<<When did the problems start?>>
<<The fifth day since that box arrived. But already from the fourth things were getting really strange.>> Elia answers.
<<Strange in what kind of way?>>
<<The morning of the fourth day began like this: Marco and I woke up calmly, we went to the kitchen to have breakfast and we found Brigitte with Fenny. We gave him some sausage and then we ate too. At that moment Brigitte tried to take more pictures of Fenny, but this time she just didn’t succeed.>>
<<Didn’t she succeed …?>>
<<Yep. She took them, but the shot came out empty. She was very scared, she was afraid of having broken the phone but taking pictures of something else the photos came out well. Fenny was the problem.>>
<<The shot come out empty … in what way?>>
<<She took the photo but the photo came out black. All black.>>
<<Ah, I understand.>>
<<At that moment we were all … nervous I think. Maybe we were more curious than nervous, though. We tried taking pictures with our phones, but the result was the same. Brigitte had a brilliant idea and went to get a real camera, but nothing changed. Even with that the photos came out black.>>
<<And what did you do at that point?>>
<<We tried to make a video. Registering it was simple. Fenny doesn’t moved too much, so we put her on a table and recorded her.>>
<<And then?>>
<<Then nothing. The video disappeared. He was not saved. It was automatically deleted.>>
<<Uhm … I understand.>>
<<That was already very strange. So weird that it convinced us to stay with Fenny pretty much all morning. Then it was time for lunch. Sara called us from the salon and we went there. We found the table set … but Sara wasn’t there. And neither was Tommy.>>
<<Were you worried?>>
<<No. Bot initially. We ate and we thought that Sara and Tommy were in the house because we could hear them talking in the kitchen. But they weren’t entering the room, so Brigitte yelled at her parents to come and eat, because the food was getting cold. The voices from the kitchen stopped, and then … nothing.>>
<<Nothing? >>
<<Nothing. Tommy and Sara just stopped talking. They seemed to have disappeared. They did not enter. We waited for them but… nothing happens. A terrible silence had fallen, we were scared to death. >>
<<And what have you done?>>
<<At first nothing. It was Marco who moved first, he called his father and mother with more force, but nobody answered. So he jumped up thinking that those two had felt ill in the corridor, but running there he found no one. Actually … >> Elia freezes as if the memory of that event still frightened him <<the lights were off. All the lights. It was all dark there, the doors were all closed and even though it was daylight it seemed as if the sun had long ago set. It seemed to be like … shortly after sunset, when the sky is still a little blue but you have to turn on the lights to see inside the house. It seemed to have passed from lunch to dinner time.>>
<<Ah…>>
<<Marco called his parents, but again nobody answered. The house seemed empty for real, and Marco was practically becoming pale out of fear. Brigitte got up shortly after, and I followed her. Together we went upstairs … but nothing. The rooms were empty. The bathrooms were empty. The kitchen was empty … and fuck, everything was really dark and closed. The blinds were down. Even those of the bathroom were lowered. And turning on the lamps did not improve the situation, it almost seemed that they did not produce light … a bit like when you turn on a torch during the day. It does not seem to shed light, because the sunlight covers it. Same thing. The ones we lit looked like fake light bulbs.>>
<<What happened then?>>
<<We left the house to understand if they had left for a moment, and at that moment we heard Sara scream from the living room. He was actually calling us, and he had a really angry voice. All three of us ran over there and found her sitting in her place. She looked at us with an angry face. “Where the hell have you been?” she started screaming “I have been calling you for hours, the food is cold” and all these things. Tommy tried to calm her down, said we were out for a moment and we were just a little late, nothing to be mad about, but then she said that if we really had to go out we could at least take the trouble to carry phones with us and answer calls.>>
<<Understood… And what did you say to them.>>
<<We remained silent at the beginning, paralyzed.>> is the answer.
