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Norman wakes up late in the morning, startled into consciousness by the dull sound of an object impacting the ground next to his bed. He takes one moment to rub his eyes and stretch before sitting up in bed, blinking away the blurriness. The shared room is empty, and the light pouring in through the blinds a pure, yet dim, white, as a result of the overcast that seems to eternally encompass the entirety of Newport around this time in January.
He looks down to see what startled him awake. His eyes lock onto the small cardboard package on the floor. A deck of playing cards.
He had left it on the nightstand by his bed the day before. Strange that it could fall on its own like that. Perhaps he somehow moved it in his sleep?
He doesn’t linger much in that train of thought. He peels the covers off himself and slowly gets out of bed, taking a moment to get used to the cold that seeps into his bones like this every morning and every night of winter. He walks towards the window and pushes open a sliver in the blinds. He gazes over the tranquil waves of the East passage of Narragansett Bay. He could barely see the lighthouse on the other side through the fog.
The view is peaceful, although it somehow doesn't feel as such, leaving him with a certain unease. He turns around, walks to the door, and exits the room, heading to the bathroom to get ready for the day. Or something like that. Once he is done attempting and failing to fix his bedhead, he walks down the stairs and into the dining hall.
“Hey sleepyhead!” Emma is first to greet him, her mouth still half full with a bite of the omelette on her plate. He only waves back.
“What took you so long?” Ray asks as he walks by, holding his empty plate.
“I think I slept through the alarm…” He answers.
“You haven’t been sleeping well.” Ray states.
“What? Why would you think that?” Norman answers. He didn’t feel any more tired than usual, though he always felt somewhat weary in the cold…
“You have eyebags, Norman.”
“Oh…” Does he? Wouldn’t he have seen them in the mirror? Perhaps he is simply that tired.
“You better eat your breakfast.” Ray says.
“Ah… I’m not sure- I’m not quite hungry-”
“Norman.” Ray spits the name out like an order, looking him over with that terrifying look that always so clearly indicates that he is not joking in the slightest.
“O-Okay… I’ll eat up…” Norman stutters out, a hint of red creeping to his cheeks.
“Good.” Ray states, and he continues to the kitchen.
He sits down to eat his breakfast, and thankfully, Emma keeps him company throughout, even after all of his siblings have left. The bland meal barely tastes like anything to him. No spices, no greens. Only eggs. But he is used to it; rarely is the food any different than that.
“Hey, Norman… Why’ve you not been sleeping well?” She asks.
He pauses for a moment before speaking, considering the question. “I… I don’t know.” He answers truthfully.
“Eh? What do you mean you don’t know?”
“It’s just… I’ve been feeling tired recently.”
“Norman.” She begins, placing her hands on her hips, looking at him incredulously, “Did you pull an all-nighter again?”
“W-What? That was one time, Emma!” He stammers.
“And you looked like a lich for a week!” She tells him with a tone equal parts accusatory and concerned.
He sighs, dropping his gaze to the table. “… I have been sleeping. I swear. Too much, even. Still… I wake up tired.”
“…You should tell Mama… She’ll help you.” She says.
“Yeah… It’s probably nothing though-”
“Norman!”
“Okay, f-fine! I’ll tell her.”
Once he finishes his breakfast, they head to the kitchen to leave their plates. Usually then, they would go outside, but currently, playing hide and seek or tag doesn’t seem like a particularly inviting idea given the harsh weather. Instead, they spend most of their time in the library reading something, or in one of their rooms playing chess, cards, or something else of similar inconsequence.
So they walk together to the library, and when they arrive, they find Ray already there, sitting at a table, with a volume already in his hands. Something about a Bell Witch. He gives them a short greeting, which they answer in kind. They pick up a book for themselves and sit down. Emma sits beside Ray and Norman just across from them. They begin to read through the pages in comfortable silence. Or at least that was the plan. Instead, Norman finds himself staring blankly at the pages, not reading any of the words, his mind wandering in many different directions, and in none that mattered.
His gaze wanders just over his book, settling over Ray and Emma. The gray light pouring over them and framing them in a glow almost angelical. He doesn’t realize the passage of time until Ray speaks up.
“Why are you staring.” Ray says, not looking up from his book.
“Ah- No, I- I was just… miles away…” He stutters out, trying to conceal the reason for his staring, to partial success.
“Maybe you wouldn’t be if you slept properly.”
