It's solidly dark at a little past 6:00 pm. If there is any remaining sunlight, it's shut out by the trees overhead. Despite the gravel and dried leaved that crunch under her boots, her footsteps are quite. The air around her is heavy. She readjusts the bags as they begin to slip off her arm, her feet move at a slow waddling pace. In one fell swoop a cold bead of water falls on her nose from the sky. She looks up and hears fat raindrops begin to pour around her. The appalling weather has returned. Rain instantly begins to pound down in dense sheets, soaking through her sweater, matting down her hair. Mai quickens to a slow run, being weighed down by her groceries. The rain continues, Mai reaches the clearing breathlessly. With a last determined push, she sprints to the porch.
All the bags fall out of her hands and onto the wooden surface. The young lady leans against the house to catch her breath.
INHALE, exhale… INHALE, exhale… INHALE, exhale…. Inhale…
"CRACK!" Thunder and lightning erupted from the sky. Mai jumps out of her skin, and gives a harsh gasp.
What in the hell? We never get thunderstorms this late in the year!
A brisk wind howls through the covered porch. Mai's heart beat is rapid and slightly uneven; she digs around in her pocket for the keys.
Come on where are you? It's cold as balls out here.
"BOOOOM!" another burst of thunder and lightning, this time closer than before. Again she jumps and her heart rate quickens. The tip of her finger grazes the key.
"Gotcha' you little sucker!" Mai pulls the set out of her pocket, shakily unlocking the door.
More wind rages through, nearly blowing away the bags at her feet. Finally she swings the door open. Wet boots squeak against the tile as the grocery bags get drug into a pitch black entranceway. Another gush of wind heaves the front door back 180 degrees. The loud slam instantly tells Mai that it's cracked the siding; the difficulty of pulling it back confirms that it's lodged in the side of the house. After fighting with it for a few minutes, she reclaims her front door and pulls it closed with an aggressive slam.
The house is dark. The world outside is dark. Lightning strikes across the sky, brightening the room for a mere second, enough time for Mai to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Soaked, she is completely and utterly soaked. Drips of water roll off her. A sudden burst of rage and frustration sweeps over her and she falls to the floor. For a long time she lays there. She does not move she does not speak; she spreads out on the linoleum floor and absorbs the darkness. Rain continues to pound on the house, wind keeps howling, the shutters rattle and shake, lightning strikes, with thunder not two seconds behind. She does not move she does not speak.
Home. Home alone. Glad to be home...
The rain finally starts to slow after twenty minutes or so. Mai is a little less soaked, but cold. It occurs to her that the house is freezing. A fire should be built. She stands up. As cold and wet as she is, she should put away the groceries she'd just purchased. After all that just happened, she'd be damned if she let the food go to waste. Feet shuffle into the kitchen; her hand feels around for the switch on the wall and flips in on. Light is a little blinding after she had become accustom to the blackness. The milk gets slid onto the refrigerator shelf, the eggs find their way to the door, and all the other perishable foods snuggle into their chilly home inside the icy vessel. She'll put away what's left in the bags tomorrow. All she wants now is something hot to drink.
She starts making a pot of decaf coffee; four scoops of ground beans for extra strength. She likes her coffee strong, with a kick. Mai leaves the coffee to brew. Maneuvering in the dark house is not a problem. She steps out of the kitchen, into the small entranceway, turning left down the hall and into the large living room. Without turning on another light, Mai stacks a few logs in the fireplace, sets up some kindling and lights a match. The soft orangey glow of fire radiates throughout the room.
The living room resembles any other farmhouse living room. Wood floors that match the kitchen, aged wallpaper that had been painted various colors throughout the years, a stone fireplace on the back wall of the house. But it has it's "hunter" touches. A large devil's trap painted on the ceiling, salt that lined the windowsills, a few bottles of holy water in the corner. The furniture is older, but taken care of. A couch faces the fireplace, accompanied by a few large and quite comfortable chairs. A bookshelf leans against the wall, covered in photo frames. Mai stares thoughtlessly at the smiling faces across the room from her.
They cannot be seen clearly from that distance with such poor lighting, but Mai knows the contents of the pictures. A once happy, atypical little family; Dean, Sam, Bobby, and herself as a little girl. One picture shows them at the park, a few are from her birthdays; one of Dean building her a treehouse which still stands to this day, another of Sam carrying her on his tall shoulders. A large photo, taken in front of the house, is of both boys chasing her playfully while Mai smiles ear to ear trying to get away before they tag her. In a little frame is a Polaroid of the side of Dean's face as he drives in the Impala. Mai had taken that photo herself the first time she was allowed to sit in the front of the car.
The coffee pot lets off a high pitched alert that it is done. Mai walks over to the bathroom door. The downstairs bathroom is perfectly square and sits in the center of the house, connecting the living room to the kitchen. She unnecessarily closes the door behind her; a force of habit more than an act of privacy. The light is clicked on, a towel is grabbed off of the stand, and her wet clothes fall to the floor. She wraps one larger towel around her body and rubs her hair with a smaller one. She lacks a hairbrush in this bathroom; she mostly uses the one upstairs. With messy hair and wearing nothing but a towel she enters the kitchen and pours herself a cup of Joe. Black, she takes her coffee black.
The girl sips the liquid magic, making her way up the stairs. Each step screamed with the creaks and moans of old floor boards. Her room sits directly at the top of the stairs, in the southwest corner of the house. Readjusting her sliding towel, she opens the door and again maneuvers around without turning on the light. She places her coffee mug on the dresser to the right of the doorway as she snags a pair of underwear from the top drawer, a tank top from the second, and some excessively short shorts from the third. Her usual around the house attire.
She stands in the dark corner of the room, about to put on her "loungewear" when she's stopped by a susurrus in the room. A silent whisper, or shift in the air, she can't tell what exactly, but it feels like something isn't right. Almost as if an invisible force is hovering over her left shoulder. Mai shakes off a chill, which rolls down her spine at the thought.
It's just cold up here. None the less she goes over to the light to settle her uneasiness.
"Uneasiness" that isn't really anything, right? Just illuminating the room to play it super safe. It's more than likely nothing. She lives in a safe house, a total and complete safe house, with an internally locked panic room in the basement, devil's traps everywhere, heck there's even an iron track buried in the yard encircling the house. Bobby himself came up to everything-proof the place when they first got it. There is no reason to feel anxious.
Mai switches on the lamp and closes her eyes as she turns around. With a deep breath she opens them. …Nothing. A beautiful amount of nothing is in her room. She feels ridiculous for being nervous.
I'm safe here. Sam and Dean made sure of that.
She breathes out the breath she has been holding in and then spins around on her heels and steps toward her clothes. She never gets to her clothes. There is a body in the way. A tall, lean, muscular body of a man who's chin is not an inch from her face. Her heart pounds and she looks up at him; dark hair i all she can make out through her petrifying fear.
"…Hel-OW!" the man says as Mai thrusts the palm of her hand upward and smashes his nose with a crack.
He tumbles back a little but remains standing, blocking the door and holding his nose as is begins gushing blood. He starts to say something, but fumbles around for words, not that Mai can actually hear him. She's in panic and wastes no time diving for the door elbowing the stranger in the side as she charges. This officially knocks him to the ground with a moan; out of the way. She makes a run for it; down the stairs, to the basement, still in her towel, screaming the entire way.