Early Sunday morning, Sara’s mother barged into her room and said, “Sara, there is an emergency. Your aunt is sick, so I need to leave immediately. I would have taken you with me if your papers were not going on.”

Sara was hunched on her study table, trying to solve a maths word problem that she was stuck on for the last ten minutes.

“Ma! I am 12 years old, I can look after myself. You go and don’t worry about me,” Sara looked at her mother and assured her.

It was around 11am that Sara’s mother left the house after repeatedly asking Sara to take care of herself and focus on her studies. Around two hours of unfocused study after her mother left, Sara’s stomach made a loud grumbling sound, informing her that she was famished.

Sara stood up from her chair to make her way towards the kitchen to find something delicious. Opening the fridge door, her gaze immediately zoomed on the chocolate cake resting in there.

“It must be feeling lonely,” Sara thought. She licked her lips and quickly grabbed a slice of the cake. On her way back to her room, Sara though she heard a strange noise from her parents’ room. The noise then came a second time. Sara’s ears perked up. She placed her precious chocolate cake on a side table and tip-toed towards her parents’ room. The door made a squeaky noise as Sara slowly opened it and peeked inside.

The room was engulfed in darkness as the curtains were drawn. As Sara fully stepped inside, the door behind her automatically closed with a light thud. Sara jumped at the sudden noise and fear started creeping its way into her heart. Soon Sara heard the same strange noise that she had heard outside. After listening to it for a while, she realised that it was the noise of water dripping continuously from the tap.

“Oh! Mother must have forgotten to close the tap properly,” Sara mumbled to herself in assurance. Going inside the washroom, Sara saw that water was indeed dripping from the washbasin tap. As Sara’s hand reached forward to close the tap, she noticed something ... the colour of the water was changing to light red.

Right before her eyes, it turned into bright red. Loud thudding filled Sara’s ears — it was her own heart wanting to burst out of her chest! Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, she quickly turned off the tap. A second passed, then another and another.

Sara opened her eyes slowly to see if the bright red water (or was it blood?) was still dripping from the tap. No there wasn’t anything now.

Sara ran out of the washroom as fast as her legs could carry her and ran towards her bedroom. Just as she was about to reach the door, Sara noticed a huge shadow in front of her. It was thrice Sara’s size with its hands spread out as if to grab her. A scream ripped out of Sara’s throat as she started to back away from the shadow. She increased her pace when she saw the shadow closing in on her and the next moment, Sara tripped on her own slipper and started falling backwards as she screamed.

“Sara! Sara!” Sara’s eyes burst open as she heard the familiar sound of her mother. Her mother was standing above her in her bedroom, with her eyebrows furrowed in worry. “Why are you sleeping on the floor?” she asked.

Sara looked here and there with lost eyes until realisation dawned on her. It was all a horrible nightmare.

“I fell,” Sara muttered while rubbing sleep from her eyes. She then got up and hugged her mother.

“Oh, but you seem to be fine,” Sara’s mother said with some concern and continued. “I came to tell you that your aunt is sick, so I need to leave immediately. I would have taken you with me if your papers were not going on.”

Sara’s eyes grew wide and she shouted, “Noooo!”

Published in Dawn, Young World, October 8th, 2022