Haunted ~ An Original Story by Arriane Ravenwood- PG-13.

Sooo..... I've been trying to write something like this for a while. And every time I get about ten thousand words in and then I read it back and see that the story has changed into something I don't like. So I started writing it again last night, just a bit. I read it back this morning, and i kinda liked it. So i'm putting that part in later in the story. And this morning I started the beginning of it.
I've just got the prologue at the moment. I wanted to see what you guys thought of the prologue before I actually started posting the full story. I'll be posting chapter by chapter, but they may be coming slowly due to other obligations. Soo yeah.... here it is:



PROLOGUE

Did you ever wonder what it would be like if you weren’t you anymore? If you were suddenly gone, how would your world react?

Whatever you imagined is wrong.

There’s nothing romantic about death. Greif is like the ocean; it’s deep and dark and bigger than all of us. And pain is like a thief in the night.

Some idiot pulls a gun, one shot, one chain of events and then nothing. Some idiot, one shot and then the life you knew is gone forever. You’re gone forever.

So what’s the point you ask? There is no point.

It’s like there’s a huge sign upon birth that reads: “WELCOME TO LIFE, YOU’LL NEVER WANT TO LEAVE! AND EVEN IF YOU DO, WELL, YOU CAN’T. SORRY ABOUT THAT.”

Except that isn’t quite right. People leave all the time. They die. Whether its old age, a medical condition, a car accident, a terrorist act, or suicide, people always leave. People always leave and someone always seems to come in their place.

I was 16 when my story started, when this story started. I guess this is a diary of sorts, an Anne Frank thing or something like that. I was 16 when my story started, but it hasn’t ended.

Not yet.



Soooo...thoughts? Critiques? Suggestions? I'm posting this on HBH first..... andd yeah i doubt really anyone is going to read this....due to site deadness and such...

XD You guys remind me of me and my brother before we fell out and he moved out....

anyhoo... Thank you for the fangirling...I think ^_^

And..I had a first chapter, but i'm rewriting it (cause i didn't like it) So that may be up soon.... ish...XD

CHAPTER 1


I couldn’t tell you the exact point where the story starts. It might have been when my parents started fighting, or maybe it was when my brother and I fell out. It might have been when he was cruelly taken away from us, murdered during a day out. It might have been one of these things, or maybe it was something different.

One of the best memories I have was the week holiday my family and I spent in Great Yarmouth. The weather was awful, it was grey and dreary and there was a never ending pitter-patter of rain. The thunder and lightning storms started on the second day and by the fourth the caravan park where we were staying was flooding. We were sat around this dinky little heater that barely gave off any heat playing board games and doing jigsaw puzzles and laughing and talking. That was a while ago now, but every day I remember that holiday and wonder where things went wrong.

I used to wish so hard that I could go back into that past, into that memory, but memories are exactly that, the past. And so I sighed and had to sit here in the awkward silence eating breakfast.

Mum was still crying, tears running silently down her face. Dad still had that tight look on his face; he was wearing a twisted smile that was obviously forced. Nobody talked. They thought I didn’t know what was going on. Thought I hadn’t heard them screaming at each other in the early hours of the morning, or when they thought I wasn’t here, wasn’t listening or paying attention. They thought they could pretend everything was okay. And they couldn’t. My family was falling apart, crumbling around me, and the more I wanted to prevent it the more it seemed to happen.

My brother came down eventually and sent a questioning glance at me before sitting down to eat his cereal. I just shrugged my shoulders. He had always been out when they were arguing; either that or he was in a ridiculously deep sleep and hadn’t heard them. Either way he was ignorant to the situation and I wanted it to stay that way. He had enough to deal with at the moment, college applications, basketball, school work, his girlfriend, his job. So much pressure was on him. The people said he was going to be ‘the next great player’ and even I believed that.

I took in a deep shuddering breath that was half annoyance half upset, lamely cleared my throat then asked how everyone slept and what they planned on doing today. There was no answer and tension was thick in the air. The tap by the sink was dripping, a new drop falling every few seconds. It was slowing down, but it was still annoying. Yet nobody moved to switch it off.

I felt like I was intruding on something, felt like I should leave so they could carry on with their argument. I didn’t. Instead I sighed. “How did everyone sleep? What’s everyone doing today?” I asked again, this time giving my voice a forceful edge. There was silence for a second longer and then my parents started babbling over each other as my brother watched on with confusion and I tried to avoid his stare. My pancakes suddenly didn’t look as appetizing as it had ten minutes ago and instead of forcing myself to eat them I threw them in the bin and walked up to my room, and closed the door gently though every particle in my body wished to slam it closed.

