[center]
[hr][img]https://txt.1001fonts.net/img/txt/dHRmLjEwNi5mZmI2YzEuVG1WcmJ5QkRZWEppWld4c1lRLjA/fairy-mother.regular.webp[/img][/center][right][b][code]A Distant Memory?[/code][/b][/right][hr]


“Mommy, there’s a monster in my closet.”

A bleary eyed woman opened her eyes to a darkened room, the fuzzy shape of a childlike figure staring back at her. The voice was girlish but the words came out wrong, sounding more like a bored adult than a frightened child. Slowly Neko sat up in her bed. Her head hummed with a pain so sickening that she felt like she must’ve woken up in that treacherous time of night where the empty joys of drunkenness sharply accepted the harsh realities of a hangover. However, it was the eye-watering stench that made her clap a hand to her mouth and gag, just barely managing to hold the reflex at bay before the smell disappeared. Her hand reached out and brushed the alarm clock, causing it to illuminate the time: three in the morning. The light was blinding. 

[color=FFB6C1]“Come here, sweetie,”[/color] said Neko as she slid. Her daughter slipped under the sheets and pressed herself against Neko as Neko drew her into a comforting hug, closed her eyes, and laid back down. “You just had a nightmare. You know there’s no such thing as monsters.”

“I know…” said the little voice. The room became silent except for Neko’s restful, deep breathing as she began to fall back to sleep. Then—

“Mommy, I guess there’s a person in my closet.”

Neko’s eyes shot open as her veins froze solid, the hairs on her arm bolting up just as fast as she did. She heard a loud bump. Logic would argue that it could’ve just been a neighbor stomping around upstairs or a car door slamming shut on the street, but she knew it came from her daughter’s room. A home invader? She sat unmoving for what felt like minutes, her eyes staring at her open bedroom door, failing to adjust to the murky blackness that laid outside of it. 

Slowly she crept out of her bed, whispering to her daughter to stay put, and grabbed her keys from her purse that she’d dropped on the floor, unfolding the small knife she kept on her keychain. Neko became hyper aware of her surroundings. She could feel every floorboard beginning to groan as she put the weight of her foot down, she could hear her heart thumping in her chest, she could sense every second passing by, each one feeling like its own eon. The creaking of her daughter’s door might as well have been an explosion unearthing a tomb with how loud it was. Neko paused, her eyes unflinching from the slightly ajar closet door, and waited. Nothing happened, so she made the first move and leaped for the closet door and tore it open. 

She screamed and dropped the knife, catching the convulsing body of her daughter Nora, no more a child but a seventeen-year-old girl, her mouth foaming red and choking, her face contorted and purpled, her eyes bulging in panic. Nora’s hands were tightly clawed around her own throat, blood bubbling between her fingers, choking to death. Neko tried to pull them away, but she couldn’t break Nora’s grip. She tried to call for help but her voice broke. She was powerless to do anything but watch as her daughter’s body jerked and twisted. 

“Mommy,” snarled the little voice from behind her, no longer so little. She could feel its presence looming over her. She winced as its claws digged into her shoulders. She caught the outline of its toothy maw in her peripherals as it hissed. “You cannot save her.”

[color=FFB6C1]“I’m sorry?”[/color] said Neko groggily as she was awoken, the wrinkled hand of an old woman dressed in the uniform of a flight attendant shaking her shoulder, the morbid scene unfolding in her daughter’s room transforming into the mundane airplane cabin of a budget flight. 

“I said you cannot sleep here, ma’am,” said the old lady, roughly shoving Neko’s carryon at her. “We need to prepare for the next flight. Welcome to Louisiana. Now scoot it.” 

[hr][center][img]https://i.imgur.com/q7Yakq0.png[/img][/center][right][b][code]The Webb Family Coffee House[/code][/b][/right][hr]

Between her inflight nightmare and the creep factor of driving through backwater roads, Neko was already a bundle of high-strung nerves when she arrived in Quintin. The last thing she needed was to introduce caffeine into her already anxious state of existence, a thought she reminded of herself as she shakily wiped away the sweat on the outside of the plastic cup of her second iced coffee. The Webb Family Coffee House, unlike Quintin that triggered all of the city girl’s small town fears, was cute and reminiscent of the kind of places she would perform in. 

Technically, she was putting on a performance right now, although one of a different variety. Neko fancied herself a musician after all, not an actress—that was more of her daughter’s thing. Still, it didn’t mean that Neko wasn't currently acting like a calm and collected adult fully capable of keeping her shit together. She’d even worn a button-up blouse with a collar, the pinnacle marking of maturity and responsibility if there ever was one. The heart-print design of the red and white shirt even unintentionally matched the heart-shaped locket hung around Neko’s neck. 

Neko didn’t immediately sit at the table marked reserved out of her own reservations. Instead, she took a table in the corner, close enough to eavesdrop, but far enough to not make it look like it had been chosen precisely for that reason. She’d experienced enough catfishing in her days of online dating to know that it was smart to give herself some plausible deniability if the person who showed up didn’t look like the person in the photo. If things seemed too sketchy, she could just slip away silently. Plus, there was the nagging feeling that all of this was an actual delusion and she didn’t want to risk crashing some old lady book club. 

Neko even remained separate when the familiar face of Jennifer Caspin arrived, only turning her chair ever so slightly to face the group when they started to talk. Neko felt her chest tighten and her eyes well up as the first girl introduced herself as Eleanor Black’s daughter. A weird cocktail of pride and confusion swirled around inside of Neko. Did this make her Charlie’s grandmother? And how was her daughter younger than Charlie? No, it was just simply impossible for them to be the same Eleanor. So then a bunch of separate Eleanor Blacks came from Quintin then? Judging by the amount of people gathered around the table, that also seemed ridiculous.

[color=FFB6C1]“What was she like?” [/color]blurted out Neko, knocking over her chair as she stood up—goodbye calm and collected. She didn’t care anymore. Part of her wanted to test and see if their Eleanors were the same; another part believed it to be true already and wanted to know that her daughter made a good mother. 

[color=FFB6C1]“Sorry, sorry, I’m just—”[/color] Happy that she’s not crazy? She awkwardly picked up her fallen chair and dragged it over to the table, leaving her drink behind. Neko nudged her way in to sit next to Charlie. [color=FFB6C1]“I’m just getting ahead of myself.”[/color]

[color=FFB6C1]“I’m Neko, um, Neko Carbella. I’m from New Jersey and I’m Eleanor Black’s mother?”[/color] said Neko with a nervous, uncertain laugh followed by a heavy exhale and a fanning of herself with her hands. [color=FFB6C1]“Holy shit, this is crazy, okay. My Eleanor goes by Nora, she is seventeen, a little shorter than me, long black hair, a little too skinny, way too smart for her own good, like how? Very creative, absolutely obsessed with musical theater which is,”[/color] Neko cleared her throat, [color=FFB6C1]“y’know, her thing.”[/color]

[color=FFB6C1]“She was distant sometimes. Like now, I guess!”[/color] said Neko, smiling awkwardly at her tasteless joke. The smile dropped and she stared down at her hands fidgeting in her lap, quietly muttering, [color=FFB6C1]“Very, very distant…”[/color]

She closed her eyes and shuddered, seeing the image of her daughter clawing at her own throat. 

[color=FFB6C1]“Sorry, I’ll shut up.”[/color]