I

It was a cold night last night. Fuck, I knew that I should’ve worn a hoodie to sleep or asked for some extra blankets. I didn’t know that Andrea was going to turn the fucking heat off in the middle of the night. What the fuck was her problem? Was she trying to kill us or something?

“Tyler! Get up, it’s time for breakfast.” A voice said.

I woke up with a headache, I don’t even remember much of what happened last night. All I remembered was that I opened up my eyes and I heard a voice, saw a figure, and I also couldn’t move my body at all. The TV was on, but I saw that it was just static. Like something out of a horror movie, how could that be explained? What was that about? And who the fuck was that talking to me last night?

I heard someone walking up the stairs, but I was too tired to move. I couldn’t sleep properly last night after whatever the fuck that was that snuck up on me and decided to talk to me.

Someone walked into my room and pushed the door open.

“My god Tyler, what are you doing?” They said. “I said breakfast was ready, now get up!”

I knew that voice all too well. It was Andrea, of course. She was always like that ever since we went to live with her and her daughter Elise five years ago. It had been a complete nightmare living with these two fuckers. I can’t do anything at all without one of them all up in my business. I felt like I was being watched twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week around those two. Couldn’t do anything. It didn’t help that Desi was getting older as well, she was around nine years old. Her birthday was a few months ago in December. We attempted to celebrate her birthday as just my mother and me, but she was too sick to join us, so Andrea took both of us out to eat. Somewhat nice for her to have done but doing shit like that was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. “I only do this on special occasions” she would always say. And that was actually true, she would only take us out for special occasions, never just to spend time with Desi and me.

“What’s for breakfast, Andrea?” I shouted. “Some bullshit like last time?”

I couldn’t stand Andrea; she was a manipulative bitch. She took advantage of every opportunity that was given to her. But I could never say anything about it to anyone outside of the house because no one would believe me when I said anything. Every time someone would ask Andrea about what was going on in her house, she would just say that it was a misunderstanding and that I was just having crazy thoughts about what was going on. Which was a total lie. That was not the case at all.

“I don’t know, maybe if you got the fuck up, maybe you could see for yourself.” She shouted back.

She stormed down the stairs and into the kitchen. I could hear her slamming the cabinets and slamming the dishes on the counters. She would always get upset whenever I was “disrespectful” toward her. I never saw anything wrong with it, she clearly deserved it. Prior to now, she was somewhat alright in terms of her behavior and how she was as a person. But over the years, she started to change, a lot. It was subtle, but it was a change, nonetheless. And it was for the worst.

Her entire behavior shifted from being a somewhat normal person to acting like a complete control freak and started to become abusive toward Desi and me. She also started to neglect my mother and stopped taking her to her appointments, saying that “she’s a grown woman, she can take herself.” Which was a lie because my mother was slowly growing too sick to drive. I would’ve volunteered to take her, but I didn’t have a license so that option was out of the window. But even then, she felt that she took care of her long enough, so in her defense; she felt that there was nothing more she could do for our mother. I found that reason to be absolutely ridiculous, my mother was doing perfectly fine when she was being taken to her appointments. However, my mother was also dependent on her medications as well. And since Andrea stopped taking her to her appointments, my mother couldn’t get her medication.

I was able to move my body finally, so I rolled over and sat up. I ended up on the floor somehow, I wasn’t sure how I got there. I’m assuming that I ended up there last night somehow. It didn’t matter, either someone moved me, or I fell onto the floor somehow.

I managed to make it out of my room when I turned and saw Desi in the bathroom doing her hair. I saw that her hair was a little messed up for what I last remembered, maybe she got a haircut or something? I don’t know. She didn’t really walk into my room as much as she used back in our old house prior to moving in with Andrea and Elise. It was weird to me, but I didn’t really think much of it. I was concerned and a little worried, but I didn’t want to force her to do something that she doesn’t want to do.

“Hey, Desi, you alright?” I asked.

No response.