“Yeah! You should tell Mama, right now.” Emma adds.
“I have been sleeping! It’s just-” Norman stops abruptly.
His blood runs cold.
Behind Emma and Ray, through the window, his eyes suddenly catch onto the shape of a figure, standing among the fog, right next to the tree line of the small forest that fenced their orphanage.
It couldn’t be Isabella, because she always was in her office at this time of the morning, except Sundays. But today was no Sunday, and the figure out there is too tall to be her anyway. The entire orphanage is surrounded by a three meter tall chain-link fence as well. Had they climbed? Cut through it? Maybe-
“It’s just…?” Ray pokes, still not tearing his gaze from the book.
“I- Uhhh… Who’s that?” Norman stutters out, a tinge of fear dripping from his voice.
Emma lifts her gaze from her book. She sees Norman’s gaze firmly fixed on a spot beyond the window. “Hm? Who’s wh-” She stops immediately when she turns to that spot.
At this, Ray finally tears his gaze from the book, a look of confusion over him, and he turns to the window as well. He freezes immediately.
They could discern no details of the figure. In fact, they couldn’t even make out any colors of it. They see only black, like a shadow. Emma places her book on the table without looking away and stands up, slowly walking through the window, as if she might startle whoever stands there.
They follow her almost on instinct, approaching the window to get a closer look, but the reduction in distance doesn’t seem to be of help, and the figure has somehow become even harder to see. With every second that they stare at it, it becomes blurrier, losing its edges and contours, and then the darkness stretches, melding into the fog, until it becomes too thin and wide, vanishing.
They linger by the window, as if the illusion might yet reappear.
“… I don’t think I’ll be sleeping well tonight either.” Norman dejectedly says after a moment.
He then feels Ray’s hand land gently on his back, rubbing circles over it with care.
“It was just the fog, Norman.” He says, quietly, almost in a whisper, and his reassuring words are betrayed by a tinge of fear behind them. He wants to believe him, and he tells himself he does, but a voice tells him that no, fog cannot do that, it cannot turn pitch black and remain still in the shape of a human for a minute.
Ray’s hand runs up, landing on his hair. He gently strokes it, running his fingers through the threads of white. Norman turns to him, his lips slightly separated. He looks away after too long, trying to hide the slight pink on his cheeks.
“Y-Yeah… Thanks.”
The next morning, Norman wakes feeling unrested again. Every single one of his limbs feels weighed down and heavy, and his mind is blanketed by a fog as thick as the one outside, that sinks him into a drowsiness that stops him from making a train of thought longer than a few concepts.
He sits up in bed, peeling the covers off himself, before walking to the bathroom. He enters it, closing and locking the door behind him. He takes a moment to splash some cold water on his face before looking into the mirror above the sink.
He didn’t look his best.
The eyebags had grown darker, and the usual glint in his bright blue eyes had become a dark absence. He runs his hands through his hair, attempting to put it in place. He is startled suddenly by the sound of three knocks coming from the door.
“Ah- I- I won’t be long!” He answers.
He only hears footsteps walking away from the door, without an answer.
He hesitates with his gaze over the door for a moment, before turning back to the sink. He leans over it, trying to gather his thoughts and wake himself up. His gaze catches a drop of dried blood in the sink.
When he arrives at the dining hall, he isn’t greeted by the cheerful voice of Emma or Ray’s teasing. They look over him and their smiles drop into concerned frowns. Did he really look that bad?
He walks over to his seat between them, pulling the chair back while pretending not to be somewhat dizzy.
“N-Norman, did you not sleep at all!?” Emma asks him. There is no trace of her usual scolding tone when talking about his often-fragile health, and instead, it is laced with pure and genuine concern.
“I… Slept through the night…” He trails off, staring towards the wall.
“Then… How-”
“We need to go tell Mama right now.” Ray says.
Norman doesn’t have enough willpower in the moment to lie about his well-being.
They stand up quickly, helping him up, leaving their half-eaten meals on their plates as they walk him to Isabella’s office. The time passes around him strangely, blurring together the walk with the knocking on her door with the time they wait for her to open. He can’t recall any details of their conversation with her. He doesn’t even remember if he said a word.
At the moment they leave, he finds himself holding a small plastic container of pills labeled ‘Vesparax’ and the vague idea of an instruction to take one before sleeping. They return to the now empty dining room, and they sit down in front of the cold scrambled eggs before them.
