1. The Vanity: Colorful

"Mommy, when can I get one?"

A little girl with bright red hair stared up at her mother with pleading eyes.

"Soon, dear. We're looking. We're just trying to find the perfect one for you without breaking our funds."

Hannah frowned, kicking her little legs as she walked away from the tall vanity in the store, pristine and coated in shiny pink. The color was alluring but the child managed to turn her eyes away from it anyway.

"Okay..." She whined softly, her small hands seeking her mom's.

The older woman sighed, sadness in her eyes that Hannah couldn't understand at her young age. But she saw it nonetheless, and so she smiled at her mom to make her happy.

Yet all she did was frown some more, squeezing her hand.

"Soon, Hannah-bear... I promise. We'll manage to find you one soon."

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The sound of laughter filled a garage on the modest corner of Oak Street. The bristles of autumn scenting the air as a gust of wind came in from the open entrance.

"Good as new!" Ben cheered as he shook the edges of the mirror with his hands. And then pearly white teeth greeted the air when the glass proved to stay firmly in place despite his movements. The soft brown wood didn't offer a splinter, sanded down meticulously to baby smoothness.

"It's almost perfect." Another shake, and Ben noted the drawer in the base of the vanity remained locked.

Unmoving with even the harshest of treatment.

Jessie and Tyler smiled, waving their paintbrushes in triumph and anticipation. The two taller kids sitting right at home in the middle of the tarp settled on the floor. The poor brushes in their hands looked eager themselves, lush and unused.

"Well?" Jessie prompted with another wiggle.

Ben laughed and picked up his own brush, mimicking their movements with an innocence that flocked to him. "Okay, okay. Let's get this party started!"

The three youths popped the lids off their paint buckets in sync. The sound of music accompanying their strokes when they turned the mirror into their canvas. A work of art as the three misfits took turns sprinkling the mirror with splotches of baby blue, purple and vibrant green. The wood dramatically clashing with the colors as smears took place when the brushes came too close to the reflective surface.

"Whoops." Tyler laughed, about five minutes in when he stopped to scrub his purple blotches off the mirror with his large burly hands.

Jessie shook her head, mumbling something about how he never knew how to be gentle before she smiled and went back to dipping her brush in wild strokes of emerald.

 In the end, the vanity screamed of odd personality and charm. Squiggled with doodles and phrases of clashing colors, it looked like a collection of graffiti that traced back to each other with a singular collision of lines. On the surface of the mirror they each had painted a single heart. At Ben's instance, they had made each of the points connect to form a round symbol at the bottom of the glass edges. Staring back at them was the image of the three of them with smiles, hearts scattered around their reflection. 

"They're beautiful." Jessie said when they finally stepped back to admire their work. Collectively moving back to watch their handiwork dry. Her long brown hair and face were smeared with blue and purple, evidence of their struggle. The splatter of purple on her left cheek the result of Tyler informing Ben that purple was definitely a 'manly' color despite Ben's obvious disagreement.  "We should call these our marks of friendship. It's a sign, that no matter what happens, or no matter where life leads-- we'll always be friends. No matter what, we'll find our way back here. Right where our hearts are!"

"Back to my dingy, kinda dirty, garage?" Ben quipped, smudging a blue streak on his cheek as his sleeve bunched up to brush against his nose from the paint fumes.

He saw the residue on his hand and wiped it on his pant leg sheepishly. Knowing that his mother would have the urge to backhand him over it later.

Though, his parents always knew he was a messy boy.

"The greatest dingy garage in the history of all that is dingy. Just like my grandpa. Dingy, but great." Tyler joked. Blue and purple marks, eerily similar to cat whiskers, were painted across his cheeks. It was a humorous sight for someone as stocky as the teen.

The jocks at the school would have paid to see it.

"Hey, your grandpa isn't dingy!"

There's the shrill sound of car horn and the friends paused in their conversation to look over their shoulders.  Easily they spot Ben's father lurking impatiently in the driveway, his fingers tapping against the steering wheel.  His brow is quicker, curiosity ( or annoyance ) plain on his features as he watches them silently.

He was home earlier than planned.

"Ah, sorry Mr. Faye! We'll get this moved, just one second!" Tyler and Ben immediately moved to push the medium sized vanity mirror to the other side of the garage, leaving multicolored fingerprints across the wood. Jessie made quick work of the tarp, nudging the cans and brushes away with her feet as the boy's finished up moving their new furniture model. She waved the man into the garage with a breath of relief.

The air was tight with tension, until Ben's father got a good look at their appearance while driving in. The man bellowed with laughter at their less than put together visage.

"Did you paint that old mirror, or yourselves? Go get cleaned up, you dang kids." He chuckled.

 And Ben beamed like a toddler up at his dad before he and Tyler fought over who got to use his shower first, their shoulders colliding with each other’s. And while Ben would swear it should obviously be him as it was his house--being best friend’s with the 6'1 football prodigy, proved otherwise. He squashed Ben like a bug as he basically sashed his way to his bathroom in triumph.

The giggle of his mother reassuring him that he'll win next time (a lie) while Jessie simply headed across the street to use her own shower at home. But not without rolling her eyes at their antics for good measure.

But it was hard to take offense when she was so pretty and always smiling when she did it.

"See ya later, Jessie!" Ben called as he waved her goodbye, and then his arm dropped when she eagerly waved back at him.

With his father settled in at home, and his mother hovering in the kitchen over a pot of bubbling stew, Ben found himself going to sit on the stoop from the kitchen to the garage. Idly listening to the house's clutter with his head against the grundgy grey door as he waited for Tyler to stop monopolizing his shower. Ben could hear the sounds of plates clinking together as his mom set the table for dinner and the sound of rushing water through the rattly pipes. Everything was punctuated by his father's bark of laughter whenever his mother murmured something cute to him.

Their relationship always made him feel warm inside.

Ben hoped, one day, he could have the same.

With a push of a button, the  electric switch closed the garage door. The shaking and humming rattling the bleak area mechanically until it came to a stop on the ground.

The breeze from outside bid farewell. And Ben took in a deep breath.

"What an odd little group for this adventure," crooned a voice, almost a whisper, like a cat's purr.

But it was vicious.

Ben jumped, knocking his head into the door with a harsh thud. "O-ow.." squinting an eye open from the pain, his large green eyes went wide as they scanned his garage.

"Hello?" He asked, dumbly.

There was silence.

But then, just as he was about to chalk it up to his imagination, Ben heard a chuckle to his right.

No one stood there.

It was just the emptiness of the garage.

Scrambling up from his makeshift seat, his hand groped for the door handle. Once his frantic fingers found it, Ben opened the door with a harsh shove before fleeing to the safety of the kitchen.

His panicked face alerting his parents as he babbled out what happened with a sheen of sweat so apparent it made his mother turn to his father in shock.

When his father went to investigate the garage, he could only shake his head, admitting he had found no sign of any intruder.

Much to Ben's embarrassment and disbelief as he swore he heard someone.

And just like that, the boy's brush with the entity ended.