I assumed that she didn’t hear me or that she was too tired to respond to me. I mean, it was like seven in the morning on a fucking Saturday. I would have a not happy person too. But I still had my doubts and that she didn’t hear me.

“Desi, are you alright?” I asked again.

No response.

I didn’t like that. She usually responded to me whenever I approached her, that behavior was very suspicious.

I walked into the bathroom to check on Desi when she turned toward me and shoved me out of the bathroom with all of her force.

“NO!!!” She shouted. “GET AWAY FROM ME!!!”

She slammed the door with such force. I was still on the floor trying to process what had just happened. She never acted like that, ever. That wasn’t like her at all.

“What was that?” I thought.

I pulled myself together and got up and knocked on the bathroom door.

“Desi, hey, what was that? What’s going on?” I asked concerned.

“Get away from me… I don’t want to talk to you.” She said.

“What did I do that was so bad?”

No response.

I couldn’t force myself to pry her for information, so I left it alone. Hopefully, she was able to find it in herself to tell me what was wrong and why was so hostile toward me.

I made it downstairs and walked into the kitchen to see both Andrea and Elise sitting at the table eating. It didn’t appear to me that they were waiting for me to come down and join them. I walked to the table and sat down and just looked at the both of them eat like zombies. No emotion, just stuffing their faces with food. Absolutely pathetic, it almost disgusted me.

“So, where’s my mother?” I asked breaking the silence.

Elise took her fork and pointed towards the ceiling. Making it blatantly obvious that my mother was upstairs.

“She’s upstairs sleeping. If you actually went around and checked, you have noticed that.” She said.

“Sorry that I can’t read your fucking mind.” I retaliated.

Elise squeezed her glass until it cracked, “WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?”

She stood up and glared at me with a grimacing stare. I wasn’t really expecting for her to completely fly off the handle by me saying that I was just being sarcastic. But she, just Desi, exploded for no reason. I couldn’t understand why there was so much hostility in that situation, but I didn’t have any answers for it. As a matter of fact, I didn’t have answers for a lot of the things that were happening. The reason that my stepfather died, why my mother was so sick, why we were living with Andrea, why Desi was acting the way that she was, and why Elise was so hostile this morning. I know that Elise was a growing girl and that she was a teenager. I believe she was fifteen, I couldn’t remember. I didn’t care enough. But maybe she was going through some female hormonal things? I didn’t know, I wasn’t a woman, so I couldn’t say for sure. What I did know was that Andrea just sat there and let Elise just let her aggressions out on me, and didn’t say anything.

“So, we’re not just going to talk about the fact that everyone is acting weird this morning?” I asked.

“I don’t see anything wrong with how anyone is acting. Maybe it’s your imagination.” Andrea said. “Elise had every right to talk to you the way she did because of your attitude in your response to her statement.”

“But she didn’t have to come out and say that with such aggression and belligerence. It was uncalled for.”

That statement seemed to anger Elise, and as a result, she stood up so aggressively that her chair fell over and then stormed out of the kitchen. What a weird turn of events. The behavior that had transpired in the last ten minutes had been completely suspicious and unexpected. Andrea looked as though she herself didn’t have an answer for anything that was going on. But in the same breath, I felt that she knew more than what she was giving off. I couldn’t say anything because I didn’t have any proof, but I was for certain that she was doing something to Desi to cause her to act the way that she was acting.

I finally picked up the fork and started eating the food on the plate. It was scrambled eggs with bacon and a piece of toast. It looked edible enough, although, I wasn’t sure who made it or what that person’s mental state was when they made the food. So, I proceeded to eat the food with caution.

“Just so you know, the food isn’t poisonous,” Andrea said. “We may not get along that well, but I wouldn’t intentionally try to kill you.”

I had an inkling suspicion that she was lying, but at that time, I went along with her statement and believed her. I mean, out of all the people that I spoke to that morning, she seemed the calmest and was thinking somewhat logically.

“So, can you explain why everyone is acting so weird this morning?” I asked.

“I’m not understanding your question. What do you mean ‘acting weird’?” She asked.

