I spent the night at the café, as it was also a budget bed and breakfast, which I believe I already mentioned last time. The room I slept in was nothing special, but it was perfectly functional, with a decent bed, a small bathroom, a drawer and a closet to store the few belongings I had and even a CRT television, which looked pretty dated by modern standards, but remember that the only reason I was staying at that café in the first place was because I had somehow traveled back in time after my terrifying paranormal misadventure at the daycare.
That morning, before having breakfast, I turned on the CRT TV and watched the news to make sure I had truly time traveled. Indeed, the news that were broadcasted were clearly from December of 2001, and they were live broadcasts, so yeah..as much as my poor brain struggled to comprehend it, this was happening for real.
I needed to get to the bottom of this, and the only place where I’d be able to find a way to solve and get out of this mess was the same place where I had gotten myself into that mess: the daycare. So after bundling up, I made my way towards that dreaded building. When I went to the daycare for the first time the weather was unbearably cold, in fact, that was precisely one of my main complaints against having to go there by foot, and the weather of 2001 was equally as frigid, but since the café and the daycare were only a five minute walk away from each other, so the cold didn’t bother me nearly as much this time.
Upon reaching the back alley where the daycare was located, I heard what sounded like footsteps right behind me, as if I was being followed. I turned around to find a teenage girl right behind me, who looked to be around the same age and height as me but I couldn’t get a good grasp of her overall appearance because she was heavily covered in winter clothing just like me.
“Um…hello, are you following me?” I asked.
“What? No, I’m heading to a daycare center located right in this alleyway!” she replied.
“Wait, really? I’m going there too! Why are you going there, if I may ask?” I answered in astonishment.
” I’ve been hired to work there part time in helping to take care of the children. It’s actually my first day!” she explained.
“No way! I ‘ve been hired for the same job! Technically, my first day was yesterday but…things didn’t go as expected and that’s why I’m coming back today. The name’s Cindy, by the way!” I said, even more shocked than I already was. I could’ve warned her about the dangers of that daycare and I very nearly did just that, but a last second decision made me change my mind as I figured the possibility of her believing me was so minuscule it wasn’t worth it to try, at least not at that moment. I didn’t want to come off as a delusional weirdo on my first impression.
“I’m Molly, nice to meet ya! I didn’t expect to have a coworker, but hey…I think I’m gonna like it!” she joyfully introduced herself.
Molly and I finally arrived at the daycare. Once we took off our winter gear, I got a better chance to appreciate Molly’s appearance, she had the same tall and slim complexion as myself, but her blonde straight hair and pale Caucasian skin contrasted with my brownish skin and dark curls. We were soon greeted by Rebecca, the woman who was in charge of taking care of the kids who I had already met the previous day. The daycare was in the same state as when I had last seen it, a far cry from the derelict abandoned building it had become in my time.
“Well, look who it is! Your name was…Cindy, am I right? Forgive me, but you left so abruptly yesterday I thought you were never going to come back! Who’s the girl you’ve brought with you?” Rebecca said to me.
“She’s called Molly and she’s also come to work here!” I answered.
“Seriously? Nobody tells me anything these days! Then again, I’m not the one who writes the paychecks, so I guess it’s none of my business. In any case, welcome to the daycare both of you! You can start your shift right now!” Rebecca replied.
And thus, Molly and I spent that morning working at the daycare normally, just having a good time playing with the children, doing some arts and crafts and occasionally intervening in a minor dispute between preschoolers, but honestly those were the exception as the kids that attended the daycare were surprisingly well behaved. It got to a point I was enjoying working there so much I almost forgot about the fact I had time traveled and about how much of a horrible experience the previous day had been, with the abandoned daycare and the pair of phantoms that had hunted me down and then somehow sent me back in time.
Molly and I decided to organize a little art contest where we would encourage the kids to draw something cute and then we’d judge their work and declare a winner. (even though we actually planed to declare everyone the winner because we didn’t want to discourage anyone).
“Aw, Cindy, look! Aren’t we adorable?” Molly said as she showed me a drawing a child had made depicting Molly and I with the names “CINDY AND MOLLY” written below. But I didn’t pay attention to it, as I was too busy focusing on a drawing a little boy named Hugh had made. He had drawn a pair of familiar figures, pale and decrepit with barely recognizable facial features, one of them being considerably taller than the other, I had no doubt about it, they were the entities I had encountered the previous day!
“Hugh…why have you chosen to draw these…creatures?” I nervously asked as horrifying memories of the previous day came flooding back.
“Because I saw them earlier in the backyard. They were watching me” the boy casually replied as I felt shivers down my spine. I immediately rushed to the daycare’s backyard, but saw no one.
“Hey, Cindy! What’s the matter? Where are you going?” Molly asked in confusion.
“It’s…it’s nothing, Molly! Don’t worry…” I replied letting out a forced smile.
The time for the children to go home arrived as I was still swept in paranoia. That horrible feeling only increased once we found out Hugh was missing. Rebecca instructed Molly and I to search for him as her and the other kids left the building, leaving us on our own.
“Cindy, don’t try to hide it, something concerns you. You’ve been acting weird ever since Hugh showed you that creepy drawing he made.” Molly said.
“I’ll explain it to you later, now we have to focus on finding Hugh.” I replied.