I stayed up there, in my room, until It was time to go to school. It was the last day of this term, and then it would be the Easter holidays and hopefully things would relax a bit.

School was a bore. Most of the day was watching DVD’s that were brought in, none of the teachers wanted to start new material right before a holiday. Two of the lessons were end of unit tests that I hadn’t had the patience to revise for. Around me my friends talked, but it wasn’t exactly to me. They could tell I was having one of those days. The days where I would sit and zone out and be oblivious to the world around me, where I would hide out deep within my mind and hope that when I get jerked back into reality things would be different.

Things were never different though, I thought as I ended my school day with Drama club. I went through the motions of stretching and playing the warm up games, said my lines without any emotion.
I felt like a robot.
I let without so much of a glance back and instead of taking the five minute bus journey I elected to take the twenty minute walk home alone.

Firstly...What the Heck is a Taco Salad??

Secondly...i've decided i'm gonna use this as my NaNoWriMo novel.... So yeah....new posts coming at ya either fast or not at all until the end of November.

Thirdly...-tries to take on the responsible and strict Admin role that she sucks so bad at- You totally should use your own account to post... Its baaaad to use someone elses....XD

Fourthly...Is vague good or bad? My muse is kinda sucky at the moment...so yeah...Anyhoo my editor (yeah...I hash an editor...not a professional one, but she's an extremely good writer who I trust loads and she gives awesome critique and such) is looking at the chapter and such ASAP, so that may not be the final version.... Thats the second chapter One i've written though...XD

XD, you mean like...delete the thread???

anddd....heres chaptes 2 to 5... the unedited NaNo version for now....


CHAPTER 2 - The Bad Day Continues


I was home too fast. All too soon I was walking along the path to my house, already I could hear the telltale signs of another argument going on. The shouts were muffled due to the walls and door separating me from them, but they were still there. I wanted to turn and run. I wanted to hide out at my grandparents, but they had died a couple of months back after having some virus. I could always go to the graveyard, but it was creepy there and I only like going when I was with someone else. So Instead I steeled myself and quietly pushed the door open.

The shouting immediately sounded a hundred times louder, I was pretty sure I heard a vase smash. Next doors dogs were barking, adding to the din. They hadn’t heard me so I slowly crept towards the kitchen door and tried to make sense of what I was hearing. They were yelling over each other in such a way that I didn’t understand what they were saying, so I could only make out a few words. “Cheated” seemed to be the main one in this particular argument and my heart dropped.

Things seemed to be worse than I initially thought. I thought maybe it was some sort of silly thing they were arguing about. But this? This was a disaster. I couldn’t help it; I flung the door open and stood in the door, my arms crossed across my chest, a frown crossing my forehead. I felt a small sense of satisfaction as they shut up and looked at me open mouthed. “Just what, if I may have an honest answer, is going on?” I looked between the two who hadn’t answered. “Don’t tell me it’s nothing. Don’t you dare tell me it’s nothing. Because it obviously isn’t nothing. I’ve put up with you guys fighting for weeks now, weeks, And I’m getting sick of it! Stop acting like there isn’t something wrong, because there is! I know it, you know it. We all know it.” I didn’t mention the fact that my brother didn’t actually have a clue what was going on, it sounded better when I said we all know it.

Silence filled the room, drowning us all with its presence and I eventually sighed and turned around. “You know what? Just forget it. I don’t care,” I muttered walking out and slamming the door behind me. My vision was blurred with tears that I angrily swiped at. I didn’t even know why I was upset, why I was crying, but I was.

I ran into my brother in the hallway, his face looked paler than usual and had a rare angry look upon it. Something was obviously bothering him, and I could guess what. He had just heard what had happened. I had been so absorbed with yelling at my parents that I didn’t hear him come in. I tried to stutter out something about what had just happened, what had been happening for months but he didn’t want to hear it. He just walked past me, walked away up the stairs and into his room. He closed the door with a loud slam and my face crumpled. Tears ran down my cheeks faster, but I didn’t care anymore. I left them to drip and sank down the wall where I was.
My brother was older than me, only by a year, and had at some point during my life taken on the role of trying to protect me and take care of me. We never really argued, and he never usually ignored me, especially when I was crying, but he ignored me just then. He had ignored me and walked off to his room, slamming the door like I had done in the kitchen only moments ago.