Norman tries to force it down, not wanting to worry his friends any more than necessary. They already took such good care of him; it would be rude of him not to at least try. Unfortunately, the food is intolerable, and when he tries to push down a bite too many, the awkward flavor and horrid texture result in him gagging. He spits the food back onto the plate, leaning harshly over the table, taking deep breaths, trying to steady himself into not vomiting. The faint taste of stomach acid lingers anyway, burning his throat and souring his senses.
“You don’t have to eat now, Norman. You already ate almost everything, anyway.” Emma says to him, carefully patting him on the back.
“Come on… let’s go to your room so that you can rest.” She continues.
“… But I-”
“We’ll keep you company.” Ray interrupts him. He’s always surprised by their incredible divination skills, no matter how often they predicted him.
As the day goes on, Norman’s mind progressively begins to clear and awaken to a more standard level of function wherein he is not constantly losing the words in his mind. So eventually he starts to talk with Ray and Emma, to pass time, and well into the afternoon, they begin playing chess.
Emma and Ray lie across from him, on the other side of the board, whispering in each other’s ears while sparing an analytical glance at the pieces and their position. He can’t make out the words, but he knows their plan exactly anyway.
A knocking on the door interrupts them just before Emma is about to touch a bishop.
“Come in!” She says.
But the doorknob does not rattle, and the door doesn’t open.
They stare at it for a second, and then two, and then three. Something feels off about it.
Then they hear a knock again, from the window.
They are on the second floor.
Their gazes snap towards there, but the glass is covered by the blinds. The only thing they hear is the sound of their own breathing. The usual creakings of the house and the constant yet faint sounds made by the other children who live there are absent.
“It was the wind.” Ray says eventually, but he doesn’t meet either of their gazes when he does so. They want to believe the words, but the strange feeling that the unopened door gave them remains.
They don’t say anything in response, quietly returning to the match, sparing a glance towards the window and the closed door every so often.
Norman takes one of the pills before going to sleep, and the next morning he wakes up feeling rested again, somewhat. Yet, Norman finds himself somewhere solemn. A church, a cathedral perhaps. He is there for a funeral. He sees the casket far away from the church’s seats, where the deceased lies.
His mind is somewhat foggy, perhaps the night of rest wasn’t enough to make up for the poor quality sleep of recent days. He tries to rack his brain, looking around at the people around him. He knows everyone. They are all of his siblings. Isabella is there too, yet no matter how much he recognizes everyone around him, he doesn’t find the answer to his most crucial question.
Who is the deceased?
It must be someone he knows. Someone the orphanage knows, but all of his siblings are there, so it’s none of them. It might then be someone known to their mama.
But all of his siblings have a downcast look on them, some are even tearful, so they must have also known the deceased. But then who was it? He couldn’t recall even the slightest detail. He starts to feel bad. Detached from the event. He is the only one who is not grieving, and it makes him feel separated. In fact, he isn’t feeling much of anything, except the nagging of that unanswered question.
The casket is right there, just below the altar.
Maybe he should go look.
He stands up, looking around him. The day is bleak, and the colors inside the church are washed out by the gray light that illuminates the entire precinct. No one turns to look at him. He takes a step forward, and then another, walking by the rows of grieving children quicker and quicker.
A growing sense of dread stirs within him as he approaches the black casket, an unease he cannot explain, but he keeps moving forward.
He passes all of the seats and steps into the sanctuary. He stands over the closed casket, and turns back to look at his family, but still, they are all too tearful and distracted to look at him. He turns back and takes a deep breath.
He places a hand on the casket’s lid, steadies himself, and opens it.
Inside, he finds himself.
Dressed in a black suit, lying there unmoving, not breathing, pale as paper. Dead.
He turns around, and still, no one in attendance is looking at him.
He shoots up in bed, breathing quickly, hearing his own heartbeat, looking around him for a moment. He is in his bed, in his room. Empty room, barely illuminated by the dim light of the overcast morning. It was all a dream.
He wills his breathing to slow down, taking deeper breaths and holding them for longer every time, making the pulsing in his ears become quieter and slower.
Once he manages to calm himself down and returns to a normal heartrate, he lifts the covers off himself and leaves the bed, as always, heading to the bathroom to get ready.