Seconds later, we heard what sounded like a high pitched childish giggle coming from upstairs. We rushed to the kitchen, where the sound had come from, but who we found wasn’t Hugh, but rather a certain pair of…familiar beings. They hadn’t changed a bit since the last time I saw them, which made me question whether they were here because they also exited in 2001 or because they were the same ones that I had found in my age who had also followed me back in time, the latter didn’t sound that farfetched considering they were the reason I had been transported to the past in the first place.
Molly was as speechless and paralyzed by fear as I had been when I had first encountered them. Thankfully, I was there to grab her hand and encourage her to run away as soon as I noticed they were starting to move towards us. We fled downstairs and hid inside a playroom, locking the door behind us.
“What…what the hell are those things? What the fuck is going on?” Molly yelled sobbing as tears poured down her face.
“I’m not entirely sure, but when I told you earlier that my first day hadn’t gone as planed, this is what I was referring to! I didn’t tell you about it because there’s no way you would’ve believed me without having seen them!” I replied. We then heard what sounded like the desperate cries of a small child coming from right outside the playroom.
“It’s Hugh! What are they doing to him? We need to help him!” Molly exclaimed as she grew more and more desperate.
“Hold on, Molly, calm down! What if it’s a trick they’re using to lure us out?” I warned her, but she didn’t listen and approached the door.
“We need to get out of here! I can’t take this anymore!” she yelled as she opened the door, only to find one of the entities on the other side, the smaller one, who made a b line towards her as Molly jumped back and began backing away screaming in panic while the creature crawled towards her.
I didn’t hesitate to grab a small wooden chair present in that playroom and used it to hit the creature with all my strength. The entity flinched and we used that opportunity to escape the playroom.
The other entity, the bigger one, materialized right behind us. We decided to split up and hide in different places in an attempt to disorient it, although in retrospect I admit it wasn’t a really smart decision considering sticking together was literally what had just saved Molly from getting caught, but can you really blame us? We were in the middle of an extremely tense situation, and in cases like these most people tend to prioritize instinctive, split-second decisions over reason, even if they later realize that decision wasn’t the best in the long run.
Molly opted for the bathroom as her hiding spot, while I was still roaming the building searching for mine. I ultimately decided to hide in a chamber on the other side of a door that had a sign which read “PRIVATE”, it turned out to be the daycare’s boiling room.
“Are the monsters gone?” uttered a high pitched voice that startled me before I realized it came from none other than Hugh, who was also in the room!
“Hugh! Thank goodness you’re alright! What are you doing in this room?” I said in relief.
“They put me in here and then they waited for everyone to leave the daycare, but then they heard there was still someone else inside and they went after them.” the kid explained.
Molly screamed in the distance, the entities had gone after her. This was already the second time they had focused specifically on Molly, which was odd, since I was the one who had encountered them the previous day, in fact, when I first met them they were so hellbent on catching me they even seemed to shout my name as they hunted me down, so what was that new obsession with Molly all about?
I insisted Hugh to stay behind as I rushed to Molly’s aid. The two entities were about to enter the bathroom where Molly was hiding.
“I…really need..to go!” Hugh yelled as he ran towards the bathroom despite the fact I had told him to stay in the boiler room, even though it was kind of my fault for foolishly expecting an agitated toddler stuck in a dangerous situation who I had just met to obey me.
“NO!” I shouted as I sprinted towards him. As soon as they saw the child, both of the entities left Molly alone and teleported right next to Hugh, surrounding him before I could reach him.
Molly and I reunited as the bigger entity advanced towards us while the small one dealt with Hugh.
We were completely cut off from the child, we’d need to somehow bypass the two entities to get to him and there was no way we could do that. The bigger creature chased us relentlessly leaving us no time to breathe, all we could do was run and the only path we could take was running straight towards the exit. This meant we had to leave Hugh behind, but as much as we hated the idea, we had no other choice.
The main door was locked, so we began kicking it and pressing against it with all our energy, we managed to force it open as the distance between us and the creature was only a few feet.
We rushed outside the building screaming and took a few minutes to catch our breath outside in the snow.
“We need to go home! We can call the police and let them deal with this!” Molly exclaimed.
“And what are we gonna tell them? If we tell them about the creatures, at best they’ll think we’re trying to prank them and at worst we’ll end up in an insane asylum!” I protested.
“Yeah, you’re right…Still, what are those things going to do to that poor kid? Oh God, what if they kill him?” Molly said.
“They won’t kill him. I don’t know what they want, but I’m pretty sure it’s not to kill him, or to kill us. If that was the case, they could’ve easily killed me when I first found them yesterday, but they only left me unconscious after catching me. And then…” I explained, before choosing not to finish my sentence, as doing so would mean confessing to Molly I was a time traveler from the future.
“Then what?” she urged me to continue.
“Then I woke up inside the daycare and they were just…gone.” I replied.
“Anyhow, I feel sorry for Hugh but standing here in the cold isn’t going to help anyone. I’m freezing! I think we need to return home and rest.” Molly suggested.
“I…I can’t. I’m not from around here. My mother gave me some money and I used it to stay in a nearby bed and breakfast last night. But I don’t have enough money to do that again…” I confessed.
“It’s alright. You can come to my place, if you want. I’m sure my parents won’t mind!” Molly replied.
“Thanks Molly!”
And so, I left the daycare behind once again, having made a new friend along the way. But if you think my horrific odyssey ended there, you can think again.