Chapter One: It was one of those days. The ones where it’s pouring outside, everything is dreary and gray and wet. I huffed and puffed, feet pounding the pavement and arm over my head to try and avoid ruining the new haircut I’d gotten for the upcoming middle school dance. I’d seen it in the forecast that it was supposed to rain, but neglected to grab an umbrella after leaving the house. In one swish of my hand, I slammed open a sliding door and stormed into a small shop, seeking shelter from the downpour. Most of the lights were off. It smelled of dust and dirt and as I looked around, something shifted in the corner. My muscles froze and my face contorted into a look of terror. I’d heard of some gang activity and weird paranormal events going on around this area. As something slowly rose out of the shadows, I hoped that I wasn’t unlucky enough to run into some ghost or gang leader or demon.
It might seem rash to believe in the paranormal, but even adults do. We’d all seen plenty of proof. It was a certified truth.
“Jake?” A female’s voice sounded out from the corner. My shoulders relaxed and I let out a breath. This was a voice I recognized. She must’ve been looking for a way to get out of the storm and she ended up here, too. This was good. I could talk to her now. Privately.
“Evangeline,” Her small form melted out of the corner shadows and she walked closer to me. Sure, we were only in seventh grade, but our family was as dysfunctional as they come. People think that children can't possibly know anything bad in life. At that moment, my sister, Evangeline, hated me. Only my family knew, she put up a good front at school. She also knew that I came to this little abandoned shop often to try and get away from people, I bet she forgot and hadn't counted on running into me here. I sighed at the sight of her pitch black hair. If I didn’t know she was my sister, then I’d think she was some kind of demon child with her black hair and dark irises,”Can we talk? Please? I wanted to say-” She cut me off with one gesture of her hand.
“I’m going to get this clear now, Jake. It was your choice to do that thing. No one told you to,” Yes, she was my little sister. She was still very wise. Intelligent too,”I’m pissed, which you know. Now, you can continue living in this little worthless and dangerous bubble of yours, or you can get your act together and become someone important. Someone worth living for because, right now, I have no one to live for,” With that, she slid the door open. She walked into the rain, never looking back.
That was the last time anyone saw her.
Until today.
The girl I'm looking at is Violet. She’s a junior, a year ahead of me, but I have a major crush on her. I’m pretty sure she likes me too, she seems to always be looking at me or whispering to her friends and glancing at me. My friends always try to get me to approach her, ask her out, but I’m too much of a chicken, as they so sweetly put it.
Jose sits in a manly position leaning on the faded blue cafeteria table with a tanned elbow. He speaks to me in his thick Spanish accent that seems to be a girl magnet,”Amigo, you gotta just go for it. You never know if you never try!” He constantly says this to me, I just chuckle and roll my eyes. The dude is on the football team, like me, yet always seems to be more manly than me, but we still hang out and work well together on the field.
I sigh,”That’s true in all situations… but mine,” Jose laughs heartily,”She’s a year ahead, popular, and mysteriously beautiful. In other words, way out of my league. You just live in this wonderful world where your sexy accent gets you women all the time.”
He pats me on the back, smiling. I can tell he doesn’t believe that. For a school project, some sophomore made a survey asking who the most eligible bachelor in the school was. I was voted second. Only behind Kaleb, the football captain. He pretty much looks like a surfer boy, even out here in Colorado. Hell, I’m not gay but even I think he’s pretty hot. I get up and throw my tray away, walking toward the bathroom.
As I pass through the halls, everything is silent. My ears are ringing and my breathing is speeding up. This happens almost every time I think about her or what happened when I was way younger than now. My vision blurs for a second and I put a hand on the rough stone wall to steady myself. Luckily, the bathroom is only a few more yards up this hall then a turn to the right. I make it the last few yards and as soon as I’m in the bathroom, I take out my bottle of pills and pop one in my mouth. I curl up on the lidded toilet in one of the stalls and hug my knees to my chest. The principal has notified all of my teachers of my ‘issues’. I’m excused from classes whenever this happens. I stare at the green stall, vision going blurry, then straight, then blurry again. I flash back to my childhood.
