So Cody said part 4 shall begin, and it was so, and it was good. lol Eh, not too exciting of a chapter, but school's starting in 2 days (thank GOD) and my brain's starting to kick in again, so maybe I'll finally get better? Who knows. ANYWAY, chapter 27, R&R and enjoy!

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Part 4 – Hide and Seek

27

Ella Martinez woke up and glanced at her bedside clock. Six o'clock. It was too early, but she decided to get out of bed anyway, knowing her mom would be preparing breakfast. If anything, she could fry an egg or something.

The young girl flung her legs over the side of the bed and leapt up, took a moment to yawn and stretch, and then wandered to her closet. Inside, she found the clothes she would wear for the day, and put them on after shedding her pajamas. She examined herself in a mirror next to her bed and took a few minutes to curl her hair as she had been doing for a few weeks now. It looked just like Max's hair had looked on the day she left Ella.

"Mom, what's for breakfast?" Ella called out, making her way down the hall out of her room and into the kitchen. "Mom?" When she got there, the kitchen was empty. "Mom!" Ella shouted, a little louder this time. She was beginning to get worried. If her mom wasn't awake by now, that could mean she was sick.

Ella ran down the opposite hall to her mom's room and flung the door open. "Mom, are you sick?" But this room was also empty. Ella searched every corner of the room, checking the closets and under the bed, but gave up and ran back down the hall. "Mom! Mom, where are you?"

The entire house was silent except for Ella's shouts. A cold December wind chilled the house as it blew in through the open door that Ella found a moment later. The back door was left open, which gave Ella's heart a jump at first, but then she thought of something. Of course! Mom said she'd have work to do outside in the morning!

Ella began to calm down as she threw her boots on and ran outside. "Mom, I'm awake!" she called. No response. "Mom!" She kept shouting as she circled the house, trudging through the light snow that had collected in the woods over the last week. Now she was becoming scared again as she stepped back into the house. She made sure to close the door behind her.

"Mom!" Ella choked down a sob as she ran to the stairwell that would take her into the cellar. But even the cellar was empty, save a few shelves of canned food and cobwebs. As she backed towards the stairs she noticed something she hadn't seen before. In one corner of the room, next to a shelf of canned beets, laid a small ornamental rug. The rug was angled just enough for Ella to see a hinge underneath it. She crept quietly towards the rug and pulled it aside, revealing a small trapdoor that had been opened recently.

Ella was about to reach for the handle of the door when a sound upstairs made her jump. It sounded like heavy footsteps. Scared out of her mind at this point, she grabbed the cordless phone on the wall of the cellar and snuck back up the stairs.

"Is she here?" Ella heard a man's voice ask.

There were a few more voices. "No, I haven't seen her. Or her daughter."

"The girl's not in her room?"

"I just checked and she's not in there."

"Well she could be somewhere else in the house! Check again!"

The voices, all male, murmured a bit, and then footsteps filled the rooms above Ella. Quietly she crept down and released the latch on the trapdoor, opening another stairwell that went even deeper into the cellar. The stairs had fresh footprints in the dust; making it even more obvious they had recently been used.

Ella couldn't see far beyond the first few steps, for there were no lights in the small tunnel, so she had no idea as to how far it went. Summoning up all her courage, the young girl made her way into the tunnel until she was surrounded by the darkness. Continuing downwards, she quickly turned the phone on and dialed 9-1-1.