The darkness didn't just fall,it felt like it had weight. One second, I was looking at the grease on my plate, and the next, the world was snuffed out. The silence that followed was even worse than the blackness. It was a thick, ringing quiet that made my ears ache.
"Nobody move," Seth's voice boomed from the front of the room, his chair screeching against the floorboards.
"Is this part of the game?" Maverick's voice cut through the dark, sharp and defensive as always. "Because if this is a prank, it's not funny. I almost choked on a potato."
"Maverick, shut up!" Maya hissed. I could hear her breathing fast next to me. "Seth said don't move. Listen."
We listened. At first, there was nothing. Then, a wet, dragging sound came from the porch outside. Schlick. Schlick. Schlick. It sounded like someone was dragging a heavy, water-logged carpet across the wood.
Then came the scream. It wasn't human. It was a high, metallic screech that tore through the walls, followed by the sound of wood splintering.
"Jay? You there?"
A small, shaking hand grabbed mine in the dark. It was Leon. Even as the house groaned and the adults began shouting orders, Leon leaned in. His voice was a tiny whisper, forced and shaky, but he was trying..he was trying to find one little light in this blackened world.
"Maybe... maybe it's just a really big stray dog," he whispered. "Maybe he just wants some of my leftovers. I'll give him Maverick's plate,nobody wants that anyway heh."his laugh slowly turning desperate as if he couldn't keep up with this horror movie that was playing infront of us
I tried to laugh, but my throat was frozen. Leon was trying to bring light into the room, trying to keep us from falling apart, but for the first time in his life, his joke didn't land.
"Something's coming in," Aaron whispered, his voice so low I almost missed it. He was always the quietest, but he heard things we didn't.
Suddenly, the front door didn't just open…it exploded inward. A flash of moonlight spilled into the hallway, and for three seconds, we saw it. It was a mass of pale, translucent skin and too many limbs, its face a smooth surface with no eyes—only a gaping, vertical maw filled with needle-teeth.
The adults moved instantly. Seth and Arthur were towers of muscle, stepping between us and the door, but the creature was fast. It moved like a blur of broken clockwork.
"Get the kids to the cellar! NOW!" Leon's mom screamed.
We were scrambled together, a mess of tangled limbs and sobbing breaths. I felt Leon's grip tighten on my hand as we were pushed toward the back of the house. As I looked back one last time, I saw the creature lunge. I saw the blood hit the white wallpaper of the dining room.
And just like that, the "Different Blood, Same Sun" world was gone.
The thing I didn't know was that one very blood stain from whoever would cause something unfixable in the future,that would leave me and our tiny "midget gang" from in shock and disparity.