Dedicated to the Bangladeshi beauty NoXiOuS_PsYcHe
You're 16, so basically a granny :P
Lets get away on a roman holiday <3

~~~

Angry foot steps approached me. With every step I've heard my heart beat was getting faster.
What did I do this time? For only eleven years I've already been in enough trouble to cover up all my life.

I was in my room, with the cheap second hand furniture. A desk and a shelf, also a bed and a dirty pink carpet. The carpet was supposed to be in the middle of the room, but I pushed it to the side so I didn't have to walk over it.

Someone kicked open the door. It was him; I could tell by his aggressive breathing.

"You little brat! Where did you hide it?! Give it back to me, now!" He barked at me.

I stayed silent. The ceiling was white, but the walls were green. I hated the color. I hated it almost as much as him.

"Look at me" he gritted his teeth.

I counted the books in my shelf.
One... two... three...
the fourth book was missing. Momma would kill me if she found out I lost a school book. But it was just my maths book. I hated that subject anyways.

"Is that how you treat your step dad? Huh?! Fine, I'll show you"

Step dad. He was just mommas boyfriend. And I certainly did not want to look at him. I've especially avoided eye contact, it just made him angry.

"Shirt!"

I followed his one worded command, took off my shirt and turned around.

He took off his belt and
One... two... three...
The usual fourth strike was missing.
I pressed my lips against each other to prevent myself from laughing. Like my textbooks, one was missing. That shit was hilarious to me.

My eyes got watery due to the pain. I didn't cry though.
My back was burning like fire.

He pulled the carpet to the middle of the room, saying that it looked way better now. Then he left.

I went to the living room. He was gone, making out with younger girls at public places perhaps.

Now she approached me.

"You didn't tell him mommy took his money. Did you, sweetheart?"

I shook my head and left. I always had to cover her up for stupid things. Like the money she stole from not-my-step-dads purse.
I heard the clinking of glass bottles from the kitchen behind me.

I laid down on my bed and stared at the ceiling. Why did I even bother to be here? Why didn't I just pack my packs and go? This didn't feel like home anyways.
If that would be done as easy as said I would've been far away from here for a long time now already.

The sound of shattering glass ripped me out of my thoughts.
Did something happen to Momma? Did the amount of alcohol she's been consuming finally reached the deathly limit and killed her?
I didn't want to care, but just in case something serious actually did happen I went into to the kitchen.

Several big and a thousand tiny pieces of glass were laying on the ground, sparkling in the sun, surrounded by a shimmering golden puddle of whiskey.

The bottle must've dropped. She was standing there. After a while she glanced at me, no emotions at all. With toneless voice she mentioned "You know, I never wanted a child. Without you everything would be easier"
Her eyes were cold, like her heart of stone.

She doesn't deserve a face. She has no emotions in it anyways.

I went back into my room. I didn't notice, that I wasn't alone.
I felt a hot breath in my neck and I got goosebumps.

I turned around. Momma was behind me, a sharp piece of glass in her hand. She held it so thigh that it cut into her flesh and thin lines of blood were running down the back of her hand.

I made a step backwards and tripped over my own feet. Momma got down too and held the glass up high.
I felt like we would have recreated the biblical scene where Moses wanted to kill his son Isaac.
Just that for me there was no God that would save my life. There was no God at all. Not for me.

She ripped open my left thigh.
Red liquid spilled on the ground.
I realized that I was on the carpet. I thought I'd be dying on it.
On a ugly and filthy second hand carpet that looks just terrible in the middle of the room.

Momma looked at her bloody hands MAGGIE and then at me MAGGIE. Everything got blurry but I saw
God? An angel?
I felt a cold warmth and I saw... I saw...
"MAGGIE!"

I grabbed Janes arm. "Please don't let me die tonight" I stammered, my mind stuck in the flashback.

"What?"

Everything was spinning.
Whiskey. Glass. The grey lady.
It made sense now. She was one of my nightmares, based on what I've experienced as a child.

"She's haunting me. Even now after I died"

"Maggie, I-"

She didn't know what to say. She didn't even know what I've been talking about.