“I’m talking about the fact that everyone’s behavior’s off. Like… Desi never gets angry at me over something minute. All I did was just ask her how she was doing. It wasn’t a hard question; I wasn’t trying to bother her or anything like that. It just blew my mind how she just exploded so suddenly.”

Andrea looked at me with a look that showed that she was listening, but also looked like she really didn’t care to hear what I had to say. Which was pretty typical of her to do, she never listened to anything I said. Since I was just a “know-it-all teenager”, she disregarded whatever came out of my mouth. Which was bullshit because I knew a thing or two about what to do with my mother and her medical condition, but it was almost like my advice and knowledge meant nothing to her because she was the adult, and I was the child. I “didn’t know what I was talking about”, she would always say. I was sticking my nose in adult business; you were worried about things out of your control. Blah blah blah, what the fuck ever. What I was talking about was correct, I knew about my mother’s ailing condition. She was dying right in front of me, and all I could do was just sit and watch like a helpless 911 caller listening to the victim on the other side of the phone by attacked by their assailant. Completely useless. I couldn’t stand for that.

“Well, to be fair, maybe she just… I don’t know, had a bad day or something. You know how girls are.” She said. “Maybe she had a bad dream or something.”

I picked around at my eggs, hoping that they would eventually develop some kind of flavor to them.

“I guess, whatever you say,” I said defeated. “But it just doesn’t make sense.”

As soon as I said that she gave me a death stare as she was trying to drink her coffee as if I was annoying her with me constantly bringing up Desi’s erratic behavior.

“Look, Tyler. Your sister is fine, alright?” She said aggressively. “It happens to everyone, so just drop it, alright?”

After she said that she got up and put her plate in the sink and walked back upstairs to the upstairs living room. I could hear her sighing and muttering to herself under her breath, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. Most likely, she was talking to herself about me, as she always did, not really a surprise. But it still didn’t make me feel any better knowing that at that point three people weren’t happy to see me or acknowledged my existence. I was hoping that my mother would at least see me as less than human.

I finished my plate and put my plate and cup in the sink and walked back upstairs to go and see my mother. I got to the top of the stairs and looked to my right to see Andrea sitting on the couch wrapped up in a blanket watching some random ass TV show in silence. I walked past her and walked past Elise’s room to see her door was cracked, and when I caught a glimpse of her, she was sitting in the corner of her room facing the wall. I thought it was strange that she was just sitting there not moving. But as I quietly listened, I heard her muttering to herself very quietly.

“I—I—It’s alright, Elise. T—t—they can’t hurt… T—they can’t find…”

It was hard to make out all of what she was saying, but I was already this far in her internal conversation. I had to continue listening to see what was going on with her. I knew that I didn’t like her personality, but to see that she was not feeling all that great and then exploded at me earlier, and now to see her literally in pain made me feel… conflicted and confused.

I must’ve been in my own head for too long because I had happened to lean on the door a little too much causing it to creak. That creak caused her to snap her neck around toward the door and she saw that I was peeking in on her. She immediately snapped up and ran toward the door, slamming it in the process almost taking my eye out from the sudden force, I literally had seconds to pull my head back for getting my eyes slammed on. I wasn’t sure of what to make of what had just happened, however, I tried to not harp on it for too long either.

Andrea came from the living room and walked around the corner to see me standing in front of Elise’s door. The look on her face signified that I had done something that I wasn’t supposed to.

“So, what did you see?” She asked nonchalantly.

“W—what are you talking about?” I asked.

“You saw something, what was it? And don’t try to act like you didn’t see shit because I know you did.”

Andrea was walking up to me with a frustrated look on her face, like she wanted to say more to me, but didn’t have the words to say. She stopped right in front of me to where we were literally inches apart from each other. Her demeanor and the looks that she gave me made me feel like she was judging me or looking down at me for whatever reason. I couldn’t shake the feeling that was something she wanted to say to me, but she couldn’t either find the words to say or was just not really up for saying anything because of whatever reason. Maybe she didn’t want to disturb her daughter, but why would she feel like that? She must’ve heard what just happened with Elise. Clearly, that must mean that she was aware that there was a problem, and that could mean that either she was completely obvious to the situation, or that she knew about the situation, but refused to do anything about it.

