Behind The Shadows

Chapter Four

She knew she should be in bed. It was after 11, and usually she would crash way before that. But not tonight. Tonight she was hooked on sugar, as she would more than occasionally find herself to be, just usually not this late.

Pudding lay happily on the couch, her eyes closed but her body fully alert, for she was sucking on candies every few seconds. She was joyfully humming. She was happy. And why shouldn't she be? Her siblings were healthy, happy, and hyper (just like her...), and she managed to make lots of money that week as well. She loved to work, because she knew it would gain her money, which her household always needed. She also loved being a mew. Hanging out with her friends and saving the day! Pudding definitly could get used to being one of the super heroes.

The only bad part of the deal was fighting her friend, Tar Tar. She loved to call him that. It just bugged him so much, she couldn't help herself. She didn't want to fight him...but she had to.

She sighed. No, she can't let bad thoughts come. No.

Well, her bad thoughts ceased. In fact, all of her thoughts stopped. When she heard footsteps running downstairs into the small basement of the house.

She sat up. "Heicha?" she asked quickly. She knew she had tucked in each of her little siblings, but that never stopped Heicha before. The littlest girl would come out to lay by Pudding every once in a while. Not the boys, the boys slept very soundly, and Pudding knew that.

But when Pudding called for Heicha again, and got no answer, she began to wonder.

She leaped up from her seat, and ran (just for the sake of using energy) over to her siblings room, only to find each of her younger brothers AND sister cuddled safetly in their beds. No one was missing.

Her stopped for a minute there. Someone was in her house...

She quietly closed the door, and turned in the direction of the stairs, leading to the basement that she was already afraid of. Now it would be even more scary, knowing someone was hiding down there...in the dark...

But she had to. She had to see who it was, or what is was. It could just be Tart, like that one time she found him hiding behind her couch, and he said he didn't mean to telelport there, he just 'accidently did'...yeah, sure. And right after that he yelled at her for being a stupid monkey girl and left with the silly blush still on his face. Well she had to go. She tried to think of a happy song in her mind...and took the first creaky step down...then jolted down the rest as fast as she could to avoid being too scared to go at all within the fifth step. She turned on the light, and looked around.

Nothing looked different. Everything was in it's place. Well, it was mostly boxes. Full of memories which she liked to remember but not revisit, because of the tears that woud show. She shook her thoughts and reminded her self the reason she was there at all: the footsteps.

She walked around a little, within the little space she could even walk in down there. That's when it began.

First it sounded like a faint russle of a plastic bag, and she traced the sound all the way to the far corner, behind a box. She placed her hands on the box, meaning to push it aside, expecting to see a rat or a squirell. Well, before she even pushed it, she heard a noise again.

Only this time, it was a loud THUMP.

Pudding jerked her hand back in suprise, and accidently tripped back on a cord of some kind, falling onto the cold, cement floor.

Being a skilled gymnast, she jumped back up...

...just in time for the lights to go off...

...and the door to slam.

Pudding yelped at the slam, and ran over to the light switch. No luck.

She then ran up the stairs, only to be magically tripped again by some invisable wire, and fall back down all of the steps.

"Why so scared?" a voice hissed.

Pudding sat up, looking around, panting and heart beating fast. Where was that voice coming from? It sounded like it was coming from up...

Just then, the white outline of the blank face (much like in Lettuces dream) fell onto the ground from the ceiling, in front of Pudding.

Pudding didn't know what was happening. She didn't even know what she was doing, or thinking, when she reached for the mask...

"...go ahead, I dare you." A voice boomed.

But by then, Pudding had already touched it. It was ice cold, but she gripped it tightly and turned the mask around to the other side slowly, about to discover the secrets behind the shadow...

...when she was blown back against a stack of boxes, held there by an unknown force. She screamed, yet it felt like no one could hear her. In fact, it seemed to her like this wasn't her house at all.

She had dropped the white mask as she was being pinned against the boxes. It lay on the floor. And she watched it as it lifted up on it's own and grew a dark, black body.

"You think you can get away with anything just because you're a cute little kid. Think again."

Pudding closed her eyes tightly, holding back a scream. She didn't know why, but for some reason she couldn't scream.

"Tell me. Why should I spare you?" asked the shadow.

Pudding was shaking. She didn't know what to say, or what the shadow even meant.

"Why should I spare you when I killed most of the others already?"

Puddings eyes opened wide. "Who did you kill!"

"You'll see soon."

Pudding watched as the shadow pulled out two blades. The the shadow sort of teleported up to her, closely, so she could hear breathing.

She yelped as one knife cut deep into her right wrist. The pain shot through HARD. Pudding closed her eyes. She still couldn't move, and having a wrist slit was also leaving her stunned.

"Don't take your eyes away from your pain. Watch your blood drip down and remember how this happened..."

With another quick, swift movement her left wrist was also cut open. Pudding was now only half-concious, staring blankly and cringing in pain as she watched her very own blood drip and fall onto the ground. She let out one faint scream, and let her tears flow down off her cheeks. She was still pinned to the wall, but after a while of bleeding and suffering, the pressure the shadow had put against her body was released, and her limp body fell on the cold ground, into the large puddle of her blood.

And that's when the lights turned on.

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Bye bye, Zakuro.