My parents came out of the kitchen not much longer. They were no longer arguing, but they weren’t talking either, in fact there seemed to be a dark angry aura coming from both of them that made me want to flee. I stayed sat where I was as they stopped in front of me. They started talking in relatively calm voices about how they had been going to counseling and was working on things and how everything was going to be okay and fine. Of course their saying it so much made me believe the opposite. And that was it. My parents would get a divorce, our family would be separated, my parents would start dating other people, and everything was falling apart. My life was falling apart. It wasn’t fair.

But then again, if you stop and think about it, life is rarely fair.

I tucked a strand of my red hair behind my ear and glared up at my parents through my tears. They were still trying to make me believe everything was okay and then they had the nerve to try and buy me. Like buying me presents and giving me money would change anything. I gave them a disgusted look that let them know what I thought before pulling myself up and walking out of the door, leaving my school stuff against the wall where I had been sat.








CHAPTER 3 – Oh, Look, It’s Raining!


It had started raining outside but I couldn’t care less if my hair went frizzy. It was Hair, not the end of the world like most girls seemed to believe. I carried on walking even when my dad came out of the door behind me and started yelling at me to come back, he even used my whole name like it would have any effect on me yelling, “ABIGAIL ERIN WINTERS, GET BACK IN THIS HOUSE IMMEDIATELY!!” I would have laughed had it been any other situation, nobody ever used my middle name; as it were I made an odd choking sort of snorting noise that made me cough several times and carried on walking in the rain.

The gentle pitter patter of rain hitting the pavement and puddles around me were relaxing in an odd way. I jogged towards the woods, not because of the cover, but because it was the last place my parents would look for me if they did. They’d check my friends’ houses first, then the graveyard, the library, the old bookstore and some other paces before they even thought about the woods. That would give me some time to think and try and figure something out, to try and think of a way to fix this mess.

The woods were, well, woodsy. They were damp and the smell of earth and rotting leaves were strong, the birds were singing in the trees as they took to the branches to wait out the rain, the few squirrels I saw jumping around were rooting for food for the coming winter. I followed a well-worn path for about ten minutes, enjoying the silence that the rain brought and when I got to a certain point I headed off the tracks into a different part of the woods. The place where I was going went to a clearing of sorts. It had a cliff type thing overlooking some sort of pond or lake. The cliff had caves in them and tunnels, and sure they could be dangerous but that had never stopped me from going into them and exploring.

I walked through one of the tunnels that would take me to the other side of the cliff, but also went deeper so I was at least three meters closer to the water. Then at the end of the tunnel was a ledge that was easy enough to climb down onto a lower part that held one of the main caves I liked to hide in. I couldn’t tell if these were man made caves, the result of mining like most of the caves and tunnels in here were, or if they were natural. Either way the caves were pretty cool and were a great spot to hang out.

People used to throw parties here, they still do, but never did they go to the caves I hung out in, they used the higher ones and when they were drunk enough, of felt like doing it, they went cliff diving. I had tried it once and almost choked to death upon inhaling some water, I had had to go to hospital in case of drowning, secondary drowning and other things like pneumonia and hypothermia. I didn’t do it again, in case you were wondering.

It didn’t take long to land, though I landed funnily and ended up jumping up and down on one foot cursing and using a few choice swear words for about two minutes as pain shot through my ankle. It was nothing though, and the pain went pretty quickly. My family like to joke that I’ll be in a wheel chair by the time I’m thirty because I have week ankles, but I always deny those claims. Never will I end up in a wheelchair…well hopefully anyways. I’m too independent for a wheelchair, too much of a free spirit. I like running and sports too much. I like the freedom of being able to go wherever and do whatever; I like the feeling of my feet pounding on the ground as I run towards a finish line. I’m not saying being in a wheelchair is a bad thing though, and of course I don’t mean to insult anyone in one when I say that, but wheelchairs? They’re just not my thing.

The ledge was wet and slippery, so I stuck close to the wall until I reached the cave, walking slowly with my side brushing along the damp rock. My hoodie was already soaked, so it didn’t matter if it got wet; however it got that gross green mossy moldy stuff on the arm of it and pulled a revolted face. Water, it didn’t bother me. But give me a bit of green gunk and that was it. I took a moment to have a long suffered sigh before taken the last ten steps into the cave.











