(slight gore warning. Image does not belong to me. I hope to find the original owner soon-)

Jackson woke up. They didn't remember going to sleep. All they remembered was that their mom had left and they continued playing with their toys.

They looked at their alarm clock. All the numbers where replaced with black squares and the hands just moved around pointing at random times.

"What the- Scruffy, do you know what's going on?" They looked to their stuffed rabbit. But when they did, they screamed in surprise and threw the rabbit on the bed.

"Scruffy what happened to you!?" They yelled.

The rabbit now had two heads, and it felt as if something hard was inside of it. They picked it back up.

"Oh well. Now there's another nose to boop!" They said happily.

Jackson opened their door and started walking to the kitchen, hoping to see their mother making breakfast.

Only an empty room.

'Maybe she's still sleeping.' They thought.

The 10 year old walked to their mother's room and knocked on the door.

No answer.

Again.

No answer.

"Mom?" They opened the door.

An empty bed.

"Oh. Maybe she's working for a little longer this time!" They stayed optimistic.

"C'mon, Scruffy! Let's get some cereal!" Jackson threw Scruffy in the air before catching it and giving it a big hug. They walked to the kitchen and climbed on the counter to get some cereal from the cupboard. They saw cereal brands that they never heard of replacing the ones they normally had in there.

"Chocolate Chunker Wunker Bunkers? Urkelo's? Puffu Puffa Rice? What the frick?" They used a child's equivalent of a curse word.

They set all of the cereal boxes on the table and set Scruffy in front of it.

"What do you think?" Jackson asked.

Scruffy fell down pointing at 'Puffa Puffa rice.'

"I guess that settles it then!" Jackson set the rabbit up against it's chosen box and set the rest back, before grabbing a bowl, a spoon, and then some Scruffy-sized versions of both, adding an extra spoon since it now had two heads. Kyra had bought them for Jackson to give to Scruffy.

Jackson poured some cereal in the two bowls and went to the fridge to get the milk. Though when they grabbed the carton, they noticed something wrong with the 'missing' image. The face was replaces with a black spot, similar to the one on Kyra's arm. Jackson hoped it was just their mother coloring the face in. She didn't like have pictures in the house openly, as she had scopophobia. She didn't take well to having any sort of picture of anyone in the house, as she felt they stared at her. She kept them, but never put them up.

Jackson poured the milk in the two bowls and began eating. Once they finished, (of course, they ate Scruffy's bowl, because it couldn't eat.) A knock was heard at the door. It didn't have any specific pattern, it was simply a knock.

'Mama said to only open the door if I heard that special knocking pattern. But then again, she only meant it for the basement tunnel... Ah screw it!' They decided.

Jackson undid the multiple locks that were on the door, and opened it a crack. What they saw would haunt them forever.

The same person from the milk carton, their face replaced by a black void, and from that void, thick, red, blood poured out. It looked almost as if the void were a mask, and the blood was pouring from under it. They stared, frozen in fear, as the thing stepped closer, hunger apparent in their features, despite being faceless.

Jackson finally snapped out of it and slammed the door, locking all the locks that were used before and used the extras. They slid down the wall next to the door and clutched the two headed rabbit within their grasp. Silent tears stained the fluffy fur of the push rabbit as a puddle of blood seeped from the bottom of the door.

"Mama... Please come back...."

______

Edit 8/8/2022: Fixed Jackson's age and some unnatural sounding dialog. Happy reading :)

-Lunar