"Clarissa! Get away from there!" Rodney Skinner yelled out. "Rodney, it's okay. She's not going to hurt herself." Jaclyn Skinner said. She walked over and picked up their four-year old daughter playfully and took her away from the woods that surrounded their yard.
"I'm not scared that she's gonna hurt herself, I'm scared she's going to wander away too far and get lost." Rodney said. "She won't. Will you, Clarissa?" Jaclyn leaned down and asked her. Clarissa shook her head. "Good." Jaclyn smiled. She lifted her head and smiled again at Rodney. She sat down in the chair next to him and ran a hand through her curly brown hair. He smiled at her, then looked back at Clarissa. But she wasn't there. Rodney frowned.
"Clarissa?" He sat up. He couldn't see her. Jaclyn sat up, too, calling out her name. "Clarissa? Clarissa?" Her voice had become slightly high-pitched. Rodney got up. "Clarissa, come on out. This isn't funny. Clarissa!" He was scared now. Suddenly he heard a scream.
"DADDY!" He heard a voice scream, followed by another high-pitched frightened-to-death scream of holy terror. Rodney felt his heart race. He knew it was Clarissa. He ran towards the voice, Jaclyn close behind, calling out, "Clarissa! CLARISSA!" They ran into the woods. They kept running, screaming out her name. "CLARISSA!" Rodney and Jaclyn screamed. Suddenly Jaclyn stopped dead. "Rodney…" her voice was barely above a whisper. Rodney stopped, dead afraid to turn around. He did.
Jaclyn was kneeling on the ground, sobbing. In her hand, she held a shoe. Clarissa's shoe. Beside her, Clarissa's pale blue sweater was crumbled to the ground, as though it had been flung off. Rodney remembered now. The sweater had been wrapped around her waist. He looked at the sweater, the shoe, then at Jaclyn, sobbing. He ran off into a direction. He had to find her. He had to find his daughter. "CLARISSA!" He tripped over a branch.
Skinner awoke with a yelp. The invisible man sat in bed, his chest heaving, breath coming out fast. His sheets were soaked with sweat. He put his head in his hands and groaned. "Clarissa," he said softly to himself. He got out of bed and splashed water on his face. He didn't want to remember, but he did anyway.
Jaclyn and he had gone to the constable and told him of Clarissa's disappearance. They had searched through the entire woods, almost the entire town. Clarissa was never found, dead or alive. After months of searching, she was pronounced dead and the police stopped looking. But they had never given up hope. A year after, Jaclyn died of heartbreak, and he had been left all alone. She had just kept getting sicker and sicker, until she had finally slipped away. Skinner lost his job and had to become a thief. He became incredibly reckless and turned to drinking. The days that he had been known as "Rodney" had gone away and he was known to everyone as either, "Skinner" or "That drunken thief headed this way". He tried to forget, but his nights were plagued with dreams about that day. Then he had taken that damn elixir and became invisible.
It had been, oh God, about thirteen years. She'd have been seventeen a month ago. Every time Clarissa's birthday came around, Skinner cried himself to sleep, blaming himself. After Jaclyn's death, he had wasted away. He became invisible and he was a thief and nothing was going right. Then he had met the League and things seemed better. But he still remembered her and wondered what may have happened, where she was and if she was even alive.
His thoughts turned from Clarissa and he remembered Jaclyn and smiled to himself. She had the best smile; one Clarissa had inherited from her. He used to always say, "Thank God she looks like you, because if she had looked like me, she never would have forgiven me and would have hated me forever." He missed them so much. He sighed and fell onto his bed, and tried to get back to sleep. No sense in dwelling on the past.
A lone girl stood outside of a large library in London, England. It held records of everyone who had ever been born in London and she needed to find someone. She needed to find him. She had learned of her mother's death, but had found out her father was still living. After thirteen years, the information to his whereabouts would be in this library, she was sure of it.
Clarissa Leanna Skinner walked up the steps to the library. She entered and headed straight for the receptionist's desk. "Excuse me, ma'am?" The woman looked up at her. She wasn't what she was expecting at all, she was quite young and pretty. Well, all librarians didn't have to be old hags.
"Yes?" the woman asked her.
Clarissa explained to her what she needed. The woman pointed her in the right direction and Clarissa set off. She found the records. They were a bunch of filing cabinets and she looked under Sa-Sm. She hesitated her hand over the cabinet handle. Inside of it, her search would be narrowed down even more. She may just actually find exactly where her father was. But what if he didn't want her? What if he had moved on, found a better life, forgotten all about her? But she had to find out. She had to see him. She had to let him know, even if he didn't care. She pulled open the cabinet.
Clarissa scanned the records. "Skelton, Skiar, Skidmore, Skiff, Skillern, Skinner!" she muttered to herself. She scanned the names. "Barbara, Carolyn, Christopher, Geoffrey, James, John, John, Linda, Robert, Rodney!" She lifted the file, closed the cabinet and walked to a table. She held the file in front of her. She hesitated again, and then flipped it open. She began to read.
Clarissa read through his birthdate, his normal factual information, read her name (Children: Clarissa Leanna, missing, declared deceased) and it brought a pang to her heart. She read about her mother (Spouse: Jaclyn Susannah Aller, deceased) and she nearly cried. She gathered her strength and read on. She got to the part of him being a thief and kept reading. She knew that already. She even knew of his invisibility. She still read the whole thing, learning how he had taken the elixir that had made him invisible, how he had joined the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, she read about them, and then she read the sentence that shot up and down her spine and made her recoil. Address: Unknown.
Clarissa slammed the file shut and pushed it away. She pushed it too hard and it fell to the floor, papers scattering. She had spent five years trying to find him, and all she wanted was an address. She couldn't get that. She didn't care that he was a thief, that he was invisible. She HAD to find him, to talk to him face to face. "Damnit. Damnit, damnit, DAMNIT!" she nearly screamed the last word out, and then remembered she was in a library. She put her head in her hands and sighed.
Clarissa looked at the ground and saw the mess. She knelt down to pick it up. Her eyes landed on the information about the League. It said that that was the last they had heard of him, being with that league. Of course, she thought. Find them, find Dad. She smiled and picked it up. She had to learn everything about this League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. They were her only link to her father. She had to find him. They were her key.
I know, pretty short opening sequence, sorry about that. I'm not very good at that. Anyway, thanks for reading, the second chapter should be up pretty soon. PLEASE REVIEW! Thanks muchas!