Lily's little body was currently going through way too many emotions for one night, she briefly entertained the notion that this was all a nightmare, but her body was sore from her fall and the bodies underneath her felt real, the sounds, smells, her fear was real.
As real as the monster that came from the new hole in the wall and she was alone with him. Her grandma wasn't moving, and her ghostly friends weren't around if they even were her friends... they caused this...
Liars, killers, monsters... that's what her grandma had said.
Lily didn't know what to believe. She wanted to believe in them but...
But the only thing she did know for sure was that she didn't want to be around the thing in front of her. Lily shakily stands up and tries to run only to take a few steps and slip in something wet, she barely catches her fall with her hands but they too slip bringing her almost face first into the red substance beneath her.
The monster laughs cruelly, and Lily just wants to curl up and cry as she pulls herself back up, her hands stained red from catching her fall, it's on her knees as well but her eyes only see her hands and she quickly tries to frantically clean them the only way she knows, by rubbing her hands on her shirt.
This only smears the blood further panicking the girl.
Because it is blood, real blood and it's everywhere, it's on her!
Max stops laughing and surveys the area, "David and my boys always did know how to make a mess and as their father I was and am as always left with the cleanup." He sighs and removes his glasses while pulling out a piece of cloth from his front pocket to clean them.
His words catch Lily's attention as she desperately clings to his words in an effort to forget about the blood, "Father...?" For once she wants her dad.
He makes a noncommittal noise of agreement, "It's not just my job to clean up after them, oh no I must also discipline them as well..." He puts his glasses back on and looks at the small scared girl before him.
She takes an unsteady step backward as something in his eyes is urging her to flee but her legs won't corporate completely.
"Sadly, I don't think there's much hope for them, I may have to start all over." Lily didn't understand but it appeared that he was mainly speaking to himself for the moment. "Unfortunately, you won't work either... already so rebellious at such a young age, it seems like you're just another mess to clean up."
He looks around as if trying to find something all the while he continues to talk, "How about I tell you a story hmm? It's the story of a man who only wanted a family, a perfect family."
Lily took another step back as he started to walk around the room looking at the bodies, searching for something. "Sadly, for the man, his wife was not only barren but unfaithful as well." He bends down and carefully searches one of the corpse's pockets as not to get any blood on himself before speaking again.
"Luckily the man met a person who understood him, who changed him and his life for the better. He gave him a gift. Immortality." He searches another corpse just as carefully while Lily glances towards the hallway wondering if she can make a run for it, "Now the man had all the time in the world to get what he wanted, the perfect family."
He stands up with something in his hand and looks at Lily with a smile, "So the man returned home and got rid of the useless ungrateful wife and started his quest and after years of searching he found a son." Lily wished the story was over, she really didn't like it.
Max holds his hand out and reveals a lighter to the young girl's confusion, "The son was strong, handsome, respectful I knew right away that he would be perfect." He lights the lighter and stares into the flame before letting it die and looking back at the girl, "I soon came to realize that given the gift of immortality made him restless, obviously he needed a sibling to help calm him down, so like a good father I found him one a few years later."
He flicked the lighter absentmindedly while he spoke, "It seemed to do the trick... it seemed to, truthfully I can see now that it was an act and that he was just as rebellious and headstrong as ever even then. My other son was ideal though on the quiet side but he kept David out of trouble."
Lily's eyes widen as it finally clicks on who/what this story was really about, but Max gaze is far off not noticing or maybe not caring that he had changed from third person to first person with his story.
"He didn't however, stop him when it was something he truly wanted though, so when my son used my blood to turn that ruffian they all had to be punished. Having three sons wasn't easy not when they looked towards David to lead them... but I thought they'd finally learned their lesson." Blood, immortality... vampires, certain things were starting to form in her mind based on this tale and words that had been said to her, to live forever she would have to be like this, like him, a monster.
Monsters were scary, she didn't want to be a monster but... she didn't want to be killed by one either.
He starts flicking the lighter faster as if agitated.
"They didn't as not even a full decade later they had chosen to give immortality to another unworthy candidate." He frowns deeply and stops playing with the lighter abruptly.
His eyes seem to be focusing again, "So then I had four sons and it became obvious that a woman's touch was needed, they needed a mother." He tilts his head and smiles innocently, and it looks off even to her young eyes, "I went through many potential brides but only one was perfect... Lucy."
