Headless

• Kara Amoruso, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2022

It was a dark and stormy night. The night I lost my head.
It’s not the first time I've lost my head. I usually lose it on a Monday morning, downstairs in the giant pile of clothes in the laundry basket. Normally it wouldn’t bother me but this time it’s not in the basket. Dad will be home in an hour and if he sees that I have lost my head again, he will be fuming. Ever since we moved from our tiny apartment to the country, he’s been on edge about everything. Particularly at night.
Because night-time means humans.
Nosy, disgusting, complaining creatures that poke at everyone's business no matter the consequence. Dad’s always telling me stories of humans hunting our kind down at night and taking them away into big, glass buildings never to be seen again. As terrifying as that is, I'm honestly more worried about dad finding me without my head than being captured by a bunch of humans.
‘Whereeeeee did I put itttttttttttttt’.
Silence. This is not good. Usually I can hear it somewhere in the house. What to do, what to do.
“Looking for this?”.
Turning around, I’m almost thankful that I can't see because sure enough standing there is my dad, presumably holding my head in his hands. I’m guessing his fingers are mistakenly over my ears as I can hear him talking again but it sounds more like a quiet mumble. He’s probably scolding me for yelling before. “Dad I can’t hear you,” I grumble, wishing he’d just hurry up and give me my head back instead of telling me off, while I clearly can't hear him that well, or really at all. “Dad come on, it’s not funny. Give it back,” I say, getting annoyed now as I manage to make out his laughter. As he moved his fingers away from my ears now and the sound of his voice cleared, I realised something.
That was not my dad’s voice speaking.
Panic rising up in my shaky bones, I turn and race back up the stairs. I knew the house well enough to know where I was going. Heavy footsteps followed me up the stairs, close behind me. Too close. Running out of options and ideas I ran into my bedroom and tripped straight over the pile of toys my dad had told me to put away yesterday. Not quite sure which side of the room I was now facing, I scrambled to my feet and ran stomach first into the laundry shoot that I had left open. Doubling over in pain I tumbled down the shoot by mistake, bouncing around until I landed with a thud in the laundry basket at the bottom.
Quickly burying myself beneath the pile of clothes, I sat listening to scary voices and loud footsteps moving throughout the house.
This is the last time I am ever taking my head off.
And it will be if my dad doesn’t get home before they find me.