CHAPTER 4 – Welcome To the Pity Party


The cave was dry, which was a minor relief, and it was a little warmer than outside. It would be easy enough to start a fire though; I usually kept some stuff down here to light one just in case I came down on a day like this. I tugged my hoodie over my head and dropped it over a large rock to try and dry it. I started the fire next, grabbing some firewood that I had got during the summer and placing it in a pile on the floor, putting a circle of stones around it like I had seen in the movies. Then I lit it, it took a while to get the flames actually going but once they were light filled the whole cave and a sense of warmth washed over me. I knew it would be a good few minutes until the cave began too warm up and I momentarily forgot the reason I had come out here in the first place as I watched the flames dance. I ran my hair out and sat against the wall closest to where the fire was, trying to incorporate some heat into my body.

I must have zoned out at some point, or completely dozed off because the next time I entered reality some boy was watching me with an amused smile on his face. I blinked at him a few times, half thinking he was a figment of my imagination; he wasn’t. I even rubbed my eyes and pinched myself. He didn’t disappear though, he just carried on smiling. I looked at the cave entrance, feeling a sense shock as I realized it had gotten dark outside and now the rain seemed to have turned into a storm. My stomach was rumbling and I figured I had probably missed dinner. My parents would be worried about me, but then I felt a flash of resentment and no longer cared.

The boy was still watching me with the same amused expression and I felt the urge to yell at him, but I didn’t. Instead I was nice and polite, “Who the hell are you and why are you in my cave?”
Okay, so maybe it was my version of nice and polite, but it was still better than yelling at him.

“Hi, nice to meet you too!” The boy said, dripping sarcasm. “I’m Charlie Sampson, and as for what I’m doing in this particular cave, which I’m sure doesn’t belong to you, I saw the walls lighting up and assuming there was a fire in here I decided to come and try to get warmed up. At first I thought it would be one of those parties, but I realized it was too quiet for one of those. Anyways, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to come in. Of course it was an added bonus that you were here; it’s not every day you get to see a pretty girl soaking wet sleeping in a cave. And so, if I may enquire, who are you?”

I skipped over the pretty girl comment and as he spoke I gave him a once over. He was either my age or older, his brown hair was curling slightly at the ends. It wasn’t too short or long, it was just the right length to suit him. His eyes were a melted chocolate kind of brown and he was wearing a simple white T-shirt, a black leather jacket, jeans and converse. I decided to ignore the fact that he might have been good looking and instead answered his question.
“Abigail. Abigail Winters…but everyone calls me Red.” He raised an eyebrow at the Red thing in a questioning way, and so I had to explain. “Add my fiery nature to my hair colour and Voila! Red! And yes, the hair is natural…and no I’ve never dyed nor bleached it.”
The boy, Charlie, seemed to take that in for a moment and then smiled again. “Well....Nice to meet you Red. Mind if I stay a while? You look as though you could use some company and I don’t really fancy trekking home in that weather….”

I thought about it. I’d like to be alone in piece for a while, but the opportunity to vent and rant with someone else was a good one, so I found myself nodding and saying: “Nice to meet you too, Charlie, And yes, you may stay… Though I apologise in advance for any ranting, crying, venting, yelling, swearing and cursing. I’ve had a rather bad day and so these things are likely…You seemed to come along at the perfect moment to hear it all.”
“Well…sounds fun, and since I can’t exactly go home right now I don’t seem to have much of a choice. However, I’m really not much in the mood for a pity party. So…anything but the ranting, raving and crying stuff please…” Charlie said, a small frown flickering across his face as he spoke. “We could just talk randomness?? That’d work….or...well…whatever….”

I smiled at him, he looked so awkward and seemed as bad at meeting new people as I was. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing quite yet. “Hmm…Not ranting and such… That might be hard…. Butt…I’ll deal. As for randomness… I have a question. Where are you from? I haven’t ever seen you around town and you don’t go to my school. I’m pretty sure I’d know you if you did, or know of you at least.”

“I’m from ‘The Other Side’. I live in the next town over, the other side of the woods…. I wanted to come and check this place out and see what the fuss was. Apparently a group of kids threw a party here the other weekend. In all honesty I can’t really see the attraction. It’s a cliff with a pond and a few caves. Really nothing much…. I mean, sure, it’s in the woods and away from the parents and such, but it takes ages to get here…and imagine trying to get home when you’re drunk!” He stood up and pretended to stagger around like a drunk would, but ended up looking more like a zombie and nearly tripping into the fire. I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Ahhh! That’s better! You smiled!! See, this is better than a Pity party, right?”
“Yes,” I agreed. I had to. “This is better than a pity party.”
“Exactly!! So I’m assuming that you’re from this town then? Or are you just a visitor like me?”
“Nope…I’m from this place… lucky for me! It’s…well… not the best town in the world… I mean, most of the kids are stuck up and asses…. And their parents are half as bad. They think they’re so cool because they have money and apparently are fashionable. Though I don’t see what’s so cool about trying to be a clone like they all are….And…I’m ranting aren’t I?” I sighed and rolled my eyes at myself. “Sorry… I just can’t seem to help it. Ranting and I go hand in hand at the moment. Like I said… I’ve had a bad day.”

