Pet Shop of Horrors: Dark Demise
Chapter 1:
she sat at the dinner table. Boxes piled around her. Paintings never hung collecting dust. Her black hair reached to her back. She stared ahead as though another person sat at the empty chair. She had moved in over five years ago. A time when everything was new and fresh, she had just gotten married. It was a time of magic and romance. Now she sat in near darkness serving a bowl of food for herself and her invisible guest.
Sophia spoke into a half melted candle telling secrets and wishing James back. She could not stand the constant cold she lived in. The stillness was a cold so frigid she thought she would die. Tears were the only language James could understand now and she spoke them almost constantly
She spoke to the silent air. It's deathliness spoke back to her in her dreams. He was here. Watching over her and so close she could feel him. She never told her dad James visited her. James liked the house dark and quiet. She planned on joining him soon. It would be done quickly she had enough sleep medication tucked away to kill an elephant. But he wouldn't let her. Why did he not want her to join him?
Her house had sat untouched for five years. Nothing had been put away. The moving boxes were never opened and they lay in the same place. Only a few pieces of furniture had been placed after much argument. She waited for her husband to arrive….any day now and take her away from all this misery and pain.
Gary her father entered the house with his spare key. He brought in groceries and had picked up medications for his daughter's dire depression. He was worried sick about her but couldn't bear to see her institutionalized. He realized he was taking a big risk of having her commit suicide. The therapy and the medications didn't seem to be working. It's like she had stopped living.
"Hi Daddy" Sophia said stabbing at the food she barely ate.
"Sophia you need to eat more. I'll make you some pasta."
"Daddy, why do you need to see me suffer so much? I don't want to eat." She sighed deeply
Gary wanted to cry, she always talked about a past that didn't exist, about her husband a man who had died right after they had married. It had been a tragic and messy car accident. Gary had never let Sophia see his body. Sophia had not attended his funeral either. Her therapist thought that attending the funeral would push her over the edge but at the same she never received the closure she so badly needed.
Gary was at his wits end he had heard about a man in China town who sold exotic pets that had surreal properties. He would visit this man and see if there was anything he could do to help his daughter. Count D was his name. He hoped he could find something that would help her. He flipped the chandelier on but his daughter shrank away at the sudden light.
"Sophia it's too dark in here." Said Gary adjusting his eyes to the light.
"Daddy it's too bright it makes my head hurt." Gary turned off the lights
"Sophia please if you don't take your treatment seriously I'll have no choice but to put you in the hospital." Gary held his head keeping control of the words he spoke. "I can't keep trying to keep you alive. This damned house you've turned it into James tomb."
Sophia dabbed at the corners of her mouth with her linen napkin. Her black mascara smeared over her eyes from her constant crying. "You wouldn't do that to me would you daddy?" She felt so much anger she threw her plate across the room. Her eyes were wild and angry.
"If it comes to that I will" Gary said solemnly. He hated hurting his daughter like this. But he was afraid for her; afraid of her.