"You alright, kiddo?"

I blinked, my brain returning to the present. I took a moment to process the piece of paper covered in random number problems in my lap before looking up at Agnes, who was kneeling next to me. His eyes shone with concern.

"You seem a bit distracted," Agnes said with a frown. "Did something happen?"

"What? No, nothing happened," I said, turning back to my math homework. Multiplication tables. They weren't the worst thing in the world, but I hated them.

"Come on, it's alright, you can tell me," Agnes said with a soft smile, sitting down next to me. "I just wanna make sure you're okay."

I stared at the numbers on my paper for a moment before repeating, "I'm fine." I went back to writing products into multiplication problems.

Agnes wasn't convinced. "Taiga, if something's wrong, I just want to-"

"I'm fine!" I immediately gasped and covered my mouth after I'd snapped at him. I sighed. "Sorry."

Agnes was surprised and didn't speak for a moment before relaxing. "It's okay. We all get mad sometimes."

He tried to put his hand on my arm in a comforting motion, but a small burst of pain caused me to jerk away, wincing and letting out a small "ah" of pain. Immediately Agnes frowned.

"What is it? Are you hurt?"

Hesitantly I gave him a slow nod. I rolled up my sleeve and showed him the bruise I'd gotten, still freshly discolored from Mazhun grabbing my arm last night. Agnes furrowed his brow, concerned.

"...Taiga, how did this happen?" He asked.

I hesitated again, quickly thinking up a lie. "Uh... someone at school grabbed my arm and pushed me to the ground. I-it's fine, it doesn't hurt that much."

"Who was it?"

"I didn't know them. I was probably just in the way."

"That's not really a good thing, Taiga," Agnes looked at me with worry. "If people are pushing you around like this at school, you have to tell a teacher, or your dad, or someone. If you don't tell anyone, then nothing will be done about it."

He was getting a little too deep into the lie. I remained silent for a moment. "I-it's okay, really. It's never happened before, so they were probably just having a bad day, is all. It wasn't anything, I swear."

Agnes stared at me for a moment more before, to my relief, he sighed, letting go of the light hold he had on my forearm. "Alright. But if it keeps happening, you tell someone, okay?"

I nodded. "Okay."

He gave me one last worrisome look before returning to the counter through the door of the lounge. I exhaled, my hand brushing the bruise and pulling the sleeve back over it like a sheet over some antique furniture.

It was probably better that Agnes didn't know about what happened last night, right? Mazhun's his friend, I don't want him to be mad at Mazhun. Besides, it was only one time. Mazhun lost his temper and I was awake when I shouldn't have been. No big deal. I'll just need to be a better listener and listen to what Mazhun says without complaint or disagreement. It'd probably be better for both of us.

He has seemed a bit stressed recently, though. Maybe he's worried about that girl that went missing... What was her name? Peridot? Perdita, that was it. That would make sense. She might be hurt, but I'm sure she's okay. I think she probably just got lost or something on the way home. Any day now they're gonna find her and everything will be fine. Kidnappings only happen in movies and stuff, right? Mazhun doesn't even let me watch movies with stuff like that in them. They're too old for me, he says. He doesn't really watch them either, though. He doesn't really watch TV at all. Maybe they're too old for him, too.

After a while Mazhun came to get me from the room. Luckily we didn't have to pass the hospital again - the police cars were gone. He was pretty quiet, but he always is. Did Agnes ask him about the bruise I had? I hope not. I didn't want Agnes to think less of him. In truth, he wasn't a bad guy at all. He's my dad, after all.

How could my dad be a bad guy?

-

When I went to sleep that night, I had another dream. I always dream. It's almost always in that weird, cold world with Marina and Tristan, with the snow and the forest and the empty playground. But this time it was different. This time I was in my own house. Was I taller than usual? Weird.

What was weirder is that I was in front of me. Well, some slightly older and taller version of me.

There I was, lying on the ground. I wasn't moving. My eyes stared up at the ceiling without emotion or... anything, really. They just kind of stared. I wasn't breathing either. There was a dark, wet spot on my chest, a rip in my shirt revealing dark red that was leaking from a puncture in my skin. Blood? How'd I get hurt like that?

