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Sam finally had a week off from Uni so she decided that now would be the perfect time to visit her father. After her surprise visit last Halloween, they'd stayed in contact and while their relationship was far from perfect, at least she had a relationship with him. Grayson still refused to talk with his dad, no matter what Sam said, so she did her best to visit her father whenever she could. While she 100% understood why mom had left him, she still clung to this dumb hope that one day her father would find a job and get out of his - obvious to her but denied by him - depression he would go back home and everything would go back to how it was when she was a kid, and her family would be whole once again.
So, yeah. That didn't turn out just as she expected
She arrived in Brighton at around 10pm, as she'd driven straight from Uni and knocked on the door. While she waited in the dark - her father really needed to invest in a front door light - she noticed a weird smell in the air, but was unable to identify it. When he opened the door, her father looked different from the last time she'd seen him, noticeably missing his signature hat. She hugged him like always and went to put her suitcase in the guest bedroom. On her way she noticed an opened bottle of whisky on the living room's table and sighed to herself. Yep, he definitely wasn't getting better.
They didn't talk much that night. Sam pretended to be exhausted by the drive and, while she was sleepy she mainly didn't want to deal with her father like that. On the way to her room she took the whisky with her. While she didn't doubt the alcohol cabinet was filled with many more, she figured that if her father realised she knew about him being drunk he would just go to sleep. Furthermore, she knew he got tired when drunk so that was more points in her favour.
She didn't notice the weird glint in her father's eyes, nor the fact that he was playing with a switchblade, opening and closing it, testing it against the surface of the table.
Sam woke up the next day feeling better. Her father would probably be hungover this morning but at least he'd be sober. He was already in the kitchen when she got there after showering and getting dressed - for some reason she still felt weird hanging around her father in her pyjamas. He had his back to her, messing with something on the cutting board. She went to get cereals when he turned to her, and she stopped dead in her tracks. The person in front of her wasn't her father. It was a cheap imitation, and she scolded herself for not realising it earlier. She paled a bit when she realised she'd been sleeping in the same place as this thing.
"Hiya Sammy, slept well?"
The voice was the worst part. It sounded like a corrupted audio file, flickering in and out, the pitch changing in the middle of a word. He still had the knife in his hand, and suddenly Sam wasn't sure if he had really been cutting food or if this was just a set up to cut her. The light in his eyes led her to think it was most likely the second option.
Slowly, Sam backed away. She only had to get to her car, then she would be able to drive away and she'd be safe. Her keys were on the counter near the front door; she could get them, if only he didn't get to them first. That thing is not my father, she thought, a bit franactically. That thing is definitely not my father. Oh my god what happened to him? The thing still hadn't moved from his spot in the kitchen, so she ran for it. His eyes never left her, but he seemed content enough watching her, a small smile on his face.
Just as she slammed the door behind her, she heard him again, laughing "What is it Sammy? Don't wanna stay with Daddy anymore?"
She ran to her car, and when she finally looked up she saw what the dark had hid from her last night. A name written in blood on the front door. Anti.