Chatterbox: Inkwell

S.M.S.E.

 

I posted this story a while back, but it fell pretty far down. It's on the fourth or fifth page. So I am re-posting it.

 

S.M.S.E

Prologue

The whole thing started on Friday 13th, August. It was a typical evening. Mia had come over for a sleepover. Our parents were still chatting upstairs. Mia’s parents were supposed to have left about an hour ago. Mia and I were watching a movie in my basement.

We were about half-way into the movie when the screen became red static. We tried to turn it off, but the remote didn’t work. We tried to get up, but we couldn’t. It was as if we were glued to the couch.

The TV began to say a message. We couldn’t understand any of the message except for this: “Must find him before he-” We couldn’t understand anything else. At last, we could move. We ran upstairs into the living room.

Our parents were asleep. The clock’s hands were covered in slime now. The painting was replaced by a mirror. There was an empty jar on the table. I saw something in the mirror. I saw a man for a moment before he disappeared. We heard footsteps upstairs. 

I knew we had to do something, so I decided to smash the clock. What else would I do? It was freaking me out. I grabbed a book from our coffee table and threw it at the clock. Just for a moment, time seemed to turn back.

The clock shattered. The slime on the clock now covered our walls. Everything stopped moving except for us.

“Let’s collect the slime. It could be useful,” said Mia.

“Did you hear a laugh upstairs?” I asked.

“Umm, I don’t think so...,” said Mia.

We collected the blood then ran upstairs.

We ran into my room and looked in the mirror. I saw the man again.

“Who are you?” I asked, not really wanting the answer.

The man then disappeared. We heard footsteps downstairs. We followed the footsteps into the garage. We never saw the man on our way to the garage.

When we entered the garage, I grabbed a crowbar from our tool shelf. Mia grabbed a sledgehammer. The man suddenly appeared in front of us. We both hit him at the same time. He became a shattered mirror.

Suddenly, we returned to my basement. The movie was playing. Our parents were talking upstairs. Everything had returned to what would have been normal, except we still remembered what happened, and the Mirror Man’s pieces were still on the floor of my garage. We collected his pieces and locked him and the slime in a box.

Chapter One

Samantha’s P.O.V.

Mia had come over for a sleepover. We were in the kitchen, talking. It was midnight. My parents were asleep and Mia’s parents had gone home.

We were talking about video games when Mia said, “Hey! The moon is red!”

I looked at the moon, and it was red. Blood red.

“We should check it out,” I said.

“I would say no, but I think if we don’t check it out, something really bad will happen,” said Mia.

“Me too,” I said.

We went over to the swings and sat down. Mia stared at the moon, but I was looking elsewhere.

“Mia,” I whispered.

“What?” Mia whispered back.

“The fog. It’s going to surround us. Let’s go back inside,” I said.

“Umm, I don’t think we can,” said Mia. “I already tried to stand up.”

I tried to stand up as well, but failed. The fog slowly covered us. We could see each other. The moon was right above us.

Suddenly, I could feel something watching us.

“Do you feel that?” I asked Mia.

“Yeah.”

I tried to stand up. It worked.

“We are free now. Let’s g-” I started to say.

“What?” asked Mia.

“I can see something. It’s black. And moving towards us,” I said. “I’m going to run.”

“Wait!” said Mia.

Nevertheless, I was already running. I had no clue where though, because I couldn’t see anything but the moon. I ran into the street and saw another jar. I heard footsteps behind me. I turned around and saw Mia.

“OK. We should be fi-. What’s that jar doing here?” asked Mia.

“I have no clue. I think we are going to need this,” I said.

 

Then I felt something land on my face. It was the color of blood. We looked up and saw it start to rain. I saw the moon. The rain was falling into the clouds then falling on us. I opened the jar and set it on the ground. Once it was full, I put the lid back on it and we ran inside.

 

By now, we were soaked with the rain. I grabbed some towels we dried ourselves off. We then changed clothes and put our soaked clothes into the dryer.

“Let’s use your microscope and study this weird rain,” said Mia.

“Good idea,” I said. “We can also study the Mirror Man and the slime.”

We went into the den and got the microscope out.

“Mia, can you get the box from the attic?” I asked Mia.

“Sure.”

Mia’s

P.O.V.

I went into the attic and looked for the box with Mirror Man and the clock slime. I finally found the box, but I could tell something was wrong. The lock was broken, and the box was empty. I went back downstairs and said, “Hey Samantha! Look what happened!”

“Oh no! What happened to the box? Wait! What happened to the contents?” Samantha asked.

I told her what I knew, which wasn’t much.