Then his face changes to that of the monster and Lily gasps, "Lucy was your great-grandmother you know." Lily backed away again only to trip over a body this time, it was her grandma Star's unmoving form. She unconsciously moved closer to her as if some part of her thought she could protect her from him.
"Your grandfather Michael and his brother Sam were also very troublesome children, if not for them I could've had it all!" He nearly shouts and takes a menacing step towards the girl before his gaze finds the woman Lily was leaning against.
"Of course, Star is just as guilty in that regard." He glares at the motionless woman, "Once again David disobeyed me, but I was willing to overlook it after all a daughter couldn't be nearly as much of a hassle so I thought..."
The monstrous man was now right in front of her tracing her face with his long fingernails making her whimper and try to scoot back, but her grandmother's body wouldn't let her, "Then just as it was all going to come together perfectly it fell apart, Lucy's children had slaughtered my own, not much of a loss really." He laughed evilly as Lily realized what that meant, her grandpa killed her ghosts... did that mean they really weren't her friends? Did they hate her? Were they going to leave her here alone with the thing in front of her?
Her thoughts stilled when he suddenly snarled and tightened his grip cutting her face slightly before changing the tale's direction again.
"But then they managed to catch me off guard... well I suppose in a way it was fortunate that I was killed in the fireplace and that my ashes merged with those in there, even if parts of my remains ended up thrown away I was still connected to the fireplace, those useless hunters thought they could seal it up and keep me out and my boys thought they'd removed every last brick stained with my presence but they miscalculated."
Lily wished that her ghosts would show up even if it was only to distract him from her but at the same time the idea of them joining the monster before her scared her even more, would they do that though? They didn't like him, and he didn't seem to like them either, so maybe... please, please show up David, Dwayne, Paul, anybody she mentally prayed.
Her prayers weren't answered though as he released her and backed away with a smirk, "Well that's it for story time I think it's time for you to go to sleep now." He flicks the lighter on again and walks over to one of the bodies before grabbing one's long hair and lighting the hair on fire.
Lily stares stunned and wonders what he's doing as he continues this pattern several times before she realizes what's happening, he was trying to set the house on fire.
Clean up the mess.
That's what he said... he also said she was a mess. She turns her terrified gaze to him as he finishes up and he meets her eyes, "If only you had been a good girl this all could've been avoided, I would've made you my new daughter..." He shakes his head in disappointment, "don't try to escape it's pointless." Then he's gone with only a slight breeze rustling her messy hair as an indication to which way he went, the front door.
A groan startles her then and she looks at her grandmother, "G-grandma!" She quickly starts to shake the older woman, "Come on wake up we have to go the house is on fire!" The small girl continues to shake her but the woman only grunts and passes back out much to the granddaughter's dismay.
Lily puts her head on the woman's back trying to hear a heartbeat but instead feels her breathing, so the girl tries to pull her as the fire gets closer but it's obvious that it won't work, she's not big enough and she knows it.
If she leaves her grandma will die but if she stays they both will, tears start to pour down her face smearing the soot and blood and she's hardly aware of the sting to her cuts as it gets harder to see, the crying is also not helping with her ability to breathe, she coughs and notices the smoke moving faster than the flames.
Her throat already sore from breathing in the soot she stands shakily, "I-I'm sorry." Lily's blurry vision stares at her grandma's body one last time before running to the hallway.
-
It took less than a minute to reach the front door but once there her shaky hands grab the door handle and push only to have it not budge an inch. So she tries to push harder, nothing happens.
"W-wha..."
Lily starts to breathe hard while her hands slip from the doorknob as the monster's earlier words echo in her mind, "Don't try to escape it's pointless."
The tiny soot and blood covered girl throws herself at the door then, it doesn't move. She tries again and again and again. Her shoulder is throbbing in protest as the hall starts to fill with smoke, Lily tries hard to think things through because she learned about fires and what to do in school but it's so hard to think clearly when she's so scared, confused and sore.
A thought comes to mind then, her best hope is the kitchen windows. They are small but she could fit, and it was the closest way out besides the front door. So, Lily runs back down the hall covering her mouth and nose with her hand and trying to hold her breath.
She runs past burning walls and bodies to enter the kitchen which is filled with even more smoke than the hallway causing her to cough and try harder to hold her breathe. Suddenly a high pitch noise pierces the air causing her to stop covering her mouth to instead cover her ears.
It's the fire alarm.