When he looks in the mirror, he looks better certainly. More brightness in his eyes, the eyebags underneath less dark, and a scratch on his right cheek. Must have done it in his sleep. He goes down to the dining room and he is met with looks of relief and happy greetings instead of the marked concern from yesterday.
The rest of the day goes by perfectly, spent in the library for the most part, along with helping Emma and Ray with the dishes, despite their complaints. Still, there is an unease in the air around them. He thinks it might just be because of the nightmare he had. He doesn’t tell them about it though.
At night, when he is lying in his bed, his thoughts are mostly occupied by a single thing. Ray’s birthday, coming up in less than a week. He falls asleep while planning on what to do for him that day. He’d have to talk to Emma to make the best possible gift to him. In the distraction, he forgets to take the pill.
He awakes in the middle of the night, unsure of what startled him into consciousness. He remains there motionless for a second, as his senses come to him. When he finally becomes able to think again, his stomach drops and his blood ices.
A quiet and repetitive sound, of wood being scratched is what awoke him
And it comes from underneath his bed.
He stays there paralyzed, fully panicking, running in his mind through every possible course of action. Should he wake his siblings up? Should he stay there and pretend to sleep? Should he…
His thoughts begin to clear and unmuddle when he begins to rationalize. It probably is just a rat, or something of the sort. Why is he so panicked anyways? He takes in breath, relaxing himself for a moment, before sitting up in bed. He leans over the edge to look down, underneath his bed.
There is nothing there.
The sounds stop immediately.
He looks around, making sure that nothing is there, and there isn’t a single indication of the presence of something there. He goes to lie back down on his bed. The animal must have scurried off. His gaze falls over the pill container on his bedside table. He reaches out and takes one, struggling to swallow it without water.
The next morning, he awakes feeling drowsy. Not tired, or poorly rested, simply slower than usual, with a heaviness in his limbs that makes him seriously consider not leaving the bed for the day. Of course, he does, eventually.
“So, what do you think?” Norman asks.
He and Emma are in the kitchen, after hours, alone, away from all of their siblings who are, or should be already sleeping, including Ray. They’re holding this conversation with the same secrecy and care one holds an occult meeting.
“Norman… Neither of us know how to cook! And Ray is great at cooking! We’ll screw it up…” She answers.
The discussion around the gift for Ray’s fourteenth birthday had consisted of a few considerations, before Norman made the proposition to hand-bake their lovely best friend a cake. Unfortunately, neither of them had ever done anything in the kitchen beforehand, except perhaps making toast.
“I think we can manage. How hard can it be?” He says back.
Emma pauses for a moment, thinking over the idea. Norman had known she’d initially be opposed. She loved Ray as much as he did (though perhaps not in the same way) so she’d be equally as invested in making a gift for Ray that was the best of their craftsmanship. But she also was never the one to back down from a challenge.
She looks up and gives him a nod. “Fine. Let’s do it! But I think we should probably practice somewhat…”
“Of course. We should-”
Norman is interrupted by a surprisingly loud sound coming from the closed kitchen door. When they turn their attention there, they spot something small just next to the door. A small piece of paper, with something scribbled on it.
He turns to Emma confused, but she also seems surprised, so he walks towards the piece, picking it up to read. Emma peers over his shoulder.
The handwriting is strange, wobbly, irregular, and barely legible, but he can still make out the words written,
‘I love you.’
Could it be… Ray? Had he heard them? Eavesdropped on their conversation?
Then, someone knocks thrice on the door.
“Come in!” Emma says cheerily.
So, the door opens.
But no one is there.
They stand there for a few seconds, waiting for someone to peek around, but that doesn't happen. They turn to each other in confusion, but before they can say anything, the door slams shut.
They both jump backwards, and Emma lets out a startled yelp. They practically fall over one another, instinctually getting closer. Emma holds his arm, and they’re both shaking slightly.
“N-Norman… W-What is h-happening…?” She stutters meekly.
“I… I don’t know. Maybe it w-was the w-”
“It wasn’t the wind!” She yells, the terror audible in every word.
Norman wants to say that maybe it was. Wishes that maybe all could be explained away by a particularly strong draft from an open window, but the piece of paper in his hand said otherwise.
“W-what do we do N-Norman…”
“I… L-Let’s leave…”
They approach the door slowly, with their guard up, expecting it to slam back open. Norman carefully places his hand on the door’s handle, twisting it and slowly pulling it open. There is nothing behind it, except the dark hallway.
