#tgom

●●●

       The next day, It was Wednesday, and I woke up to my alarm blaring at 5am as I went through my usual morning routine. Cameron and Dominik had given me their phone numbers the night before. That morning, I awoke with a text from Cameron.

       He texted me at like, two in the morning, to tell me to bring the book they gave me to school that day, and to be careful with it... Well, his exact text was:

       "Yo dude u need 2 bring the book tmrw I wanna read that shit w my eyes at lunch n kai ll be back cuz he told me n he never read the whole thin he has his own vers but that aint important rn yea thx m8 b careful bc if u ruin that bk kim ll be mad bc she ws the 1 who had the guts 2 steal it in the 1st place ok ye that it thx"

      ...I really hope Dominik is the one who types out those reports they were talking about.

      I placed the book safely into my backpack, said goodbye to my parents, and headed down the road to school. The morning announcements were as follows:

      "Good morning Melbrew students. Today is Wednesday, September 28th, 2016. For lunch today, the cafeteria will be serving hamburgers, tomorrow will be pizza. The breakfast for tomorrow will be French toasts sticks. If you are going on Ms. Hogg's field trip this spring, your permission slips are due before Christmas break. Sign ups for the book and history clubs will be tomorrow, and they will be meeting every other week. Have a good day, Melbrew."

      I went about my mundane day, and then lunch time finally came. I hadn't gotten a chance to talk to anyone yet, as the classes were busy, and the teachers were talkative. I was eager to start up a conversation.

      "Wassup my dudes!" Cameron said as a greeting as he practically threw his tray on the table, making a loud sound. He slammed it down, causing some of his food to fly off the tray, making a few people to look towards us due to the sound.

     "Jesus, dude. I thought you said the school's food was poisonous or something?" I said, Gesturing at his tray of lunch food.

      "I like to live life on the edge, gambling with death is my favorite hobby! And if I do get sick I can sue them. They actually stopped giving out broccoli because all of it always had mold on it. It was like that for a few months until the kids decided to start speaking up about it and became persistent. They literally did not care, like it wasn’t a big deal."

      "God, that's gross. They really didn't care?" I questioned.

      "Nope. Don't get it, never will. Blows my fucking mind, dude." He said, and changed the subject, "Did you bring the book like I asked you to?"

      "Yes, but you should be thankful. Trying to decode that message after just waking up gave me a headache!" I said, and pulled the book out of my bag. Dominik took it out of the case he gave me and flipped it open.

      "So, what did you think?" He asked.

      "It's pretty crazy, but definitely interesting. It feels like I'm in a mystery novel, but maybe that's just because I fantasize about it, like, all the time."

      "Well, you're definitely in the right town for a mystery!" Cameron said, "This book is full of all sorts of things. A lot of it is anonymous re-writes of people's experience while being on the property, or in the graveyard right next to it. It's like you're reading some kinda ghost documentary, but it takes place where you live. It’s fucking cool, dude."

      There was the gentle sound of a tray hitting the table right next to me, the complete opposite of Cameron.

      “Is that the book?" Kai asked, monotone as always.

      "Yes! It's here in all its glory!" Cameron said, and slid it over to him.

      Kai flipped through the pages, a blank expression on his face. "I've never read this properly. You said it's pretty much a collection of stories, right? The ones that we have, but with a professional analysis?" His voice still monotone, not even changing pitch when he asks a question.

      "Yup." Cameron said, "What about you? You bring yours?"

      He said nothing, and pulled a book out of his own bag, the same one that he was reading in the library on Monday, on my first day. He placed the book on the table, "Kimi took this from the library a while ago. I only found out about it recently because she didn't want me to know."

      The book looked incredibly old. Its grey, hardback cover was peeling back, and I could tell that it was a faded black, worn away over the years. Its thick pages were ripped, brown, stained, and wrinkled. It had scratches, and burn marks, and what even looked like blood stains. The previously golden accents of metal were now dull and bronzed. In the center of the book was the faded lettering of "Lord Lutho" both engraved and written over in black ink.

      We opened the book, and were greeted with an unfamiliar language. And when I say unfamiliar, I mean I've never seen it before in my life. It was in some kind of language we couldn't even try to read, it looked like the same alphabet we use, but not exactly, it was slightly different. It almost looked as if the person writing just took a keyboard and just began spam typing nonsense, but with a pen and their hand... while also not knowing what exactly letters look like.

      As we flipped through the old dirty pages, there were black ink drawings of different kinds of creatures, and what I assume to be a description of the magic they have, but we couldn't read it. There were pages on what I’d assume to be multiple mythical creatures, different kinds of aliens, different sections of angels and demons, it was weird. There was one page in specific that caught our attention, though. There was a drawing of two conjoined twins, holding a conjoined cat. The title read:

Sah Heirfix Gdrmhz: Prinsezzhz Noctis a Umbra Papilio. Lu sah mrtsg, drgs hszwvhz lu gris, za shadow dzh xzhg, a gsviv dvi gdrmhz.

      "The something something, princesses Noctis and Umbra Papilio? Is that what it says?" Cameron asked.

     "That's a good guess," Dominik said, "the only word I can make out in the second sentence is Shadow... isn't Noctis, Umbra, and Papilio Latin for Night, Shadow, and Butterfly?"

     "Bro who do you think I am, someone who speaks Latin?" Cameron said, "You're lucky I speak English!"

      "Are you sure this is real?" I questioned, skeptically.

      "Mayhaps." Cameron said. "Don't you believe these creatures can exist? Because if you don't, you're gonna have a hard time here, mate."

      "Who wrote this?" Dominik asked Kai.

      "Someone named Lord Lutho, I don't know. That's the only name on the book. Just the words Lord Lutho." Kai went and looked the name up on his phone, but strangely nothing came up.

      We didn't give the book much attention, it didn't seem real. Something like a fantasy book written to seem real for fun visuals. Couldn't quite figure out why it wasn't written in English though. Or any other known language for that matter. Or why there wasn't some actual name on it somewhere. Guess it was just for visual aesthetics, like an art book or something.

      The rest of the day went on, and the dreaded biology class came about. Veronica was very vocal about how much she didn't want to work with me, and how gross and disgusting these projects were. She said she would pay me to do the whole thing for her, by myself, which actually sounded like a good idea to me.

      This girl was a bitch, and an even bigger bitch to work with. She offered me 500 whole dollars right then and there if I would agree! You're telling me I don't have to work with her, and also get 500 bucks? Sign me the hell up! I took the deal. I decided to do the plant project, where I have to collect 15 different plants. That seemed like the easiest to me.

      Once that God awful class period finally ended, I went and exited through the back doors as I do. Cameron and Dominik met me, but today Kai was with them as well.

      "Hi, Emmy." Dominik said, exiting with Cameron and Kai.

      "Kai's comin' wit’ us today," Cameron said, "he just told us he's got some good ass story from when he and Kimi were gone from school yesterday. Ya wanna come with? We're going to the apartments again."

      "Pfft, you kidding? There's no way I'm NOT coming!"

      "Great!" Cameron said, "The more people in on this shit the better! Kimi doesn't seem to agree, though."

      "We ditched school and found something," Kai said, "we have to get Kimi now."

      He, Dominik, and Cameron began to walk down the street to the middle school, and Cameron gestured for me to follow them. I quickly finished up with texting me mom. I told her I would be going to the apartments again, and then quickly ran to catch up with them.

      "So what do you mean you found something?" I asked Kai when I reached them.

      He shrugged, "We looked around the woods and found something."

      "Okay but WHAT did you find?" Cameron asked, barely able to wait, voice laced with impatient, annoyed excitement.

      "We will tell you when we get there."

      We walked to the middle school, where Kimi was waiting. She immediately punched Cameron in the arm, gave me a dirty look, and went off down the wooded road leading to the apartments.

      I stood confused for a moment, "...Why did she do that?" I asked.

      "She fucking hates me, dude!" Cameron said, then laughed. We continued on and I followed the group down the streets, all the way to the apartments.

      "Hey Mrs. Johnson." Kai greeted Cameron's mother as we entered their apartment room.

      "Hello Kai! Hello Kimi!" She said, "And hello to you too, Emmy!"

     "Hello!" I said back, and followed the group into Cameron's bedroom, shutting the door behind me.

      "Gimme that juicy ass scoop, it should be illegal to make me wait this long!" Cameron said, crashing down on a blue bean bag chair, "Yo, Dom, pass me the cheese-its! Imma needa snack for this one."

      Dominik rolled his eyes a bit, but grabbed the box off a shelf and tossed it to him.

      Kai sat at his desk, while Kimi sat on top of it. Dominik took a seat on his bed, and I did, too.

