Elise played with her straw in silence as both her and her father waited for their food to arrive when Harold cleared his throat.
"So, what did you do today?" he asked.
Elise looked up at her father and shrugged her shoulders "Nothing." She said.
Harold nodded "Well maybe you should start. I know you can't drive, but town isn't that far away." He told her.
Elise sighed "Dad, I know."
"You need to make friends! I feel guilty leaving you alone in the house for hours at a time." Harold confessed to her.
"Dad, I know. But I feel like I need the quiet right now. I'll get out there; I'm just not ready yet." Elise said, taking a sip of her drink.
Harold sat back in his seat as Elise smiled at her father "Don't worry about me dad." She muttered.
"How can I not? You've just developed a seizure disorder." He told her.
Elise smiled softly "But I'm on medications…and I haven't had once since that night." She told him.
Harold nodded in agreement, but he couldn't shake his worrying father ways as he looked at Elise "…maybe you could start taking classes at the college!" he suggested.
"No way in hell dad." She said, shooting down his idea.
A tree branch scratched her window as the crackling sound of thunder woke Elise from her sleep.
Elise groaned as she stretched in her bed, looking at her window to see the brightness of the lightening that showed the shadow of the tree.
She sat up in her bed, knowing that she'd never get back to sleep as she grabbed her favorite cardigan from her chair and wrapped it around her as she got out of bed and walked out into the hallway.
Elise let one yawn out as she stood in the middle of the hallway; she felt a cold chill surrounding her through her cardigan as she walked towards the stairs.
She looked down the stairs as the lightening brightened the first floor, Elise contemplated if going downstairs for a drink or to watch television was worth it when she felt a breeze across her back.
Elise turned her head slowly before turning her body where she found a creature stranding in front of her.
She gasped, holding onto the railing as the being stood in front of her with a triangle face, empty eye sockets, no mouth, and greasy looking hair; she couldn't move as she stood eye to eye with the deity.
It grabbed her arm roughly, almost taunting her as she tried to pull away from it's terrifying grasp before it finally let go and she fell back onto the stairs.
The creature was the last thing she remembered seeing as she toppled down the stairs, hitting every stair on the way before becoming unconscious.
She awoke on the couch with two paramedics kneeling in front of her with Harold behind them watching her closely.
Her head throbbed with pain as she reached out to push her hand up against the pain when a paramedic took her arm and rested it back down on her side.
"Elise?" she heard in a foggy manner as she began to fight her grogginess.
"Elise?" she heard again, but this time slightly clearer.
She hummed; blinking her eyes when everything was finally clear "Elise?" the paramedic asked as she finally became fully conscious.
Elise turned to the paramedic who grabbed a small flash light from his pocket and tested her pupils before looked at her once again.
"Do you feel nauseated?" he asked.
Elise shook her head "No." she said.
"Any severe pain anywhere?" he asked.
"No." she said once again.
The paramedics backed away slowly while Elise slowly sat up on the couch and looked around the house to find paramedics everything.
"What happened?" she muttered.
Harold sat next to his daughter "You fell down a flight of stairs and hit your head." He told her.
Elise turned to the stairs, pieces of a memory coming back to her as a loud rumble of thunder accompanied the thoughts of the strange creature standing behind her before it pushed her down the stairs.
She sat up quickly in the couch "I feel fine! I'm really tired…you should go." She said, trying to push herself off the couch.
The paramedics looked at each other before turning to Elise "You're sure?"
Elise nodded "Yeah. Please, go!" she said, slowly getting off the couch and attempting to gain her balance.
The paramedics packed up and quickly left, leaving Harold and Elise alone in the house once again; Harold glared at his daughter who huffed "What?"
"This is all seeming like it's more trouble than it's worth!" Harold proclaimed.
Elise rolled her eyes "I tripped! Easy as that! I woke up from the storm, decided to get a glass of water and since I'm not use to going down such steep stairs in the middle of the night, I slipped!" she remarked.
Harold scuffed "You couldn't use the tap water in your bathroom!?" he asked.
Elise hummed, rubbing her eyes "Y'know what dad, I don't want to have this conversation anymore. I just want to try and go back to bed." She said.
Elise made her way up the stairs; she pulled the sleeves of her cardigan to find a hand shaped bruise on her left arm.
She muttered a curse to herself before hiding the bruise back under her cardigan sleeve before climbing back upstairs and into her bedroom.
She dialed the number to the Sherriff's office, she listened to the tone go on for a moment before somebody finally picked up.
"Nassau County Sherriff's Office." The voice said.
Elise cleared her throat "Hi, yes, is Deputy Olsen there?" she asked.
"I'm sorry, he's no in the office right now. Is there something I could help you with?" the voice asked again.
She huffed "Is there any way to reach him?" she asked.
The voice hummed for a second "I could page him for you. Can I have your name and number?" the voice asked.
Elise gave the information then hung up, staring at the phone for what felt like an eternity before her cell phone finally rang; she wasted no time answering the phone.
"Hello?" she asked in a hurry.
"What's going on?" Deputy Olsen asked.
Elise sighed "You should probably come over immediately." She said.
"Well, I'm in the middle of something." He told her.
Elise rolled her eyes, biting her lip and thinking for a moment "Fine, I'll come to you. Where are you?" she asked.
The deputy tried to silence a chuckle, but Elise could hear as he finally calmed down "I'm downtown, dealing with some type of domestic dispute." He said.
She didn't waste any time as she hung up her phone, grabbed her purse and walked out of her bedroom where she rushed towards the entrance.
Elise put on her shoes in a hurry, not listening to her surroundings when her father walked out of the living room.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"Out." She said.
"Well you can't drive!" he told her.
Elise put on her other shoe and glared at her father "I'm not taking the car. I'm going out." She said before storming out of the house with her purse in one hand and her coat in the other.
She had to get to the deputy, she couldn't wait for him.