They had heard the stories. They had heard the rumors. They had watched the police reports.

They just didn't believe.

Emma Overlander and her twin brother Jeff had been stuck in the orphanage for as long as they could remember. From the time they could crawl, they were swept up in and put Miss Jackie's protection and care. They grew up listening to her lullabies and watching as other parentless children repeatedly went back and forth through the orphangae doors. Every kid was eventually picked except for them.

Every couple always liked them on their own, but they could not take in twins. twelve years went by and still not a single family decided they were ready for the two. So, they agreed to always stay together. If one got adopted without the other, heaven and earth could not stand in the way until they were a pair once again. Where ever one went, the other would surely follow.

Miss Jackie told them, the older they became the more difficult it would be to find a family. If no couple wanted the twins when they were children, who is to say any would want them as teenagers? But they didn't mind. They told her, when they were eighteen and they were still without a family, then they would leave the orphanage and go on their own. Miss Jackie was beginning to show her old age, her once shimmering brown hair now starting to dim into silver. Jeff and Emma were doing more and more work around the orphanage but they didn't mind. Miss Jackie was the closest thing they had to a mother and they would do anything for her.

Miss Jackie was never married but her heart was full of kindness for all children without homes, building one for those who had nowhere to go and no one to call. She had found the twins on a dark September night. A storm had begun to grow hours before in the daylight and by the time the sun had descended away, the thunder could already shake the windows free of their glass. A loud knocking had woken her late into the night, if her memory served her she could have sworn it was almost three in the morning. She rushed to the door in her robe and slippers, opened he latch and peering out. She saw nothing but the dark street illuminated by the lamp post and slick from the pouring rain. She glanced down and gasped at the sight of two infants tucked away in a basket.

She quickly pulled them inside, kneeling down and looking them over. One was in a cotton candy pink blanket and the other's was sky blue. A small note, written with frenzied penmanship on a note card, was in the little girls blanket. It was short and simple.

Their names are Jeff and Emma. Give them a good home.

-J & J

Emma had once discovered the note while cleaning out Miss Jackie's filing cabinet, staring at the messy splatters of ink in what could have possible been her mother or father's handwriting. She hid it away in her pocket and finished before showing it to her brother later that night, his expression was the same of shock and hurt. " 'J & J'? You think that might have been their initials?" He asked handing her back the note. All his sister did was shrug and put away in the top drawer of her bedside table, where all they kept any sort of object from their childhood or parents. Neither of them got much sleep that night, the burden of never knowing their mother and father's identities kept their eyes from closing.

So instead, they listened as Miss Jackie's lullaby drifted through their walls. They never realized it was her last.

That was three years ago...

The police say that she just stopped breathing. That she was in a better place now.

A frail, orange leaf snapped off it's branch. It drifted slowly before being scooped into the wind's arms and agreeing to a tango. Soft blue eyes watched as the leaf danced freely with the wind and it's brothers. Emma couldn't help but sigh, leaning against the window pane and causing the glass to fog from her breath. She glanced over to the calendar, to the day with a large red circle and cake drawn in sharpie. Ten days from now she and her brother would be fifteen. This was the third year without Miss Jackie. She blew some of her hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear. She remembered Miss Jackie telling her how she used to have long, curly brown hair like Emma.

She was pulled from her melancholy thoughts when she heard the front door open and shut before she heard Jeff. "Em! I'm home!" Emma smiled brightly, jumping off her bed and out her bedroom door. She caught her brother kicking off his shoes and slumping down onto the worn out couch with a sigh. She slowed down, smile falling away. She knew what that meant...

"Will we be able to get by this month?" She asked with desperate hope in her voice. She watched as he reach into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out a folded up paper. Jeff opened it and read the number, his shoulders slumped and slid further down the seat. "Just barely.." He felt the couch dip to his left and glanced over to his twin, brushing his bangs out of his face. "Jeff, we can't keep doing this. Sooner or later, someone is going to come and take us." She emphasized the last two words. Jeff had been able to get a part time job at an auto-mechanics workshop as a janitor, but lately the shop had begun to go bankrupt from too many unsatisfied customers.