      "Well," Dominik said, gesturing to the room, "go on, tell us!"

      "Kai and I were out skipping school at the baseball field yesterday. We were taking turns at hits until I got bored of it. We decided to go out and look in the woods around the place, but then we found something weird."

     Kai pulled out his cracked old phone, "I took some photos, but the quality isn't very good." He said as he flipped his phone to us. Through the cracks and bad quality, some sort of strange hole could be seen. "We got stuck in the rain so we couldn't stay very long."

      "Yo, dude, that looks like a portal to Hell or some shit." Cameron said, taking the phone from him. “Oh my God, I hope it’s a portal to Hell, that would be so fucking sick!”

      "I threw a stick down it. It's really deep." Kimi said.

      "That's not the only thing that's-" Cameron started, but Dominik threw a pillow at his face before he could finish.

      "What do you think it is?" I asked.

      "We have no idea." Kimi said, "We wanna go down and check it out this weekend if anyone wants to come with us."

      "Aw hell naw." Dominik said.

      "AW HELL YEAH!" Cameron yelled.

      I scoffed, "Oh, absolutely!"

      "Anyone except for you." She said.

      "Nope. She's comin' whether you like it or not." Cameron said.

      "Can confirm. I'm coming, no exceptions!" I said. "I've wanted this for ages."

      "I don't like her." She said, blatantly.

      "Well news flash, kid, you're not the person who gets to decide who's a part of this group or not." Cameron said.

     "I volunteer to not go in place of Emmy." Dominik said.

      "How about after school on Friday?" Kai suggested, changing the conversation.

      "Yeah, that should be good." I said.

      "I'm down to fuck with death any day!" Cameron said, punching his palm with his fist.

     "No." Dominik said. "I'm actually very busy on Friday, how about we change it to uhhh, to..."

      "Okay then, so Friday?" Kai asked for confirmation.

      "Yup." Cameron and I said.

      "I- no! I did not consent to this." Dominik said.

       "Friday!" Cameron and I cheered, while Dominik looked defeated. We continued to chant, "Fri-day! Fri-day! Fri-day!"

       We all went on to relax a bit. I properly introduced myself to Kimi and Kai, and we got to know each other a little bit better. Neither of them were really big talkers, so it was mostly me, but Kai was much more friendly than Kimi, even though Kimi was much more talkative than Kai.

      We all officially decided to come back to the apartments on Friday, after doing a bit of convincing with Dominik. We were going to take the nature trail that's down on that same road and follow it.

      Kimi and Kai said that they remembered where it was located, and that it shouldn't be a problem to stray from the path a bit to find it. That way it'd be harder to get lost. At five o'clock we all went home. The next day was Thursday, the day for the club sign-ups.

      The speaker beeped, followed by the typical static, "Good morning Melbrew students. Today is Thursday, September 29th, 2016. For lunch today, the cafeteria will be serving pizza, tomorrow will be ham sandwiches. The breakfast for tomorrow will be waffles. If you are going on Ms. Hogg's field trip in the spring, your permission slips are due before Christmas break. Sign ups for the book club, and History club, will be today in the cafeteria, and they will be meeting every other week. Have a good day, Melbrew."

      It had brushed over my head for the past few days, but I noticed it now. What was Ms. Hogg's field trip? She hadn't mentioned it at all during class, not even once.

       The day was average. I went and asked Dominik, Cameron, and Kai about the field trip, but they said they didn't know what it was for, either. Kai and I both had her as our biology teacher, but he said he didn't care enough to pay attention.

      I wanted to ask her myself, but approaching that teacher felt like it was a death sentence. Unfortunately, I didn't have any other ways of finding out. I was curious about it, and if I wanted to know, I would just have to find the guts to do it and ask her directly... oh boy, time to mentally prepare myself, I suppose.

      At lunch us four signed up for the history club, and a few other kids did, too. Kai snuck angry glances at them. Because of the presence of other kids, we'd have to hide the true nature of the club from them with a fake meeting. Once ninth period came to be, I took a few deep breaths as I walked down that silent, eerie hallway, thinking about what I was gonna say when I had to face that unsettling teacher.

      "Um, excuse me, Ms. Hogg?" I asked, walking into her classroom, then over to her desk. I felt so nervous, which rarely happens to me... yet it's happened constantly since moving here, and it's not even been a week yet!

      "What?" She said, voice lightly coated in annoyance, not looking up from whatever she was writing.

      "I noticed on the announcements this morning that you are going to be having a field trip this spring, may I ask what it's about?"

      She grumbled and mumbled a little bit before speaking, "I'm gonna be taking' everyone down to the ocean by the Pacific to look at all the different critters, but yins gotta pay for it. Ain't taking no one fo' free."

      "Oh, how much is the price?"

      She mumbled something under her breath, and went to dig through her desk before shoving a paper in front of me, "jus' take this and go sit down."

      "Oh, uh, okay, thank you!" I said, and took the paper to my desk. Veronica came in soon after and scoffed at my paper, disgusted.

      "Are you really thinking about going on that gross field trip?"

      "Huh. It's almost like someone is paying me 500 dollars to do the project." I said, "I think it would be a wise investment to get all the help I can with it." She rolled her eyes at me, the bell rang, and Ms. Hogg got on with her class.

      I thought a field trip to the ocean would be pretty cool! It also said the pay fee was only $20! I tucked the paper away into my bookbag, and walked home once the school day had ended. Completely opposite to Tuesday's pouring rain, it was a sunny sky with warm air and cool winds.

      "Wow, look hun! She's home today!" My mom said when I came inside.

      "Holy cow! Does she actually like us?" My dad said from the kitchen, preparing dinner.

      "Of course I like you."

      "Really?" My mom said, surprised, "You like us better than those boys?" She winked.

      I internally cringed and laughed awkwardly, "Yeah, okay. Is it okay if I hangout again tomorrow, though? We all have plans. Cameron, Dominik, Kai, Kimi, and I."

      "Of course you can, sweetie!" Mom said. "As long as you don't talk about murders or ghosts."

      "Okay thank you," I said, and ran up the stairs to my room. I rolled my eyes when I was out of sight. Oh, the cringe. I was ready to hit my head off the wall for three consecutive hours now.

      I changed into pajamas because I didn't have any other plans that evening. I decided to turn on the little television in my room and see what was on. All of my social media timelines were dry and I didn't feel like reading at the moment. I didn't have the mental capacity to actually do anything… maybe I should've went and hit my head off the wall for three consecutive hours?

      I began flipping through the channels, watching for a few seconds to decide if I wanted to stay, but nothing was really catching my eye. That is until I got to the local news station. How strange that the news is the only interesting thing on TV.

      I've watched the local station before, but usually it's nothing good. Just a dry old story of, "Wow, look at this beaver dam in the river!" Or, "This squirrel forgets how to climb! #funny" and small town stuff like that.

      This news story, however, was very different from the usual local reports. It was about this woman whose house was allegedly being haunted, according to her at least. I flipped to the channel when they were inside the house talking about the supposed spirit. She said that that she'll wake up and find the magnets on her fridge in different orders, or will hear strange bumps in the night. She said everyone in her family denied getting up and doing it.

      I wondered who she was, exactly. Her name was Laura Nova. I noticed that she lived in a house down at the base of the hill, by the library and mansion. The same side of town I was on. One of her daughters then came on screen, her name was Ava Nova.

      I knew that she was ten years old, and I think that was the age of a fourth grader. She showed the camera her scars on her neck, saying that she'll wake up with them randomly. They were in the shapes of scratches, but they didn't break the skin. Just red marks that seemed to stay. They then brought in a priest and were blessing the house and all that stuff.

      They went on to talk about how they found a mysterious little key that they hadn't seen before. Well, actually, it was anything but little, it was two feet long! Ava found it in the basement while she and her older sister, Nora, were cleaning up. It was old, gold, and didn't go with any lock in the house, obviously. They said it was weird but they weren't sure of what else it could be, that thing was huge! Because of that, I assumed it was just a decoration.

      Once that story was over, I got out my phone and went to text the chat I was added in. I didn't notice until now, but Cameron had named it, Stupid Name for a Group chat. I rolled my eyes and opened the empty chat.

You: hey first text

You: anyways

You: do you guys know Ava or Nora Nova?

Cameron: yuh ik nora y

You: Ava, Nora, and their mom were just on the local news station. Ava has scars all over her. They think they're haunted

Cameron: YO DUDE DAY SICK

Cameron: DAT

Dominik: I was watching that, I'm casual friends with Nora, she's a girl in our grade. Don't know her that well, though. It's been going on for a few weeks now, but the paranormal activity has only just started recently

You: I think she's in my gym class now that i think about it???

