I stepped out of my old pickup, my boots hitting the wet gravel with a crunch. Rain poured down around me, thunder occasionally breaking in the distance. Nights with bad weather like this were the best time to work.

I had graduated college with a degree in religious studies, but I always considered my specialty to be paranormal history. My obsession started when I was a kid in church. My grandfather had been a pastor there before he died, and a family friend had taken over his duties when I was four or five, so we went every week. One day, when I was around nine or ten, in the middle of sermon, a young couple came charging in through the back doors, yelling for the priest frantically. The woman was carrying a bundled white blanket in her arms, yelling hysterically. Her husband ran to the priest, begging him for help. My parents sort of leaned so I couldn't see what was happening, thinking some crazy person had come into the church off the streets. I still heard the woman screaming, though, and I could make out what she was saying.

"MY BABY! MY BABY! SAVE HER! SAVE HER, SOME DEMON IS POSSESSING HER-"

At that, my mom grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the church. After that, I wouldn't stop asking questions about demons to my parents. They stopped taking me to that church after a few years of this, thinking the sermons took demonic happenings in the Bible too literally and that it was effecting my imagination.

It was then that I got sent to Blackstone Catholic School. It was an all-girls, old-fashioned school headed by clergy where most of the classes were taught by nuns. I hated it because of how old-fashioned it was. They didn't even have a computer lab, only a monitor in every teacher's office. The uniforms were ridiculous too. White button-up shirts that went to our necks and wrists even on the hottest of days, knee-length gray skirts over black leggings, high white socks, and gray, school-issued shoes. There were no clubs, the only P.E. was changing into all-gray uniforms and running laps, and to discorage 'innapropriate and unholy behavior,' everyone had their own dorm, a tiny, cinderblock room with just an ironframe cot for a bed. The school offered seventh grade to tenth, all of which I attended. 

Now I was back here. I took a flashlight from my belt and clicked it on, turning back to face the truck. My shadow, a newbie to the paranormal workforce, stumbled out of the passanger seat. Her last name was Rivera, which I called her by, and she was annoying the shit out of me. She adjusted her bag over her shoulder, squinting into my flashlight's beam.

"This is the place?" She said, turning to the school. 

I turned around as well. The huge, multi-floored building loomed over us. It was almost like a simplistic castle, with long-untended gardens and high metal fences.

"Yep. This is Blackstone." I walked to the gate, my fingers already numbing around my flashlight in the freezing rain. I reached into my jacket, pulling out a twisted paperclip and jiggling it in the lock. It was old, so it clicked open instantaneously. I pushed open the old metal thing with a creak.

"Here we go."