Hurriedly Lily makes her way across the kitchen and to the sink where she climbs it clumsily unable to block her ears or her nose any longer. Her vision is clouded too by the smoke and her own puffiness from crying but she manages to climb it.
Once she is sitting on the sink Lily tries to open the window but it doesn't move a bit, it costs her a few precious seconds before she realizes what's wrong.
There're nails, someone nailed down the window.
Panicked Lily grabs the closest thing a potted plant and tries to break the window with it only to break the pot and cut her hand instead without breaking the window. Crying she holds her bleeding hand close to her chest for a second before using her other hand to turn on the sink and stick it under the water coughing all the while.
Wasn't there something about pour water on yourself when there's a fire, she couldn't remember but Lily decides to do it anyway and opens the cabinet with the hand not currently under the water to get a glass and then removes her injured hand to fill it, "C-come on, come on!" She tries to urge the faucet to go faster because the smoke is getting worse somehow.
After filling the cup, she uses her uninjured hand to pour it over her head, it probably wasn't enough water, but it was all she was going to get as the smoke was getting too bad to remain in the kitchen any longer not to mention the blaring alarm was hurting her already stuffy head.
Grabbing a dishcloth to wrap her still bleeding hand and running from the room she encounters more smoke and even more flames, she eyes the stairs hoping to get up them and away from the smoke, holding her breathe she runs for the stairs.
-
Running up the stairs wasn't as easy as she'd thought it'd be because part of them was ablaze already and they were burning fast because just like most of the house they were made from wood. Once upstairs she runs into the first door she sees which happens to be the bathroom. Lily quickly slams it shut behind her without paying much attention to the room itself only to turn around and scream at the sight that greets her.
The tub is full of blood with a body floating face down and two dead slashed up bodies hanging above it, she fumbles with the doorknob behind her with her bad hand at first before quickly using her left hand. Once the door is open she darts out and slams the door shut before running to her room chased by smoke that almost seemed alive in her mind.
Once inside her bedroom, the brunette runs to her bed grabs the blanket nearly knocking her handheld game to the floor in the process and quickly brings it to the door. After stuffing the sheet under the door the girl goes to her window and tries to open it.
Luckily there are no nails in this one but it isn't easy to open with one hand and even with her injured bleeding hand she can't make it move, so she starts to slam on the glass in desperation leaving behind bloody handprints.
Eventually, she backs away and tries to find something hard to break it with, she tries a hairbrush first and then her handheld game that was still laying on the bed, the game's screen breaks but the glass window only has a slight crack at this point but the tired girl doesn't give up she looks around for something else to use and she finds it.
Lily warily eyes a lamp on the nightstand but doesn't think too hard on it before quickly unplugging it. It was glass and her hand was already cut but even if it cuts her, even more, she had to break the window so with all the strength left in her little body she picks up the lamp and toss it at the window.
The lamp breaks.
So, does the window.
Glass shatters, it's loud and painful.
Shards or various size and shape fly about cutting her arms mostly and face where she isn't able to shield herself.
The bleeding girl ignores the pain even from pieces of glass buried in her arms and climbs up to the window further cutting herself on broken glass and takes the hairbrush to smash at the remaining shards blocking her way out.
Once that is done Lily looks outside the window and her hopes are dashed because there's no ledge.
Nothing to get a foothold on, no way to safely climb down.
Either she jumps, or she stays put.
Glancing back at the door she wonders which one is worse, Lily really didn't know she brings her gaze back to the broken window to look down at the yard and she sees all the cars and bikes just sitting there waiting for their owners.
The vehicles belonged to the dead people downstairs... they would never ride them again, they would never do anything again.
Would she?
Lily broke down then she cried and screamed for help until she had to stop due to a coughing fit.
She realized something.
Nobody was coming.
Nobody was going to save her.
She was all alone.
Her parents weren't here... would they even help her if they were or would they just have something new to argue about?
Her grandma was probably dead... was that her fault?
And her ghosts David, Dwayne, and Paul... they had abandoned her.
Would she become a ghost? Did the people downstairs? Maybe if they had she wouldn't be alone if she died but... she still didn't want to die.
Lily took a couple of deep breathes but it didn't help, not really so she gazed outside once again looking for answers. The ground didn't have them so maybe the sky did, her dark eyes looked up at the night sky.
It triggers a memory to flow through her, it's a calming one.
"...do you wanna fly?"
"Stand on the window sill."
Standing up she does as the memory says and readies herself on the window sill.
"Now you jump."
Without another thought, Lily jumped.