Chapter 1
Once upon a time, there lived a happy family in a neighborhood prone to earthquakes. There were 5 members: the father Fred, the mother Stela, the grandfather Nolan, the elder son David, and the youngest son Jake. David was 15 and Jake was 10. On June 17, the worst earthquake to ever hit that neighborhood struck, killing 2 people and injuring 5 others. Unfortunately, Nolan died, and the house was completely destroyed. After Nolan's death, they held a funeral, which cost very little money, since their house was destroyed and they did not have much money left. The parents felt guilty for having chosen a neighborhood prone to earthquakes in the first place. For the next 20 days, they were very sad and cried a lot, as they were now homeless and had lost the person they loved most in the world.
After a week had passed, they found out that Nolan had left them a house in his will. It was out in the woods, pretty far from both Stela and Fred's workplaces, and far from the school too. They had no other choice, so they went there.
When they entered the house, they found it all dirty inside, so the whole family united and started cleaning it, room by room, from the kitchen to the dining room. By the end of that day, the house looked as good as new. Since they missed Nolan, they kept his portrait at the entrance of the house. Then they ate some pizza for dinner and went to sleep.
During the night, Fred heard footsteps downstairs, so he grabbed a baseball bat and went down to check. It was very dark, but he saw someone opening the fridge. He didn't think twice and swung the bat with a lot of force. Then he suddenly heard Jake crying out in pain. When he turned on the light, he realized it was only Jake, getting a midnight snack. Thankfully, Fred had only hit his hand and not his head, but it was still pretty bad. Hearing the cries, Stela came running downstairs and saw Fred standing there with a bat and Jake crying. She started scolding Fred like crazy while comforting Jake at the same time. Once she was sure Jake was okay, she put him back to bed.
But later that same night, Jake started acting like something had gotten into him — his face even seemed to change into something else. He walked into his parents' room and slapped his father with a force his father couldn't even come close to matching. His father woke up with a start, but there was no one to be seen in the room, even though he had a clear slap mark on his cheek.
The next morning, Jake's arm was so bruised that it hurt badly whenever he lifted it, so they took him to a doctor. After a 4-hour wait, the doctor examined his arm and diagnosed a broken bone. He said, "This should heal in about a month."
Some time after that, during school, Jake fell down during recess. Before he fell, all he remembered was blinking for a moment — and then he was suddenly at the doctor's office, being given medicine. His parents told him, "You fell at recess, then ran to class faster than the teacher, and then went unconscious right before entering the classroom. What's wrong with you? Why are you acting like a madman? If you want something, ask the teacher and go to class properly. And if you're injured, tell the teacher. Besides, what were you even doing outside your classroom in the first place?" He replied, "Mom, I swear I don't remember any of it. I only remember falling and then waking up here. I don't know what happened." The parents said angrily, "So now you're going to lie to us too, huh? You're grounded until summer." He had nothing left to say in response.
After a few weeks, once summer holidays began, Jake was very happy, because his arm had healed and his grounding was finally over too. But David still had one last exam to write, since he was in 9th grade. While David was studying hard for his final exam, Jake kept disturbing him again and again. Finally, David reached his breaking point — when Jake snatched David's book right out of his hands, David slapped him and said, "Go do your own work instead of disturbing me. Next time it'll be a pad flying at you, not just a slap." Jake wanted to go tell his mom, but she was still at work.
The next day, David went and wrote his final exam. When he came back home afterward, he found a mess so big he couldn't have made it in a single day even if he'd tried. Jake was curled up in the corner of the room, covered head to toe in black paint. When David saw this, he grew very scared, because in the middle of the room there was what looked like some kind of ritual setup, and even the carpet had been burned. There was no time to waste — he had to start cleaning everything up before their mom got home. So he shouted to wake Jake up, and the two of them started cleaning as if they had an entire street to clean, not just one room. After 4 straight hours, they finally finished, and by then David had completely forgotten what had happened earlier that made him sweat so much in the first place.
While he was still turning it over in his mind, their parents arrived home. Seeing how exhausted the boys looked, they asked, "What did you two even do? Did you run a mile in one minute or something?" Neither of them knew what to say, so in perfect sync they blurted out, "Nah, we ran for one hour." Then they turned and looked at each other and said, at the same time, "How — how did you—" before David quickly whispered into Jake's ear, "Shut up, let's not talk about it right now." Their parents just sighed and went off to change their clothes.
Stela started cooking dinner while Fred sat down to watch television. While he was watching, a black figure suddenly emerged from the TV screen — visible only to Jake. The figure crept closer and closer, and suddenly time itself seemed to stop around Jake and the figure. Before it could get any closer to him, Jake ran straight to the forbidden basement, where he felt protected by the gods, since there were portraits of gods hanging on its walls. Soon after, he was called upstairs for dinner. Everyone besides Jake acted completely normal, and Stela even scolded him for having gone down into the basement. Jake tried to explain what had happened, but his mouth wouldn't even open, and he couldn't make a single sound. They all ate dinner peacefully together, except for Jake, who sat there in silence. Then they all went to bed.