They poke their heads out of the door, stilling their gazes over the darkness, but there is nothing there. They exit the room and walk slowly down the hall, careful to make the least noise possible. However, as they look over their shoulder, making sure nothing is behind them, their gaze catches on the kitchen door, closed.
“No-Norman… Did- did you close the door?” She whispers.
“N-No…” Norman answers. He can feel her shaking just slightly. The only reason he wasn’t doing the same thing is his tiredness. They get out of that dimly lit hall as fast as possible, not tearing their gazes away from that door.
They go up the stairwell into the second floor where their rooms were, and they remain under the cover of the yellowed lights of the hall, hesitating to separate, even if for just the instant it would take them to go to their respective rooms.
Their minds were racing, overtaken by attempts to rationalize what they had just seen, yet each of those failed. Neither of them were strangers to the stories told by many, of ghosts that haunt places and people, of which many were available to read in the library, yet never did they go beyond a source of entertainment for them, something that would unsettle them for one night and be forgotten quickly thereafter. And now they were faced with these stories as their reality. They didn’t truly know what was happening, if truly they were haunted or if it could all be explained away. The uncertainty deprived them not just of their peace, but of their hope. It made them feel small.
“Norman… Can I stay with you t-tonight?” Emma asks. Unfortunately, he recalls the strange sounds that he heard the previous night. From under his bed.
“I- don’t think that’s a good idea… Let’s go to Ray…” He says, looking down.
They walk the few paces down the hall towards the communal room that Ray slept in, carefully turning the handle. The quiet squeaking of the hinges somehow felt deafeningly loud. Everyone who occupied a bed was fast asleep, including the dark haired boy. They approached his bed stealthily, turning their gazes every time any small sound louder than a breath would come from a corner of the dark room.
“Norman… Should we wake him?” She whispers.
He hesitates, looking down at Ray. He concludes he does not want to disturb the boy in his sleep. He seems very peaceful, unlike them. However, the choice is made for him, as he stirs anyway at the sound of their voice.
“Mmmh… What… are you doing here…” He asks, turning around, rubbing his face with his hand.
“Ah… Uhm…” Norman begins, rubbing his neck in embarrassment. “We… We couldn’t sleep.”
“Hm? Did something happen?” Ray asks, sitting up, concern in his eyes as he stares at them inquisitively.
“I-It’s nothing…” Emma stutters.
“Can we… stay here, please?” Norman asks, thankful for the darkness hiding the pink on creeping up on his cheeks.
Ray remains silent for a moment, running his gaze over both of them, analyzing them.
“… If you tell me what happened.” He finally says.
Norman sighs. “…Fine… But if you laugh, we’ll never forgive you.” He says, a smile appears on Ray.
“We were just at the kitchen… and-”
“What were you doing in the kitchen so late?” Ray interrupts.
“Ray!” Emma scolds as quietly as she can. “Don’t interrupt us!” Norman chuckles.
“Someone slid a note under the door and then knocked. We told them to come in and the door opened, but… no one was there… And then… the door slammed shut.”
“What did the note say?” Ray asks. Norman simply hands him the crumpled piece of paper. Ray takes it in his hands and brings it close to his face, straining his eyes to read in the dark. After a second, he pulls back, staring at the paper from afar for a moment.
“…Fine. You can stay.” He says.
“Really? Thank you, Ray…” Norman says.
“You’re the best. Actually, I’m surprised you’re believing us…” Emma adds.
“Someone probably played a bad prank on you. Still, you looked scared.” He answers, pulling away the covers from over himself. Norman and Emma hesitate for a second longer before climbing into bed, which was decidedly too small for the three. They end up having to squish together under the sheets. They were used to it though, so they didn’t mind.
They shut their eyes, trying to fall asleep.
But just a few minutes later there came a scratching.
Their eyes shoot open. None of them had managed to fall asleep in the few minutes after they had gotten into bed. Norman and Emma feel a pit forming in their stomachs. Especially Norman, to whom the sounds were familiar. The same scratching he had heard the night before, as if someone were digging their nails into the legs of the bed.
“W-what is that n-noise?” Emma whispers, the terror having returned to her voice.
Norman hesitates to answer, the words clashing together in his throat and choking him.
Ray sits up in bed calmly. “Let me check.” He says, getting onto his knees to get over Norman. However, as soon as he places a foot on the floor, the noises stop. They all pause for an instant, looking at each other, however Ray still leans down to look under the bed. He rises after a moment, seemingly not having found anything.