I stood up and stretched, walking around and trying to wake myself up a bit more. “How long do you reckon the storm will last?” I asked, glancing outside once more. The rain showed no sign of wanting to stop any time soon, nor did the thunder and lightning. If anything the clouds were getting thicker and the rain was getting heavier. And with the coming darkness was a drop in the temperature. I was glad for the fire, but if the rain changed directions and blew into the caves instead the fire would probably go out like a candle.




















Chapter 5 – Arguments and Apologies

We sat talking and laughing until the storm blew over, and when I finally got back up my legs were stiff and I had to lean against the wall for a second. It was hard to believe that I had known Charlie for less than two hours because the way we were talking and the way I didn’t feel uncomfortable around him made it feel like I had known him for at least a month, if not more. And I kept getting that feeling that I had met the boy before. Maybe it was a long time ago. I didn’t know, and right now I didn’t care. All that mattered was that he had cheered me up when I was down, but right now all I wanted was to get home and crawl into my bed and never get out, get away from the warm covers and my books and CD’s. Get away from the tranquility that came from having a closed door between me and the rest of the world.

Of course that’s why once I had said goodbye I sprinted home as fast as I could. It was easy enough to climb back up the bit of cliff I had come down earlier, easy enough to get through the woods and back onto the streets. What wasn’t easy was walking through the front door.

My parents were hurling shouts at each other again, arguing at the top of their lungs. This time they were in the living room, my mum sat on the chair with a cup of coffee in her hands and tears rolling down her cheeks. They were talking about me disappearing. Blaming it on each other like children. They were talking about calling the police and trying to figure out where I was, about me not answering my phone, because it was in my bag which I had left dumped where I had been sat in the hall earlier. I couldn’t help it, I rolled my eyes. They were being so dramatic, acting like I wouldn’t come back.

They were being pathetic.

I understood that they were worried; I had left the house without a backward glance and without my phone. I also hadn’t given them a clue of where I was going. But they had deserved it. They really did. But I still felt bad for it. So I walked further into the room, mumbling an apology and wishing I could walk right back out. I sat down on the chair in the far corner, attempting to sink further into the cushion as though it would make me invisible.

I got the usual where have you being and what were you thinking lecture which I sat through in silence. Then they started apologising which made only made me feel worse. They were talking about how they hadn’t intended for things to get as bad as they were at one point and eventually I couldn’t take any more of the depressing talk and made a beeline for the shower.

The warm water cascading over my body relaxed me and soon I sank into the familiarity of washing and rinsing. I would have stayed in the watery paradise for longer, but I was on the verge of getting raisin skin so I reluctantly turned the shower off and dried myself off, got my pajamas on and wrapped myself in my fluffy black dressing gown. I brushed and dried my hair within minutes and then I had no idea what to do next.

I couldn’t go speak to my brother, didn’t want to go downstairs again either. I could read or watch a DVD; I could rock out to some awesome music played at ridiculously high volume or I could just go to bed where sink into the depths of sleep and a world of dreams. I could play the guitar that was propped at the end of my bed, or maybe go on my laptop. I could start on the essay I had to do for when I started college.

I could do so much, yet it felt as though it wasn’t enough. I wished it was daytime again, so I could go and run and run and run until I couldn’t run anymore, until the soles of my feet bled and then some more. I wanted to escape the confusion and pain that everyone in my house seemed to be struggling with. But I couldn’t. All I could do was suck it up and move on.

I flopped down in my bed, pressing my face into my pillow with my arms at my sides and my legs together. I let the darkness envelope me for a moment before sitting back up and pushing my hair back from my face. I was bored, but I was too awake to sleep now and too tired to do anything else. I rolled over onto my back and stared at the glow in the dark stars that hung from my ceiling. My parents had got me them when I was younger, I had been terrified of the dark and though I had several night lights around the room I still didn’t feel safe, so they got me the stars too. I had never had the heart to take them down, and I was glad that I didn’t. They comforted me, reminded me of good times that had past and hopefully better ones that would come.

I fell asleep like that, living in the past and hoping for a better future.