The Rules Of A Blackout

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

During a blackout

#1. Do not rush for a flashlight or a candle. Just stay calm.

#2. You may feel like you're being watched. You are., but don't worry, they are not here to harm you. They just get a bit excited.

#3. Sometimes during a blackout, a single T.v will turn on. Shut it off immediately.

#4. You will often hear voices. If you focus onto them, you can make out what they are saying. Feel free to strike up a conversation if they seem friendly enough.

#5. Remember. Nothing will harm you during a blackout; unless you panic.

#6. This is always a good time to go outside and look at the stars. Do not try to look for constellations though. They are not the ones you know.

These words were written on an old piece of paper that hung in an old oak wooden frame just outside of the kitchen entrance that leads to the massive living room in my grandmother's house. It has been there for as long as I can remember. The old paper getting it's yellow colour from years of sunlight exposure, the words written in Latin; which of course I could read, my entire family on my dad's side can read Latin. It's a nice family trait; We learn Latin along side English as we grow up.

Although I've never know why the rules were there in the first place. I've never seen a blackout here at this house surprisingly, considering how old this house is. My grandma says that they happen all the time, but I still have yet to witness one. Whenever I ask my grandma or grandpa, (who sadly passed away when I was 12) they always said the same thing.

"You'll see one day." Grandma would say, while grandpa would pat my little head and ruffle my hair, a big smile gracing upon his lips. "Yeah," my grandpa would continue the sentence. " We wouldn't want to ruin the surprise now, would we?" Chucking at her husband, grandma would turn to me and say,

"Reading the rules again?"

Jumping at the sound of a voice, I quickly turn around, nearly knocking myself off balance. I look up at the one who I disrupted my thoughts only letting out a soft sigh of relief when I realized that it was my grandmother who had startled me out of my memories. I get ready to move my hands to start signing my answer, when she stops me by placing her pale, and slightly larger, hands around mine, pushing them back to the front of my chest.

"I know that look anywhere, you would always make it when you were deep in thought. Now," She pauses, turning her body away from me while her head still faced me."Lets go sit down and have some tea. I have a surprise for you." Her eyes light up with a mischievous glint among some other emotions. Shifting her hand so it's holding my wrist, she leads me towards the fireplace at the far end of the living room, where a teapot and glass cups are waiting for us. 'She always has tea prepared,' I silently chuckle at the though. 'Wouldn't be surprised of she can somehow see the future.' Grandma speaks again, knocking me out of my thought process again. "Sit down now dear."

Taking a seat on one of the ruby red pillows that are in front of the welcoming fire. Grandma takes a seat on the opposite side of the coffee table and pours the green tea into both cups, a small smile gracing upon her lips. A comfortable silence fills the room, as I relax and watch the fire moves gracefully within the faded red bricks. A comfortable silence lands upon us, until I feel a slight tap on my shoulder. once again knocking me out of my thoughts.

"I'm going to get something, ok?" She asks, a patient smile on her thin pale lips. Raising my thumb in a "Good" gesture, I take a sip of my tea as I watch Grandma smile and pat me on my head.

"Ok then, I'll be right back," She turns to walk away, but looks back, her bright electric blue eyes holding a playful tint in them. "Just don't drink all of the tea on me." I make a fake shocked face, earning a chuckle out of Grandma as she walks out of the living room and what I presume is to the second floor of the house, judging by the sound of her footsteps up the stairs.

Once again sitting in silence, I look around the living room, drinking in all of the familiar cracks, scrapes and scars that line faded red paint of the living room walls. Looking at one dent that's on the wall, I instinctively look down at the scar on my forearm. The long scar, that is a reminder of that day; a few years ago, i was about 7 when it happened. I was playing outside with my father, dad and grandpa. (Yes, I grew up with 2 Dads, well after my mother made it clear that she didn't want me. I was 3 when that happened.) We were playing with the wooden swords that grandpa made us out in the large backyard. I was running from my dad, when I tripped over the roots of the weeping willow that is in the backyard. As I fell, I reached out to grab a low hanging branch, but I cut my arm on it instead. My father got mad, and punched the wall. After that incident, I was in the hospital for about a weeks because the cut managed to get infected from the tree.

Shuttering at the memory, I bring my gaze from the scrape and continue to look around the room. Each dent and scratch tell a story of an adventure I've went on, which in turn, are what inspired me to become a writer.

