"It was inevitable."
The only real responsibility I'd ever had and in not even five minutes I'd messed it up. She was gone. The six-year old girl, Marleigh, that I had been watching was no where to be found. I still don't know why I'd agreed to watch her, cinsidering what I'd heard from other people around town about her. Nevertheless, here I was, searching the entire house (although, compared to the rest of our little town, it was more of a mansion) for her. I checked every room; under beds, behind couches, in closets and any small places I could think of that a six-year old could fit into. I even checked the basement, kinda, but I figured six-year olds are generally afraid of the dark and there weren't any lights that I could see. I'd checked the entire house and there was no sight of her. I went aorund the house a second time, trying to remember which direction she'd taken off into as soon as her dad shut the car door behind him and drove away. It had been an hour and a half when I was working my way through the second floor for the second time, when I came across a door in the back corner of the house, that I didn't remember seeing the first time I was looking for Marleigh. It was opened a crack and I could hear muffled voices coming from inside the room. I approached it coutiously, considering Marleigh and I were supposed to be the only two people in the house. As I got closer to the door, I could hear Marleigh talking, and there were at least four or five other voices that were inside the room with her, all chatting and talking. I could clearly hear at leat two women's voices and porbably two men's voices, and a fifth voice that was had to determin. It sounded younger, like a childs voice.
I fung the door open to see who could possibly have gotten into the house and to the second floor, in the time that I'd been here, without me knowing. But when I opened the door, only Marleigh was the only person in the room. She was sitting at a little table with a group of stuffed animals sitting at the table with her, each one with an empty teacup and a plate in front of them.
"Marleigh," I said, my voice dripping with curiosity, "who were you talking to?"
"My friends," she replied simply, taking a sip of air from her teacup.
"Where did your friends go?" I asked, glancing around the room for an alternate exit, or a hiding place.
"What do you mean?" she asked, innocence spelled clearly across her face. "They're right here." She pointed around the table at the stuffed animals, and then looked back at me. "We were having a teaparty, right Mr. Cuddles?" she asked the stuffed frog sitting to her left. There was also a dog, a bear, a cat, a pony, and an elephant.
"But, I heard voices," I said, still trying to figure out how in the world five people could dissapear from sight in a split second, "there were people talking to you."
"I was talking to my friends."
"I know, but where did the other people talking to you go?"
"Nowhere," she said rolling her eyes, clearly frustrated with me, "they're right here! They stopped talking because they're shy."
"Oh, okay," I said nodding. "Well I'll just leave you guys alone so you can go back to having your tea party," I said, backing out of the room, and closing the door almost all the way and pretended to walk away down the hallway. It didn't take long for the voices to start back up, and I peeked into the room through the crack that I'd left the door open to. I still couldn't see anyone in the room with Marleigh, but the stuffed animals. Marleigh was talking and asking questions and voices were resoponding, but it was hard to tell where the were coming from. I was about to go back into the room, when all of a sudden, the stuffed frog sitting next to Marleigh moved. He picked up his cup of air and took a sip from it. I couldn't believe it. I pinched my self, trying to see if I was asleep, but then the rest of the animals were moving too. Drinking and eating the air that was on the cute little china in front of them. I leaned forward slightly, trying to get a closer look, but the floorboard underneath me creaked, giving me away.
"Looks like we have some company," said the dog, all six of them turing to look at the door.
"Why don't you go to sleep child," the elephant said to me, and that's when everything went black.
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