I closed my eyes, my hand around her wrist. I've let her see what I've experienced, like she shared her memory of when she died I shared this memory of mine with her.

"Maggie..." pity was in her face, her mouth open, however she still didn't know what to say.
Suddenly she bended over, her lips right besides my right ear and she whispered "I'm so sorry for you, parents should be your heroes, not your enemies. Still, I will be with you even if I don't know what to say. We are so much more than our childhood trauma, don't let it kill your mind. Your past will fade away completely soon, like mine...
But it's good to see that damaged people seem to find each other.
You know, I really like you. A lot"

With that she gave me a soft kiss on the cheek. I got flooded with a wave of serotonin and watched her running out of the room, down to the people who could die any minute, depending on what was happening downstairs.

I followed her.
Liam was laying unconscious in front of the cuckoos clock, a dark grey sign was on his neck. It looked like it was carved into his skin with crayon.

空虚

The cold lines were fading away slowly.

Aaron was behind the couch, they were unconscious too and they had a bloody bruise on their head.

Where is Ava???

I heard a whimper from the left. The little girl was hiding behind a bar stool in the open kitchen, sobbing with her face behind her knees.

A tall silhouette was strolling towards her.
It was a, not necessarily ugly, man. He had dark brown hair and beard stubbles on his tanned cheeks. He was wearing black sweatpants and a deep purple T-shirt.

Janes eyes widened in shock when she saw him. It was the same demon whom stubbed out his cigarette on her hand.

"Leave her alone!" She yelled.
The demon moved his head towards us. I felt unease by the sight of his face.
The right side was looking like an average human, but the left side wasn't. In fact, it wasn't even a face. A part of his face was ripped off and the only thing left was his skull. The bone was scratched and had red stains with hair from his forehead sticking on it.
Dried blood was on the shoulder of his shirt which covered a deep cut that was almost separating his arm from his torso.

Besides the unease I felt nothing by the sight of him. No nostalgia. He was a demon based on Janes nightmares, not mine.
What did she experience that he looked like this?

He looked at us with his dull brown eyes. They seemed to be empty, like...
The void
??
Like there was no life in them.

With huge steps he hustled to Jane, grabbed her face and shushed her with his index finger.

Her whole body was trembling. However she didn't move.

I ran to a shelve in the kitchen and hastily opened it. I threw everything out until I found what I was looking for; a pack of chamomile tea bags.

"Hey, bitch" I called the demon. He didn't even bother to look at me. His gaze was fixed on Jane. One of his hands was sliding from her arm up to her throat.

I ripped open the tea bag and slammed it on his arm, pushing him away from Jane.
"Get your hands OFF my girlfriend"

The word slipped out of my mouth before I could think about it, but she didn't seem to have heard it.

She stood there, stiff, her knees pressed against each other and her hands pressed thigh on her eyes.

The skin of the demon where I hit him with the tea melted like wax.
He hissed.

At first I thought he'd run away, but he ran to the sink instead and then jumped on top of me with a knife in his hand.

We fell down and he tried to stab the knife into my eye but I prevented it by blocking his arm with mine. Melted skin drops hit the floor besides my head.

The sharp tip was just millimeters away from my pupil.
I usually couldn't get hurt by something that was existing in the state of the living things. However, since the demon was, like me, existing in between the state of the living and the dead, he could harm me with anything from both states.

I couldn't die a second time, still I could suffer, if the demon would be strong enough he could torture me for an eternity. I hoped that this demon wasn't strong enough.

"Jane" I breathed. But she didn't move. Now I realized that she wasn't even able to move.
I tried to hit against his head. With no use.

From the corner of my eye I saw Ava, she had a pan in her hands. She crawled a bit closer and then slid it over the ground to me.

I tried to grab it but I could only touch it with my finger tips.
The demon pressed harder and the knife moved closer towards my eye. His half demolished face grinning over mine.
Helpless I tried to reach the pan.

"Why don't you smile more?" The demon mocked me with his harsh, contorted voice.

