It's warm.
It's comfortable.
It put me at ease.
I felt at home.
Like a boat lost at sea had returned to its dock.
Like a sailor on a voyage found his way home to his family.
At least until that feeling was interrupted by a certain question that left me puzzled.
"Daddy, where's mommy hiding?"
Eh?
I can assure you, that would be the natural single word response any male bachelor, presently not dating anyone would utter in this situation.
"Daddy? Daddy?"
I looked down at my chest towards the origin of the speaker. I immediately found a pair of innocent looking eyes peering up at me. Yes, the speaker I spoke of was this adorable girl who stared at me with her purely inquisitive little eyes.
Daughter? Mine? Nah, couldn't be. Last time I checked, I definitely did not have children.
Who's the mommy though?
"Let's go look for your mommy." Since I didn't want to shatter a cute little girl's image of me as a father figure, I couldn't outright deny her request for attention.
"Yay!"
I also couldn't say no to her pure little eyes which implored me to dote on her.
She latched onto my hand and dragged me off of the couch. She merrily skipped away with a spring in each step while she simultaneously let out a happy melodic hum. When I looked around more closely, I remembered where I was. It was definitely Val's house. Did she actually have a daughter? This little girl really did resemble her though. The thought of it left me with a somewhat bitter smile on my face. Did she have a kid with someone else already? Was she actually secretly a widow or something?
We ventured through the living room and kitchen as on the way to the staircase that led upstairs. The floorboards were as squeaky as when I first entered and the stairs were by no means an exception, if not much worse.
"Where are we searching first?"
"Daddy is silly, naturally the bedroom would be the first place to check for mommy."
Eh? Isn't that a bit risqué?
"I don't think it would be a good idea for me to enter there. Your mommy will probably get angry with me."
"Why would mommy get mad at daddy?"
"It's too complicated for children to understand."
"But daddy is daddy and mommy is mommy. "
"When you're older you'll understand."
With her adorable head slightly lowered, I couldn't hold back from patting her on the head. Cute things were cute after all.
"Daddy, I'll search in mommy's room. You search the study room at the end of the hallway."
"Okay."
I followed the little girl's instructions and approached the room she'd pointed towards at the end of the corridor. The closer I got, the colder I felt; by the time I reached the door at the end of the hallway, I found I was actually freezing.
My first assumption was Val just liked to keep the air conditioning on max in the room. Maybe she kept stuff in her study that needed to stay cold. I figured I'd search the room quickly to satisfy the little girl who called me daddy then immediately leave.
I extended my hand in the direction of the door knob with the intention of opening the door, but the moment my hand came into contact with the door knob a terrifying shiver went down my back. It was far colder than I'd expected and I was chilled all the way to my core. If I was to give a comparison, it was on the level of licking a pole in winter and your tongue getting stuck to it. For such a run down looking building, wasn't the air conditioning way too strong?
Despite my stray thoughts, I still turned the knob, pushed the door open and found my boss seated on a chair in front of her desk with the back of the chair faced in the door's direction. All I could see peeking out over the chair's backing was the back of her head angled downwards seemingly engrossed in her work. It appeared she'd been diligently working rather than playing hide and seek with her daughter like the daughter had led me to believe.
"You're really quite the hard worker for someone whose daughter thinks she's playing hide and seek with you."
"..."
There was no response. Only an eerie silence returned my abrupt query directed at her. She didn't even flinch or react in the slightest to my words. Like she were frozen in time.
"Hey Val? Can you hear me? Actually, as curious as I might be about your daughter, what was with last night? What was your real reason for putting sleeping pills in my drink without my permission? You really didn't do anything weird to me last night, right?"
"..."
Still no answer. I only realized it now, but the room was fairly dark, the only light in her study came from the dimmed lamp on her desk. I approached closer under the assumption that she might have dozed off while working. My first thought when I saw her in such a defenseless state was to give her a bit of a scare when she woke up as payback for sneaking sleeping pills into my drink.
It was only when I was directly behind her chair that I felt a strange sensation at my foot. It became apparent to me immediately, I'd stepped into a cold viscous liquid that soaked into my socks. Did she spill a drink when she was sleeping, or did I just get punked? Ugh, this better not be anything overly gross.
"Val, were you not saying anything so you could play a prank on me or something?"
"..."
Once again, my questions fell on deaf ears, all that was returned to me was the deathly silence that pervaded the room.
Being this close to her, I grew more and more unsettled by the lack of any sort of response. Despite the unsettled feeling I had, it didn't stop me from plotting against her. The best I could think of was to jump scare her when she woke up as a cheap form of payback for last night. It was childish, but I couldn't get too crazy with payback when I took into consideration that she was my boss.
I placed my hand on the back of the chair and rotated it slowly in my direction. My idea was simplistic, to scream loudly in her ear to get her to jump out of her chair in fright and snap a memorable picture.
But the moment I saw her on the chair, my heart completely stopped. My field of view shrank into tunnel vision. In my state of disbelief and shock, my legs gave out; when I tried to stabilize my body from the momentary weakness in my legs, I stumbled to the side and dragged the lamp on the desk with me during my fall. With abject horror, I stared into Val's lifeless eyes.
Her face was pale and there were drops of blood splattered on her cheek. That was all I could describe as everything below her head was gone. The only thing below where her body should've been, was a rod skewered threw her esophageal tract, duct taped to the back of the chair. Crimson blood had splattered all across the seat and backing of the chair, it painted a truly a gruesome vomit inducing picture that left me pale faced as all the blood completely drained from my face.