Humble Beginnings

Beep beep… Beep beep… Beep beep!

"Ugh… Five more minutes…" A slender pale hand slides out from a mess of covers, video-game plushies and pillows and groggily flails around a bedside cabinet for a few seconds before finally finding the snooze button for the currently screeching alarm and slinking back to the cavern it appeared from, the person inside rolling over back to sleep.

The person currently wrapped up within like a muddled tortilla is Khloe McCain, a young Scottish woman fresh out of college and currently working as a barista for a quiet, out of the way café. Oh, speaking of her work-

"FUUUUUUUUUCK! AH'M GONNA BE LATE!" Khloe leaps out of the bed in a panicked frenzy as she speeds around her small home desperately trying to get ready. She grabs her neatly ironed uniform she left in the living-room and shoots off to her room to get dressed. Once she has her uniform on (a white blouse and black jeans with black heeled boots) she then snatches her make-up bag from her bedside cabinet and bolts off to a nearby, body length mirror to neaten herself up.

Khloe's about as attractive as your average young adult, she has long, thick red hair with orange ends which she often ties up in a high ponytail. Her skin is rather pale (but not sickly pale) with freckles splattered all over her face and shoulders. The most notable feature of Khloe's face are three particularly large freckles on the left side of her face in a diagonal line towards her ice-blue eyes. She's about average height (5 ft 5- 5 ft 6) with a curvy build (of which she is particularly proud, although she does wish she could be a little bit taller).

Khloe opts to simply put on a little bit of eyeliner and lipstick and ties her hair into a neat side-plait. Whatever doesn't make her look like a raccoon that temporarily assumed human form before rummaging through all the wheely bins on her side of Scotland. Not pretty just… Not that. Once she's content Khloe quickly grabs her workbag (thank God she packed it last night!) and her car keys before zooming out of the house, obviously locking the door behind her… Or did she? Yes, definitely yes. Wait… Damn. Khloe quickly shuffles back to the door and tugs on the door handle three times to make sure it's locked before speeding off again towards her car. If only she wasn't so worried about timekeeping, then she might have realised that she left her phone charging in her room and had not put it in her jean pocket. Ah well, she wasn't allowed to use it anyway.

Surprisingly, Khloe gets only a stern look from her manager when she arrives about 10 minutes late before she quickly dons on her apron and gets to work serving food and drink. The day is rather uneventful, for once no middle-aged men have mistaken the young lass' politeness for flirting, which is always a bonus in Khloe's books. There was one woman though who was complaining that there wasn't enough sugar in her coffee (even though Khloe had put in the three spoons she requested) and she had demanded a fresh cup, to which Khloe responded by smiling, nodding and taking the cup through to the kitchen. She shook a couple of plates around before making her way over to a worktop that was just in view of the customer and pretending to stir in 'extra' sugar before presenting the coffee back to the customer, who scornfully took a sip before smiling smugly.

"Perfect, precisely how I wanted it. That wasn't so hard, was it?"

"Not at all ma'am, sorry. Enjoy yer coffee!" She beamed back through gritted teeth.

'God just lemme vanish somewhere where all the Karen's cannae get me. That or at least lemme deck one o' them with a cafetiere. That'd be funny. At least Ah'm off for the weekend, that should be a nice break.'

The rest of Khloe's shift was quiet, so she got to spend it chatting with her co-workers about general things like shows, music, where people were thinking of spending their summer holidays and other small talk. After what felt like forever, Khloe's shift was finally over. She gave the shop a thorough check to make sure that it was clean and presentable for tomorrow before she waved her work friends goodbye and got in her car.

"Drive safe, Khloe! We'll miss you!"

"I'm comin' back after the weekend ya numpties, I'm hardly off to join the navy." Khloe joked as she rolled up her car window and drove home, turning the radio on for background noise.

