A Birthday Surprise - Part 2

As I slowly get out of bed, I debate with myself about the authenticity of what I just witnessed. My house is silent, no sound to be heard at all, hushed like a graveyard. It was suffocating me. The silence was killing me. I call out, “help,” but I’m just greeted by silence. Gasping for breath, I felt a panic attack coming, my heart threatening to beat out of my chest any second. I was alone, all alone with the cold darkness slowly enveloping my body like a blanket. So I close my eyes and let it cradle me like it's baby.

Moments later I wake up with a much calmer attitude. Acknowledging the fact that it's not possible that I'm alone, I slowly but steadily get out of bed, still feeling the fatigue in my body. I cautiously walk out my bedroom and down the stairs, using the wall for support. Once I reach the bottom of the stairs, I hear a barely audible weeping noise, crying from somewhere. I tentatively walk towards where the sound is coming from, growing more anxious by the second. I quickly realise it’s coming from the basement.

Suddenly I feel an agonising pain in my head remembering my ‘dream,’ fearing for my life as I’m about to turn the doorknob that opens the basement door. The moment I feel the cold metal touch my skin, the weeping stops. It suddenly just stops, only for it to suddenly start weeping louder than ever. I can feel my eardrums about to burst from the noise. And then—stop. It stopped again. After what seemed like hours, I finally muster up the courage to open the basement door and begin my journey down these ghastly stairs again. As I walk down them, I feel a cold liquid dripping onto my shoulder.

I gradually move my hand towards my shoulder to see what it is, only to be mortified by what I saw on my side. Red. Paint? No. Paint isn't all sticky like this. The realisation hits me. It's just blood dripping out my ear, going drip drop. Drip. Drop. The rhythm my blood was dripping down my ear is very, encaptivating, alluring, ravishing... I feel myself almost in a trance.
"Stay calm and keep walking" I kept mumbling to myself. I kept telling myself, "Everything's going to be all right, just gotta keep calm." Step by step, slowly but steadily. Keep your anxiety under control. Take as long as you want. There's no rush.

Once I got down these wretched stairs…

Trembling, I felt a knot beginning to tie in my stomach. Not from terror, but from repugnance. As his mutilated corpse just lay there motionlessly, I just stood there staring right into his glassy, inanimate eyes. Unknown of what to do next. Call the cops and be accused of murder? Keep staring and hope this is all just a ghastly nightmare? Or run away like a coward and pretend nothing happened. My mind wasn’t thinking straight. I was sweating furiously, I felt so ill. My father’s dead body was just lying there, and behind him was what appeared to be my mother.
Except she wasn't old and wrinkly, but young, like in her childhood photos. I often got told I looked like her when she was a little girl.

I slowly feel my sanity shrinking down into the depths of my being.
Who is that? My daddy is dead.

Scrambling to get these horrors out of my head.

No. It can't be. Behind my dead dad is

Me.

TO BE CONTINUED