Huanted House

I could not sleep that night, for I was not given the chance to. For numerous times I had been yelling at my cousin to lower down the volume of the Compact Disc player. He insisted on testing out every single disc of my brother's heavy-metal music collection at a certain volume that made my heart jump too fast or choke my mind with angry thoughts. My tired eyes shifted to the alarm clock, which stood, on my computer. Eleven, another hour to a brand new day. The next day, I will be bringing my cousin to have a view of the things we have in stall for him in the small neighborhood of mine, but before that can be possible, I will require my beauty sleep!

"Hey, you moron! Are you finished with those trashy sounds?" I yelled, throwing the blanket over my head. I then grabbed my soft-toy dog, and threw it at him, aiming for his head. He responded, launching the toy back at me, hard at the bum. "Self-defence," he reasoned out, reaching for the power switch of the player, finally. I heaved a sigh of relief, dropping dead on the pillow.

As soon as I was about to enter the dream world, someone tapping at my shoulder awakened me.

"I cannot sleep," my cousin explained. I felt like strangling him. Thinking of what the family might say for destroying or killing a potential family name-bearer, I guessed it was not a very healthy idea after all.

I sat on my bed, rubbing my eyes as I looked at my cousin through blurred eyes. " I remembered the last time you stayed overnight when you were around eight, you slept like a pig," I muttered, reaching out for my spectacles. It hurts to be shortsighted.

"I am thirteen now," he reminded his 'meet-once-a-year-during-Chinese-New-Year' cousin.

"So? Can't thirteen-year-old don't act like nocturnal animals?"

I gave up, and soon the both of us were in the living room, with freshly brewed cups of coffee in our hands. It reminded me of how I drowned myself in caffine in order to stay awake for last minute examination preparations. My cousin strolled his way over to the television.

"Don't switch on that. The rest of the them are sleeping, mind you," I warned him, recalling the time when my father threw down my radio on the ground, for blasting it during his sleep. Tremendously terrifying.

I got my cousin to chat with me instead. With the coffee keeping us awake, we shared plenty of things; he cracked dirty jokes which he heard from his new school, we debated over topics like whether George Michael is gay, and also came to realize that most Chinese teachers have very weird dialect names. We had such a wonderful time that I have forgot the fact that my cousin is three years my junior, and we meet up once in a blue moon.

My eyes wandered around the room and it came upon my torchlight. An idea came upon me. Strolling over to the torch, I made my cousin switch off the main lights. The room was filled with darkness, with only mild moonlight shining from the balcony.

"Ooo.." I moaned, flashing the torch light upon my face.

"Cool!" My cousin laughed, "You look like an idiot!"

For that insulting remark, he received a hard kick at the stomach. He ended up being the