A girl was reading an educational textbook of hers in her room as she sat at a table. It was about 10pm. Her elder brother was fast asleep on her bed.
She turned, noticed him asleep on her bed and got up to go wake him up. She shook him for a while before he eventually woke up.
"You fell asleep in my room again", she complained, "Please go sleep in your room", she said to him.
He sighed and got out of her bed. He opened the door and left her room, going into his, locking it from inside.
The girl sat at the table again. "Urghh!", she groaned, resting her palms on her cheeks, "Nothing's getting into my head!" She flipped through the pages of the book.
"I think I should take the book down and ask my Dad to explain all these stuffs to me", she said to herself. She picked up her book and left her room to go meet her parents who were watching the TV downstairs.
As she headed for the stairs, the lights went off while she was still in the lobby. "Dad! There's no light up here. Could you come up with your torch?", she raised her voice.
She got surprised and horrified when she heard a growl behind her. She turned on her heels and noticed someone in the dark but could not see the person's face clearly.
"Bro! Don't think you can freak me out tonight", she muttered. Inside of her though, she was scared.
The person walked out of the darkness to reveal himself - It was Father Christmas. The girl's heart skipped a beat, taking some steps backwards.
"What do you want for Christmas?", he asked with a mischievous smile.
Overwhelmed with fear, she ran away and sprang down the stairs. When she got downstairs, she saw Father Christmas walking towards her slowly.
"Why are you haunting me? I didn't kill you", she cried literally, taking some steps backwards to the first step of the stairs. She sweated profusely, heart racing with fear.
"What do you want for Christmas?", Father Christmas asked again. He showed her his long sharp nails, looking like claws just before blood began gushing out of his chest. He went closer to the girl who then went up some extra steps.
"Please leave me alone!", she lamented. She ran out of ideas on how to escape but only gave out a great scream, hoping her hero was going to roll up.
"No one is going to hear you", Father Christmas said to her vaguely. He stood on the first step, gazing at her with a flat face.
"Please spare me!", she quickly ran up the stairs to escape. As she got to the top, Father Christmas appeared suddenly in front of her and immediately gripped pierced into her stomach with his nails. The girl gasped silently; he then pulled out his nails from her stomach and blood gushed out of it. He left her alone for her to roll down dead. The lights went back on as soon as she was gone.
The lights in the parlour where her parents were had never switched off - also in her brother's room. They never had an idea of what had been going on. Her parents were watching a reality show, her brother was snoring in his sleep.
* * *
The same night, Tricia was already getting prepared for her upcoming tour. She was neatly folding her clothes in a box, reluctantly though, with her Mum sitting right beside her on her bed.
Her Mum wanted assisting her in folding her clothes and keeping them in the box but she refused. "There's a way I'm folding and arranging them. You won't understand it", she told her Mum.
Mum got surprised by what she said, observing she wore a frown on her face. "Is it because of me not going to understand your folding technique or because you're not happy I told you to go for the tour?", she asked.
"I'm having a bad feeling about this tour...I don't know why", Tricia complained.
"There's someone killing students of your very own school. I want you to go away and stay safe please", Mum replied desperately.
"The unknown killer has been killing people in their homes. Don't you think he or she could know everything about the school, including the whereabouts of the tour?", she asked.
"There should be a tight security over there. Is it not the national park just here", Mum gestured, "You guys will surely be safe."
Tricia soughed and shook her head. "I don't just possess the spirit of having fun while at least a schoolmate is being killed brutally everyday. That's just me", she gestured.
"I'm not telling you to go there to have fun. I just want you to be out of this area and be safe from the ruthless killer", her Mum replied, "Please! Try and understand me Tricia", she pleaded. Tricia kept quiet, taking her Mum's advice into consideration.