The Outhouse

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” A noise came from down the hall. What was that? Nora thought. “AHHHHHHHHH!” The noise came once again. Nora jumped up from eating her late night snack and ran to the phone. She grabbed it and ducked into her favorite hiding spot, under the couch.
“Hello?” she said quietly into the speaker, “I can hear screams coming from my parents room, there is someone in our house please come qui-” the line dropped and the power was cut. Nora was shaking, her tan skin covered in goosebumps due to fear. Suddenly the front door burst open and the sound of heavy footsteps were heard through the house.
“POLICE COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!” Finally! A rush of safety and grief for her parents washed over Nora. 

She heard police chatter over the radio, “We got the perpetrator secured, we just need to find the girl.” The girl? What did they mean “the girl”? A second later she made the connection and crawled out from under the couch.
“I’M HERE!” she screamed, “I’M OKAY!” The police entered the room guns drawn and saw a little scrawny brunette kid looking at them saying, “Where’s mommy? Where's daddy?” Then out of the corner of her eye she saw someone else enter the room, a tall lady wearing all gray clothes.
“Hello…” she looked at a file she was holding in her hand, “Nora! I’m going to be your case worker, do you know what that means?” Nora shook her head to indicate she was saying no. “Well it means I’m going to help you find a new family to love you and take care of you!”
“Wait, but I have parents, why would I need new ones?”
“Well…” she hesitated for a moment then continued, “ your parents are no longer with us, so I’m here to take you away to a new home.” The woman stopped and waited for a reaction, any reaction out of the seemingly frozen girl. “I need to go to the bathroom, I’ll be right back.” Nora walked to the only bathroom in the house with a window in it and climbed out of the little house then ran into the woods. She ran around in circles for what felt like hours hearing screaming coming from all directions.
“Come on out Nora, we won’t hurt you” the voices said hauntingly, “we only want what’s best for you Nora, just come to us and we promise you’ll be okay!” they continued sinisterly. Nora looked back and continued running but she tripped on something and fell face first into the ground. Her nose began to bleed, but when she got up she saw something remarkable. An outhouse, in the middle of the woods? She thought. The voices sounded closer now, the monsters were coming to take her away from everything she loved. She ran to the outhouse and opened the door hoping for shelter but as she opened the door something flew out to greet her.
“NORA! You’re okay!” Screamed her mother, Jane’s spirit.
“MOM!” Nora screamed back. She ran to her parents' spirits and tried to hug them but fell through them instead forgetting for a moment that they were spirits. Nora started crying “how are you here?”

“I don’t know, we heard something calling us, when we went closer to the calling we were just here.” Nora’s father said confused.
“Who did you hear calling you?” Nora questioned.

“You!” her mother and father said at the same time. Nora looked at her parents' spirits for a second she forgot they weren’t alive anymore. Talking to them like this just felt so normal, but nothing could ever be normal again, especially not after discovering this!

“Mom, dad, are you going to have to leave me again?” Nora asked teary eyed.

“Yes, we have to, and you have to let go, let your heart find something or someone new,” her mother, Jane said, “promise me you won’t close yourself off, promise you won’t build up walls and barriers to protect yourself, because we will be with you protecting you even if we aren't alive.” 

“I promise mom…” The second Nora said that her parents' spirits started to fade into the darkness of the night, the thing holding them back was resolved. Nora seeing this shut down, she ran into the outhouse trying to figure out if she could make them come back out again, but it was no use. She sat down on the floor and balled up. She could hear the monsters' screams coming closer but she didn't care anymore, all she wanted was to see her parents again. Suddenly she heard a twig snap and leaves rustle outside the outhouse. Then the outhouse door opened, but this time it was not Nora nor her parents opening it, it was a monster, cold dead and here to drag her away from what was left of her old life. When the door opened she braced herself thinking she would be hit or grabbed and taken, but instead all she heard was

“Are you okay, Nora? You could've been hurt out here!” For a split second she was confused, the screams coming from the things she thought were monsters, were not screams, but people yelling her name to find her! Once she realized that, she opened her eyes, and instead of seeing a dark scary monster, all she saw was the woman in all gray, asking if she was alright. The monsters Nora had been running from had not been monsters at all, they were figments of her imagination, people who wanted to help her, and she ran away from them. She stood up and took the woman's hand, starting to accept her fate. As they walked with each other to the car, Nora asked if she could see her house that she had grown up in one last time. This time they went with her, to make sure she wouldn't run again. As soon as Nora’s foot touched the welcome mat in a now deserted house, memories came flooding back. She could almost hear her parents calling her for dinner, helping her with homework, and telling her that they would be right back from the store. A house once filled with beautiful memories of her and her parents and fun times, now brought back memories of their screams coming from the other room as she hid under the couch, hoping for anyone to save them. “Nora, it's time to go, we need to get your statement for the police, and find a place to put you.” said the woman in gray, interrupting Nora from her thoughts.

“Will I ever see it again, the house?” Nora interrupted. The woman in gray shrugged and took Nora’s hand. As they walked out of the house and into the car, Nora whispered one last goodbye, to her parents, to her house with all the memories, pleasant and not, and to her life, a life she will never know what it would be like fully lived, because she was moving on and leaving it behind.

                                               THE END