Nothing noteworthy was happening in the news, some gibberish about the economy and some minor breakthroughs to do with making tiles out of terracotta clay which encourages coral reef growth. What Khloe was interested to hear about is the light show that had been going off in a park near her home for the past month or so. It was always reported the same, the person would see pale blue light seemingly from the centre of the park, they'd go to investigate and then they would either never come back or come back a few days later screaming about monsters in the park staff hut. The tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists believe that it's finally proof of aliens, which Khloe didn't buy for a second. After all, why would intelligent life forms from another planet choose a rubbish filled, chav ridden park in a dingy Scottish town where you're likely to be stabbed over 20p over somewhere interesting like Area 51 (if it exists)? People with common sense think that it might just be a trick the local gang are using to rob to their victims and keep them quiet, while others think it might be a demented serial killer group. Whatever the explanation, Khloe knew that until this whole mess was sorted, she wasn't going anywhere near the park. No ifs, ands or buts. This meant she had to drive for 15 minutes to the local supermarket to sate her cravings for energy drink but hey, better than going missing to either jakeys, robbers, or aliens.

Khloe's car came to a stop by a set of red traffic lights just across from the park, and she kind of spaced out while staring at the park.

'Kinda terrifying. This death trap is 5 minutes away from mah house. Has anybody even tried lookin' for the missin' people or is everyone too scared in case they're next? Ah think Ah saw the police investigatin' the other day, but surely then somethin' would have come up on the news. Ah wonder why the lights are on in the wee maintenance hut? Nobody ever goes in anymore. Whoever's workin' right now must be ballsy as fuck.'

Khloe's train of thought was abruptly cut off by a car horn honking angrily behind her. The light turned green five minutes ago and was now flashing amber. It was cheeky of her, but Khloe quickly drove through the amber light before it turned red, leaving driver behind her furiously spitting and screaming obscenities stuck there waiting again. Oops.

She had locked the car and was making her way towards her front door when her mind drifted back to the park. It was really weird, seeing the hut lights on. Normally the staff were well on their way home by that point, but I guess overtime can apply to all jobs, even creepy murder-robbery parks. Khloe couldn't stop thinking about how pitch-black treeline surrounding the hut was light up with a soft, pale-blue glow. Khloe stopped and straightened up.

'Soft…pale blue light. From the murder hut. That glows blue before people go missing. Ah just saw that driving home. Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!'

Khloe scrambled to get her house keys out of her back and fumbled trying to get the right key into the lock of her house and tried to turn it, but the stubborn thing wouldn't turn, no matter how hard Khloe tried.

'FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, YER GONNA DO THIS SHIT NOW?! THE ONE TIME AH NEED IN AN' SOMEONE COULD DIE AND YER GONNA DO THIS NOW?! God, I need to get this bloody lock fixed!'

Out of frustration Khloe angrily slammed the door handle down…

…The door silently swung right open.

Initially, Khloe was fuming with how dumb she was. Of course the key wasn't turning, the door was unlocked! It had been the whole time! Khloe face-palmed at her own foolishness and sighed heavily before walking inside, closing the door behind her. What a bloody day. She dumped her work bag at the door and quickly made her way to where she left her phone when she froze, her blood turning cold.

'Wait…The door was unlocked? How? Ah did the three-time jiggle thingy! It was definitely locked!'

She made her way back to the front door to inspect it, as well as grab the golf club she kept hidden behind all her shoes. Just in case. The door didn't look any different whatsoever, it had no cracks in it or any other sign of damage that would indicate that someone has forced their way in, and upon a quick scan of the house (all while brandishing her trusty golf club) nothing seemed to be missing. Everything was exactly how Khloe had left it, right down to her bedroom being a total bombsite. Khloe let out a deep breath, relaxing her shoulders a little as she did.

'Huh. Ah guess the door wasnae locked. Maybe the handle was stuck? It does get stiff when it's cold, and last night was baltic…' Khloe shrugged and put the golf club back where she initially had it hidden then made her way into her bedroom, closing the door over behind her. She unplugged her phone from its charger and was about to phone for the police when heard a familiar creak behind her. The sound of her bedroom door swinging open. Khloe was about to turn around and scream when something solid hit her on the back of her head, causing her to fall to the ground. Khloe could feel something warm and wet on the back of head, which was starting to pool around her and her vision was going dark and blurry. She tried to shout for someone, a neighbour, a random passer-by, anyone, but all that came out of her was a pained groan.

Just before she blacked out, Khloe saw her golf club, now covered in blood, drop to the ground next to her, and a deep voice calling out to whoever else was hiding in the house.

"Grab her. Last thing we need around here is witnesses. 'Sides, it'd help to have a pretty little hostage to push things along, baby."

Anything else said became muffled, and everything around Khloe went pitch black.