Chapter 5: Making new friends

Clara wanted to drop by the house, but she had yet another theory about these “fragmented souls”, she believes they only come out during a certain time, in this case would be past midnight, so we prepared, this time we would be better equipped for when we ran into it again. We could’ve gone during the morning hours to avoid the thing, but after encountering death once it seemed Clara wanted to get another feel. They made sure Claras camera was fully charged for if they need to blind the thing, this time they brought along Claras dads flash attachment, hopefully this works better than normal. They were ready, all they had to do now was wait, a very long wait. Alice sent her mom another message letting her know that she’d be staying over at Claras again, then went back to doing nothing. Time had decided to pass by agonizingly slow, but it went, eventually. They had decided to eat the lunch Alice's mom made for dinner and then head out, and much like last time they went looking. Alice had never really seen the town at this hour, normally she was asleep. But it was, nice? It was more quiet than normal, they finally pass Karma relics, not far from it was the house they were looking for, it looked oddly…familiar? Alice disregarded the feeling as Clara began making her way to the home. The place has been abandoned for years now, nobody has bothered to do anything with it, kinda like the entire town has agreed to just let it be. The two reach the front door, and without a single thought Clara pushes against the door, which fortunately opens, very loudly. It gets stuck half way forcing the two to squeeze in, the inside was as old as the out, everything sat quietly as they walked in, to the right was a staircase that leads up, in front was the living room that branched out to the kitchen on the left,

“ Where should we go first?” Clara asks eagerly, Alices first thought was upstairs, “ We could check upstairs first-” Alice tried suggesting, only to be rudely interrupted by a loud sound coming from bellow them, a sound which has piqued Claras interest, without any other words Clara had made her way around the house to see if she could find the way into the basement. After about ten or so minutes of searching they found the door that lead down, to where something most likely await, wonderfull. Alice hands Clara a flashlight as they descend down, the basement was much like the upper half, dust covered and old. The basement seemed to have been the storage for the previous homeowners, all kinds of things were down here. Paintings covered in drapes, statues, and other things. Of all the paintings they saw only one of them was hung on the wall, this one retained its lustre, not worn out by time. It depicted the lady from Alice's dream, she sat upright, the same shade red on her lips as she smile gently in the painting, the same crimson eyes bore into her as she stare back. Alice is startled by Clara shaking her shoulder,

“ You sure seem invested in this painting, you know the person or something?” Clara asked, she hadn’t noticed but apparently Clara had gone off to look around while she stood their staring, odd. They had decided to call it their and head home, fortunately they never found what caused the sound from before, at least they would have. As they reach the stairs movement catches Alice's attention, without thinking either she shoves Clara to the side, claws outstretched the collector flies past the two and lands on the ground a few feet away from them, this one was hunched over, this one was different from the one they saw last time, meaning there was two of them?

“ Cover!” Clara yells as she aims the camera, I block my eyes in time as the flash goes off, the creature reel back in annoyance grabbing at its face as the two make their escape. I get ahead of Clara and pull at the door, trying to get it to open more, in her desperate struggle to do so the door swings open and she falls over from the sudden force of it opening. Clara makes a dash out as Alice planned on following, but the collector had other plans, it hooks its claws into her jacket, ripping the sleeve, it was stuck. Great. It attempts to impale Alice with its free hand only to get it stuck in the floor. During the struggle something falls out of Alice's pocket, she manages to grab it and up pops a blade, a switchblade, where or why she had it she didn’t know nor did she care. As the collector frees its hand from the floor Alice jabs the blade through its face, the blade sticks out of its right cheek, I pull hard on my jacket as the sleeve tears away and I make my escape. It was a shame she had to leave the blade, but at least she got away with her life, I meet up with Clara near karma relics,

“ I am sor sorry I didn’t mean to leave you behind!” Clara goes on in a frenzy of words, Alice manages to calm her down, she hadn’t care much for it as long as they were both safe, They both decided to head home and talk about what happened in the morning.