The two small objects fell to the platform with soft thuds while lights continued to flicker. A light fixture broke loose, falling to the ground landing on top of one smashing it flat.
Meanwhile upstairs Amy had stormed into the kitchen from the garage with a arm load of groceries.
"Eric....Mia get down here now" she yelled sat her cargo onto the kitchen counter.
Not getting the response she wanted, or any response for that matter she again yelled for her kids.
"This is NOT the way for two people with upcoming birthdays to be acting" she said out loud.
Downstairs Eric's world was spinning, or rolling was the better way to describe it. His vision was blurred between seeing the ceiling and the floor as he felt himself rolling. He tried to put his arms out to stop but for some reason they felt bound to him and immobile. Slowly the world stop spinning and he lay there motionless on his side facing something that he couldn't place his mind.
"I'm paralyzed!" he thought as he frantically tried to move.
"Mom! Mom we're down here" he yelled but his voice was weak and sounded strange in his ears, in fact he felt through his whole body.
"Eric?" he heard a squeaky but muffled voice call out. "Eric, I can't move, something is on top of me!"
"Mia?" Eric asked
"Eric help me please!" she called out.
Amy went upstairs ready for a fight. "Eric, Mia come here now!" she yelled. She looked in their bedrooms, and without any success went back downstairs. The doorway to the basement was slightly open, and she could see the stairway light was on.
"Well those little shits" she muttered knowing now they had gone down to look for their birthday presents no doubt.
Amy walked down stairs. "Mia....Eric...you two are in so much trouble. You know this is off limits". She stopped half way down, expecting their pathetic and guilty faces to appear at the bottom of the staircase. Suddenly she started getting nervous. Instead of anger she was now getting increasingly worried. "Eric? Mia?" she asked in a more softened tone.
Erik still could not move, but he did hear is mother's voice. "In here Mom! We're in here!" he yelled forgetting about the odd vibrations doing so caused throughout his body.
Mia too had heard her Mom's voice. "Mommy! Help!" she cried sobbing.
Amy walked across the floor to the open door of her husband's "clean room". As she approached the door she could smell ozone and smoke from burning electronics getting stronger and stronger. She picked up her pace and was nearly at a full run when she got to the door and looked inside.
Lights where flickering and smoke lingered along the ceiling.
"Eric! Mia!" she yelled and grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall that she set down after realizing there was no open flame to be concerned with. Finding the electrical panel on the wall, she killed the power to the room causing emergency back up lighting to come on.
Amy searched the room, and with no sign of Eric or Mia, she grabbed the fire extinguisher once again and looked for any open flame.
Stepping around the workstation she paused when she looked at some debris on the floor.
With the power cut, it was nearly silent in the room. Turning her head, she thought she had heard a faint cry for "Mom!" but it didn't sound like either of the kids.
"Erik?" she said softly and then turned her head as she heard it again.
"Erik?" she said agian.
"Mom! I'm here can't you see me?" Amy took a deep breath. She heard, no doubt she heard it. Small and faint but without a doubt one of her kids.
"Erik? Where are you? Is Mia with you?" she asked looking around.
"I'm here Mom, on the floor...I can't move...I....I think I'm paralyzed....Mia is here she said something is on top of her....Please Mom hurry"
Mia could hear all of this. She tried yelling as loud as she could but the weight on top of her made it difficult.
Amy looked all around. "The room wasn't that big, so why couldn't she see them?" She thought.
Looking down she took a closer look at a few items that littered the floor.
One was a brown cube, about 4 inches by 3 inches. Nudging it with her foot, it tipped over softly and part of it separated from the main object and rested on the floor. Cube was hollow, like a box a small brown box and some of the contents, little brown pieces of varying shapes and sizes spilled out onto the floor. About 3 feet away she noticed another brown object. Stepping closer she inspected the object.
"Eric?" she said aloud.
"Mom I'm right here" the voice responded more clear than ever.
Amy slowly got closer and as she did the object came more and more into a recognizable shape....a small doll, brown, maybe 4 inches long, but in a barely recognizable humanoid shape. Much like the Oscar trophy, she could discern the head,shoulders with the rest of body lacking definition, legs and arms blended into the torso which tapered down to near point.
Amy knelt down, and using a pencil rolled the doll onto it's back. She gasped and screamed. "ERIC!"
If Eric could he would have covered his ears, instead he closed his eyes. The defining scream rattled his body, he never heard such loud sound before. He opened his eyes, this time it was his turn scream. His mother's gigantic face filled his entire field of vision. Her blue eyes wide, mouth open. "No..nnnnnnn...No" Eric yelled as he could tell she was going to let lose another deafening scream. He shut his eyes tight waiting for it.
Amy clasped her hand over her mouth, stood and staggered backward. Kicking a fallen light fixture in the process. She looked around and down only to be horrified one more time.
Mia felt the weight roll off of her, the sudden bright light caused her to squint and cry out.
Amy looked down at the sight on the floor. Whatever the light had fallen on, it had squashed flat. A brown, nearly oval flat object lay beside her foot.
Mia opened eyes to see a towering giant standing over her. "Mommy!!!!!" she yelled and cried.
Amy carefully stepped back and knelt down. "Mia?"she asked broken.
Mia saw her mother's face come into focus as it got closer. "Mommy" she yelled "I'm sorry" she cried.
Amy sat back on her heals and looked back over at Eric. Unlike Eric, Mia had be crushed by the falling light fixture. Not knowing what to do she pulled out her phone from her bra and called her husband.
"James, you need to come home now. There has been a terrible accident".