My grandma would always jot down the main idea of my adventure with and when I was 14, she handed me a folder filled with papers with notes on them, and that day, I decided that I was going to become a writer, and I would one day publish these stories for the world to read, but i still have yet to publish my first book.

"Jewel," I heard my nickname being called, which snapped me back to reality. "I have to go out to your grandfather's storage unit. I can't seem to find the gift i was going to give you, so it has to be in there," she pauses again looking sternly into my soft grey eyes. "Will you be ok staying home alone for 2 or so hours? I don't want you to be lonely while I'm gone."

I nod my head and lift up my hands to 'speak'. "Yeah," I start signing."I'll be ok, I have Sly in the piano room if anything happens." I give grandma a closed eye smile, trying to convince her that I'll be fine while she's gone.

As if a lightbulb went off in her head she stated, "I'm grabbing Sly for you." And walked out of the living room and towards the piano room, coming back only moments later holding my silver snake friend Sly, in her arms. She makes her way over to me and hands Sly to me. "Here you go, now I'll be off. Don't burn down the house, don't die, and don't magically disappear into the T.V or something." She says the last part in a jokingly manner, but it seemed to have an eerie feeling hidden within the sentence, but I didn't pay attention to it.

"Okay, but no promises," I jokingly sign back, missing the words grandma said underneath her breath and the look in her eyes. She turns around, waving over her shoulder and saying a brief "Goodbye," before walking out of the house, slamming the front door behind her causing me to jump.

Now sitting in the silent house with Sly resting on my shoulders, I look around the living room once again, thoughts running through my mind as I stare mindlessly at the wall.

I snap back into reality and decide to turn on some music. Opening up my phone I open up the music app and go to one of my playlists and hit shuffle, letting the music flow through the quiet house.

I shift the pillow that I'm sitting on so it rests underneath my head, close my eyes, and laying on my back, making sure I avoid crushing Sly. A feeling of calmness washes over me as I'm slowly lulled to sleep. Suddenly, the heat is off making the living room very cold as it's the middle of winter. Confused, I open my eyes and notice the sudden quietness in the house.

I shut off my music and looked around. 'I know that the house was silent before,' I think to myself, 'but it's never been this quiet before. it's almost an eerily, start of a horror movie type of silence.' It was true, here has always been the buzzing of the fridge and the low him of the lights, the crackling of the fir-

'Oh my god, the fire is not electric, it's an actual wood fire.' I freeze in shock. How did I not realize this before? Why a shaky breath, I get up (making sure that Sly doesn't fall off my shoulders) and walk over to the sofa and grab the massive thick baby blue blanket and wrap myself in it. I proceed to sit down when I hear the loud noise of the T.V that's across the living room, turn on. Confused and scared, I curl farther into my blanket, and mentally prepare myself for what I'm about to do next.

I stand back up, being careful to not shove Sly off of his spot on my shoulders. Subconsciously, I find myself looking briefly at the old rules, quickly reading them over before I snap out of the trance and I look away. God how I wish I payed more attention to the rules.

I continue to make my way over to the T.v, I notice that it presented an odd channel, one I've never seen before, but I don't pay any mind to it. I need to focus on my goal. Get the T.V remote.

I start look for the remote, when I hear some voices speaking. I halt my actions; body starting to shake like an earthquake. Not bothering to listen to what the voices are saying due to frea, I attempt to calm down enough to start moving again, (with the help of Sly) I continue my mission. Looking for the T.V remote.

After about 5 minutes of moving in the darkness, running in to things, and more mysterious mumbling later, I find the remote and look up at the T.V to turn it off, only to be startled by a figure looking back at me.

The figure oddly looks like me, only they have blue eyes instead of grey, a black sweater rather than my yellow one, and black ripped jeans as opposed to my blue skinny jeans. The figure looks back at me, and reaches out towards the screen, a creepy grin across their face.

Not being able to react in time, the figure reaches their hand out of the screen, and grabs me. I violently start to shake the being off of me, scratching and clawing at the person's arm, but to no avail, I was pulled into the T.V.

Reaching to the other side, I feel myself falling through the air. Not having any time for my brain to react to what is happening, I get thrown violently onto the ground. I hear a few bones crack, and I scream out in pain, the feeling absolutely unbearable. The last thing i hear before I pass out is a voice.

"You have failed. You forgot the rules," the voice chuckles, making it clear that this was amusing to them. "You didn't follow the rules of a blackout and have fallen victim to my ways. Just like the others who had lived here. Don't you know that you should never ignore The Rules Of A Blackout?"

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\