Story 

It’s the end of the night as the rain pours down onto the streets. A large, ominous figure lurks near a small house as the wind blows on the trees so aggressively you’d think they were fighting. The figure steps closer and closer towards the door, its long hair stretching to the floor as the figure politely rings the doorbell and is greeted by the presence of Rain who seems excited to see them.

The next afternoon, Kaylee knocks on the door with large bags in hand waiting for the door to open. After a few seconds, Rain opens the door and immediately, but before Kaylee enters the home, a familiar voice called from far away. That familiar voice was Charlotte, who quickly ran up to them. They all head inside, Rain closing the door behind them before leading them into the living room where they all sit down on the comfy and very purple sofa.

“Thanks for inviting us over for a sleepover, Rain, especially since we haven’t seen each other in a couple weeks after that vacation with my dad.”

“Yeah, that was a bit weird with him around, even if we avoided him. He made everything awkward.”

Rain nodded with agreement, writing in her notebook that the vacation felt a bit strange with him there.

All the girls just looked at each other awkwardly before Kaylee decided to change the subject to something better.

“I’m actually really excited since this is my first sleepover ever!”

“Huh? What do you mean by that?”

“My dad’s weird, okay? He didn’t let me do anything growing up; it was ridiculous!”

“Jeez, what other things did your dad do?”

“Meh, just the usual…picking out who I hung out with, making me go to internships for sciency stuff, being strict on what I wore…the list goes on.”

Charlotte isn’t surprised at this point because of what she’d seen at the vacation they were on a few weeks ago, but even then she still finds new reasons to dislike Matthew every single day. Rain stands up feeling like the tension is increasing and decides to lift everyone’s spirits just a bit. Rain writes in her notebook, wondering if Charlotte wanted a tour of her house since this was her first time visiting.

“Oh yeah, I just remembered that I’ve never really been here before so that would be nice.”

The girls get up from the couch. Rain dusts herself off even though there was nothing on her to begin with. She starts off the tour, pretty quickly moving from the living room where they currently stood to the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom, each room filled with cute decorations and colors. As the tour was closing off, Charlotte noticed a door to a room and reached her hand to open the door. Rain stopped her, grabbing her wrist with Kaylee right behind them.

“I wouldn’t open that door if I were you. It’s the FORBIDDEN ROOM,” Kaylee says with an ominous tone while Rain sighs, writing in her notebook, saying that it used to be a guest room but it’s so damaged beyond repair because of a water leak that she doesn’t let anyone inside until she figures out how to fix it. This surprised Charlotte a lot.

“And how long has this room been like this?”

“Well, actually, yeah, how long has it been like this? I don’t remember a time when it ever got repaired.”

Rain suddenly becomes a little nervous as the two girls look at her suspiciously. Rain quickly tries to come up with an excuse before writing in her notebook that she is just really lazy and hasn’t had the motivation to completely fix it. Charlotte and Kaylee look at Rain, a bit suspicious still, but accept the answer and move on from the topic. Eventually, all the girls go to Rain’s room to set down their stuff and relax for a bit. 

“So, what do you guys wanna do right now? Kaylee, got any ideas?”

“Actually, I have a few!”

Kaylee pulls out a piece of paper and inside was a list of all the things someone could do at a sleepover in crayon, which surprised both Rain and Charlotte.

“I made this when I was younger!”

“Oh, that’s actually really cute, Kaylee…also kinda sad, though.”

“I like to think of it as planning ahead!”

“Yeah, umm, sure.”

Rain and Charlotte looked at each other and then at the list Kaylee presented to them. After a bit, they all settled on just a few things since most of the ideas on the list definitely showed that the list was made by a toddler.

“So, what do you guys wanna start with? Kaylee, since it’s your list you can pick what we do first.”

“Really?! Okay. My suggestion is a makeover because I’ve got a big question for Rain.”

Kaylee turns to Rain before placing her hand softly on Rain’s cheek.

“How on earth is your skin so smooth?! I swear to gosh, I’ve tried everything and yet my skin doesn’t feel this way!”

Rain pats Kaylee’s hand, which was placed on her cheek, and smiles at her or at least what looks to be a smile, which excites Kaylee. A long while later all three girls could be seen laying on Rain’s sofa 

“Dude, I can literally feel my skin clearing up. This is so nice.”

“I 100% agree with you, Charlotte.”

The room remains silent for a few minutes before Kaylee decides to break the quiet. 

“You guys wanna play truth or dare?”

“Please don’t let this turn into a crush finder or something.”

“What?! No! That stuff is personal!”