“Hello? I’m waiting for an answer.” She said snapping me back into reality.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“I said, you saw something, what was it?”

“Oh, i—it was nothing too major, really,” I said. “I was just walking to talk to my mother when I noticed that her door was open and that she was just sitting in the corner of the room facing the wall and she was just muttering to herself about how they can’t find or something like that. It didn’t make sense to me. And I must’ve gone into my own thoughts because I accidentally leaned in too much on the door and it creaked, and that must’ve scared her. And as a result, she came storming up to the door and literally almost blinded me slamming it.”

“Interesting… was that it?”

“What do you mean, ‘was that it’? Your daughter was doing something very suspicious in the corner of her room, does that not concern you at all?”

Andrea rolled her eyes and proceeded to knock on Elise’s door.

“Elise, open the door. I need to talk to you for a second.” She said.

Elise was hesitant to open the door, she had apparently locked it after she slammed it, but I didn’t hear her do that.

“It’s unlocked.” She said quietly.

Andrea opened the door and then she motioned me to step into the room as well. Elise was lying on her bed just staring up at the ceiling. There was nothing on, no TV, no laptop. She wasn’t on her phone, listening to music. Just allegedly sulking in whatever emotions that she was in. I couldn’t read her mind, so I couldn’t say for sure what was going through it. But I couldn’t only assume it was something malicious. I’ve always felt uneasy being around Elise, there was just something about her that was just… off. I could never put my finger on what was going on with her, she always gave off this… demented aura. Like something had to be done, or she was always planning something behind your back. Over the years that I had spent living with her, she seemed to slowly fall into a depression. Maybe it was because she was getting older and finally hitting her teen years, who knew? The only two people who had any inkling of what was going on with her were her and Andrea. But even then, Andrea seemed just as confused as I was when we walked in to see her just lying there like that.

“So, what’s going on with you?” Andrea asked. “Are you alright?”

“I’m alright, I guess. I was just feeling weird, maybe it was the cramps again.” She said.

I had no idea what cramps she was talking about; it was probably safe to assume that she meant period cramps; which seemed like the safest option at that moment.

“So, why were you sitting in the corner?” Andrea asked.

As soon as she asked that question, Elise quickly snapped her head toward me with a malicious glare in her eyes. I wasn’t aware why she was looking at me like that, I didn’t really do anything to make her feel like she was being called out or something like that. But I also wasn’t expecting Andrea to be so blunt with asking Elise why she was doing what she was doing. I was expecting a more methodical approach or some shit. But that expectation flew right out the window at that point.

“W—wh—wha? I—I wasn’t sitting in the corner. W—what made you think that?” Elise stuttered nervously.

She was clearly sweating; it was clear that she was caught in her actions but was trying to throw any blame or dirt on her to the side as much as possible. But Andrea hadn’t told her way she had asked her that question.

“Tyler mentioned it to me, and I was just concerned about you,” Andrea said.

Witch…

I was taken aback by what she just did, however, at the same time, I couldn’t say that was all too surprised. It was still bullshit that basically threw me under the bus just then, it was completely uncalled for. Unfortunately, she didn’t see her sitting in the corner of the room when I mentioned it, so I guess it wasn’t a lie that I told her. But I had a feeling that telling her that would probably fuck me over sometime in the future.

“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Elise said. “I’m perfectly fine, mother. I don’t know what Tyler here told you, but whatever he said was wrong and foul.”

“I didn’t say anything wrong or foul about you, Elise,” I responded in defense. “I just told her what I saw, I wasn’t planning on looking in on you anyway; I just happened to see that your door was opened and that you were sitting there. That’s really it.”

“LIES!!!” She screamed.

She sprung out of her bed and proceeded to tackle him with all of her force and started attacking me relentlessly. I

“Elise...! Get off of me!” I yelled.