Cameron: u shld tlk 2 her

Cameron: in gym

You: I will

Cameron: Gud I gtg c u tmrw its sleepi time

You: It’s… five in the afternoon????

Cameron: i was up til 3 am yestefr day dont judge me

      The conversation ended there, and I turned off the TV. I decided to continue reading my book. I was still relatively at the beginning of the book. I started reading when I got here, called The MMR. It stands for Multicolored Monochrome room. It was about a 9 year old girl named Crynn who could see things that others couldn't, which led the cast somewhere strange, with even stranger people. It was a good book to put me in the mood of strange discoveries.

      As I slept that night I wondered if what those two found in the woods could be my world's MMR?

●●●

●●●

       What was up with that blonde girl? I couldn't shake it from my head as I made my way to the closest exit. Why did she care so much about reputation? I could understand it if it was her own reputation in jeopardy, typical "peaked in highschool" popular kid stuff. But this? She was concerned about the town and theories, not herself. Maybe she was more than some random mean girl, I wasn't sure, though I didn't really care at the moment.

       I walked out the same double doors that I did the day before. It was raining pretty hard, but luckily for me, I stood safely sheltered underneath a little roof. I was thinking about calling my mom to come and pick me up instead of walking home, but my focus was pulled elsewhere when I heard the doors click open behind me.

      "Hey Emmy!" Cameron said, quite loudly, as it was hard to hear over the pouring rain.

      "Oh, uh, hey." I said, a little confused, "How did you know I was out here?"

     He shrugged, "I was down one of these halls and Veronica's monster heels can be heard from a mile away, no pounding rain on a roof can change that. I looked down the hall and saw you go outside, so I was curious... I also leave out these doors anyway, so, I guess that's an explanation that makes more sense." He looked up at the sky, "Are you really gonna walk home in this?"

      "Well, I was thinking about calling my mom. Don't get me wrong I love the rain, but I'm not crazy." I said as I looked to the pavement of a parking lot, water splashing aggressively against it.

      "Hm. How about you come and hangout with Dominik and me?" He suggested, "My mom should be here any minute, and she wouldn't care, she's super chill, we just gotta wait for–"

      The sound of the door opened loudly, "I'm late! Don't leave without me!"

      "Dominik!" Cameron said, finishing his sentence. “Do I have perfect timing or what?” He said while nudging me with his elbow.

      "Hey Cam, what's Emmy doing here?"

      “I’m here because I’m trying to go home, but a deadly downpour is preventing me from doing so.”

      "Oh, can we take her home with us? Please?" Cameron asked, joking.

      "I'm not a dog," I said with a slight roll to my eyes. "And sure, if my parents allow me to. I mean, I just met you guys yesterday." I began dialing her number, then the phone rang.

      We had a short conversation, and then I hung up. “I’m good to go,” I said. "Or at least I think," I joked. "It's kinda hard to understand someone on the phone, especially when the weather is trying to get revenge on mother nature."

      "Hm, well then!" Cameron said, putting his hands on both of our shoulders the best he could, as he was a bit shorter than us, "An adventure awaits!"

       "Adventure?" I said, "I wouldn't say going down a few streets is an adventure."

       "Well, the start of an adventure, anyway!" He said, and spoke with confident assurance, "We're all gonna figure this out by the time Junior year is over. I'm sure of it. That is the adventure!"

      Cameron’s mom arrived shortly after I hung up the phone for my my own. She texted Cameron that she arrived, and us three ran around the building to the parking lot, where we jumped into the car. Despite our rush, we still got soaked in the downpour.

      "Hey mom!" Cameron said as he shut the car after hopping in after Dominik, "This is Emmy, she's coming with us!"

      "Hi!" I said, as I shut my door, quite suprised that he can just invite a random girl into his mom's car before even letting her know. "Hope I'm allowed to come along!"

      "Oh! No, you're fine!" She said, and proceeded to welcome me to the town apon discovering I'm new. She said she's not surprised we became friends so quickly, due to the three of us and our social, outgoing personalities.

       The three of them then talked about where they lived, and where they lived was an apartment building down that road I saw the day before. They both met each other there when they were young, and also became friends in school. They saw each other everyday. We arrived at the building and I observed it.

      It was a rather big building that lay at the end of a little street in the woods, seeming very out of place. There were a few houses around, but not too much. I noticed while driving there was an entrance to an abandoned looking nature trail and park. The building looked to be on its last legs, and it wasn't exactly the nicest, but hey, it was still standing, which I guess counts for something.

      "Don't judge a book by its cover, Emmy." Cameron said to me as he and Dominik pushed open the doors, "This place might not look too nice, but boy oh boy, do I get some good activity here! Do you know how many people have died in this building? Spoiler alert, It’s a whole lot, and that makes it a spirit gold mine!"

      "Oh, Cameron," His mom said, "I don't want to hear anymore about these ghosts, especially with your new friend here! It just drives me crazy, and I’m sure this nice girl doesn’t wanna hear it, either."

      "Sure, mom." He said, and mouthed, "Non-believer." to me, and smiled a bit.

      We walked up the stairs to the third floor, Cameron's room number was 26, down near the end of the hallway. We all went inside, and it looked just about how I expected it to. You walk right into the living room, and there's a small hallway straight ahead.

      "The bathroom is the door right next to the couch." Cameron's mom explained, "The kitchen area is through the doors to the left, and our rooms are down the hall to the right."

      "Thank you, Mrs...."

      "Mrs. Johnson." She said, smiling.

     "Right, thank you, Mrs. Johnson!" I said, and followed Cameron and Dominik into a room, which was his, shutting it behind myself.

      The walls and ceiling of his room were painted like a dark night-sky, with shades of blue and black. He had star, moon, and planet stickers covering every surface, and as I looked closer, I saw that there were some streams of spray on glitter to add to the atmospheric aesthetic. He had supernatural themed posters of ghosts, aliens, and cryptids, paper ghosts were hanging from the ceiling, bookshelves filled with books on conspiracies, a blow-up alien, and even a full plastic skeleton by his bed! He turned off the lights, and all the stickers lit up, they glowed in the dark. He then went and turned on a ghost lamp. Domink turned the lights back on.

      "Pretty cool, right?" Cameron said.

     "Hell yeah," I said. "Aesthetic on point, dude. I just have one question."

      "Ask away!"

      "Don't you rent this place?"

      "Yeah, why?"

      "Then how are your walls painted?"

      "Oh!" Cameron scoffed, "Lou doesn't care, that's why! They're the landlord. They're super chill and let us do whatever."

       "Ah, I see. One more question, though. Why is there a random apartment building at the end of a dead-end street in the woods?"

      Dominik fell back onto a green beanbag chair, "We're not sure. We think there might've been another town here a while ago, or something, since this is a really old building. Y'know, like a remnant of a really old place. That's just a theory, though. It is really odd." He agreed.

      "I've also always thought that this building was weirldly really fucking big." Cameron said, "Like, this place has seven floors!"

     "Technically, though, it only has three." Dominik said, "The basement, attic, and lobby are their own thing, and the fourth floor is off limits. We never got told why. It's only these three floors that people live on."

     "Yeah, there's a total of 45 rooms that can be lived in, but from what I know, only 11 are inhabited at the moment, so it's pretty fucking empty." Cameron said while digging for something under his bed. “So basically this building is like, almost abandoned.”

      "Mhm. And when it comes to Mr. Marshall, he's the only adult in this town that believes in the paranormal stuff going on. We made up the history club so we could all try and figure it out together. I mean, Cam and I were his favorite students last year, weren't we, Cam?"

      "Mmhm!" He said, mouth now full of cheddar chips he pulled from under his bed, "Mr. Marshall's been here his whole life, he knows there's some freaky shit goin' on, as does everyone who’s been livin' here for at least a week, I bet you." He shoved another handful of chips in his mouth, "The adults in this town are just… the worst case of skeptics I’ve ever seen. Most of ‘em think the whole Margret killed her family thing is BS. Mr. Marshall’s grandfather personally knew the Humphreys, Gregory Humphrey and him were real close, so I suppose it hits pretty close for the guy."

      "Anyways, let's get down to business," Dominik said, pushing Cameron off his bed, then lifting up the mattress. There was a whole ass conspiracy board under that thing. I thought that only existed in movies and cartoons! It was confirmed, I love these guys. So extra, and for what? Love it!

     Cameron got up and slapped the mattress, "This sweet info right here will be able to be moved to a more professional place our first meeting. You wanna hear what we have?"

      "Uh, duh!" I said.

      "This here is a picture of the Humphrey mansion." Dominik said, pointing to the first picture. "It is absolutely forbidden to trespass, but people still do it anyway, but of course you would know that, as you still trespassed, even if it wasn’t past the gates. Teens have come running out of that place with horror stories they can't tell because of legal trouble with the local police. They always come to us, because we're trusted."

