"Your call has been fowarded to an automatic voice message system. 4-1-5-585-3715- is not available. At the tone, please dial again or leave a message. -beep- I swallowed my breath, and said, "Hey Janice? Are you busy nowadays? Cause you haven't exactly answered any of my text  messages or emails for weeks, so......uh.......I was just curious. Or did I do something to make you mad? Is that why you're not answering? Well, if you have time, call me okay?" I hung up the phone and sighed. What was the use?

At first, I thought she might've been too busy at school, since we had even more homework and tests to study for, now that we were sophmores in high school. But when I texted Carla, who went to the same high school as Janice, Carla said that she never saw Janice at school at all, which made things even more stranger. "I really hope she's okay.....," I thought, biting my nail.

"Mina! Come down for dinner!" David, my big brother, yelled from the bottom of the stairs. "Okay, I'm coming!" I said, walking down the stairs to the kitchen table. "We're having eggs and kimchi again?!"David groaned. "Remember we have to save money if we want to buy a new house," my mom replied, shooting him a look and setting down a plate of rice on my side of the table. David grumbled and reluctantly shoved a mouthful of eggs in his mouth.

I said nothing as usual, not wanting to get involved with any family drama. "So, if you don't want to eat eggs and kimchi, what do you want to eat then?" My mom asked my brother. "Sausages or popcorn chicken," I replied, but mom ignored me. "I also want sausages and popcorn chicken like Mina," my brother said, trying to include me in the conversation, but if mom noticed, she didn't acknowledge it. I knew why.

Ever since me and my family moved from Los Angeles to Sacramento, my grades have been sinking to the ground in my new school and when my terrible grades showed on my report card, my mom and I had a huge fight over it, which resulted in my mom being so mad at me that she's currently giving me the silent treatment. We were both too stubborn to make up and we both avoided each other after that.

I finished my meal quickly and washed my plate in the sink as fast as I could. "Be careful Mina! You might break that plate!" My mother snapped and took it from me, dismissing me with a wave of her hand, "Just go finish your homework."

"Fine," I sighed and trudged back to my room and closed the door.
Finally some peace.

I slumped in my chair and miserably looked at my big stack of homework on my desk. How the heck am I going to finish all this by tomorrow?! I knew I shouldn't have procrastinated! I swear, my stupidity amazes me sometimes. I closed my eyes, rubbed my forehead, and sighed loudly.

"If I had a dollar for every time you sighed, I'd have enough money to pay for college."

I looked behind myself to see my brother standing right behind me. "Did you not see the "Do not disturb" sign on my door?" I raised my eyebrow.

"Decided to ignore it, as always," David grinned, earning a groan from me. "Look, I have no time to talk, I have a shit-load of homework to finish and I don't need you to barge in my room and distract me," I said, turning to my desk and grabbing one of my textbooks.

"I know, that's why I came to help," He claimed. "Since when were you willing to help me on my homework? Wait a second, did mom force you to help me with my homework again? Well, tell her I'm fine, and I've got it all covered-"

"No, you don't. If you really had it "all covered," then what's with the big homework stack on your desk?" David pointed out. I raised my hands up in exasperation, "Okay, fine! You got me! I had no clue how to do my chemistry or my English essay, so I stupidly procrastinated until the very last minute and here I am now!"

"No need to yell," David said, looking through my chemistry textbook. "Sorry, I'm just panicked. By the way, why would you want to help me?" I asked him. David put my chemistry textbook down on my desk and looked at me seriously.

"Aren't you tired of fighting with mom over something you could easily fix? Because I am. You need to get your act together and fix your grades, if you don't want mom to kill you, so I'm going to help you," He said, crossing his arms. "Thanks?" I squinted my eyes at him to see if he might've been joking but he was dead serious.

David pulled up a chair next to my desk and asked, "What problem do you need help on with your chemistry homework?"

****

I covered my mouth and yawned. "Hey David, is this problem rig-" I started to ask, but paused when I saw David snoring on my desk. I smiled, ruffled his hair a bit and went to the bathroom.

I still had one more worksheet to do for chemistry, but I could always do it tomorrow at lunch at school. I went down the stairs and went inside the bathroom to brush my teeth.

I grabbed my blue toothbrush and squeezed out toothpaste on it when I looked at the mirror and discovered that I wasn't alone in the bathroom after all. My toothbrush fell from my hands and I screamed.

Standing right next to me, was the most hideous creature I ever gazed upon. It had orange mangy fur, the largest bloodshot eyes I've ever seen, and once I screamed, it smiled creepily, revealing a bunch of strange crooked teeth that looked sharp enough to tear me to shreds. It's smile reminded me of the creepy smile I saw from the barbie doll my uncle gave for my 8th birthday years ago.

I stumbled to the floor and the creature walked towards me slowly with a menacing smile, making me scoot back from it.  I trembled, breathing heavily, my heart choked with so much fear I could barely speak, but I managed to choke out, "What.....are you?"

"You really are the spitting-image of my mistress," it smiled creepily, and with that, the creature turned into ash and disappeared.

Whatever did that mean?