"Charlotte!"

He yelled for his sister and headed for her room. "Charl--!" He stopped as he opened the door and found her room empty despite having seen her enter not long before. "Charlotte?" He looked around for a moment but had no idea what to do.

Then there was a giggle.

"Charlotte?"

"Oh, this is going to be fun." Her voice somehow came from an empty room.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"You can't see me if I don't want you to." She giggled again. "You can't see anything I don't want you to." The bed disappeared.

"What the...?"

"It's a rule." And suddenly she was standing in front of him. "And now you'll never find out what other rules I have planned, because you'll never see that notebook again." She giggled again. "It could be on the floor in front of you right now, and you'd never know it."

John staggered back. This had gotten very quickly out of hand. He turned and saw their mother coming up the stairs, and in a moment of panic, ran back to his room. He closed the door and pressed his back against it as his miniature piss piglet struggled to free itself from its tiny prison.

He looked again through his dresser, hoping she had left him something, even a sock, but there was nothing. He looked under his bed. He wasn't perfect when it came to cleaning. He had to have left something somewhere, right? But no, nothing there but his old card collection and a few dust bunnies.

Gotta get some kind of control. Gotta get this thing off. If nothing else, i can't let this be the thing I wear.

He went to the dresser and looked at the spot where he had left the key. It was blank. "Shit." He placed his hand on the spot though and his heart jolted. It was there. It was invisible to him, but it was there.

He picked it up carefully, terrified of dropping it, never to be found again, and started to feel his way into the lock when his mother entered, startling him.