      Cameron grabbed a folder that was underneath the mattress, "This right here is a collection of all the stories we were told, but our personal favorite is the one by Abigail Gordon, the girl who started it all. An absolute legend who kickstarted the discovery of truth, who inspired others to follow in her footsteps, quite literally!"

      Dominik went on, "In 2013 Abigail Gordon, along with her group of friends, snuck into the mansion’s backyard. They searched around for a while and managed to break into the house. They were actually the first ever people to get inside! They were the first of a movement, and many followed them in suit, but nothing has ever compared to this first encounter, at least in our opinion."

      Cameron spoke, "Once she and her three accounting friends made it inside, they noticed the silence, but it was a silence followed by the slightest tap, over and over again in repetition! They couldn't figure out where the source was, though. It seemed to be in the top floors of the house.”

     The way they told the story engaged me. They were obviously incredibly fascinated and intrigued by this.

      Dominik continued, "They assumed that it was just an old house noise, as anyone would typically. They explored the house but didn't really find anything interesting. That is until they finally discovered what the source of the tapping was. Now, you probably think someone was in the house, but that assumption would be wrong… At least in the way you’re probably thinking."

      Cameron could barely contain his excitement, and went on like he was making a profound statement. "They go up the stairs to where Grand old Mrs. Margret Clarabelle Humphrey was hanging by a noose! The wind of the open window, knocking her corpse against the wall! They bolted out of that shit faster than diarrhea shoots out my ass!"

     "Okay Cam, that's enough." Dominik said.

      "Do not silence me, I'm hilarious. Anyway, she and her friends were pretty much scarred after that. They never told the local police as they didn't feel it was necessary, and they would also get into loads of legal trouble for trespassing. Abigail did eventually come to us though, obviously. The old lady had been dead for 100s of years, her corpse was barely even a body, just a rotten heap of bones that was still somehow held together. They said there wasn't really a bad odor, but she's been there for a while, and I assume that window had always been open, so the odor must've escaped that way. No one else would've smelt it, it was too far from other homes."

     "Wow, you either talk like you have no idea what pronunciation and grammar are, or like you're an English major... But anyway, wasn't there a police investigation? You said this woman killed her family, wouldn't they look for and find her body?"

      "First of all I can talk right when I wanna, talking right is too much work. Second of all, No one actually knows if she killed her family, it’s all jus' speculation by a small number of people, us included. The whole history of this town is really complex, but we do have a book that might be helpful to catch ya up to speed." Dominik must've known what he was talking about, because he immediately got up to search Cameron’s shelves for it.

      "We usually try to keep our bookshelves organized, but they've gotten out of hand recently... found it!" He said as he then pulled a large hardcover book off the shelf. He brushed it off and presented it to me.

      "Voilà!" He said, and I took the book from him, "The complete story of this town, its founders, and the infamous Humphrey family murder tragedy."

      I opened the book carefully. It had pictures and other sorts of stuff in papers. It was a mess of organized chaos.

      "It was written by a man named Robert J. Wright," Dominik said, "he practically disappeared off the face of the Earth right after he wrote this, but we managed to get our hands on this book. It was in the back section of the town’s library and seemed to be hidden away. Don't tell anyone, but we stole it. Well, Kimi stole it. If they even noticed it was gone, they wouldn't know who took it."

     "I know that she told you and all, but how did you find out about Abigail's story? You said this was in 2013."

      "Yes, it was." Cameron said, "She was a sophomore at the time that happened, we were in the 7th grade. When we were freshmen, she was a senior. Dom and I made our fascination for the family commonly known, and we gained a reputation around the school rather quickly. Once word got around, she trusted her story to us. She was the first person to come forward about their illegal findings. After she came out, other people began coming to us, too. Most would simply type it anonymously and leave it inside our lockers. We started keeping all the papers in a folder, and wrote down the ones that were told to us verbally. I know it might seem like a weird and pointless obsession, but it's much deeper than what it seems on the surface. This book right here will tell you it all."

      "So, do I like, get to keep this, or do I read it now?"

      Dominik shrugged, "That's up to you. You could chill out and read it now, or you could sneak it home. If you do the ladder, however, do not let that book get ruined, misplaced, or anything of that nature. This is a pure made book, written with pen and ink. It's one of a kind. Kai and Kimi would also kill you if that happened." He thought for a second, "You know, we actually contributed to a large section of this book."

      "Huh? Really? How?"

      Cameron explained, "So there was this real tiny ad in the back of a newspaper two years ago with an email attached to it. It said he needed any information anyone had on the Humphrey family, as he was gatherin' it all up to analyze. He was the only adult I ever heard belivin' this stuff at the time. So anyways we asked everyone who came forward if we could submit excerpts of their stories and we did. We sent 'em anonymously, and then the beiginin' a last year we nearly done shat our pants. Okay so we were in the local library and in the very back corner Kimi found a handwritten book that he wrote and we were like holy SHIT that was FAST! We sent that shit in near the end of freshman year and found it the beginning of Sophomore this dude is an analyzing and writing God to me I tell you. That man must have super powers over the summer or some shit."

      "But why was it in the library? Why was it handwritten?" I asked.

      "Lol dude we have no idea, it confuses us, too. Kimi was the one who found and stole this bad bitch and I thank the little brat for doin' so."

      I decided I would take the book home, as I was wanting to get to know them more. They gave me a case to put it in to protect it, and put it in my bookbag. Even though it was new and in good condition, they wanted to make sure it stayed that way. They marked a small excerpt for me to read, the very beginning section. They said it was the most important for a simple introduction.

      While I was there, we helped each other with our leftover schoolwork, and talked. They were both really smart, even if Cameron didn't really seem it on the surface. My mom came and picked me up around seven, as she said it was too dark for me to walk home alone.

      Once the door to the car slammed shut, I didn't even let my mom get out a single word, "Did you know there was a murder in that old mansion on the hill?"

      "Jeez, Emmy, I leave you with friends for a few hours and you're already talking about murder! There was no murder there, I did an extensive background check!"

      "But it's not a conspiracy, it actually happened! The only conspiracy about the murder is how they died."

      "I've seen nothing of the sorts, don't be silly." She said, and I could practically hear the eyeroll in her voice.

      "But it's a fact."

      "If those boys got this drilled in your head I won't let you continue hanging out with them. For God's sake Emmy you've been going to school for two days!"

      It was apparent to me now that the whole case must've been covered up online and whatnot. They must not want anyone to know, but that makes sense. Who would willingly move into a town where people were murdered? I probably shouldn't say anything else, but I did assume that she would have at least heard about it. I was incorrect, though.

       When I got home I had dinner, and then changed into pajamas. I went and read the excerpt they sectioned before going to sleep.

> The History of Melbrew

> A book by Robert J. Wright

      The town of Melbrew was founded by Viktor and Alexander Melbrew, two brothers, in the year 1872. Once the 1880s came around, the town was bustling, but with a class divide. A rich family with the last name of Humphrey lived in the town. A mansion was built atop the hill just for them. They were the town's wealth, its income. Viktor and Alexander loved them for that. The family helped the little town tremendously.

      The family consisted of the father, Gregory; the mother, Margret; and their two kids. A 9 year old boy named Kimpton, and a 6 year old girl named Stella. In the 1890s, however, the Humphreys stopped showing their faces in the public eye. People were getting concerned, but gave the rich family their privacy. After a few weeks, though, people started to interfere.

      The local police were trying to get their attention, knocking on the gates and shouting, attempting to get a response. After some time with no signs of life, they broke open the doors, and were greeted with a horrific scene. The now 10 year old Kimpton lay dead on the floor, his arms torn from his body, axe scars chopped into his skin. They searched around furthermore and found the young little Stella, still clutching her bear, her body cut in half. Then they found the father Gregory laying on a bedroom floor, the lower half of his body missing.

      They searched more, but couldn't find the mother. They decided that her body was destroyed entirely, or she had fled, or been hidden. The news got put out almost immediately, and the town was put into a panic. It lost its wealth and a lot of people moved out after that due to fear. As the years went on, the town became what it is today, but people aren't so sure that the mother was completely missing.

      Speculation started that she might've been the one to kill her own family, and she ran away from the law. She always seemed off to a lot of people, especially to those who knew her personally. A story was brought to my attention anonymously about a group of people who snuck into the mansion. They reported in their letter that they found the mother's body hanging by a noose, completely decayed. This leads me and a few rare others to believe that after she killed her family, she killed herself as well.