I was in my dark room, lit only by a few night lights scattered around. My window was closed with gray curtains loosely hanging over them. I was in a queen bed across the room from a bouncy trampoline chair and a mostly empty bookshelf. I wasn’t color blind, yet everything seemed strangely gray. This was a memory from before Evangeline had been born, before she was there to light up my dreary life with Mom and Dad. I couldn’t close my eyes that night, something felt off, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. The window to my room was closed and a bright white light shined through. Something had happened the night before that made me extra cautious this night. I couldn’t remember it, though. I was tempted to get up and sprint to Dad’s room, but I knew he was still working. He always was. I closed my eyes for a second and heard an unsheathing sound. My eyes flew open to see a shadow. What I could make out of the monster, shook me to the core. It was so tall it had to bend over like a hunchback in my room. It’s legs were long, bone skinny and slightly bent. His midsection was flabby and his arms were so long they reached all the way down to his knees. They were bone skinny, too. His monstrous face was covered in the darkness, but his bright white toothy grin was basically like the sun shining into my dark room. His eyes were little neon red dots and his nose was nothing but two little holes in his face from what I could see. His clothes, if you could call them that, were rags, torn and draping off of his body. In his right hand, a scythe glittered. It’s blade was long and curved, the handle a long, straight metal rod. He just stood, grinning at me, red eyes piercing my soul and crushing my lungs. I couldn't breathe. At this point my back was pressed up against the wall, blanket scrunched in my hands like I was trying to shield myself and hold a weapon at the same time. I looked into his eyes and froze. It was pure death. Men falling in battle, gangs cornering innocent women with knives and guns, shooters walking into a crowd and nailing someone in the head. I heard distant screaming, but it was me. My parents both rushed in, worried as hell. They flicked on the lights, only able to glimpse the monster climbing out the window. He glanced back once, then he was gone. It was like he’d never existed. I was finally able to place what had been off in my room after the whole ordeal. If my window was closed and the blinds were pulled down, then how… were my curtains blowing in the breeze?
After I am recovered from the memory, I lounge in front of the mirror, just staring. It might seem weird, but every day I look for her in my face. It’s been four years since she disappeared. The police have no leads, local gangs claim not to have ever seen her, and I look every day for her, never finding anything.
My light brown hair, tan skin, honey brown eyes, and athletic build look nothing like she did. Her with her pale skin, dark black hair, almost black eyes, and small, skinny build. I was always worried she couldn’t protect herself. I should’ve done more about it.
“Evangeline…” I wipe a tear out of my eye. She was only my little sister by a month. She’d be a sophomore now also. I miss her so much.
The school bell rings, signaling that we can go home for the day and I jump three feet in the air. The bathroom is creepy enough without that scaring me. I turn my back to the mirror, facing the broken down stalls. The three overhead lights flicker on and off dimly. The bathroom stall doors are faded green and all scratched up thanks to those wannabe thugs. The only decent stall is the one I was hiding out in. That’s why this bathroom is usually empty. I sigh. This scene is pretty much my brain right now.
Outside of the school, it’s raining. Wonderful. It has to look just like that day four years ago. It is the anniversary of her presumed death. The police closed the case early on, finding no trace of her. It was a cold case, probably never going to be solved. I puff out a breath watching it turn to white steam in the crisp, cold winter air. I don’t even try to get out my umbrella from the school bag. I just stand there, letting the rain hit my skin and hair, savoring it’s cold deprivation of life. Rain isn’t just weather to me. It will always be the grim reaper of life, the one that took away my sister. I’d love to say that I still believed she was alive, but it’s been four years and still no sign.
“Jake!” Blond-haired, blue-eyed Peter comes jogging up to me in the rain looking terrified,”Come on, she just appeared! They don’t know if she’s alive!” My eyes widen. Who is this she?
Evangeline?
We sprint as fast as possible around a corner to the right then turn left. I stop dead in my tracks after glimpsing the face of the girl that is passed out. It takes me a moment to process before I stumble forward, harshly shoving people out of my way until I reach the center of the circle where Kaleb is kneeling over a dark-haired girl with her eyes closed. I skid to my knees and punch him out of the way, he yelps in surprise. My fingers touch her cold skin as the rain intensifies until it feels like icicles piercing my body. I sit, just staring at her peaceful face. It’s been four years since I last saw her. How is it possible that she’s back? Where did she even go all of that time? She looks more mature now, like a sophomore.
