Stacey rode her bike along the path leading to Wisteria Lane. She had recently moved to the area because she had a fancy new job in an advertising firm. She was so happy. It had taken her a long time to get where she wanted because she had some difficulties with her mental health. Her new medication had changed her life completely. For the past 10 years, she hadn’t really lived. She had been coasting through life and forgotten what true happiness was. Of course, she had happy moments, but it wasn’t the same as being happy. A cloud had lifted from her since she started the new medication. She had begun to feel pure joy again. Something as simple as having coffee with the friends who had known her before she spiralled was a brand-new experience. She had more energy. Actually… her energy had changed. She was focussed, determined and had drive now. She had a purpose and she felt alive. There was no other way to describe it.
She unmounted her bike and walked it into the open garage. Her room mates didn’t seem to be back yet so she’d enjoy the solitude. She walked into the kitchen from the garage and poured some Oreo O’s cereal into her favourite bowl. She didn’t add milk – she preferred to eat it dry.
She called out to Alexa and asked her to play Honey by Kehlani. As Kehlani crooned ‘I like my girls just like I like my honey, sweet’ she danced with her bowl through the living room littering the Oreo O’s all over the floor in the process.
‘Crap!’ She’d have to clean that up before her room mates got back. She put down that delicious bowl of heaven and went to the cupboard where they kept the red Dyson. A quick zoom around the room and she’d collected all the cereal and other crumbs that had lain on the floor. She put the Dyson away and picked up her bowl and went up the stairs. She didn’t get her personal Echo to keep playing the song. Instead she put the bowl on her bed and looked around. She had a weird feeling, it was something she hadn’t felt for a really long time. She tried to place it. What was it that made her feel like this?
She had a ton of fears throughout her life but only two things made her skin crawl like this. Her fear had come about when at 17 she’d been in a car with her childhood sweetheart on Valentine’s Day and she was trying to tell him that she wanted to break up. At least for a little bit because she’d met someone else, someone unexpected and she felt like she was finally awake.
He didn’t take kindly to this and so tried to kill her by driving into a beautiful Willow tree. That tree wasn’t beautiful to her anymore and neither were the memories they had made prior to the incident. Unfortunately the impact from the steering column had killed him almost instantly, and if it hadn’t, the branch that went through his neck and severed his carotid artery definitely did. The gushing blood made the matching dolls sitting behind him look like a weird version of Chucky. Like a serial killer couple.
She shivered at the memory. The hair on the back of her neck was standing up and she had Goosebumps on her arm. She knew, she knew without seeing. She could feel its eyes watching her. Boring into her…. But where was it… Where did it come from?