      The person who murdered them obviously had a favorite method, noting the missing of the limbs and chopping of the body. If she was also killed like the rest of her family, why would she be hanged? And why hidden in the attic? Could the killer have perhaps wanted to make it look like she did it, to avoid the blame on themselves? If so, it's a clever tactic, but if so, how? And why is it that the police didn't find her body upon investigation? Is this story just a lie, or could they have possibly seen the ghost of Margret Clarabelle Humphrey?

      My name is Robert J. Wright, and this is my analysis. 

●●●

●●●

     The alarm on my phone went off at five in the morning the next day. I groaned in annoyance as I turned it off, angry at whoever invented alarm clocks... and time... and the concept of needing to do anything, ever. Though that was only after I turned it off, I may or may not go into fight or flight everytime I hear it.

       I knew I'd go right back to sleep if I didn't get up immediately, so I begrudgingly pushed the covers off my body. Cold autumn air sent shivers across my skin, and upon noticing I'd awoken, Benny began to yell at me for breakfast. Seems my parents were already gone for the day. Already out of the house before 5 am, and I barely ever see them in the evenings, too.

       I rubbed my eyes and grabbed the clothes I set out to wear that day, and went to shower after giving Benny his food. The bathroom we had wasn't the most spectacular around, but it wasn't really a bad one, either. Just kinda eh. I guess that's how you could describe everything in this town, just eh... though most people might say ew instead.

       When I got out of the shower, I decided to dry my hair before doing anything else, as I normally do. When I was done with that, I pulled it into a high ponytail, and got dressed. Same, but different, black turtleneck, grey leggings, and the same black boots that I wore yesterday evening.

       I made some quick toast for breakfast, gave Benny some head pats, and I was off out the door. When I stepped out into the front porch of my house, the atmosphere around was the same as it always is. Slight rain, grey sky, and chilly winds. Walking though my northern neighborhood, over the bridge, past the houses, it was quite a walk. I was going to be in such good shape by the end of the year.

          Arriving at school was the same as the day before, though I did feel a lot more relaxed knowing what to expect from it. My day then went on as one would expect a school day to go, that is until fourth period came around.

      When I walked into my history classroom, Mr. Marshall was sitting at his desk turned away from the door. There were currently three kids in the room, one of which was Dominik reading a book. He looked up, his eyes moving from the paper to me. I watched as his jaw dropped, surprise immediately entering his face as he briefly covered his mouth with his hand after a small gasp.

      His reaction towards seeing me made me scrunch my face in confusion. "Uhhh... what?" I asked. He got out of his seat and walked up to me.

      "Where did you find that necklace? Where did you find it?" He whispered frantically, pointing to the necklace I was wearing, the one that I found yesterday evening.

      "Uh, up by that giant old house on the hill... why?"

      "Oh sh-hoot!" he whispered loudly, "Deadass? You're lying. No. You found Stella Humphrey's necklace!"

      "What? Who... who's Stella Humphrey?" I asked, a little louder, which caused Mr. Marshall to turn around in his seat. Some fellow classmates coming into class also seemed to take notice, but they appeared to not show much interest besides the quick glance.

      "Yo, she found Stella Humphrey's necklace!" Dominik said excitedly the second he noticed Mr. Marshall's attention was now grabbed. Mr. Marshall looked excited now, too.

      "But who is Stella Humphrey?!" I asked again. "And why is her necklace so important? She a famous person, or something? I don't get it!"

      "Join the history club and you can find out." Mr. Marshall said, and stood up from his chair, "May I see it?"

      I was really confused, but took off the necklace and handed it to Mr. Marshall, placing it in his hand. He examined it, "This necklace dates back all the way to over a hundred years ago," he said in awe, "I can't believe the condition it's in! It's practically brand new aside from all the dirt." Then the bell rang, signaling the start of class. "Do you mind if I hold onto this? Just for right now?"

      I shrugged, "I mean, sure, it's not mine." I took my seat, and he got on with his class. When Dominik and I were heading to fifth period, I was practically begging him to tell me who this girl was... but then I remembered. "Wait, I recognize that name... that was one of the names on the graves that are by that big house on the hill."

      "Wait– you actually went up to the house?!" He quietly exclaimed in disbelief. "Are you nuts or something? That place is boarded up with caution tape and warning signs and you STILL on your first DAY decided to go up it?!"

      "Well, I mean, yeah, I was out walking and I was curious. What are they gonna do, find me walking around a road and arrest me?"

       "Yes! People can and do get arrested for being up in the northwest woods too close to the mansion. I would know, Cam and I have all the stories. Did you actually get through the fence?"

       "Oh, no, no, no, I'm not that stupid. It was lying on the other side of the fence, or gates, or whatever. I didn't jump it, it was just sitting in the ground within arms reach. anyone could've grabbed it, honestly. Just stuck my hand right through the bars and it was there. I don't get why a necklace that's apparently so important would be that easy to take, it doesn't make sense. That's why I was so confused."

      "Yeah, that is pretty strange, but still. I'm glad Cameron wasn't with you, he's been dying to get into that house since we were kids. He would've definitely jumped the gate right then and there. That impulsiveness is gonna get him killed one day."

      "Can you tell me who she was now? Please?"

      "Yes, yes, alright. Her last name is Humphrey, obviously. Back in the late 1800s, the Humphrey family was the source of income for this town. They lived in that big mansion on top of the hill, where you found the necklace, obviously. They were rich, and the two brothers who founded this town loved them because of it. Stella was the 6 year old daughter, I'll have to show you some paintings and all, but there was this whole mystery involving the mother. People think she murdered her family. I think we mentioned it briefly yesterday?"

      "Yeah, holy shit." I said.

      "More like un-holy shit, but yeah. People think their souls haunt the mansion, and typical small-town horror stuff like that. People used to try and get inside, where they would then report back to us. Some of the submissions have really weird things in them, but others, we're pretty sure are fake. It's a real-life mystery movie in this town, but it's all just speculation, not too much proof, but it's there. It's kinda complicated, you'd need some backstory."

      "Oh, I am totally joining this club. I've loved this stuff forever, this is practically a dream come true!"

      "Good, you'll have fun here. Mr. Marshall's first year teaching was last year, when we were sophomores. He got to know Cam and me, and he actually started teaching because he wanted to find others who believed in this stuff. Most adults didn't, they thought it was just our teenage minds going wild, you know, the usual. He felt sure he could find some younger people who would be interested in the mysteries, while also getting to teach at the same time. Luckily world history was his favorite subject, so he could do it. This is how he found our group, and maybe, you didn't find us, you were led to us. That sounds like a conspiracy-like reach, but Cameron can explain it all." He said as we finally approached the computer room.

      We took our seats next to Cameron, and Dominik explained a bit about what happened the previous period. He looked surprised and excited, but then again, Cameron always looked excited. I knew that much just from my second day.

      "Dude, holy shit. That's like an ancient relic! You said Mr. Marshall has it rn?" He said, actually saying the letters RN, as if he were writing a text.

      "Yeah, he asked if he could hold onto it for a moment, which implies he'll be giving it back, but I don't know what he would need to borrow it for in the first place."

      "He likes to collect things. He probably wants to at least have a picture of it or something. Either that or he just said that so you'd give it to him." Dominik said.

      "Well, I guess there's no point in wondering about it. Do either of you know where the sign ups will be Thursday?" I asked.

      "During lunch in the cafeteria," Dominik said, "the meetings'll be held in his room. I doubt many people would want to sign up, so hopefully it's just us and we won't have to hide anything from other members. That, and they'll be such a nuisance if they're there. We'd have to hold fake meetings and suffer through them to get to the good stuff."

      "I'm excited." I said.

      "Oh, trust me, we all are, dude. This is the year I'm finally gonna make progress on this, just you wait! Oh, I can see it now, Cameron Johnson solves the Humphrey family murder mystery! They'll all see I wasn't crazy, I'll show them! HahaHA!"

       "Cameron, buddy," Dominik said, "when you were a kid you put tin foil hats in people's mailboxes to protect them from an upcoming alien invasion."

       "Hey! Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it never will! My next bet's on 2021! I hope I'm in space while it's happening, that would be so cool! I'll be fighting aliens and shit."

       "... Right." Dominik said, changing the subject, "So uh, Kimi will, unfortunately, also be in the club, and all that, but not officially as she's a middle school student. As much as Kai hates her, he needs to have her around, and I understand. She's all he really has left."

      "How do those two even fall into this group?" I asked.

      Cameron answered, "Kai and I used to be on a baseball team together when we were younger, so we became friends from that. I only really know Kimi since they were close and she's his sister. We both quit freshman year... He and Kimi were never the same after uhh... after a thing happened. They took an interest in all the paranormal stuff from me. I know Kai can be quiet and brutally honest, and Kimi is really unpleasant to be around, but try to be patient with them." he said, and the teacher spoke to start the lesson.

