Something Was Wrong.
Violet had always hated mornings.
Not because she was particularly fond of sleeping, although she was. It was the quietness that bothered her. The few minutes after waking up, when the world had not completely started yet and she was left alone with her thoughts.
She preferred noise.
The sound of people talking downstairs. Cars passing outside. Music coming from someone's room. Anything that kept her from thinking too much.
That morning, however, the house was completely silent.
Violet opened her eyes slowly.
For a moment she didn't know where she was. The room was still dark, even though a thin line of gray light had begun to appear behind the curtains. She stared at the ceiling, trying to remember what time she had fallen asleep.
Her phone was somewhere underneath the blanket.
She reached for it without looking and eventually found it near her pillow.
6:13 a.m.
She groaned quietly and turned onto her back.
She had school in less than an hour.
For another few seconds, she considered staying in bed.
Then she heard something downstairs.
A loud sound.
Violet immediately opened her eyes.
She listened.
Nothing.
She waited.
Another sound came from downstairs, followed by what sounded like a man's voice.
She couldn't make out the words.
Violet sat up.
Her room suddenly felt colder.
She pulled her blanket around herself and listened again. This time she heard footsteps moving across the floor below her.
Slowly, she got out of bed.
The floor was cold beneath her feet.
She grabbed the hoodie hanging from the back of her chair and put it on before walking toward the bedroom door.
She stood there for a moment with her hand on the handle.
There was something unsettling about the silence.
She opened the door.
The hallway was empty.
Violet stepped outside and looked toward the staircase.
"Mom?"
No answer. She waited. Still nothing. She walked downstairs.
The house looked exactly as it had the night before. The furniture was where it belonged. The television was turned off. The kitchen light was still on.
But when she reached the bottom of the stairs, she noticed a glass lying broken on the floor.
Violet stopped.
She looked at it for a few seconds.
Then she looked toward the kitchen.
"Mom?"
Nothing.
She carefully stepped around the pieces of glass.
The front door was open
Cold morning air was coming through the entrance.
Violet frowned.
She walked toward it.
Someone was standing outside.
A man.
He was several meters away, near the end of the driveway. Violet couldn't see his face clearly at first. He was wearing a dark jacket and had his hands in his pockets.
She watched him.
Something about him felt unfamiliar.
He turned.
For a brief moment, their eyes met.
Violet froze.
She couldn't explain why.
There was nothing obviously threatening about him. He didn't move toward her. He didn't say anything.
He simply looked at her.
Then he turned and walked away.
Violet remained in the doorway.
She watched until he disappeared around the corner.
Only then did she notice something on the ground.
A dark stain covered part of the doorstep.
She stepped closer.
Her stomach tightened.
It was blood.
Violet stared at it.
She didn't touch it.
She didn't move.
She simply stood there, trying to understand what she was looking at.
Her first thought was that someone had been injured.
Her second was that she should call someone.
But who?
She looked down the empty street.
There was no one there.
The man was gone.
Violet slowly closed the door and locked it.
She stood with her back against it for a moment, her hand still resting on the lock.
She could hear her own breathing.
Something had happened.
She knew that much.
She just didn't know what.
She looked at the clock.
6:21.
She had to leave soon.
Violet went back upstairs.
She changed quickly, pulling on a pair of jeans and a dark sweater. She brushed her hair and tied it back, although several strands immediately fell loose around her face.
She didn't bother fixing them.
Her mind was still downstairs.
The blood.
The man.
The broken glass.
She picked up her backpack and went back downstairs.
Before leaving, she looked toward the front door again.
The blood was still there.
For a moment she thought about telling someone.
But the words wouldn't come.
She didn't even know what she would say.
Instead, she put on her shoes and left.
The morning air was cold against her face.
Violet closed the door behind herself and started walking toward the bus stop.
She tried not to look back.
She lasted about thirty seconds.
When she finally turned around, there was no one outside her house.
Everything looked normal.
The curtains were still hanging in the windows. The street was empty. A few cars were beginning to pass as the town slowly woke up.
Violet turned forward again.
She told herself she was imagining things.
She wanted to believe that.
She needed to.
By the time she reached the bus stop, she had almost convinced herself that whatever had happened that morning had nothing to do with her.
Almost.
The bus arrived a few minutes later.
Violet climbed aboard and took her usual seat by the window.
She rested her forehead agaqinst the glass.
The houses passed by slowly.
People walked along the sidewalks. A woman stood outside a bakery. Two children were waiting for another bus. Everything looked ordinary.
Violet watched it all without really seeing any of it.
Her thoughts kept returning to the man.
She wondered who he was.
She wondered why he had been there.
Most of all, she wondered why she had the strange feeling that she had seen him before.
She closed her eyes.
She couldn't remember where.
Maybe she hadn't.
Maybe her mind was simply trying to make sense of something that didn't make sense.
The bus continued toward school.
Violet opened her eyes when her phone vibrated.
She looked down.
A message.
Unknown number.
Her heart skipped.
She stared at the screen without opening it.
For several seconds, she considered putting the phone away.
Then she tapped the notification.
There was only one sentence.
"You saw something you weren't supposed to see."
Violet's fingers went cold.
She read it again.
Then again.
She looked around the bus.
Nobody seemed to be paying attention to her.
Everyone was doing what they normally did.
Talking.
Listening to music.
Looking at their phones.
Laughing.
Violet looked back at the message.
Her hands were shaking now.
Another message appeared.
"Don't tell anyone."
She stared at the screen.
For the first time that morning, Violet understood that the strange feeling she had been trying to ignore wasn't going away.
Whatever had happened outside her house wasn't an accident.
And somehow..she was already involved in whatever is happening?
