Their voice was muffled by the rain. I couldn't hear what they said. I couldn't see anybody either.
I heard another muffled voice. This time, I could tell that they were female, as the voice sounded closer than before. I looked around and I saw silhouettes of a dog and a rabbit in the distance, walking together underneath an umbrella.
"You probably should've looked at the weather today," the rabbit said.
"I didn't know we would be out this late," the dog said.
"Hey look, there's someone in the distance."
They saw me. They then started running towards me, like I was in a horror movie.
"Do you need any help?" the rabbit asked.
Once they were close enough, I noticed how... strange they looked. The dog was all wrapped up in bandages, with a yellow eye peeking out. The rabbit was normal, except for its face.
The eyes and mouth were hollow.
They finally caught up to me after a few seconds and introduced themselves.
"Wow, you must be new here!" the dog said excitedly, "I'm Lucky."
"And I'm Coco," the rabbit said quietly.
I recognized those names and I realized that they were my neighbors, along with Whitney.
"I'm Riley," I responded, "Good to meet you two."
The rain was starting to get worse after dying down a bit. I needed to get indoors. It reminded me of a one of my oldest memories. Sam and Anthony were walking me home from preschool when it started to pour down rain. Instead of going inside, my brothers started to collect rain water with their bottles. They even lent me one and I started to collect the rain. When we got home, my mom put the bottles in the freezer turned them into ice cubes. She then started to make her homemade smoothies, which I loved.
"We should go to my place," Coco said. We then walked to her place together, all underneath one umbrella. One we got to her place, Lucky went inside.
"You can come in, too," Coco said to me. I wondered if I should. I hadn't even been in my own house yet.
"Sure," I replied.
I walked in her house and I immediately fell in love with it. The furniture was all mostly homemade, with books everywhere. Despite that, everything was neatly organized. I couldn't even find any dust!
"We should set up a fort!" Lucky shouted. Coco giggled.
"I guess I'll go get some blankets and pillows," she said. She then went upstairs to her bedroom.
While we were waiting for her, Lucky started a conversation with me.
"Do you think Redwood is pretty?" he asked.
"I think it is very pretty," I responded, "I love natural-looking towns. It's why I moved here."
Coco came back downstairs with pillows and blankets a few seconds later.
"Yay!" Lucky shouted, "Let's build a fort now!"
It took us about ten to fifteen minutes to build a fort. We also put the TV underneath it so we could watch a movie together. When it was done, I realized that the blankets and pillows were all knitted by hand.
"I'm proud of this," Coco said to us.
"Me too," Lucky said, "Let's go inside now!"
We went inside the cozy fort and turned on the TV. There were a lot of movies on, so it was hard to choose.
"Let's watch this one," Lucky said while pointing at a movie called "The Dog Next Door".
"That's a horror movie," I pointed out.
"Nevermind," he said.
"What about this one?" Coco asked while pointing at a movie called "The Survival Games".
"That has a lot of blood," Lucky said with fear in his voice.
"That doesn't mean anything compared to The Dog Next Door," I responded.
"Let's just watch it," Coco interrupted, "It's getting late."
She turned on the movie and we had only missed the first minute, which was good. After about 30 minutes or so, it goes on a commercial break.
"What do you think of it now, Lucky?" Coco asked sarcastically.
"Not as scary as I thought," he replied, "What about you, Riley?"
"I like it," I responded. All of this reminded me of when me, Sam, and Anthony would build a fort and watch movies underneath it. I was too little to make a lot of decisions, so I would always end up watching what they wanted to watch, but I didn't mind. They did get into trouble once, though, when Mom walked in and saw us watching a horror movie.
While we were talking about how good the movie was so far, a music video came on. It wasn't a big deal, since this channel does that during commercial breaks, but that's when I realized how creepy the K.K. Dirge music video was.
"This is creepy," Lucky trembled.
I look over at Coco and, despite her hollow eyes, she looked like she was about to cry.
"Are you okay?" I asked her. She turned around and looked at me.
"I'm fine," she replied quietly, "It's just that the meaning of this music video is saddening for me."
The music video finishes and we go back to watching the movie for the rest of the night.