“LIES! LIES! LIAR! YOU’RE A FUCKING LIAR!!!”

Her screams on top of her attacks were completely out of the ordinary. She never behaved like that at all, it was almost like she was being controlled by someone or something. Whatever it was, she was letting take over and was lashing out at everyone that she came across.

I got a peek at Andrea, and she was just standing there aimlessly as if she wasn’t expecting her own daughter to completely snap and started attacking me. I was half expecting her to step in and do something, anything. But she just stood there like a helpless victim that just witnessed a robbery.

I managed to throw Elise off of me, however, she flew back and hit her head on the corner of her dresser, and was unconscious.

“What did you do!?” Andrea yelled. “Why did you do that!?”

“What are you talking about!?” I exclaimed. “YOUR daughter just fucking attacked me for no reason. And you just stood there and did nothing! What did you think I was going to do? I’m going to defend myself!”

I sat up and caught my breath and looked at Elise who was still lying on the floor unconscious. Whatever that was, I didn’t want it to happen again. She exploded for no reason; she exploded this morning for no reason. She was sitting in the corner for no reason. It was all just a game or just a façade or something. There was no reason at all for anyone’s erratic behavior. Andrea is not telling me shit about anything. I was starting to get anxious about the whole situation. I felt as though I was on my own in that house, no one was on my side. Desi, I felt, was slowly drifting away from me. I had no relationship with Elise, I didn’t like Andrea, and my mother is slowly dying in front of my face. So, all in all, there was no one that I could go to for help.

I was all alone. In my own thoughts, with my own fears, my own demons. Myself.

Just alone…

II

I woke up on the floor again in my room. I didn’t go and see my mother that day, I must’ve passed out after what had happened. Wait a minute? What actually did happen? It was all so blurry to me. All I remembered was being attacked by Elise and getting yelled at by Andrea, but after that, it was all blank. I didn’t know how Desi was doing or what was going on with my mother, I knew I had to check on both of them.

I got up and walked out of the room when I saw out the corner of my eye a letter sitting near the spot where I had woken up from.

I picked it up and started to read it.

“Tyler, why are you like this? I… I… don’t really have an explanation for your behavior. You are an epiphany to me, really you are. I can’t find it in myself to figure you out. I assume that you don’t remember anything at all yesterday, which is fine, I didn’t expect you to. A lot happened in such a short amount of time. You accuse me of slitting my wrists and talking to myself. Saying that I was having an anxiety attack, etc., etc. Who do you think you are to say such lies about a person? Well, it doesn’t matter anymore, the past is in the past. I forgive you though, however, I would go and check on your family if I were you when you see this note. Just a thought. ~Elise”

I remembered seeing another one of those notes from her when I was younger, there was never an explanation for why that was written, but that wasn’t important. She was saying that I needed to go and check on Desi and my mother for whatever reason. I had a feeling that she did something to them, and I was anticipating the worst.

I walked out of the room and down the hall into Desi’s room to see that she wasn’t there.

“Huh, that’s weird.” I thought. “Usually, she’s asleep around this time.”

It was pretty early in the morning, so it was surprising to see that she wasn’t in her room sleeping.

I walked out of her room and walked further down the hall into my mother’s room. She too was gone, now I was starting to get a little concerned. Where could my mother have gone? She didn’t have the energy nor strength to move around that much let alone drag Desi along with her. I walked out of her room and walked out into the upstairs living room to see that neither Andrea nor Elise was there either. Everyone was gone. Where could they have gone between now and yesterday? They couldn’t have gone far, and surely, they would eventually come back, right?

Right?

***

Three days later…

I was staring up at the ceiling in my room waiting to hear back from anyone. They really couldn’t have gone that far away. Where were they? What was the reason for them abruptly leaving? What happened four days ago to cause such a rash decision to be made? I didn’t have any of the answers, but I had nothing but questions for Andrea when she came back. If she came back.