"No one's gonna take us, Em. I'll just find somewhere else to work." They both knew he was lying, Emma could see it along with the fatigue settling over his head reflecting in the emerald coloring of his eyes. "Hey," he gently nudged her shoulder. "remember my friend Rick I was telling you about? Well he and his buddy Shane are throwing a party tonight, to let everyone have one more drive of fun before school starts. Wanna come with me?"

Her face scrunched up in thought, glancing at the familiar walls. Ever since Miss Jackie passed, the old house had lost it's warmth. She couldn't help the smile that came when her brother nudged her again. "Come on, Em. I know you want to!" Emma belted out laughing as Jeff began to tickle her, trying to swat him away and failing. "Jeff! Knock-haha-it off! Alright fine! Yes! I'll go-hahaha-to the party!"

Jeff grinned wide, jumping off his sister. He flinched when she socked him in the arm, holding and rubbing th spot she hit. "Ow.."

"You deserve it! I hate it when you do that to me.." She huffed, crossing her arms and turning away from him. She heard him crawl closer but simply tipped her nose up. "Emma.." He nudged her shoulders, soon just shaking her gently. "Come on, Em. You know I was just messing around!"

"Yeah. But I'm still mad at you."

"Soo..you're not going to the party?"

Emma tapped her finger against her upper arm as she thought, sighing and pinching the bridge of her nose. "I'll still go to the party." She didn't need to look behind her to know that her brother was grinning wide before he pulled her into a hug.

"You are so not going to regret this! Party starts in an hour so let's get ready." He jumped off the couch and made a sprint to the bathroom. Emma had to smile, rolling her eyes and standing up. That's when it hit her. The creeping chill up her spine and spreading over the back of her skull made her shiver. It felt as if someone was watching her. She whipped around and looked out the window.

Nothing. There was no one out on the street.

She brushed the feeling off and went to her room to change, her pajamas were not going to do for a party. She slipped on an old pair of black jeans and black t-shirt. She looked out her window and to the frost that began to take claim of the glass. Maybe it was best she wore a sweatshirt. She went to her closet and grabbed the first one her hand touch and tore it off it's hanger.

She slipped it over her head and smoothed out her curls, straightening out the white hoodie around her before the light ding of her phone caught her attention. She unlocked the screen and found a message from her friend. She nearly groaned when she realized what it was.

A chain link text message. Might as well read.

Excerpt from a local Newspaper:

OMINOUS UNKNOWN

KILLER IS STILL

AT LARGE.

After weeks of unexplained murders, the ominous unknown killer is still on the rise. After little evidence has been found, a young boy states that he survived one of the killer's attacks...

"Oh, whatever." Emma huffed, deleting the message and the obviously photo-shopped picture with it. "Local Killer on the loose, yeah right."

She brushed out the knots in her hair, trying not to let it hurt too much. Then she was looking at herself. Emma always had large eyes, and her irises always seemed to be glowing. Who's eyes were these? Were they her mother's? Her father's?

She uncapped her lipstick case, leaning closer to the mirror to apply. Her phone buzzed again and she slipped, her elbow falling onto the dresser and she growled in frustration. "What now?" She opened her phone screen and saw a text from a blocked number, arching an eyebrow, she opened and read the message.

Don't go to that party, Emma.

She stared at the words, that cold feeling gripping her again. She could just feel the eyes baring into the back of her head, and she saw something in her peripheral vision. She saw a figure in the mirror that wasn't her own, or it could have been and she was just seeing things. They still wore a white sweatshirt and dark pants, but their face a was ghostly white with jet black hair hanging in their eyes.

Oh God, their eyes.

She could make out the dark rings around them along with the pink shade on the edges. They didn't blink and she tried not to look at their carved in smile. The sides of their mouth had been cut up and arched into a gruesome sneer. Finally she tore her gaze away from her phone and looked to her mirror.

She only saw her reflection. And the red that had etched across her face when had slipped. She snorted as the horrifying figure she saw turned out to be herself with a bad lipstick application.

Emma cleaned her face and dried it just in time for her brother to peer his head in her door. "Are you still fixing your makeup? Let's go, Em!"

She threw down the towel and grabbed her phone, shoving it into her pocket and rushing over to him. "Alright! I'm ready, let's get out of here." She could now hear the low blasting of a bass from outside where Jeff's friend was waiting for them. She only pulled her her hood up as the icy wind tried to lift up her hair. She climbed into the navy blue charger behind her brother and with a rev of the engine, they drove away.