      The rest of the day was fine. Dominik and Cameron talked with me at lunch, and we got to know each other a bit better. I took notice of Kai's absence.

      "Why isn't Kai here?" I asked.

      "What, you think we're his babysitters, or something?" Cameron said. "He and Kimi miss school a lot. And even when they're here they often choose to be loners and ignore people."

      "Lots of people seem to be quiet and distant here." I said, "I've never heard a cafeteria room so quiet before! But I guess I've only ever heard one, before. I bet Libby would've been super loud in hers."

     "Who?"

      "A girl who was one of my old friend's younger sister. She was wild. And she would've loved this lunch, too." I said as I looked at the tacos people around the room ate, "She had such a weird obsession with tacos. It became an inside joke where everyday she would apparently ask her friends if it's taco Tuesday, and it was the first thing she'd ask me anytime she saw me. She actually went missing almost a year ago now."

      "She went missing?!" Cameron said, "how?"

      "I dunno. She and her friend, Jacob, just never returned home on Halloween, so we all just assumed they were murdered or kidnapped. They were only 14. We don't know for sure yet, and I think the police are still searching, just probably not as intensely as last year. Last time I talked to her was at her older brother's birthday party, the one who was my friend. I knew her kinda like how you know Kimi. I know if she was here though, she would definitely say something weird, because she was weird..."

      But not as weird as Ms. Hogg.

      There was something off about that woman, but I couldn't quite describe what. She's just the type person who gives off weird vibes for some reason, even if she looks perfectly normal and fine. I didn't have gym class today, so that meant I had her for both 8th and 9th period. When I stepped into her classroom I was greeted with a bitter chill and the faintest scent of... metal? It was certainly unpleasant.

      In the back of her classroom she had all kinds of weird things. They weren't strange or uncommon for a biology teacher to have, but it just creeped me out nonetheless. If it were some other teacher, I wouldn't question it, and probably think it was cool, but it all just rubbed me the wrong way, with the atmosphere and all that.

      Sitting on shelves behind glass windows were pinned bugs, animal fetuses in jars, real stuffed animals, skulls, all that kind of stuff. There was even a jar full of "pig eyes" according to the label. There were chicken feet, disembodied animal heads, it was all so unsettling. I felt like they were watching me. I shivered, and felt the need to look back at them while I walked to my seat.

      She started the class after a few minutes, and began to speak in her old, gruff voice about our midterm project. Basically, instead of taking a test for our midterm exams, we were going to be working on a project throughout the year, that would be due by early May.

      We were instructed to choose between three different options, listed on the sheet of paper she passed out, along with further instructions:

Option 1) Collect, pin, and label twenty different types bugs.

Option 2) Collect, preserve, and label 15 different types of plants/flowers.

Option 3) Kill a small animal, and bring in its skull.

      That last one caused me to make a face. Did I read that right? That's absurd! I shivered a bit more, and was quite unnerved by it being a school project. Who's allowing this? I told you, this woman has weird vibes and I don't like it!

      This was going to be a group project, so that meant we had to pick partners, and be in pairs of two. Naturally, everyone but the new girl found a partner really easily. Great. I dreaded having to be paired with someone, because usually when you're forcefully paired with someone, it's you and the one kid who doesn't contribute anything to groups projects, hence why they have no partner.

      Well, either that, or, you have the odd group of three. But unfortunately for me, the second was closer to the outcome. There was one girl who was having a bit of a problem, the same girl who pushed me in the hallway yesterday. I could immediately tell these girls were the typical "popular" crowd by the way they talked and argued with Ms. Hogg. I'm not one to judge, but I was dreading the fact I was most definitely going to get paired with one of them.

      The girl who pushed me was really tall, but that could just be because of her really high high-heeled black boots. They had to have been like, five inch heels, and they went up into her long black skirt, that went down below her knees. She had on a light pink shirt that fell over her shoulders, and a headband of the same color.

      She was your typical pale, blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl who was over the top to garner attention and damnit it worked, because I was looking! Her blonde hair was so light it was almost white, and the length went to her shoulders. I didnt think a stereotype so accurate could exist in the real world! But then again, I suppose stereotypes exist for a reason.

      She wanted to form a group of three with two of her friends who were too bland and boring for me to bother describing. Again, typical popular girl appearances. The difference between them and the blonde girl was that the blonde girl looked rich and way too over the top (though it could've just been those boots because damn wtf).

      She was very insistent about wanting to be with her two friends, but Ms. Hogg wasn't having it. After quite some time of arguing, she was forced to group with me, as she was the one complaining the most, and I was left without a partner. Just was I expected. Great. I'm already the social weirdo, I was not looking forward to being picked on by some mightier-than-thou, peaked-in-highschool mean girl.

      Ms. Hogg went on to explain the project in more detail, and what we would have to be doing for each of them. That covered the whole first period, pretty much. For the second period, we were allowed to have free time, which I was thankful for as I happily plugged in my earphones to listen to music.

      I did notice the blonde girl talking to her friends, while sneaking occasional glances at me, but I paid no mind to it. It's not worth my concern when there's nothing I can do about it. When the bell rang I went to leave the classroom, but not before the blonde girl had a quick word with me.

      She pulled on the back of my shirt, and tugged me back a bit, "I hope you know how stupid you are talking to those kids, I know you talk to them," She said quietly, sounding like a threat, "They're crazy and give this town a bad reputation. Don't further it." And with that, she walked off, her big heels gracefully, and loudly, tapping against the floor, echoing just as they had the day before.

●●●

●●●

       After getting over my shock of being pushed I got up, brushing off my clothes, feeling a bit shaken and confused. I exited the school through the back doors of the science hallway, and made my way down the stretch of road that would lead me home. It was quiet, and lightly raining, the pins and needles type that you only slightly feel. Sort of like a mist. The sky and atmosphere was grey, and that comforted me. It was as if the world had grown calm and soft, the stillness in the air felt relaxing rather than creepy.

      When I arrived home, I told my parents everything I learned that day, as well as the strange things that I felt. Minus the whole history club truth thing, of course. I promised I was trustworthy, and I was. It didn't even matter if I did tell them the truth of it though, they dismissed everything as typical boys trying to scare the new girl. I didn't really expect them to believe me, but I guess they were more so in disbelief of what I was told rather than me myself. I couldn't even argue with them because afterall, they could be right as far as I was concerned.

      I walked up the stairs to my bedroom, creaking beneath my feet as the whole house seemed to do. In the hallway Benny was sat on his cat tree bed, greeting me with a "Purrp!" as he then rolled onto his side. I pet him for a few moments as he purred loudly as a motorboat, making biscuits in the air with his paws. He quickly jumped to the floor and followed me to my room as I turned the knob on my door.

       I went to get changed into something more comfortable, even if it wasn't pajamas. There's just something not very nice about keeping on the same sweaty clothes that you've been wearing all day. I pulled the black and purple striped sweater off my body, feeling better afterwards. I know it's Autumn and it's chilly, but when you're not outside where it's actually cold the double layers can get quite hot. That's why I'll never understand parents bothering their kids about wearing a coat all the time. Do you think I'm gonna be outside all day or what?

      I looked at myself in the mirror a bit, I'd only just gotten it the day before. A small painting-like mirror which hung on my wall that I got at a local thrift store not far from the house. I ran my hands down my face, that Kimi girl calling me freckle face was certainly a new one. I chuckled thinking back to her bluntness.

       Benny jumped up onto my bed, and then onto the window sill as he looked outside. My window faced out towards the farm across the street, and out to the left was a tree. I noticed his tail begin to swish back and forth in a hunting motion, he was probably looking at a bird. I would sure hope so considering he seemed to be looking at nothing.

       Everything was just so strange, I know I'm a broken record, but I just haven't been able to shake it from my mind since we got there. I plopped down on my bed with a sigh, and looked randomly around my room. The dust had been cleaned of the floors and I've fixed up the peeling wallpaper a bit, wanting to completely replace it eventually. I got a dresser moved in, a TV stand, and the few other furniture we bought from the store. We pretty much left everything behind. It was ironically cheaper to buy all new furniture than it was to bring it with us. I didn't get it, but whatever. My parents didn't wanna hire a moving company because it would be too expensive.

      I went and took off my knee-length brown boots. I was left in my long sleeve turtleneck, my leggings, and my socks, which were all black. Wow, at my old middle school I'd definitely get called to the guidance office for that. The guidance counselor once told me to stop wearing black because it apparently meant I was depressed, I mean, did she expect me to be cured of my non-existent depression if I stopped wearing black, or something?