“Evangeline…” I whisper, the entire world dead silent except for the plip-plop of rain. The sun seems to sink further into dark gray storm clouds as the world other than Evangeline and I falls away. It is only her. She’s back. My finger touches her face and a light glows under her skin where my finger makes contact. Her mouth opens and she jaggedly inhales, coughing. Her eyes flutter open, dark brown, almost black. Just like I remember. They flicker to me and then to the world around us. She’s laying in my arms, still having a hard time breathing.
“Jake? You’re still here? You aren’t gone? Dead?” She whispers to me. The last word barely even came out. I almost can't hear her above the rain and my own sobbing. She reaches up and brushes a piece of hair out of my eyes gently,”I missed you. You have no idea what I went through to get back to you.”
It is then that I notice the bruises and scars and blood on her broken body. Her leg seems to be twisted in an unnatural way and I gasp.
“What happened to you, Evie?” I inhale and exhale slowly, still wrapping my head around everything.
“Things you couldn’t imagine. Things out of this world. Things that shouldn’t exist. I’ve been places that no one could go until million years from now. I just wanted-“ Her sentence is cut off by violent hacking. She moves her hand away from her mouth and there is bright red blood on it. I grimace.
“Stop talking, Evie. You need medical help and I’ll get it for you. When you’re out of shock, I will cuddle you forever and we can talk,” I soothe her. I then yell out to the people around to call 911 and they rush to get their phones out and comply.
Kaleb slowly creeps forward, probably wary of my fists. He speaks softly and quietly,”Jake. Do you know this girl? Are you OK? Is she OK?”
I look up, tears overflowing from my eyes,"She’s my sister...”
Realization floods into his eyes and he nods silently. I can tell that he knew something was going on with me, but he felt uncomfortable asking about it. Kaleb could be really shy sometimes. No doubt he already heard about the story of a girl disappearing without a trace four years ago. He just didn’t connect my last name with the news.
The ambulance arrives a bit later, after most of the crowd clears off. I stalk up to Evangeline. The ambulance’s flashing lights pierce through the thick darkness. The rain has cleared up and now it’s just the heavy clouds blanketing the world in an unforgiving black bleakness. I am told to go home and get a ride to the hospital with my parents and as the ambulances departs, it seems like the world literally shatters in front of me. My sister is back now. I’d begun to believe that she wasn’t alive anymore. My hands violently shake as I attempt to reach into my coat pocket and pull out my anxiety pills. The white child-proof cap almost doesn’t come off because I can’t get a good grip on it. I pop two pills into my mouth. I’m honestly not sure if this will help, it would’ve been better to take my depression pills. I don’t carry those around with me, though. The shaking stops a bit, but when I look up, there’s some kind of monster in front of me. Fear. It takes the shape of a green demon with long black wings and a pointed green tongue with gross spiky teeth. I shiver and blink my eyes repeatedly to clear him from my vision. He leaves… for now.
I shove the bottle back in my wool coat pocket along with my hands. I’m freezing, but that doesn’t matter right now. The rain begins to fall again as I walk. Slowly and steadily, small tink-tinks of tiny droplets falling on the ground. I turn a corner and look around to see if anyone is there. Oddly enough, no one is around. The street with Penelope’s Cafe and Luke’s Hardware and numerous other stores was usually bustling. Today, though, no one is here. Better for me. The sprinkles are soaking my clothes and drenching my hair. My shoes squish with every step. A distant church bell sounds in the distance, it’s five o’clock now. Mom and Dad should be with Evangeline at the hospital by now. Or at least Dad would be there. Mom might already be passed out at some bar somewhere, or maybe she was in the same hospital in a bed from overdosing. Again. All of these thoughts and more flood my head, breaking down buildings and happy memories, crushing priorities.
Maybe I just have too much on my mind. My brain goes back to that last day I saw her, I’m crouching against a wooden fence to slow my increasing heartbeat. The anxiety pills didn’t help this time. I run into Penelope’s Cafe frantically, on the verge of passing out from a panic attack.
The last thing I remember is fear snarling and lunging at me before cool darkness took me over, hushing me into a gentle sleep.
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