“Thank goodness. I hate when that game is played for the sake of figuring out someone’s crush.”

“Wow, did that really happen?”

“It happened more often than I can count.”

“I had no idea. You must’ve been invited to a lot of sleepovers.”

“When you are born rich a lot of people wanna be friends with you.”

Kaylee looks at Charlotte in awe as Charlotte grumbles, remembering all the bad memories of previous sleepovers when she was much younger. Kaylee then sits upright and excitedly looks at Charlotte and Rain who seemed okay with the idea of playing the game. 

“Okay! I’ll go first!”

Kaylee looks over at Charlotte. 

“Charlotte, truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

Kaylee then turns to Rain and starts to whisper something into her ear. After a few seconds, Rain nods her head and seems excited before Kaylee turns to Charlotte with a grin.

“I dare you to order us a pizza!”

“Let me guess, you’re hungry?”

Rain and Kaylee nod their heads in unison as Charlotte sighs and pulls out her phone. After that, the game continued. All the girls either pulled pranks on each other or just spilled out funny secrets or how they would act in weird scenarios.

“Kaylee, truth or dare?”

“100% dare!”

“I dare you to do a handstand.”

“What?! That’s impossible! You know I can’t do that.”

“Just do it against the wall!”

“Fine!”

As Kaylee reaches the wall, the doorbell rings and Charlotte gets up to answer it while grabbing her purse. Kaylee and Rain look at each other before sneaking off to Rain’s room for a moment. Charlotte comes back with a pizza box and notices the two girls missing from the couch. Charlotte places the pizza box on the dining room table and sighs before noticing the forbidden room once again. Curiosity takes over and she slowly opens the door to the room and stares at the room in shock. There sat a giant monster sitting on the bed; the monster was big and had large horns poking out of its head with four arms, two hands on a gaming controller and the other two holding a bag of chips. The monster grabs a handful of chips and holds it up to its face. Charlotte watches in horror as the monster’s face splits open to reveal a giant mouth with sharp teeth on both sides while eating the chips in its hand.

Instead of screaming in horror, Charlotte slowly closes the door and goes back to the dining room table and opens the pizza box, grabbing a slice of pizza and putting it on a plate. Charlotte returns to the forbidden room and opens the door. Charlotte is surprised again when the giant monster she saw earlier was now replaced with a small girl who was sweating profusely. Charlotte leaves the pizza on the bed next to the girl and closes the door.

In Rain’s room, the two girls are talking and Charlotte comes into the room. Charlotte doesn’t immediately ask Rain about the room but ignores the thought entirely, just wanting things to go back to normal after what had happened.

“So, the pizza’s here if you guys want some.”

“Oh! Right! I forgot about that.”

In the kitchen the girls open the pizza box. Kaylee immediately notices one slice of pizza missing.

“Huh? Why is there a slice missing?”

“The pizza guy ate it.”

“What?!”

“Yeah, I’m surprised they didn’t even bother to hide the fact they took a slice.”

“Ugh, when I get my hands on them I’m going to rip them to pieces!”

Kaylee grumbles angrily as they all take a slice of pizza. Charlotte looks at Rain, now suspicious of what else Rain could have been lying about.

“Hey, how about we finish that game of truth or dare, huh?”

“Oh, sure!”

Charlotte looks at Rain once again.

“Rain…truth or dare?”

Rain pauses before picking truth.

“Would you ever lie to us?”

Rain pauses, shocked by such a personal question. Kaylee steps in, looking at Charlotte with concern.

“Charlotte, you shouldn’t-”

Charlotte bangs her hand against the table and stands up, shocking Rain and Kaylee who seemed terrified.

“For as long as I’ve known you not once did you ever talk about yourself, and whenever we ask anything about you, you avoid the question or something happens and we forget about it!”

Charlotte catches her breath before continuing.

“You told us that the forbidden room was too damaged to see, but when I went in there it was cleaner than my own apartment!”

Kaylee looks at Rain, noticing her scared expression before standing up.

“Charlotte, that’s enough. You’re scaring her!”

Charlotte looks at Rain, noticing her sacred expression and tries to calm down.

“Lets go outside. Maybe you just need some air, okay?”

Kaylee takes Charlotte’s hand and walks her outside as Rain sits at the table horrified. Kaylee and Charlotte leave the house and walk to the front porch. Rain stands up wanting to follow them but they are already outside. Just then, a familiar presence fills the room. Rain’s eyes widen, not daring to look behind her as the person behind her speaks in a soft but menacing voice.

“When are you going to tell her…when are you going to let me go?”

There, standing right behind Rain was Kaylee’s mother.