Fade: Chapter Four

Chapter Four1

I followed the dusty hallway to the back, and sure enough there was a large oak door at the end, framed by two more pictures. I didn’t bother to dust them off, I just gripped the doorknob and turned.2

Mommy and Daddy. I repeated Maggie’s words over in my mind as the door creaked open. The room seemed in as bad as shape as Maggie’s almost worse. There were large stuffed animals asleep on a tattered pink bed. Unicorn-print wallpaper was peeling off the walls, curling into arm-like tentacles.3

I shut the door behind myself, not wanting to hear Maggie begin to cry again. The musky smell hung in the warm air, the blinds were shut tightly although the curtains had fallen to the floor in a heap. I walked up to the bed and stopped dead.4

Blood.5

The dusty pink bed was covered in blood. Seemingly new blood. My eyes began to blur from nervousness, and I stepped backwards, falling over into a stand and knocking off several nicknacks in the process.6

I pushed myself up to my feet and looked back at the bed. This time it appeared normal, but I knew I didn’t just imagine it. It was . . . covered in blood just a few seconds earlier. I couldn’t have . . . imagined it. I looked down at by my feet and noticed some of the things I knocked off the bed stand.7

Some of them seemed like normal toys, unicorns and dolls. But as I dropped to my knees to pick them up, a disgusting heat swept through my stomach. Some of these were obvious . . . not toys. A gag. Handcuffs. A whip. Leather bonds and rope. I dropped the items and wiped my hands off onto my pants. 8

The one daddy plays with you in, Missy. He doesn’t let me in it.”9

A strange nostalgia overcame me. It was odd that something so vile felt so familiar. I shook my head. She can’t be right. I thought. I never lived here . . .  I knew I was right . . . she had to have mistaken me for someone else. She had to have. 10

I walked backwards, stepping on something that cracked with the unmistakable sound of glass. I turned around and brushed the shards off glass off the small picture. I picked it up and held it close to my face so I could make out the picture. A little girl with blonde hair being held by a woman, and a little black haired girl standing in front of a man. The blonde haired girl . . . was Maggie. But not the Maggie I remembered, the Maggie I just met. The little girl. But the dark-haired girl looked familiar too. The two people next to them had to have been their parents . . . the Thatchers?11

My shaky hand turned the picture over until I could make out the small writing scribbled on the back.12

Maggie & Melissa, Age 813

The picture drifted to the ground as I ran out of the room, slamming the door behind myself. It couldn’t be real.  None of it could. I had to ask Maggie, or whoever she was, I had to talk to someone, some actual person. 14

I bursted into the small room and looked around. No one. I dropped to my knees and crawled under the bed, nothing was there, not even the crying of a little girl.15

I stood up and frantically looked around the room. I raced over to the closet--hoping to find something or someone--I flung it open. Inside there was nothing but a few dresses and a small toy on the ground.16

I picked the ragged doll up, and held it up to my eyes. Even though it was dirty and old, I could still make out something scribbled on its foot.17

Maggie Thatcher. 18

I shook my head. It can’t be. I thought as I squeezed the doll. ...Where . . . am I? I dropped to my knees and held the shabby doll close to my chest. I began to cry.19