Day 275

She used to have imaginary friends, just like anyone else.
Only when she told people about them they got... worried.
Asked how her home life was, did daddy yell.
Didn't make any sense.
Her friends were fine.

She remembered them living in her wardrobe she inherited from her grandmother as a child.
Her friends would come late at night and read stories to her.
Sometimes they even helped her with her homework.

She wondered if her mother had kept that wardrobe.
A nostalgic phone call had her heading to her mother's new flat to get the keys to a storage unit.
It was one of those cheap places you always drive past but never really think about.
Her room was 023, quite close to the main entrance.
If the wardrobe was in good enough condition she decided she'd take it home.
It'd be nice to have a piece of her childhood with her again.

It looked smaller than she remembered, more worn around the edges.
Completely empty too and the drawer her friends would come out of (a tiny middle compartment)
was locked as it had been in her childhood until they opened it from the inside.
She thought it would look perfect in her new bedroom, just like it had as a child.

After a lot of heaving and help from a friend she managed just this.
It stood in the corner perfectly, like it had always been there.
She closed her bedroom door and sat in front of it, like she used to when she wanted to see her friends.

She never expected them to come.
They certainly weren't how she remembered them.
What had once been peach coloured fur was now dark brown, matted and torn in places.
Blood poured from formerly closed smiling mouths and their eyes red-shot and bulging.

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN WHY DID YOU LEAVE US ALL ALONE
WE NEARLY DIED DID YOU EVEN CARE WE THOUGHT YOU WERE OUR FRIEND

They cornered her, heads snapping from side to side and screeching at her.

The last thing she remembered was them tearing at her arms with their gaping jaws.
She looked around her,everything was normal except...
Their drawer was wide open.
Had she dreamt it all?

She began to creep towards the drawer, moving low and slow, wondering if she was losing her mind.
The closer she got, the stronger the smell of burnt hair was.

As she peered over the edge she began to cry.

There they lay, just like she'd left them as a little girl.

Eight kittens, charred and torn.