II -Grandparent's Little Secret


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READ: Chapter 1

Chapter 2



Tick! Tock!

Tick! Tock!

I woke up with a headache and the clock’s running hand was the first thing I heard. I remembered the last thing I saw before I fainted and glanced at my reflection on the clock. It wasn’t me. I stared at the reflection on the glass and watched it mimic my every movement. I got up and realized that the room that looked abandoned now looked… livable. It wasn’t new, per se, but it sure looked newer compared to the dust-covered emptiness it was before.

“Hey little peanut”, a gentle voice called from behind and I turned to look at the source of the sudden sound. The person who just spoke looked like… “Grandma?” I stuttered. She smiled sweetly at me as she let out a soft chuckle. “Don’t just stand there, come and help your grandpa carry the groceries.”

As confused as I was, I simply watched as grandma went to the kitchen and decided that it was best if I went out to help grandpa. He was taking out the groceries from the car when I reached him. The car was a black 1967 Chevy Impala and smelled like aged leather inside. Classic and cool! I took the two brown paper bags full of fresh fruits and kitchen utensils from his arms and carried it inside the kitchen and grandpa followed me inside soon after.

“Put it on the counter, peanut” grandma said while preparing some of the ingredients for tonight’s dinner. “Thanks for visiting us dear” she added with a sigh. “After you and your parents left last time, they never visited us after even once. But now you are here. We’re really glad you came.”
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Chapter 2




I was still thinking about what to reply to her when my mouth moved and talked outside of my control, “I’m happy I came over. I missed you, grandma and I also wanted to know why mom doesn’t want me to visit you”. I never expected that. I tried to talk and move but my body was not following. Could it be that I was just a soul freeloading in another person’s body who, I might add, was still alive?

“Let’s talk about that tonight little peanut, we have the whole night”, she said and continued preparing dinner. I did not reply and instead, I went to the living room and joined gramps to watch the news. Night came and soon after, granny was calling us for dinner. I sat with them at the table and we started to fill our stomachs with granny’s delicious cooking.

Everything was fine and it was wonderful! We had many talks and laughs until 10 in the evening. Both grandma and gramps looked like they were still in their early 40s or so but they told me they were already in their 60s. They must have been living a healthy lifestyle because the difference was just amazing! After eating, they insisted that we should take a picture tomorrow and I agreed. A commemorative photo of my visit would be wonderful. Grandma went to wash the dishes, and gramps went to the living room. I went upstairs and went inside the room grandma told me I could use and discovered it to be the nearest to the staircase. It was not that big of a room and it only had one window facing the street. The shelves were full of toys and stuff animals which made me believe that it could have been the room I used when I was little. I threw myself on the bed and fell asleep soon after.
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Chapter 2




“ksckskh… kskcshks…” Hearing the rustling from the other room, I woke up and saw grandma and pa downstairs. It looked like they were arguing about something but I couldn’t hear it. The rustling didn’t come from downstairs though so I searched for it here upstairs. There were four doors and door next to mine was locked. When I was about to open the third door I heard rustling again. It was from the fourth door! I went near it and when I opened the door, I saw rat caught in a mousetrap.

“Dammit!” I cursed in a low voice and then laughed at myself, “I think I watched too many horror movies.”

I looked at the interiors of the room and a glass frame caught my attention. It contained what seemed to be a neatly pressed shirt and when I scoured the walls with my eyes, I noticed that I could barely see the wallpaper from all the different frames hung on it. The different shapes and sizes of the frames that sometimes overlapped each other caused a shiver to run down my spine, especially when I noticed that they all contained articles of dirty clothing.

Taking a gulp of air, I entered deeper into the room to take a closer look. I noticed names engraved on the bottom of each frame, all in similar cursive. “Little Potpot, Little Pumpkin, Little Daisy.” I breathed out some of the names, all thematic with how grandma called me ‘little peanut’ earlier. Before I could ponder on why we all had similar names, my eyes crawled to the old photograph pasted on the glass just right above the name.
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Chapter 2




In it were grandma and grandpa, standing on the opposite sides of a little girl in pigtails, both showing a smile that made the hairs on my nape stand. I looked at the other frames and saw equally old photographs of my grandparents standing with some kid, smiling eerily at the camera, all children wearing the same clothes as the ones pinned inside the glass frames. While this detail caused me to feel cold, the date stamps on the photographs caused me to shiver even more.

These were large collections of photos dating back to 1850! At every picture, grandma and grandpa’s grin never changed, nor did they appear to age. And the two downstairs looked far too young to be a hundred years old! I took a step back, away from the frame and the haunting smiles in the photos and made to turn to run away. But before I managed to, a searing pain erupted from the back of my head and I fell into the clutches of darkness once again.
- 4/4 -
- End of Chapter 2 -

There you go guys! I decided to continue the story I made more than 2 weeks ago :)
Chapter 1


This was my first EVER story that's longer than 500 words because I usually write short stories. As in SHOOORT stories. So I hope you guys liked it. And don't forget to comment. :)

Start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there’ll always be better writers than you and there’ll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that - but you are the only you. -Neil Gaiman


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