      I pulled my hair out of its low ponytail and bushed it for a bit. I was always surprised how tangled it managed to get in the span of one day, especially because I often never let it down. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do, so I just continued to sit in my room, and thunk for a little while. Usually I would do homework, but I got all of it done in school. I decided to listen to some music and read until I got bored.

      At five, I decided I would go out and look around for however long I felt like. It would be good to get to know the town and where things are located. I put on a pair of black boots and decided to head out, keeping my hair down, which I rarely do. I don't like it all in my face most times, but I put on a headband to help with that.

      Before I left I took a bag and a pocket knife with me, because I certainly wasn't going to walk around alone in a town like this unarmed. Might just be paranoia, but it's better to be safe than sorry, especially as a teenage girl. When I was ready I told my parents I was going to look around for a bit. Before I was able to close the front door, Benny darted outside in a flash. I suppose he's fine as long as he's with me, he did always like to follow me around when I was outside. I was just a bit concerned about the wildlife here, as this place was much more rural than our previous home.

       I stepped down off the porch and walked down the stone pathway to the road. Benny eagerly followed me with a little jog. For being an older cat, he sure was agile. I took in a deep breath, breathing in the cold, misty air, the Autumn wind blowing lightly.

      I could still feel the little raindrops from earlier stabbing my face in an ever so graceful manner. It was now the evening, which means the more minutes that ticked by, the darker it got. It actually wasn't a bad town, just a little bit off-putting and in need of a few slight touch ups. I wasn't someone who liked really fancy things, so the old feel of the town was actually something I really liked.

      I felt like some kind of edge lord wearing all black, but it didn't feel too out of place here in a town like this. The only thing that was missing was a black cat, though alas, Benny was a fat, brown, green-eyed tabby. He reminded me a lot of a dog in a cat's body as he followed behind me, staying close to the side of the road. He'd occasionally stop and sniff random smells before trotting back up to me.

       The sky was still grey, and it seemed like the weather didn't really change much, but I had expected a lot of rain since before we moved here. Everything was totally quiet except for the occasional wind and the barely audible tapping of the raindrops that slowly got thicker. Another dog-like trait about old Benny boy is that he doesn't care about getting wet. Silliest cat ever, I tell you.

       I was walking down the road from my house to the school. The street was lined with houses, and trees stood tall behind them. My house was located on the practically abandoned side of town. I don't mean that in a bad way, though. Sure, some houses looked decrepit and run down, but most of them were normal old houses for sale. Here on the Northernmost side of town "For Sale" signs were in practically every front yard. It was the side that an old mansion and cemetery were on, so I guess that could be a factor as to why. No one wants to live up here, but they are cheaper, so that's a plus.

       It was strangely calming, though, but I've said that a lot. It just is. Being around all these empty houses, a town devoid of people. I approached the cutoff at the Melbrew River, which cut through the town, separating the void north from the middle and south parts. I stood on the bridge for a while as I looked out to the flowing water beneath me.

      There was something that I loved about the water. The smell, the feeling, the emotion. The smell of rain, autumn, and cold air. It was great. I had a feeling it would be hard to walk to school without getting distracted by the bridge. I could sit on it for hours, and Benny agreed as he jumped up on the ledge with me to get some pets.

       Once crossing the bridge you've got more residential houses, and locally owned shops, and businesses. Things immediately began to feel more lively than they did up by my house. Children yelled in the distance, and inside some houses I could hear people's TVs playing. Lights lit up the insides, and some people even sat on their porches, reading a book or drinking their evening tea. Completely different from the dark and empty part my house was in.

       On this side of town, Halloween themed flags waved outside the houses, while others had pumpkins, scarecrows, and more seasonal decorations. I saw a black cat in the window of one house, and waved to him, telling Benny he has a friend in the window.

      Instead of continuing down the road that would lead to school, I decided to take a right. It was a residential road with houses on both sides. On the corner of the street at the other side, there was an ice cream shop and a diner. I decided to head down a side street that led into the woods, at the most Southwestern part of town.

      The side streets in the town were made of gravel, and fully surrounded by woods. From what I could tell, houses were scarce, but the ones that were there looked incredibly creepy. These little shelters built into the forest, with moss and vines growing up the sides. There was a no outlet sign at the entrance, so I was curious what was at the end.

      As I walked down the road, I began to hear voices in the distance. Benny seemed to be on alert at the sound of people, refusing to follow me any further. The voices became more and more clear the closer I got. When I could finally make out their conversation, I recognized the voices as the people I met earlier that day.

      "Oh, come on, Kimi!" I heard Cameron say loudly in the distance as I continued to get closer still, "It's not like I spilled every single illegal thing we've ever done to her!"

      "You still told a girl you just met that the history club isn't a real history club! It's supposed to be a club just for us, everyone else is going to get faked! And if you don't care about that, then you should at least consider that if she tells anyone about it you could get him fired!" Kimi's whiney voice yelled.

      "Mr. Marshall didn't have a problem with it, Kimi, it's not that deep. In fact, he even told me to tell her about it himself. We didn't even say anything bad, we just said we're going to look over the paranormal conspiracy stuff that happens, and the Humphrey family murder, and last time I checked the Humphrey family counts as history. Also, you'd have to be braindead to not know about either of those things and still live in this town. Do you think we're idiots?" I heard Dominik say.

      "You can't just tell a complete stranger who just moved here all of these things! They can't tell them, right, Kai?"

      The road was curvy, so I stayed out of sight between the tall, thin trees. I could see them as I peered around a corner. Kai simply shrugged his shoulders and said, "She seemed trustworthy enough."

      "Trustworthy enough?!" Kimi sounded shocked and angry, "How can you stand there and just say she looked trustworthy enough?! Just looked like it, slightly? Are you people just that careless? I know Cameron is but I expected better of you two because you two aren't supposed to be fucking idiots!"

      "God damn, Kimi, Calm do-" Dominik said.

      "DON'T TELL ME TO BE CALM!" She screeched, practically echoing throught the forest. Everything went silent, but just for one second.

      "It is not that deep, stop yelling!" Cameron yelled back.

      "I'll stop yelling when you stop yelling!"

      "What are you guys? Five?!" Dominik said.

      "Do you wanna fight, little Miss throw hands?!" Cameron said, ignoring Dominik, putting up his fists in an exaggerated fighting pose.

      "Don't fight my sister." Kai said, still monotone.

      "Yes, I would love to fight!" Kimi yelled.

      "No." Kai said.

      "Then let's fucking fight!" Cameron yelled, punching his first into the palm of his hand.

      "Let's not fucking fight." Kai said.

      "Cameron, I think that would be assaulting a child." Dominik said, "Don't fight a 12-year-old girl!"

      "You calling me a child?!" Kimi said.

      "You literally are a child!" Dominik exclaimed, stretching his arms out in bewilderment.

      "Yet I could probably still beat your dumbass."

     I decided that I should probably step in and stop this, so I went around the corner and began walking towards them, "Um, excuse me, I hate to be of disturbance to this lovely conversation you seem to be having, but I presume that I'm the cause of all this?" I yelled loud enough for them to hear me.

      "I will rip your face off, you overly-polite sack of–!" Kimi yelled very loudly, though Kai slapped his hand over her mouth last second before she could curse, looking and sounding constantly done with everyone's crap. I'm not even exaggerating. That man had a blank face 24/7 but in that face I saw an overworked 47 year old dad who's ready to go to the grave, but also doubles as an edgy teenage loner.

      "You were the one that caused this, but that is okay, because Kimora is over dramatic and always wants to fight people for any reason that she can come up with. We are leaving now." He said, and began to walk away, pulling his little sister with him.

      "LET GO OF ME I AM NOT FINISHED HERE!" Kimi yelled, trying to pull herself away from his grip.

      "Well I am." He said, sounding tired.

      They disappeared into the distance down the road I came from, and Dominik shook his head sadly, "That kid drives me insane. I sometimes wonder how Kai deals with that fiery ball of aggression. It's quite sad too because they both used to be so different."

      "Sorry that you had to find us in the middle of an argument, dude. As you can probably tell, she wasn't too happy that we told you about some of our secret shit, even though we really didn't tell you about any of our secret shit. It was just that we have secret shit." Cameron said.

      "Well, I'm sorry to have caused a conflict. I am interested in it, though." I said honestly.

      Cameron waved his hand dismissively, "Don't worry about it, it's not you, it's Kimi. Honestly, you should feel honored, your first day at Melbrew and you managed to hit a gold mine of town information getting to know us!"

      "Do you have some sort of ego, or something?"

      "Yes." Dominik said, "Oh God, Yes."

      "Hehe, I pride myself on my knowledge. You also can't lie that she's lucky enough to get this all on the first day, too. You're extremely easy to get along with, you know that, Emeline?"