“It must have been a rat or some animal.” He says, climbing over Norman back into his spot in the middle. They all share a small sense of relief, which unfortunately only lasts a minute, when the scratching returns.
This time they don’t say anything. Ray simply sits up and leans over Norman, poking his head under the bed, but as soon as he does, the sounds stop again. Ray leans back, a puzzled look in his face, mixed with a hint of fear. He stays sitting for a few seconds again, when the sounds come back. Again, he leans over the bed, and again the sounds stop immediately.
He simply leans back and plops down into bed between them. The sounds come back.
“R-Ray… What is happening?” Emma asks. “Has the house been… been haunted?”
Ray doesn’t answer, but they both see the fear in him, manifesting in the form of uncertainty in his eyes.
“I don’t know.” He answers. “Let’s try to sleep.”
For a few minutes they try to do so, getting better at tuning out the sounds. And then the scratching stops.
And quickly it begins again, twice as desperate, and now accompanied.
The sounds of someone breathing under them, but as if they were doing so for the first time in years, gasping for air, gulping down breaths and choking on them with gross sounds. Norman could feel himself and Ray stiffen up, while Emma begins to shake. His hand instinctually looks for Ray’s under the cover, and he takes hold of it when he finds it, gently squeezing it to reassure himself more than anything else.
He then feels Emma’s hand on his own, also squeezing down gently, a bit sweaty even in the cold of the winter, or perhaps that was his own hand.
They didn’t sleep for a second, even though the noises stopped around half an hour before sunrise.
Norman is the first one to leave the bed the following morning, eager to get away from the room. He rushes to the bathroom to splash his face with cold water. But the moment he turns to the mirror, he feels a short wave of confusion that quickly turns into desperation.
In the mirror, scrawled over the fog, there were two written words.
‘Sleep well?’
He looks down to the sink, where he finds the plastic bottle labeled as Vesparax, without its lid, discarded, empty.
Emma and Ray unfortunately no longer look at him with concern or attempt to scold him for not sleeping well, as they both look just as bad, if not worse. Eyebags and distant looks were all they had to offer him.
Still, they try to pass the time, gladly sticking together at every moment, for reasons that they left unspoken but were well understood.
“Shouldn’t we tell Mama?” Emma asks.
They currently sit on Norman’s bed, just after having had breakfast, shortly after which it had started to rain. Merely a drizzle, but as cold as ice.
“She won’t believe us.” Ray says.
Emma looks like she wants to protest but the words stick to her throat. Their situation was outlandish and paranormal. In the best case, she’d think they were suffering from an active imagination, and in the worst, she’d ground them for playing a bad joke. She sighs.
“Then… what?” She asks dejectedly.
“…I don’t know…” Ray answers. “We should just wait and see what happens.”
They all take a deep breath, still reconciling what they lived through the night prior.
Norman turns and absentmindedly picks up the small cardboard package on his nightstand. Usually, the three would play some form of game whenever they were in one of their rooms, and the deck of cards just happens to be the closest one at the moment.
However, the moment he opens up the small package, the three are taken over by a wave of nausea, and disgust. A pungent smell immediately fills the room, like flesh rotting and sulfur, decay and death. He quickly drops the package, and it falls to the floor spilling a few of the cards onto the floor.
Among the cards, however, there is one small slip of paper, with something scrawled on it. Norman bends down, covering his face with one hand, and picks up the paper. He brings it close to his face to read.
There is only one thing written. His own name, crossed out.
Suddenly, Ray and Emma aren’t beside him, and the room is completely dark. His stomach drops. He shoots up, looking around frantically and calling their names, to no response. His breath begins to grow quicker and harsher, and his vision narrows.
He looks around once more, taking in the details of the room. The lights are suddenly on, but they’re dim, barely illuminating the inside, and no light comes from the windows. He walks towards the one at the far end of the room and peeks through the blinds. However, there is nothing there. It isn’t that the outside has been engulfed by night, there simply is just a void of pure darkness.
He freezes, staring into the abyss outside. His mind begins to race. How could this happen? Was there a blackout in the city? But it was daytime a second ago? Did he pass out?
Suddenly, from the darkness emerges a hand. Rotting, putrid, pieces of skin sloughing off and the flesh burnt black, and it gently presses against the window.