I stopped trying to reach the pan. Instead I hit my fist on the floor.
The pan jumped into the air, staying there like gravity wouldn't exist.

"Fuck off" I spat the words into his face.
The pan flew into his healthy face side with the amount of power like the punch of a woman.

He dropped the knife and fell off me. I quickly stood up.
He got up too, giving me a death glare.
His chest moved up and down exaggerating and fast.
Suddenly he screamed and ran towards me. His skin and skull turned grey. I held up my arms to protect myself.

His voice got louder the closer he was. When he was only one step away from me he disappeared into nothing.

I stood there, my face behind my arms. Silence.
I could finally check on Jane.

She still stood at the same place as before, now with uncovered eyes.

"I- I'm sorry" she cried out with sad eyes.

"I think we can call us even now" I joked, causing her to smile for a moment.

Her expression hardened again.
She only needed a second to get herself together and pretend nothing would have happened to her.

She went to Ava and laid a hand on her shoulder. She asked concerned:
"Did that.... man do anything to you?"

The little girl shook her head.
"I want to go to bed. And I want Pops to be fine"
Salty watery lines were running over her cheeks.
I wished that she wouldn't have to experience something like this ever again, not knowing something even worse was approaching.

"Everything will be fine when the sun will rise again" with that she laid her hand over her eyes and Ava fell asleep.

We carried Ava to her bed and laid Aaron besides her. After yesterday both of them wouldn't want to wake up without another.
We also cast a spell on Aaron to make their bruise on the head heal faster. We didn't know what they and Liam whom we put to bed on the couch have seen that night, hopefully it wasn't too much.

It looked like they fell asleep on spot the same minute the demons started the chaos. With a bit luck all of them will think everything was a nightmare. Maybe we needed more than just a bit luck for that though.

It was around 3 am and we were sitting on our casual spot, the roof.

The heavy storm clouds calmed down and the rain had stopped. It was just a matter of time until it would pour from the sky again, though.

"The demon," I started looking at Jane's ravishing but sad side profile, "you want to talk about it?"

She stayed silent, thinking weather to accept my offer or not.

"I want to" she finally stated, "I want to remember it, I want to talk about it, I want to make peace with that chapter of my short life. But I can't. I don't even know what happened. All I remember is the pain and the fear I've felt. And I can't even cry about it, because I'm a bloody ghost"

Bitterness was in her voice.

But it's good to see that damaged people seem to find each other.
I remembered what she said earlier. You couldn't see it at first, but Jane was tough. I couldn't imagine what damaged her. I didn't want to imagine it.

"And do you want to talk about us?"

The question hit me like a bus.

After a short brake of silence she added: "I heard what you said to the demon"

"I'm sorry, it slipped out, I didn't want to make you feel uncomfortable, I-"
I immediately started to apologize, but got cut off by her.

"I liked it" she took my hand and looked into my eyes.
"I think we have a lot to say to one another, still now is not the right time... The timing is never right..."

"We will know when the timing is right. And I think we already know what the other one will tell us once the timing will be right...
But for now let's get away, on a roman holiday"

She squeezed my hand, signaling me that she understood the reference, and a comfortable silence hardened around us; tricking us into believing things could get better and making us not realizing that we made a mistake tonight.

But for now we were lost in our thoughts, far away, imagining our roman holiday.

~I updated 3 new chapters (the one for July and one for August plus an extra chapter) so you can read on if you want to~

An// I had no internet most of the summer holidays so I couldn't update, sorry for that.
But now I'll be in 11th grade! Wohoo never thought I'd make it to that day. Still have three years of school though. Lets see what this year will bring.
Anyways, I hope you liked the chapter, any ideas what'll happen next or any questions about anything?
Did you get the reference too? :)
Anyways, good night or whatever it currently is~~~

But most importantly:

HAPY BIRTHDAY!! My wonderful friend whom I dedicated this chapter too is one year older and still stunning and wonderful, I wish you all the best *\(^o^)/*

(This was supposed to be updated yesterday btw)

09.09.21
19.19