Sarah

Seems like I have a habit of forgetting to write down my prompts at the time. Whatever it was, I think the writing turned out pretty nice, like a little horror story prologue (I'm a sucker for horror movies)

This is so stupid thought Toby.

Sure, he was the one who hit the ball through the window, but why couldn’t they just ring the doorbell and ask for it back? He could even apologize. But then again, they were just teenagers, aren’t teenagers supposed to do dumb things like this?

“Stupid” he repeated under his breath.

Having successfully climbed the fence, he now found himself in the neighbor’s backyard. Save the moon, there was little else that illuminated his surroundings.

“Agh goddamnit, didn’t even think of bringing a flashlight! Stupid! Stupid!”

It took him much longer than he would have liked, but he finally found the broken window. He tried to peer inside, but it was too dark to see anything. Fortunately, the hole was large and close enough to the lock that he could reach in and open it. After a minute of cautious fumbling, he heard a click.

“There we go.”

Very slowly, he swung open the window and eased himself inside the house. Blinking a few times, he allowed his eyes to adjust to the dark before resuming his search.

“Come on, where is it? It couldn’t have rolled that far…”

He tried to picture the trajectory in his mind and, after 23 steps, he found the ball resting at the bottom of the stairs.

“Yes!”

He quickly bent down and retrieved it, holding it tight as if it might try to escape.

Okay he thought. Now I just gotta get of here and-

“What are you doing here?”

“Arghomygod!!” Toby half-screamed. Looking up, he found himself face to face with a little girl.

Whew, it was just the neighbor’s creepy adopted daughter.

“Hey there…” Toby started. He tried to think of some excuse for him being there, but his mind came up blank. So instead, he changed tactics.

“Hi, my name’s Toby. What’s yours?”

The little girl stared at him with pretentious black, dead eyes.

“I have many names. But you can call me Sarah.”

That’s a weird response he thought, but decided to let it slide.

“Okay then…Nice to meet you Sarah.”