“Norman!” Emma’s voice startles him. He turns to the voice, jumping back, and sees her there. Kneeling right in front of him on the floor perfectly illuminated by the light of the cloudy day outside, with her hands on his shoulders.
“Norman, are you okay?” He hears Ray ask, who is just right behind her.
“Y-yeah. Did something happen?” He asks, sheepishly.
“What do you mean- Norman! You passed out! And you wouldn’t wake up!” Emma says.
“O-Oh…” He looks away.
“We definitely need to tell Mama.” Emma states.
He sees Ray hesitate for a moment, before nodding in agreement.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” He asks.
“Yeah, it’s nothing-”
“Then why were you so startled?”
Norman closes his eyes, and the image of the hand pressed against the glass is still there, burned into his eyelids.
“I… I don’t know.”
“I see…” Isabella says.
They’re again in her office, sitting across her desk, having just finished telling her everything that they had been experiencing.
“You probably passed out from the lack of sleep. What happened to the pills I gave you?”
“They… Someone poured them down the sink.” He says.
The look on her face is perfectly impassive, but still, they can feel and perceive in the slight mannerisms, the way her eyes look them over and the way her fingers twitch while she interlocks her hands. She does not believe them or at least believes there is nothing inexplicable about what’s going on.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
She looks at them, before closing her eyes for a moment, picking up a pen.
“I’ll get more medicine, but you’ll have to wait, at least until tomorrow.”
“But what about the… the-” Emma asks frantically, hesitating over what to name this situation.
“There is nothing that can’t be explained, Emma. Someone might be pulling a prank on you.”
“But-”
“I’ll find out who it is and give them a talking to. You can go now, I’m busy at the moment.” She says.
Emma looks hesitant, but even she understands that Isabella would simply not believe there to be anything mysterious about the occurrences. They turn around and quietly leave the room, closing the door behind them.
“I told you she wouldn’t believe us.” Ray says.
Norman and Emma can only sigh Ray had a way of somehow always being right.
“We’ll be fine” He says, and it reassures them more than it should have. “You can stay the night again if you want to.” He offers, and it puts a smile on their faces.
That night, as they tuck themselves into the small bed, they hold their breaths, dreading the moment the scratching and gasping would return, but it never did, so they could close their eyes, and sleep somewhat peacefully.
Norman awakes violently, coughing and wheezing. His eyes shoot open, and he darts up in bed. Screams and wails fill his ears, and a thin layer of smoke sticks to the ceiling of the room. The other children are also stirring and waking, looking at each other confused and dazed.
In that moment, the door’s room shoots open, and Isabella appears behind it.
“Children! We need to get out! Everyone come here now!” She yells out, full panic in her voice.
Norman and the other kids shoot out of bed, still in their nighttime clothing, some even barefoot, and sprint out of the door. Norman only catches a glimpse as he exits, seeing small flames consume the farthest side of the hall. Isabella guides them quickly down the stairs, through the dining hall and out the front gate.
They run for a few more yards, until they’re far from the house, when Norman turns to it. Almost the entire left wing of the building was consumed by fire, pieces of lit wood falling from the sides and exploding into smoldering embers, a column of black smoke rising into the sky.
He looks around, somewhat relieved, but that quickly looks into panic, and then terror, when he can’t catch sight of Ray or Emma.
“Mama! Where are Ray and Emma!?” He yells out.
Isabella turns to him, breathing heavily, fear and tiredness in her gaze.
“I…” She hesitates.
That short moment of doubt is all it takes for him, and he sprints back towards the house.
“Norman!” She yells, but he is already halfway to the door.
He sprints into the hall and up the stairs. The smoke is already filling up the space, burning his lungs and eyes, impairing his visibility. Through the pain he still screams, calling out for them desperately.
He rushes down the hall, the fire creeping closer to the bedroom doors. He arrives at the room in which Ray slept, and he bangs his fist against it twice.
“Raaaaay! Emmaaaa!” He yells.
“Normaaaan! We’re here!” Her voice answers. He breathes a short sigh of relief. He snatches his hand away from the handle the very moment he touches it, sucking air through his teeth. It was searing hot.
“I’ll get you! Don’t worry!” He yells again, taking a deep breath.
He steadies himself before trying the handle again, moving as quickly as possible. The pain is blinding, and he can feel his own skin turning scorched and sticking to the metal every second. He tries to turn the handle but to no avail. It is stuck.