I looked in my hand. There was a sharp kitchen knife in my hand, dripping with crimson red that suddenly filled me with dread.

Oh.

That's how.

I almost threw the object as I flung it from my hand. The metallic blade clattered as it hit the kitchen floor, skidding across the floor until it fell through the basement door, which was left ajar. Odd. The basement was never open. Mazhun always closed the door when he had to go down there, which wasn't too often, anyway.

There was something in my pocket. I pulled it out. A phone, specifically Mazhun's phone. Why do I have his phone?

Doesn't matter. I messed around with it until I found Agnes's number, alarmed by what was happening right now and needing help. I clicked on the contact and brought the phone to my ear.

The ringtone sounded on the speaker once. Twice. Thrice. Three more times and the phone told me to leave a message.

Frustrated, I tried again. Pick up your phone, Agnes, this is an emergency!

It was about the fourth time I'd tried calling him again when I became aware of hearing another ringtone in the other room. At first I thought it was the living room, but the room was dark and quiet and empty.

Then I realized it was a faint, echoing sound coming from the basement.

I hesitated, looking down the dark stairwell. I'd, truthfully, only been into our basement once in my life. I don't quite remember it, but I do remember there wasn't much down there. At least, back then there wasn't. It was just one big room with a wall separating it from a guest room that never gets used.

Slowly I stepped down the staircase, my feet against the steps forcing a creak out of the old wood that made them. My hand kept a light grip on the rail, also made of blueish-grey painted wood that seemed old and ready to chip off at a slight inconvenience. Some of it was already peeling, revealing dull brown underneath.

The basement was not big, and, as I'd previously remembered, was slit into two - the main room, and the guest rooms hidden behind walls on the far end of the room. The door to that was ajar as well.

There's a table down here. A table and three chairs, all made of sanded wood. It was similar to the one we had in our dining room upstairs, just smaller. There were two plates out, seeming like they'd been recently eaten from with leftover crumbs still scattered on them. I didn't remember that table being down here last time I came down, but again, it's been a while. An old mirror was propped against the wall, a spiderweb of cracks decorating its surface. I remembered it. We had to get it replaced about five years ago when it'd fallen off the wall.

And there was Agnes.

His phone was on the ground, the lock screen glowing with a few notifications about missed calls from Mazhun. The glow illuminated the left side of his body, which was sitting against the wall. Through the darkness I couldn't quite make out the other side, but his left eye stared vacantly just like mine into nothing at all. The blue light also reflected off of something at his stomach, a shiny red liquid that seeped from a gash there and streamed in a small waterfall from his partially hanging open mouth.

"Agnes?" I called hesitantly through the darkness. Agnes never moved, even as I called his name.

I didn't know what happened here, but I didn't like it.

"What happened to him?"

I turned around at the child's voice, finding the wide blue eyes of my own deceased brother staring up at me. His eyes flickered between me and the limp body of Agnes against the wall.

"I don't know what any of it means."

I recalled Marina mentioning him having a vision. "This is what you saw last night?"

Tristan nodded. "Yeah. It's scary. I don't like it."

"I don't like it, either," I said with a frown. It was weird being this tall compared to him. For some reason I must've been towering at least three feet over his head. Being fair, my own body was at the top of the stairs, so maybe I was in someone else's.

"You think it means something? I can't make sense of it," Tristan whimpered, holding my hand tightly in his. His hand was cold, icy cold, and I almost flinched away.

"Maybe it does, but it doesn't make sense to me, either," I informed him. I stared at Agnes for a moment more before looking away.

"Is this what's gonna happen?"

I hope not. "No. It won't. I don't see why this would ever happen. Besides, who would've done it?"

Tristan stared at me for a moment, then at the floor. He glanced up again before slowly pointing at a place on the wall. The old cracked mirror.

In the mirror I couldn't see Tristan. But I could see someone else, staring back with the very eyes I looked through, blood splattered slightly on his face.

Mazhun.

-

1741 words

Addie posts a chapter of Filicide real

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