<<For fear?>>
<<No. We were paralyzed because on the table there was our first plate. But we had practically finished the first one. So we looked at each other and… we realized that something was wrong. Brigitte tried to explain to her parents what had happened but Tommy and Sara obviously didn’t take her very seriously at first. Or rather, Sara didn’t, but Tommy had a slightly worried look.>>
<<And Marco? What did he do?>>
<<He had remained silent. He was terrified. I was too, and our faces started to frightened his parents. Even Sara after a while became serious and attentive to the story Brigitte was telling. Marco and I just stood there in silence. We didn’t eat anything, we weren’t hungry anymore.>>
<<What happened then?>>
<<We didn’t want to do anything more that day. Marco didn’t want to go out that, and Brigitte was afraid to get too far away from her parents or from us. I remember she was hesitant to go to the bathroom alone, so much so that she took Fenny with her to do it. She didn’t want to be alone even for a second. >>
<<And you?>>
A nervous smile escapes Elia <<I was fucking terrified. Not enough to take Fenny to the bathroom but scared enough not to want to be alone for too long. I stayed with Marco all the time in fact. And Brigitte was with us too, even though she kept pacing to make sure Tommy and Sara were still in the house. The rest of the day passed quietly, however … we played most of the time, we even went out for a walk to get a little less nervous, then the evening came and we had dinner all together.>>
<<Did other incidents happen that day?>>
<<Well … this isn’t really an “incidents”, but it practically happened that Marco took a cigarette and put it in his mouth. He was looking for the lighter because he couldn’t find it in his pockets, and in the meantime Brigitte and I were playing with the chick, putting it on the shoulders to see if she would fell or not.>>
<<And did she fall?>>
<<No.>> Elia smiles <<Fenny was smart. She did not fall. But since Marco used to say things like: “that chick brings bad luck, he made me lose my lighter” and so on, Brigitte decided to put it on his shoulders, to make fun of him. Marco had an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He took the chick off his shoulder with one hand and threatened to throw her away, but when Brigitte took her back the cigarette was lit.>>
<<Did it turn on by itself?>>
<<At that moment it seemed so. At that point Marco said that Fenny was really bringing bad luck. He said he wanted to stay away from Fenny as much as possible, and he also threw away the cigarette, losing the desire to smoke it. Brigitte teased him a bit but then she was forced to leave Fenny on the ground because she was very hot again and she could not hold her for too long. Fenny followed us like a dog though, and we walked slowly so we could be followed. When we returned we found that she was dirty with ashes, so Brig and I cleaned her.>>
<<She got cleaned with success this time?>>
<<We didn’t use water. We used paper.>>
<<Got it.>>
<<Brig asked us to sleep together that night. And we did it. She slept on the floor. I should have given her my place but I didn’t want to.>> Elia laughed.
<<Did you have a bed?>> I ask at this point.
<<Well… yes. Marco’s room had two beds.>>
<<And why?>>
<<In what sense?>>
<<Why did Marco’s room have two beds if he usually slept alone? From what I understand Brigitte had her own room.>>
<<Er …>> Elia shrugs <<I think … I don’t remember, actually. Maybe they put another one just for me.>>
<Probably.>>
<<Anyway … when we turned off the lights Brigitte said that maybe it would be better to sleep with the lights on, because she was a little afraid of staying in the dark. And then Fenny began to shine.>>
<<Shine?>>
<<Yes. She started to glow like a light bulb. A small light bulb, but she gave some light.>>
<<And what have you done?>>
<<Well … I got chills, and Marco was ready to run to the door and scream. Brigitte covered her mouth with her hands, she was amazed.>>
<<Did you tell this to the parents?>>
<<Yes. We told them immediately. Tommy and Sara came running to see Fenny, and watching her thay have remained as amazed as we were. They tried to take pictures of her, but this time they came out too bright. Instead of coming out black they came out almost entirely white. Marco said that Fenny was cursed or something, Tommy shut him up though. He said that Fenny was special. He took her and brought her to his room. And the day ended like that.>>
<<And from there things got worse, you say.>>
<<Oh yes, a lot worse. The next day Sara woke us up asking about Tommy. He had disappeared.>>