I got up and walked downstairs to the kitchen and decided to call the police about filing a missing person’s report. I wasn’t wanting to do that, but I was starting to get incredibly anxious about the whereabouts of Desi and my mother. Anything could have happened to them.

I told the police about the situation, and they asked me very basic questions about who my sister and mother were, who Andrea and Elise were, and what I was doing before they left. I informed them about what Elise did to me that day before they up and disappeared. And when I told the operator about her behavior, she asked me if she always acted like that. That actually threw me off because that those thoughts were at the forefront of my mind. I wasn’t paying attention to Elise enough to notice a change in her behavior and personality. However, when I did notice a change was that morning, other than that; nothing.

The operator told me that they’ll put an APB out for Andrea’s car, and they told me that they’ll send a police car to talk to me further about the whole situation. Which was a conversation that I wasn’t prepared to have. Not because I was nervous, but because I didn’t know what to say about their behaviors.

There was a knock on the door, I opened it to find two police officers standing on the other side.

“Good evening, sir. We’re with the police and we would like to speak to you about the whereabouts of your family.”

“Oh, sure, that’s fine,” I said.

I let them into the house and one of them took a seat on the couch and the other one stood towards the door.

“I’m assuming you know why we’re here, right?” The officer asked.

“To talk about my sister and mother’s whereabouts?” I asked.

“Yes, do you know anything about that and where they could’ve gone?”

“No, I don’t. I have no idea. They literally just up and left without saying anything, the only thing that was left was a note from my cousin a few days ago the day they allegedly left.”

The officers looked at each other with suspicious faces.

They turned back to look at me.

“Do you have access to that note or know what the note was talking about?” The officer asked.

“Well, the note basically talked about how I lied about my cousin’s erratic behavior, saying that they didn’t slit their wrists or hear any voices in their head. Which to me was off because I didn’t remember seeing a knife in her possession when we walked into her room, nor did I see any cuts on her wrists when she attacked me.”

“Well, if it’s alright with you, we would like to take you down to the station to see if there’s anyone who can come out and take of you until your family is found.”

“That’s fine, I guess. I don’t understand why you would need to do that.”

“There are some things that we would need to look into and maybe you could help us. But don’t worry, we’ll keep a patrol car around the area in case they come back, and we also have patrol cars scouting out the city looking for them. So, it’s very likely that they’ll turn up here pretty soon.”

The officer’s optimism was at least somewhat reassuring, at least they could help me find Desi and my mother. But in the same breath, why did they want to take me to the police station? What did they want from me? No one was there in town to take care of me, hell, I had no family to take care of that wasn’t my mother. So, I guess it made sense to go with them.

“I guess that’s alright,” I said finally.

“Alright, we’ll be waiting here for you. Grab some clothes and some of your personal belongings. And if you can, bring that note from your cousin with you as well if you can find it.”

“Alright, I will.”

I went upstairs and grabbed some of my clothes to take with me to the police station, I still wasn’t understanding why I needed to go with them. Although, I didn’t have a license nor did I have any money, so going with them was probably the best option. I had to continuously psyche myself out, telling myself that I could trust the police; that they were here to help me, that they would actually listen to my story about Andrea and how I didn’t trust her as a person. Hopefully, that was the opportunity that I needed to finally tell someone about those two people.

I finished packing up my clothes and I grabbed the note that Elise left on the floor and walked back downstairs where the police officers were still waiting for me.

“I have everything that I need, and I have the note for you,” I said.

“Alright, come with us.” The officer said.

I followed them out of the house and got into the back of the police car and they took me to the police station.

We arrived at the police station, and I was escorted into a room. I didn’t know what the room was, I didn’t know why I was put in that room. But it had to mean something. There was no explanation as to why I was put in there, all they said was “have a seat in there, someone will talk to you shortly.” So, assuming that would be another police officer or something like that.

After about twenty minutes of waiting in silence, someone walked into the room saying that they had a location on where Andrea was. That was great news to hear, they had finally found my sister, but the question still remained if she was alright or not, and also why did they up and leave without telling me?