He snatches the hand away, suppressing a scream of pain. He takes another deep breath, trying to ignore the pain. He couldn’t let anything distract him.
Suddenly, there are no more screams, there are no fires, no smoke. The house is perfectly quiet. He quickly reaches for the handle, and it is cold. He turns it and pushes the door with all of remaining strength.
Yet there is no one inside.
He looks around, and everything is again steeped in darkness. No light comes from the windows. He collapses, falling to his knees, overwhelmed by desperation. His house was burning down with the people he loves the most trapped inside, and he couldn’t do anything about it. They would all die, and he could not do anything about it. Tears begin to stream down his cheeks, staining the wooden floor underneath.
“P-Please…! Let me save m-my family…” He begs, among hiccups and sobs.
Breaking the perfect silence of the house there came a tapping. He snaps his gaze towards the source. The door of the room, but it came from beyond. He stands up and walks quickly to exit the room, still shaky and teary eyed.
He exits into the hall, looking around for the source of the sound, and thankfully he hears it again, from beyond the stairwell. He rushes to it and descends into the first floor hall. He only has to wait a moment before he hears the sound again, from beyond the dining hall door. He wastes no time, sprinting there and opening the door.
Only darkness he finds there.
The usually lively place, with its large tables and the chandelier that illuminated the many conversations there had were completely replaced by a perfect abyss. And from its depths there came a tapping.
Every instinct in his brain screams and begs for him not to go in there. But he has to save his family, so even though his blood as cold as ice, his palms sweating and his neck stiff as stone, he walks into the darkness.
“Please… just let me save Ray and Emma…” He says weakly, taking a few steps into the dark.
In response, the darkness giggles with many voices.
From the depths comes a tendril, made of rotting flesh, putrid and decaying, pieces of it falling apart and splattering onto the solid void he stands on. It slithers its way towards him, paralyzing him with terror. He can do nothing but watch as it wraps around his right leg.
“It has been so long… and you have still not understood…” The voices speak, dissonant, discordant, guttural, and inhuman.
From the darkness appears the shape of a skull, but not a human one. Spikes and deformities plague its entirety, its jaw larger and filled with sharp teeth and four fangs as those of a bear. Massive goat-like horns curling around, framing the eye sockets, that have only pins of white inside, staring straight beyond his own eyes, into the darkest corners of his mind. Then appears a grotesque hand, covered in rotting skin, with only four fingers that end in claws like those of an eagle, just much larger.
The claws move close to him, and he feels their razor edge as they just barely graze over the skin of his neck. He cannot hear his own thoughts above the sound of his heartbeat and his breathing. He trembles violently, and he feels every muscle in his body go stiff.
But the hand suddenly retracts away, with a terrifying graze and swiftness.
“ Let me show you… ” It speaks again, and more tendrils emerge from behind him. They wrap around his head. The stench immediately makes him want to retch, but before that even registers, he feels the appendages gently turn his head to his left.
He sees the horrid claw tear away at the darkness, somehow making a cut in it. The claw then grabs at the edges of the opening, pulling it aside.
Through the cut, he sees his room, bathed in the usual white light of an overcast day. The room is empty, except for Ray, Emma, and himself. He is lying there on his bed, unmoving, simply breathing. Unreacting to anything around him. Emma and Ray lean over him, a dejected look on Ray’s face, his shoulders slouching forward, and a few tears on Emma’s face.
“ They are not those who need salvation… ”
He continues watching as Isabella enters the scene, placing a hand over his forehead, placing a hand on his shoulder and trying to move him awake. He doesn’t. She also shares the downcast and dark look on her. He sees her exhaling deeply, and moving her lips, but he can’t hear any of the words.
“ But for you, it shall not come. ”
Suddenly, his head is turned harshly away from that image, back towards the creature. He barely processes the image of the large claw moving towards him, as it shoots straight into his left eye.
Norman wakes up late in the morning, startled into consciousness by the dull sound of an object impacting the ground next to his bed. He takes one moment to rub his eyes and stretch before sitting up in bed, blinking away the blurriness. The shared room is empty, and the light pouring in through the blinds a pure white, yet dim, as a result of the overcast that seems to eternally encompass the entirety of Newport around this time in January.
He looks down to see what startled him awake. His eyes lock onto the small cardboard package on the floor. A deck of playing cards.