Emma lived on the top of a mountain in the upper-west coast.
She typically stayed in her small home and painted while her mother cut wood in the yard.
Next door was the Amesta family, who lived in an ornate wooden mansion.
While she admired them, she was always somewhat disgusted at their lifestyle.
One day, Emma heard a rumble from their house
Thinking nothing of it, she went back to her painting,
but after a few hours, she realized she hadn’t heard any more noise from them,
Which is unusual, considering how they always seem to have loud guests over.
So she decided to go to see what had happened.

Climbing over their gated fence, Emma traveled through their long, forested walkway, until she finally reached the door of the Amestas family, who never responded to her repeated knocking.

Letting her curiosity get the better of her, Emma looked through their window, and from what she could see through the needlessly patterned glass, it didn’t seem like they had any furniture in their house.
Noticing the window was unlocked, she climbed inside, and the house was empty, minus a single rug out in the open.
The rug was a deep red with a golden lining weaved throughout.
Emma noticed that the lines formed the shape of the house itself, which seemed rather fitting for a wealthy family like the Amestas. Being a painter, she scoffed at the tackiness, and then turned around to leave.

As she was about to unlock their door and exit, Emma thought she heard a faint noise from below the rug. Tiptoeing back over, she realized what she heard was the sound of heavy breathing, and a faint tapping on the floor below her, which slightly shook under her feet.
Being stricken with fear, but never losing her curiosity, she laid her hands on the feathered edges of the fabric. She prayed to herself, and then she took a deep breath, counted down to calm her nerves even further, and in a swift motion lifted the rug and aggressively tossed it aside from her, where she-

The creature leapt out of the black cavern below the rug, long greasy hair dangling as it clung to the ceiling with its grotesque spidery legs, shrieking as it stared down at Emma with its flaccid eyelids containing nothing in the sockets behind them, and rearing its bloodsoaked fangs from underneath the scraps of dead skin that remained of its lips, while Emma rushed to the staircase in a frenzy and kicked out one of the wooden posts from under the railing, pointed the jagged end, and lunged it into the monster, making a crack as it pierced its skin and into its bony, humanoid frame.
The creature fell from the ceiling and onto the floor, driving the makeshift stake further into its body, and as Emma ran out of the building, she caught a glimpse into the cavern it escaped from, and saw a pile of mangled bodies, and from within them could make out the face of Mr. Amesta.

After Emma ran out of the mansion, she cursed herself for not saving the Amesta family while the monster was still incapacitated, and retched in horror at the fact that they were surely dead by this point. She spent the next few days recovering from the shock of the whole ordeal, unable to paint or do anything that would normally keep her mind off the outside world around her. Emma considered telling her mother, but for some reason just couldn’t bring herself to explain what she had been witness to. After a few months, she had stopped thinking about the incident entirely, and returned to living her usual life.
However, this finally changed for Emma when she heard some vehicles pull up to the now abandoned house near her. She looked out her window and saw multiple men in black uniforms knock on the door, before breaking in just as she had done when there was no response. With a stab of anxiety in her stomach, she realized that the police must have caught wind of the radio silence of the Amestas. As she considered running over to warn them, she stopped herself, and after some thought, realized why she couldn’t manage to tell anybody about what happened.

Glancing at the water-damaged ceiling of her room above her and glancing back through the window of the Amestas’ mansion, Emma began feeling indignance at the fact that her art and her mother’s tireless labouring had never done anything for them compared to the magnificence of their neighbor’s home. What was so amazing about the Amesta family that they deserved their lifestyle more than Emma? What right did they have to live so far beyond her despite her tireless efforts? If there was any justice in the world, wouldn't the Amestas see Emma's struggle and give at least something back to her as neighbors?
Her mind continued to spiral into revulsion as she saw the police put so much care and effort into their search for the Amestas. Care and effort that she knew would never be extended to her, or her mother, or any of her working-class friends and family. She heard the familiar rumble begin again, and then heard gunshots and desperate cries from the mansion, and smirked to herself and thought that this horrific violence almost matched the violence of how the Amestas had lived their life compared to her. She couldn't help but be entertained by the irony of what was happening.
And as bodies slammed against the walls, and as gunshots were quickly interrupted by the sickening crunches of both wood and bones, Emma saw a familiar body crawling across the building, before it was dragged away and-

As the screams from the mansion began to die down, and as sprays of blood coated the window she was looking through from the inside, Emma decided to ignore the sight as she peacefully returned to her painting.