I couldn't believe what I was seeing. "What could be even worse than this horrible cold?" Mom said, sneezing a few times. Her eyes widened the moment she saw it. She opened her mouth, but all she could say was "HUH"
The walls of the living room were smeared in red paint; all over the tables, chairs, and even the floor, there were drippings. I could see that the markings had been done a while ago since the colors had somewhat faded or acquired a certain maroonish color. There were so many things all over the house that I felt the world fall apart.
The wall we were facing with the door had a weird swirl with the end line shaped like a beak.
"What does that mean?" Kiara asked, pointing at the wall.
I didn't say anything; I felt my throat itch again. I didn't want to scare my sister, so I refused to say it. The attention was soon turned to the symbols, which were etched in the fur and smeared on the floors. It looked like a ritual was already being held here.
"Why is this so creepy?" Kiara clutched my hand. "It's probably a prank." I said, my hair standing next to each of the symbols. "What happened here?" my dad asked, analyzing the symbols.
"It's the symbol of greed." Kiara touched the symbol that looked like an eye with a triangle in between. I inspected it, and even though I didn't know much about cults and medieval symbols, it looked like something greed would be represented by.
"Really?" I asked, amused. Of course, how did I not see that earlier??
"I read it online. I thought it was a fake post, but seeing it here, drawn with such intensity, I wonder who would do such a thing." She scratched her head. She seemed mature when she made up a whole sentence and used big words like 'intensity'and 'wonder'.
"Who would do this?" Ki asked in horror.
"Moreover, why?"
"Why else? they hate this house and want to ruin it. Or scare us away. Didn't you see the whole town chasing after us because we bought a house for cheap?" I scoffed. .
"Someone get me a bucket and some soap; I'm not going to let our new house be ruined by a hater!" Mom snatched dad's handkerchief and started rubbing it off. "Oof, it's so dry, I could just pick the remains off with my nails." She joked. "Kids, grab something to clean and help me scrub this off!" she commanded.
"But how? Our stuff is still with the movers, and we can't really buy anything now."
"Yeah, hun, can we just call it a day and take care of this when we install some radiators, or at least people who can help us?" dad yawned. He drove us from our old town to this house for five hours. I completely understood how hard it was.
"No! We are finishing this today! Whether you like it or not!" she exclaimed. We obliged and grabbed random things from the house or from the car. Dad had an old microfiber cloth used to clean the car; Kiara had one of her old teddy bears and used it; and I had a kitchen scrub from the kitchen. It looked old, but fairly untouched. It was like the only unsued thing in the house. It also proves that someone used to live here, and maybe they died because the house had something to do with it.
"Don't you feel that something is really off?" Dad asked, scrubbing off the symbol of greed.