Sera D'Onofrio (toomuch4you) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2019-08-25 21:42:00 |
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Entry tags: | #december 2017, sera |
Who: Sera
Where: the Zhāng home, on the far side of Overlook Estates
When: Thursday, December 28th, 4:00 a.m.
Status: Complete
When the fog had started to roll over town the day before, Sera had just gone home with Dalton Zhāng, hot half-Asian quarterback and one of the most popular guys in school... possibly even more so than Cam Malone, at whom she was still angry for what he'd done the last time he'd been at her house. He'd hear about this and he'd be pissed, although that wasn't the main reason she was doing this. She was doing it because Dalton was fine and she was bored and she needed something to occupy her in what felt like an endless stretch of time before they went back to school. It was cold and shitty outside and she'd figured maybe she'd see if Dalton lived up to all the hype. After a perfunctory tour which had taken longer than five minutes because the Zhāng house was as large as hers-- Dalton's dad was an international businessman who spent much of his time in China, evidently-- they'd retreated to Dalton's room.
And yes, happily he'd more than lived up to his reputation. Sera might even decide to cut Cam off of her booty call roster permanently.
Once they'd ventured back downstairs, they'd discovered that the fog was way too thick to see through. No way was anyone driving in it, and Sera's house was too far from here to walk. Neither of them could get their cell phones to work, and it was strange but okay; the Zhāng home was large enough to feel relatively safe in. They'd snacked, watched DVDs, hung around until it got late, and around 1 a.m. they'd lain down in Dalton's king size bed. There was the usual restlessness of being in a strange bed, and Sera was a little creeped out that she couldn't reach anyone in her family and no one could reach her. Dalton, who was accustomed to being home alone much of the time, had no such qualms and had fallen asleep right away. Eventually Sera slept too, only to be jolted awake by loud, congested snores.
Ugh. The star quarterback had feet of clay after all.
Sera could have tried to poke him awake and make him roll over, but instead she opted to get up and wander out of the room. Dressed in an enormous t-shirt of Dalton's, feet bare and hair a hot mess, she padded carefully down the stairs to the lower level. It felt weird to be in a house that was unfamiliar in the wee hours, even though she knew nobody else was home. Dalton's dad was in China and his mom had gone to visit her sister in Bangor right after Christmas. She was grateful that at least there were no parents to deal with in this scenario. That would be hyper-weird.
After walking through the kitchen and dining room, she found the glassed-in sun porch at the back of the house. It was a gorgeous room, less casually and more eclectically furnished than the rest of the house, and after a cursory look around in the dimness, Sera stepped over to the nearest glass-paned window wall. She let her fingers skate over the glass and shivered at how cold it was. The Zhāngs were bound to have landscape lighting with a place like this, but at this hour it was pitch black outside. She wasn't sure what she was looking for, if anything, but she stared out into the dark as if fascinated even as she got chilled and goosebumps pebbled her skin.
Sera's eyes narrowed as she fancied she saw something move just outside her line of sight. Was an animal out in the snow? Her thoughts turned to the creature she'd seen at the gas station back in September, an experience about which she'd told no one. Was it something like that? Without realizing it, she'd started holding her breath until she was startled into a quick exhale as whatever she'd seen seemed to get closer. "Fuck," she whispered. Maybe she should step back, go back upstairs. Just as that idea occurred to her, something thudded against the glass directly in front of her face and there was a nails-on-a-chalkboard, high pitched scratching sound.
The glass vibrated, and Sera slapped a hand over her mouth as she stepped quickly backward. Her calves hit the low coffee table directly behind her and down she went, her elbow slamming into it hard as she fell. That was it, the breaking point and the impetus for her to scramble to her feet, clutching her throbbing arm all the while as she ran out of the room. It was a fear that felt immediate and terrible, a dread not unlike the sense that there was a monster under the bed or in the closet when she'd been a small child. Back up the stairs she went, forced to let go of her elbow in order to grasp the banister and haul herself upward. Right then the most important thing in the universe was getting back upstairs where she'd be safe.
Dalton's room was silent. For a few seconds she worried that something had happened to him, somehow, but she realized he'd finally stopped snoring. Sera climbed back into the bed, burying herself under the covers and getting as close to Dalton as she could. She might or might not sleep anymore for the rest of the night, but she sure as hell wasn't getting up again.