I killed my family but it has taken me 12 years to realise this.
The large wooden door at the end of the garden stood against the wall. Chipped-wood poked out from the door like hedgehog spikes. The blue paint seemed to have faded over the years.
Don’t go behind the door they said, ignore anything strange. It’s normal for the door to shake as if someone is begging to be let free; - it’s normal for the door to make odd noises like a dying animal. It’s normal for the door to glow as if heaven’s gates were opening behind them.
This was normal. For the most part, I could follow my parent’s wishes but on the day of their party, I couldn’t hold back any longer.
Pots and pans clattered in the background as the maids rushed around the house and prepared the guests. I stood outside beside the door that squeaked and groaned whilst it shook violently. A golden glow seeped through the cracks.
Without thinking, I opened it.
A room with only darkness as its residence stood in front of me. Nothing moved, nothing spoke and no golden glow showed itself.
Disappointed, I left, leaving the door ajar behind me without thinking anything of it. The room was empty and pointless, so what risk could there be in leaving it open now?
Without a worry, I went about the rest of my day as normal: eating, playing and continuing my piano lessons, but my eyes would always drift to the window where I would look out across the long garden at a large group of trees; the pale blue door was hidden behind them.
After their party, my parents took me to bed where I slept soundly, knowing that no one had found the door opened. No one had told me off, no one knows.
As I had let out a tired yawn, another yawn echoed back. It had sounded just like me. I had thought it was only me drifting off to sleep, that I imagined the second yawn.
I looked around my dark room one more time before closing my eyes and letting the feeling of a peaceful slumber wash over me.
A loud thud sounded from the far wall where a shelf of porcelain dolls from my parent’s travels rested. I sat up straight and turned on the light beside my bed. My eyes fell upon one of the dolls I no longer played with.
I got out of bed and picked the rosy-cheeked doll up off the floor. I had always liked the way her porcelain skin looked real and how her eyes would always greet me warmly when we sat down for tea. But now, her face was shattered, leaving a gaping and void-less hole in her face. I placed her back on her shelf corner and turned around to face the bed. My breath had left me as I saw what had stood and stared back at me.
A dark scrawny figure, standing at my height and whose bones protruded from behind their skin.
“Hello?” I hesitated. They repeated the same thing back to me. Same word, same tone, same voice. They had no mouth, no face and yet they called out to me as I had done.
“Who are you?”
“Who are you?” it repeated.
My door had creaked open, revealing my tired mum. Her blond hair was a mess and sleep painted her eyes.
“Who are you talking to?” she yawned.
But before I could respond, the creature spoke for me.
“Hello?”
I watched as my mum’s face grew pale and the tired look on her face washed away being taken over by fear. She ran out of the room and down the hall as the creature escaped through my window.
We moved houses after that, leaving the pale blue door destroyed. I would ask what the creature was but, on all occasions, my parents would tell me it was nothing, that they had no idea.
They lied.
I slowly forgot about the creature and eventually forgot all together when I grew up and moved out of my parent’s house.
My first home was a nice place, a small apartment, but cosy and mine. Eventually, I began to notice strange things across the road from where I lived. Strange noises began to echo outside during the night, but I ignored them.
It took only a few days before the thing making those noises slowly made its way to my door. One night, I heard other people on my floor opening their doors and slamming them shut again. Some screamed; some were too frightened to make any noise.
I never opened mine no matter how hard the creature banged and how much it scraped at the door. When it began to whisper ‘sister’ through the cracks, I couldn’t ignore it any longer. In desperation, I phoned my parents, hoping they would at least give me some answers. No one picked up, and when the morning came, a knock at my door sounded. The person demanded to be let in with a deep booming voice. I opened the door to find the police standing in front of me.
They told me that my parents had been murdered the night before and that they were found the next morning with scrapes and tears all over their bodies. And the looks on their faces of pure and utter horror.
I had killed them the day I had left the blue door open.
Still to this day, the creature who calls ‘sister’ into the void of the night continues to look over at me from across the road, no matter where I go. And it continues to imitate my voice as it calls to me: ‘Sister.’