to be glowing.

Also, is she… transparent?

Before Gavin could think too much of the girl’s supernatural appearance, she lifted the lid on the toilet.

“Whoa! WHOA! What are you doing?” Gavin reached to stop the girl, but she ignored him and continued what she was doing.

She leaned down in front of him, placing her palm in the pool of his blood. It dripped from her hand as she straightened back up. Gavin was lost for words as he then watched her drip his blood into the open toilet. The redness burst and separated in the clear toilet water. The girl then rose both of her hands over the bowl. Looking intensely at the wall in front of her, her eyes grew wider and began to glow even brighter.

In a lower, monotone voice―for a small girl―she began chanting nonsensical gibberish. Well, it certainly wasn’t any language Gavin had ever heard, to say the least. The girl continued, but nothing was happening, as far as he could tell.

Soon after, loud, pounding started rattling the bathroom door.

“Give him to me!” Monster Adaya’s scary voice came from the other side. The sound of her fists pounding on the door got even louder and more aggressive.

Gavin’s heart was beating faster and faster. He looked to the little girl, she was still doing that weird chant over the toilet. That plus listening to his own mother go insane, all while he was stuck in a small bathroom, made Gavin want to scream. He wanted all of this madness to go away, and to know what exactly was happening, but with nothing he could really do at this moment he brought his hands up to his face and lurched forward and held his breath, waiting for the throbbing in his head to finally make his brain explode.

When Gavin lost all hope, a small gust of wind, along with a whirring sound, barraged his left ear. He looked up, the water from the toilet was floating under the girl’s hands, spinning in a tall disk shape. It had a faint blue glow to it and it appeared to get larger and larger, picking up more breeze. Gavin stood up, completely enthralled with the magic trick. When the disk of water was roughly a little over half of his size, the girl lowered her hands, leaving the water disk suspended in the air, and turned to Gavin. The light in her eyes had dimmed. The pounding and cries of Adaya grew louder and louder as if she began throwing her body at the door.

“I’m sorry, I can’t tell you anything,” The little girl spoke softly, to a point where it was almost inaudible behind the other noises.

“Why not?” Gavin didn’t get an answer back. Instead, the girl got behind him and shoved him forcefully into the disk of water. Gavin’s body was soon submerged in the clear liquid, not expecting the disk to have any depth to it. It was a large, bright body of water he was now in, but he began to sink down. Holding his breath, he looked up, seeing the figure of the girl get farther and farther away, before disappearing from his sight completely. He flailed his arms frantically, silently begging for air. As he continued sinking lower and lower, despite how hard he tried swimming against gravity, he hit where the water ended at the bottom. Instead of hitting any floor, he was dropped into a bright abyss, where he began to fall faster through air.

His scream from the seemingly endless fall echoed around him and the bright abyss that engulfed him began to become dark the further he fell. Eventually, everything around him became too dark to see. He silenced his voice, only able to listen to the wind he was passing by. Soon after, he unknowingly fell unconscious.

When he awoke, he found himself lying on dark, unfamiliar ground. He couldn’t catch all the details just yet, but he could tell that there were two male figures looming over him.