Hart's House, Swelliview
Friday, September 12, 2014 8:00 pm
Prologue
On a slightly cool Friday night in a city of Swellview, there was a house on 24 Summit Lane. Now there wasn't anything special about the place on the outside. The building was just a beautiful two story modest, partly redbrick house with seven large lattice white, frame windows in front with a faded, red lattice door. The house even had a redbrick chimney placed in the front on the right side of the building.
The place sat dark and quiet in a nice, friendly neighborhood, obviously indicating to anyone who happened to be passing by that the owners were not currently at home. Which was technically true since the couple that owned the house was out of town, on a mini vacation with their daughter since she received a long weekend off from school due to teachers having to attend various workshops. The parents decided to take some time off of work as well since it had been a long time since they had a break from their work and thought it was an excellent time to get away for a while.
The parents had asked their eldest son if he wanted to go with them out of town, but he refused the offer, stating that he didn't really feel like going on vacation, even though it was only going to be a few days and only a town away. Plus, he explained to his parents, he had only been working at his job in a junk store for a few months now and asked how it would look to his boss if he requested a few days off from work to go on a mini vacation with his family. The parents agreed, it wouldn't look good in the eyes of their son's boss.
However, since the boy was thirteen-years-old and was mature and responsible enough to manage a job, the parents had no qualms about leaving their teenage son home alone while they were away. Of course, the parents laid down a few reasonable rules for their son before they left.
No parties at the house.
Don't invite any of your other friends to the house except Charlotte and Jasper.
Curfew is set at ten o'clock pm. You're not allowed to leave the house after that time.
Don't forget to turn everything off before leaving the house.
Don't forget to shut and lock all the windows and doors before leaving.
And don't tell anyone but a few people, namely Charlotte and Jasper that you're alone at home.
Yes, those were some sensible rules that any parents would generally set for their children if they were leaving them at home by themselves for the first time. Of course, it's depends entirely on how long the parents would be away and how far, but the rules that was set were simple and quite common ones given. If the parents were going to be gone longer and further away, there might be more specific and special rules given to their children.
Yet Henry's parents trusted him. And to honor that precious gift that he was given, he made a promise to his parents and himself that he wouldn't betray their trust.
When Henry spoke those words in front of his parents and sister as they got ready to walk out the door, he meant it with his whole heart. He wouldn't let them down since he didn't want to lose any more of his newly-found freedom.
Unfortunately, what the Hart's family didn't know was that Fate was about to play a cruel hand of cards and turn Henry's world upside down and on its axels no less than twelve hours after his family departed for their vacation.
