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"Mum, my head hurts."
My Mum sighs in annoyance. "James, what have I told you? I'm busy, I've no time to play."
"But Mum! I'm being serious! My head really really hurts!"
She turns to me and scowls. "Go to your room!" I wince at her yell, and nod with tears in my eyes. I run up the stairs and shut my bedroom door.
I crawl into my bed and begin sobbing into my pillow. Why didn't she understand? My head hurt so so much.
It all began when we moved here. My big sister Laura was killed in a car crash a couple months back, and my parents decided to move somewhere new. A 'fresh start', they said. I felt like they were too anxious to get away, and that they weren't giving Laura her proper treatment. I knew Laura would agree with me.
When we moved here, I started getting headaches. They started off mildly enough, just little aches every now and then, no big deal. But recently, they've been getting worse and worse, happening more and more often too. My parents were getting real tired with them, I could see. The first couple of bad ones they were all sympathetic, looking after me, excusing me from chores. But when a few became too many to count, they started to get really annoyed.
My parents thought that I was doing it for the attention, using my headaches as an excuse. They started getting angry, yelling at me to knock it off, sending me to my room when I protested. The headaches just keep getting worse and worse.
I sit up in my bed and open my bedside cabinet, rooting through it till i found Laura's bracelet. It was meant to be a present for her 16th birthday, something I found in one of the vintage markets she loved going to. Her birthday was tomorrow, I knew, which only made this harder. The bracelet looked old, gold links almost black with the years, with a red ruby in a thin gold cage in the centre.
I sigh and roll the pendant in my hand, a little comfort thing I've found myself doing more and more recently. I sniffle and look around my bare bedroom, blank white walls making it seem more a prison than a bedroom.
I rub the little cage again and hide it back in my drawer, before going to switch my light off. Maybe sleep will help with my headache.
------
The chiming of the old grandfather clock downstairs wakes me up, and I count the chimes in my head, counting to 11 before it falls silent.
I check my little clock on my cabinet and see a glowing 12 stare at me unblinking. I feel another headache begin, this one more painful than the last, leaving me gasping as I curl up into a little ball on my bed. The pain is so unbearable, that I stand quietly and creep as best as I could to my bedroom door.
I press my ear against the door and listen, trying to hear through the pounding in my head. When I hear nothing, I quietly open the door and slip into the hallway. I stop and listen again for my parents quiet breathing in their bedroom, but I don't hear anything. I carry on down the hallway, watching for the creaky floorboard outside of the boiler cupboard.
I was aiming to get to the bathroom with the medicine cabinet, which was at the opposite end of the hall from me. There was the boiler cupboard on my left, then my parents room on my right and the stairs, then the bathroom at the end. A small chink brought my attention to my wrist, where Laura's bracelet was clasped around it. I frown. I'm sure I put that back in my cabinet. I shake my head and wince as my headache throbbed.
I continue, my right left hand tracing the wall carefully. I take a step outside my parents room and my foot squishes at the damp carpet. I look to my feet and see that the carpet outside my parents room has gone dark, but by what I couldn't tell. I look up through my parents open door way and see a figure, a girl, standing by their bed.
She looks up at me and I gasp. "Laura?"
Laura looks at me and grins. "Hey baby boy." She raises her arms and I run in and give her a hug. "Hey, whats the matter baby?" She pulls back slightly to look at me properly, a small frown on her face.
"I missed you Laura. I missed you real bad." I pull her into another hug and she laughs lightly. "Aw, it's okay baby boy. I'm here now." Laura hugs me back, rocking us from side to side slightly, like she always did.
I give a little gasp and pull back, and Laura frowns. "What's wrong Jimmy?" She leans forward slightly, her arms propping herself up on her legs.
I tug the bracelet carefully off my wrist and offer it to her. "Happy Birthday Laura!"
I grin as her face lights up, her brilliant grin spreading across it. "Oh, you shouldn't have Jimmy! Thank you so much!" I slip it onto her wrist and I note quite proudly how it fits her perfectly.
My head throbs again reminding me of my headache and I groan, holding my head.
"What's wrong baby boy?" Laura's face turns from happy to worry as she sees me clutching my head.
"Laura, my head hurts." I look up as carefully as I can, wincing as my head pulses.
"Oh, c'mere." She pulls me into another hug, and I cling back.
"Don't worry, baby boy. I'm gonna take you with me, and soon it'll be all better. Just you wait."
------
"Last night, Mr. and Mrs. Murphy were found almost ripped to shreds while they slept at the house behind me. Forensics have guessed that the couple have been dead for at least 3 days, having only been discovered by their neighbour after no activity had been sighted. Their son, James, was nowhere to be found. The police say there was no sign of break in and every window and door was locked from the inside. None of the boy's clothes have gone missing, leading to police to believe that he was kidnapped after his parents had died. A single footprint was found at the crime scene, but it is believed to have been James'. The family only moved here after their oldest child, Laura Murphy, was killed in a car accident 3 months ago. Their remaining family have been left reeling by the deaths, but pray for the safe return of James.
"Ali Cairn, BBC News, Kincardine."