During the night, something called out to David and lured him downstairs. When he went down, he saw Jake sitting there with a knife in his hand. Suddenly, Jake snapped and started chasing David around the house. Time around the two of them seemed frozen — only they were moving. As he chased him, Jake started shouting, "THIS IS NOT MY FAULT, THIS IS YOUR FAULT! COME HERE, YOU LITTLE PIECE OF SHIT!" David finally stopped in his tracks and ran straight into their parents' room, where there was a holy cross that was said to help whenever an evil force crossed over from beyond this world. The moment he grabbed it, time started moving again, and David stood there, terrified. His parents groggily asked him, "What happened? Why are you so sweaty and tired instead of being asleep?" He replied, "No, no, nothing" — but it wasn't really him speaking; he couldn't control his own body in that moment. Then, without meaning to, he climbed into his parents' bed and fell asleep within 2 seconds.
The next morning, the cross was gone from its place. Jake and David had both forgotten all about the night before. Stela took a leave from work because she'd fallen sick, or perhaps something else had happened to her that nobody else knew about — nobody except for one thing. So Fred made breakfast that morning, left some money out for pizza, and told the boys, "Behave yourselves today, both of you — your mom is very sick. I've left some money for pizza on the top shelf. When I get home tonight, I'll take your mother to the hospital. So don't either of you dare take advantage of her or of me while I'm gone. Oh, and before I leave — there's going to be a power outage today. No power until 8 pm." Then he left for work. As soon as he walked out the door, the power went off right on cue.
Their mom slept soundly through all of it, so the two boys ended up fighting over her phone instead. David said, "One hour for me, then one hour for you." Jake agreed to the deal and started drawing to pass his turn. After 2 hours had gone by, David still wouldn't hand the phone over, so Jake started fighting him for it. But David suggested they play hide-and-seek instead, to settle things down. David called out, "Shotgun — I'm the seeker!" Jake was overjoyed that David actually wanted to play with him; his eyes lit up like a star, and he ran off to hide in the forbidden basement. David, being David, simply sat down and started playing on his mom's phone instead of seeking. An hour later, he had completely forgotten about the game altogether.
At 8 pm, their dad came home and took Stela to the hospital, just as he'd promised. When he returned later that night, Fred, Stela, and David all acted as if Jake didn't exist at all. Meanwhile, down in the basement, Jake had been possessed by something and was in a violent frenzy, smashing the portraits of the gods one by one. At 9 pm, the rest of the family went to sleep. At 5 am, Jake finally broke open the basement door and slipped back into his own bed. Everyone else woke up at their usual time that morning, but Jake was still fast asleep — he only woke up after everyone else already had.
They all went through their normal daily routine after that. Once the parents had left for work, David dared Jake to go fetch a game from the basement. Jake was scared and refused at first, but eventually gave in and went down. When he saw all the portraits of the gods lying broken, he screamed and ran straight back to David. David went in to see for himself and found the same horrifying sight, but he didn't scream — he was scared too, but he wanted to scare his brother even more, so he held it in. He grabbed a stack of board games and came back upstairs, saying in a strange, unusual voice, "Do you want to play?" Jake was scared out of his wits — he couldn't move or speak at all, frozen in place like a statue that was somehow still alive. David laughed and said, "Drop the act," but Jake wasn't acting at all — he genuinely couldn't move a muscle.
Then, all of a sudden, heavy footsteps were heard approaching. David, terrified, said, "Whoever that is, please, just let it be a prank." Then the front door creaked open. It was their mom. But David and Jake both knew their mom wasn't supposed to be back with their dad until 8 pm — it was only 5 pm, and besides, she cast no shadow at all as she stood there. Jake gave the emergency signal, and the two of them bolted for the basement, shouting "YOU'RE NOT OUR MOM, GET OUT!" together in sync. In that very moment, David and Jake suddenly remembered every strange thing that had happened to them so far — things they had somehow forgotten each and every time — and now, finally, they understood what had been behind it all along, and what had caused them to forget it again and again. Still running on instinct, with nowhere else left to go, they both bolted down into the basement. In their panic, they both hit their heads on the low beam holding up the basement ceiling and were knocked unconscious.
When they woke up, they found themselves in a hospital with no one else around them at all. When Jake accidentally kicked a pillow off the bed, it fell straight through the floor, like a glitch in the matrix. Then, one after another, they both shouted, "3, 2, 1, GO!" — and jumped. The instant they blinked, they found themselves in free fall, plummeting from the clouds straight into a volcano. They blinked again — and now they were standing in a pitch-dark building, lit only by a single torch. They blinked again and again after that, but nothing changed this time, so they decided to explore and try to find a way out instead. Just then, they heard heavy footsteps once more. David tripped over his own feet and fell to the ground; Jake quickly helped him back up, and together they fumbled their way down two flights of stairs with the torch held out in front of them. When they finally reached the bottom, they saw something truly horrifying. It was a...
To Be Continued In Chapter two. Thankyou for reading.
By Nidhin Jhei Krishnaa