“Can you check the attic to see if someone moved them or something?” Samantha asked.

“Sure,” I said.

I searched all over for it. I did eventually find this book called S.M.S.E FUTURE. It was weird. I took it downstairs and showed Samantha.

“Mia! You weren’t supposed to be reading! You were supposed to be searching! Wait. S.M.S.E? Those are our initials. However, who’s the other S? Also, the E? DO you think it has to do with our friends? Do you think it’s a coincidence?” Samantha said.

“First of all, I wasn’t reading,” I said. “I was looking in the attic and I just found it. Second, it probably isn’t a coincidence, because the book is blank.”

“Blank?” asked Samantha.

“Yeah! See?” I said as I showed Samantha the book.

“Hmmm,” said Samantha. “Give it to me for a sec.”

I gave it to her and she wrote something in it.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Look.”

Inside the book, she had written:  Hello.

Then something appeared under it: Hello.

You will probably need us later.

I replied: Us? Who are you? Do you know who the other S is? In addition, who the E is?

The book said: We can’t tell you now. You must wait.

“Fine,” Samantha sighed. “We’ll wait.”

“Seriously?” I asked.

“What else can we do?”

 

Samantha’s P.O.V.

We studied the rain and found out nothing. We went to sleep after cleaning up.

I wanted to tell someone what had happened. I decided to call Emma, then Sarah.

When I talked to Emma, she said that everything had been normal around her house. Sarah said that the stuff with the TV happened, and her parents fell asleep, but soon, it had gone back to normal.

I went downstairs to talk to Mia. I told her about my phone calls and we discussed the Mirror Man.

I heard something upstairs. It was footsteps. Heavy, loud footsteps.

Like the Mirror Man’s footsteps. I stared at the ceiling. My parents were out walking and my siblings weren’t home, so who else could it be?

We slowly crept up the stairs. Our painting above the bookshelf was now a mirror. On my door, in some, weird reflective liquid, this message was printed on my door:

First You Destroyed Me...

It was clear that there was more to this message. We slowly opened my door and looked inside. No one was there. We walked in to my room and looked around. Mia closed my door.

“Hey Sam...” she said.

“What?” I answered.

“I found the rest of the message...” Mia replied. She was right. On the back of my door, there was another message made out of reflective letters. It said:

Now I’ll Destroy BOTH You.

Then I knew it was the Mirror Man. whom else had we destroyed? No one. It all made sense now. The clock’s slime and the Mirror Man must have been combined somehow to recreate him. However, would we now have to kill him, instead of destroy him? The though made me shudder. I told Mia all of this, and said (somehow not surprising me, though it should have) that she had thought the exact same thing.

Sarah’s P.O.V

I lied to Samantha.

The message wasn’t the only thing that had happened. I had seen shadow people in the corners of my eyes, barely catching them in the mirror, or a corner at night. They never did anything, just skulked around. I asked Mom to go to Samantha’s house. She took me and dropped me off.

“Hey! Come on in. We need to show you something,” said Samantha.

“What?” I asked.

“Just come! Emma’s already here. We’re just waiting for you,” Sam said as she waved me in.

I came in and we walked upstairs. I noticed a mirror where the painting normally was. I asked about it, and they just shrugged. They showed me the messages and told me what had happened so far, but in much more detail. Emma carefully listened. I was listening to someone else.

“Hey guys...” I said, glancing up at the ceiling.

“What?” said Sam.

“Look up,” I said.

They all looked up. On the ceiling there was a message. It read: They are listening.

We all looked around. Samantha screamed suddenly.

“What? What?” We all asked.

“Th-there was a mouse. I hate mice,” Sam said.

“Mice! The mice are listening!” I exclaimed.

“Oh no...” groaned Sam.

“Where are mice usually?” I asked Sam.

“The attic...” She said.

“Have you gone up there?” I asked.

“Yeah. Weren’t you listening? We went up there to study the rain,” said Mia.

We all ran to the opening where you go into the attic. It was closed. And locked.

“Huh? But there isn’t a key for it! There isn’t even a lock!” said Sam.

“Let me try,” said Mia.

She pushed really hard and in came open. I stuck my head up and saw, things covering the walls. Actually, they were drawings covering the walls. I saw a mouse caught in a mouse trap.

“Do you have more mouse traps?” Emma asked.

“Yup, here,” Sam said, handing some up.

We placed them in a pattern. Suddenly, something tapped me on the shoulder. I screamed and whirled around just to find Emma standing there.

“What?!” asked Sam.

“Sorry, Emma startled me,” I said.

“Good. Now let’s go back down,” said Sam.