“You knew all of this will happen… you knew and you continued to lead me!” she yelled at her aunt.
Laura held her bleeding nose firmly in place to stop the bleeding, while she looked at her violent niece with an odd expression scribbled on her face. Naomi stood there, shocked and absolutely unable to believe Nora as capable of such violence.
“The darkness has always been in you darling”, Laura muttered. “It has always been a part of you as it was in your brother”.
Nora stepped closer with a frown and a bothersome look on her face. “My what?”
Laura cackled aloud and turned away as she returned to the kitchen to get herself some ice for her bleeding and sore nose.
“She is only trying to get into your head… nothing that bitch is saying is worth listening to”, Naomi warned her friend.
Nora tried to agree, but the manner in which Laura had said it seemed to bear so much sincerity and the feeling that she knew what she was talking about.
“You are the only child”, she had heard her parents say to her over and over and again. “In fact, you are our miracle child… we weren’t sure we were ver going to have a baby again”.
She could very well recall her mother’s words every time the woman spoke on how they labored for a child.
“I am sorry”, Nora whispered. “I am sorry about Daren, and I am sorry about everything so far”.
She turned to look at Naomi, whose face swelled with tears as she wept profusely and intensely.
“We killed him, Nora! We killed him!’ Naomi shrieked.
She opened her arms to receive her friend, but Naomi simply walked away, seemingly too hurt to engage or entertain any form of assistance from Nora at the moment.
“I am sorry”, Nora continued to whisper.
They were the only words she had to offer as her world not only grew colder, but lonelier by the passing second. She could not help but wonder what might happen had she not chosen to buy the cards online. She wondered if things would still be normal with her friends goofing around and her father constantly slating her on her Islamic practices not being top notch.
Suddenly, in Nora’s world, the things that bore importance and seemed to matter just some days back suddenly didn’t any longer. The world was getting colder, and her was frosty as hell.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Footsteps echoed louder than words around the living room. Everyone with the exception of Lama who still wasn’t ready to leave her room was present. Muzin eyed his daughter from where he sat, while Laura treated her broken nose from the day before. Naomi looked white and pale with worry but kept her words unaired while she shot Nora some nasty looks.
She upped herself from her seat and walked to the telephone.
“What are you doing?” Muzin asked the girl with his legs crossed and his temple leaning against his hand.
Naomi looked in his direction and replied, “We need to find him… he might be out there and we need to find him”.
Her eyes bore bags underneath them, as did Nora’s. The latter had barely slept through the night, only managing some minutes when she closed her eyes and prayed everything happening was nothing but a serious nightmare. Unfortunately for her, when she parted her eyes open, things remained exactly as they were.
“The cops cannot help us… we cannot bring in more people into this than we already have”, Nora spoke out in rather heightened tone.
Naomi shot back at her. “Of course you wouldn’t want us to find him! You are responsible for this… you and that crazy aunt of yours!”
Laura smiled but soon winced in pain as the bleeding nose threatened to burst open again. Naomi returned to dialing 911, but the phone wouldn’t come on as she watched the lights on the telephone flicker on and off. The lights in the room soon followed, taking a rather bizarre electrostatic appearance before the bulbs began to pop one at a time.
“Get away from the telephone!” Nora yelled.
Naomi tossed it down and stepped backwards as fast and as best as she could, as they watched the telephone wire melt away as if it had been scorched in a furnace. She turned to the front door and watched the bolts suddenly jam into place, as Nora seemed unsurprised by the bizarre occurrence.
“We have to continue”, Nora muttered.
Muzin shot to his feet and flailed his hands in the air. “I will not be a part of this… I have lost too much already and I will not lose a third family member!”
He began to storm away before halting by the hallway leading towards the bedrooms.
Nora got to her feet. “Who is the second family member you lost?” she asked.
The coincidence between what Laura had said the night before and what her father had just mentioned, seemed too related not to be true.
Muzin looked at his daughter, let out a loud sigh, and looked away. “It doesn’t matter now… I will not lose you too”.
Naomi shot to her feet and yelled. “Of course, it does matter! First you lie to me and keep me in the dark about my mother’s death, and now my world is falling apart with strange things, events and bloody Onamegas!”
Muzin looked towards Laura, almost as if he was trying to tell her how much she was responsible for the entire ordeal, just before he slipped out of sight and away from them.
“I shouldn’t have come here… we shouldn’t have come here, had Daren not found that stupid deck of cards in his backpack”, Naomi shot to her feet and walked to the window.
Nora stepped closer but kept her distance, as they noted the absence of the troubling looking creatures around the house earlier.
“Are they gone?” Naomi asked without looking at her friend. “Are they all gone?”
Nora wished she could give an answer that would calm the