      "I've been told that before, yes. I'm not one for causing conflict, though I guess I managed to do just that. Why were you guys out here, anyway?"

      "We were just hanging out, but then my dumbass started talking about you and Kimi got pissed at me as per usual." Cameron said. "Nothing new there."

      A phone soon rang, and Dominik picked it up. He said a few yeahs and okays and shortly hung up. "That was my mom, she wants me home for dinner soon."

      "Yeeeah, I guess I should be going, too," Cameron said, following alongside Dominik, "Muh mum's makin' potatoes. I love me some fuckin' potatoes. Catch you later, Emeline." He said, putting up finger guns. They walked off down the street together, farther into the woods.

       I began to head back out, calling for Benny. He popped up out of the woods and ran up to me, hitting his head against my ankles. Once back out on the actual roads, I took a seat on the propped up sidewalk, giving Benny the pets and attention he wanted constantly.

       Was Kimi really just an unnecessary ball of anger, or were they really doing some kind of shady stuff they shouldn't have told me about? Cameron did mention doing illegal things, but what could that possibly mean? What illegal things could you even do in a small town like this, especially if they're– as I assume– mystery related? What, did they rob a store for ghost hunting equipment, or something?

      I began to walk home, taking a different route than the one I came from. My thoughts were running wild, I was certain there was something going on here, but what? According to Kimi it's something much deeper than I should know about, or be trusted with. Like, where am I right now? Gravity Falls if it was one more state north? Who's gonna be the demon to bring the apocalypse, and how long will it take? If you tell me twenty years from now I'm gonna be upset.

      I was determined to find out what's going on, I'd just have to show Kimi that she could trust me. I've always been into mystery shows and books, but I guess I'm in one now? So, uh, that's cool. Fits the vibe.

      As I headed up to the Northwest side of town, I got an eerie feeling. Not the same eerie feeling as before, one that was now making me genuinely unsettled. The same kind of feeling I got earlier that day when I was in Ms. Hogg's class. The sky grew darker as the day headed into later hours, making the scenery even worse than it would have already been in the daylight. It happened basically right as I stepped off of the bridge, a different one than the one I crossed to the east. Benny seemed to feel it to, and I watched as he ran off back home as fast as lightning.

      I went and walked down mainstreet, which finally split two ways around an old looking park. To the left of me down Hill Street was a gas station store, and to my right down Park Street was more woods. In front of me though, was a park. It was extremely creepy and I really didn't want to be outside anymore, but I decided to walk through it anyway. It appears that I'm a dumb horror movie protagonist. Oh well.

      It seemed to me like no one ever really went to that park anymore, as everything looked to be rather worn down and old. There were unkempt bushes and trees that were withering away and dying. The broken and rusted playground equipment was sure to have seen better days. One of the benches was just straight up split in half. In the center of the park was a stone well, and even when I shined my phone's flashlight down it, it still continued on into darkness.

      I exited the park on the opposite side from which I entered, and I was now at the base of a hill, or a mountain, or whatever. The path in front of me to my right led into a graveyard, with the road following alongside it. I'm pretty sure following the graveyard to the right would lead me home, but I wanted to see if there was anything on this hill first, so I walked the road going left.

      I walked down the road, and now on my left was the park, while my right was a hill covered in trees. After a little bit of walking I found a road going up it, but it curved a bit and I couldn't see through the grove. It was a very long driveway, and it was boarded up, no kidding. Giant boards were nailed to the trees, and very old caution tape was wrapped all around it. Okay, I'm so going up there.

        I climbed up the hill in a struggle until I got to a point where I could slip by between two trees higher up. I made my way higher up, and there were loads of NO TRESPASSING signs stapled to the trees, as if the boarded up entrance and caution tape wasn't enough. I guess it really wasn't though, considering I was still walking up the path despite them. The gravel road went on and on, as it kept ascending upwards, making twists and turns.

          Finally the road came to an end, and at the top of the hill I began to see a house, but the closer I got the less it looked like a house and the more it looked like a mansion. A big, giant mansion just sitting up here on a mountain in the middle of the woods with a gravel driveway. It had big brick walls going around it and a gated entrance made of fancy black bars. It looked very Victorian, except for the caution tape and no trespassing signs that made their way all the way up here. So this was the place I've heard about!

      In front of it were three graves, which had names I didn't recognize. The last name seemed familiar though, and I was trying to remember if Cameron or Dominik might've said it earlier that day. I took out my phone flashlight and shined it around. I could see into the yard, it was big and overgrown with plants.

      I looked down and noticed a little reflective glimmer from my flashlight. There looked to be a shiny gem object on the other side of the gates, which was luckily just within my reach! I picked it up, it was an old-looking, purple, amethyst necklace. I put it on since I didn't have any pockets, and decided to finally make my way back home. I was officially getting too many creeps, even for me.

      The wind blew cold in the air. It felt like winter now, the way it nipped and stung my face. I started running down the gravel road, trying not to look at the tall trees to the sides of me. I had to use my phone as a flashlight, and I couldn't see three feet in front of me.

       When I finally got of the large driveway at the base of the hill I could see again due to the streetlamps turning on. I slipped back out between the trees and stumbled down onto the road. Despite now being covered in mud, I breathed a sigh of relief to be out of the woods and into the open again. I started walking down the street to my house, with the cemetery to my left, and park to my right.

       I began running, and slowed to a jog when my corner street house came into sight on my left. The cemetery and park were now behind me, and both to my left and right stood houses, all with their "For Sale" signs. The farm was in front of me, and my house stood to my left. It began fully raining now, and I quickly hopped up onto my porch, Benny running up and dashing inside when he heard me twist the doorknob.

      When I got inside I felt so happy to feel the warmth. I went back to my bedroom, put on my pajamas, and collapsed in my bed, too exhausted to eat dinner. I felt so tired, but also so eager and intrigued. I had a feeling I was going to be good friends with these guys, I'll show that Kimi girl!

       I went to sleep with thoughts of ghosts and murder mysteries running through my mind, Benny purring happily on my chest as the rain fell from the skies.

●●●

Emeline Orman was sixteen when she and her parents moved across the country to the coastline of Washington state. A small town known as Melbrew sat comfortably in the middle of thick woods, so tiny and unknown that it doesn't show up on any maps, making it the perfect spot for malicious activity to go unnoticed.

On her first day of school, she met some rather weird people, who all shared a strange similar interest. This little group had quite the reputation for their knowledge of the town's not-so-secret dark history... as well as all of the unusual things that have been reported to them. It all started with the rich Humphrey family tragedy back in the 1800s, where for years it has been speculated that the mother killed her husband and children.

Being very eager to get to the bottom of all the town's mysteries, one thing leads to another as discovery after discovery begins to pile up, ranging from random holes in the ground, to suspicious buildings in the middle of the woods. Secret doors, tunnels, and books that talk about nonsense seem like they lead nowhere, with no connections!

Though perhaps the most mysterious oddity of them all is the otherworldly gateway surrounded by old fences, tied back to the founding family.

CW: Strong language, murder, and descriptions of gore

34 Total Chapters!

Total Word Count: 142,450

Chapter 1: "Welcome to Melbrew"

Chapter 2: "Foreign Roads"

Chapter 3: "An Amethyst Necklace"

Chapter 4: "Murder at a Mansion"

Chapter 5: "A Strange Book"

Chapter 6: "Whispering Winds"

Chapter 7: "The Golden Key"

Chapter 8: "A Bloody Sacrifice"

Chapter 9: "The Princess in Pink"

Chapter 10: "Meet us for Dinner"

Chapter 11: "A Looming Shadow"

Chapter 12: "Among the Corn"

Chapter 13: "Trick-or-Tresspass"

Chapter 14: "To Open Doors"

Chapter 15: "Unusual Décor"

Chapter 16: "The Prophecy"

Chapter 17: "Footprints in Snow"

Chapter 18: "For the Church"

Chapter 19: "Family Visits:

Chapter 20: "The Fourth Floor"

Chapter 21: "An Empty Cold"

Chapter 22: "Back to a Building"

Chapter 23: "Tales from the Past"

Chapter 24: "Bloody Hearts"

Chapter 25: "A Birthday Surprise"

Chapter 26: "Trip to the Sea"

Chapter 27: "Descending Darkness"

Chapter 28: "Melbrew's Truth"

Chapter 29: "Pack Your Tents"

Chapter 30: "Through the Portal"

Chapter 31: "Vamparial"

Chapter 32: "The Shutdown"

Chapter 33: "Wrapped up Ends"

Chapter 34: "Atop the Willow Tree" [END]

Read Book 2 — The Bloodmoon Society — On Wattpad.

The rest of my series will not be published on Tumblr. Mostly just trying to build an audience at the moment.