I'm not going to start my story by introducing myself, nor will I tell you that I have the worst life possible, because I don't. I'm not going to set up a school scenario with intense, over exaggerated stereo types, like some queen bitch that is a total whore and we have a rivalry for the stupidest reason ever imagined. I'm not abused, bullied, hiding dark secrets (aside from my very loving relationship with chocolate), and I won't be showering you with all the details of my life in one long paragraph. You can find all those little details out as I go along, when and if they pop up.
Not entertaining enough for you, too plain?
Trust me. My life may be many things, but plain would never be one of them.
A better word to sum it all up?
Insane.
While most would hate waking up to the sound of an alarm, six o'clock on a Sunday morning no less, I did not. In fact, I was almost too excited to get to sleep every Saturday night, just thinking about waking up in the morning. As weird as it sounds, it had been a routine for me since I had turned fourteen. I was all too happy to get up, because it meant I had the rest of the day to go on one of my adventures.
After stretching some sleep away from my joints, I darted out of bed and into the bathroom. Forty minutes later, I emerged with a head of wet hair and fresh clothes for the day. After slipping on my worn, green converse I grabbed my supply bag and headed out into the hallway.
I was much slower and soft-footed as I exited my room. I didn't want to wake either of my parents, or my older sister. She was staying with us while looking for a new place of her own, and the stress of finding a new home had been messing up her sleep. I didn't want to wake her or my parents up and have to deal with their grumpy attitudes later in the day, so for my own sanity I was extra quiet.
Quickly descending the stairs, I quickly entered the kitchen to make myself a quick breakfast and some lunch for later in the day. As I moved around on the classic black and white checkered tiles, I relished in the soft, early-morning sunlight streaming in through the window above the kitchen sink. It just fueled my more, getting me more excited for the rest of my day.
Ten minutes later found me coasting down the empty street on my bicycle, humming to the song I had blasting through the headphones I wore around my neck. It was loud enough that I probably would have gotten a few dirty looks, had my neighbors been up and about, but it was too early for most of them to be up. That, and once they did awake most would be going to church anyway. My own family usually did, but I never went with them. Religion made me uncomfortable, probably because I was always too open minded to believe certain things held in the church. My mother tried to get me to go every time, but had stopped when she realized that I would never give up my Sunday trips.
As I rode through town, I felt the cool morning air nipping at my nose and my wet scalp. With the gentle cold came a light mist of morning fog and dew. The sunlight that was peaking over the roof tops shimmered and shone across the surface of nearly everything, making the world seem so much more fragile and precious. If only the heat of the afternoon wouldn't destroy such a breathtaking sight.
I found myself wondering where I would go. Once noon came around, many places in town would be crowded with the church going families. I wanted peace and quiet that day, so I decided to ride the next town over to their nature park. I had always heard how beautiful it was inside that forest, though I'd also heard that the park caretakers didn't have the upkeep of the forest paths quiet up to par. That thought didn't deter me though. All I could think about was all the wonderful sketches I would get of the forest in its most natural state, without much modern interruption or human interference.
It took my a whole hour of bike riding to get to the next town over, and another fifteen to find the park after checking the map in the town square. I'd arrived at a good time, just about when the early risers of the world were waking up.
As the entrance came into sight, I found myself utterly amazed by the size of the forest. It wasn't just a small, single loop trail. I could tell that this path was deep and that getting lost in this forest would be an easy thing. I almost found myself wanting to get lost, though, as the artist in me itched to find the perfect place for sketching.
So, after quickly chaining my bike to a thin tree near the nature walk parking lot, I found myself entering the trail without hesitation. The push and pull of the muscles deep in my legs was a slight bothering, due to having never being pushed to ride that far in such a short time, but I didn't let that deter me. I wanted to get far away from the noise of the roads near the entrance and get myself completely immersed in the feel of the forest.
Strangely, something felt oddly right about being there. The second I entered something deep inside of me felt almost at home, though there was a slight tingling on the back of my neck that unnerved me. It felt so right, yet so wrong. This forest was something special, that much I could tell. Whether it was a good kind of special, or a bad kind of special, I wanted to find out. I wanted the raw wounds and emotion evoking images, and something about this forest told me that I would get it.
"Psst!"
I stopped in my tracks. I had been walking for a good thirty minutes, and nothing had caught my attention. But, as I rounded a bend in the path, I could have sworn that I had heard a noise. While telling myself that it was a forest and it was supposed to make noises, a small part of my knew that something else had made that noise. It hadn't been shifting leaves or animal scampering. It had been a whisper. A beckoning whisper.
"Psst!"
My head snapped to the side, and for a moment I could've sworn I had seen several pale faces peaking out at my through the trees. A shiver of fear shook up and down my spine, but as soon as I'd believed I had saw them, they were gone. My heart was beating frantically, spooked by the image I had believed I had seen.
But, as I looked through the trees to see if I could see anything, like those pale faces, I saw some strong color standing out between the trees.
Without even thinking, I'd walked off the path and was weaving through the trees. There was a constant crunching of dead, autumn leaves beneath the soles of my shoes, along with the occasional crunch of a stick beneath my weight. As I broke through the trees, I could see more clearly. It was some sort of building, decorated in decay and run down to the bones. It was overrun with vines and other sorts of growth, clinging to the cracks in the exterior and climbing in through some of the broken windows.
This building looked like it had been through absolute hell, and for some reason unknown to me, it couldn't have been more perfect.
I sat down on the cracked, uneven pavement in front of the building. I pulled my sketch book and pencils from my bag, and got to work on sketching the house.
Everything about this place made me curious. The fact that it was such a large building in the middle of the woods, the only one I could see, was very strange. There was no path that connected it to the nature path. It was just smack-dab, right where it seemed to want to be. I was pretty deep in the woods as well, so it was extremely excluded and hidden well. If I hadn't been looking through the trees so intensely, I never would have caught sight of it. It was almost like something had wanted me to find it.
I sat there for hours, sketching maddeningly. Usually, I would take breaks and draw in a relaxed manner. But there was something deep inside of me that needed to see this sketch finished as soon as I could. Some of the edges ended up a bit smudged or bolded by my careless drawing, but the artist in my thought it added to the feeling of the image I was recreating. The creepy, haunting effect was as present on the paper as it was in real life, and even that drew me in.
When I finished, I almost snapped out of what seemed to be a trance. I had barely registered that there had been time passing. Nor had I completely registered what I had been drawing, because when I looked at the picture I had drawn, I could see a face with a crazed, impossible smile leering down at me from the third story. They had dark, hard to see eyes and wild black hair shrouded in the darkness of the shattered window. It was so vividly there, that I had to look up and check to see if it was really there or if it was just something I had accidently drew in with the dark atmosphere.
Chills crawled up my spine, and I slowly looked up.
It was real. He, it, was there, smiling at me. Everything around me went still and quiet as this haunted figure stared right into my soul. Something inside of me felt forever disturbed, like I would never forget his frightening face and I would never ever be the same.
I watched as he raised his hand and waved tauntingly, before tearing away from the window in a flash.
Jumping to my feet, I was convinced he was running through the building to get to me. He was going to come sprinting at me through the open doors and murder me. I was too scared to see if that was true, and I found myself running as fast as I could through the forest. Nearly tripping and snapping my ankle along the way, I desperately tried to find the path again.
For a moment, it sounded like there was a second set of footsteps matching mine, right behind me. For a moment, I thought I could feel warm, putrid breath hitting the back of my neck. And, for a moment, I thought I heard a cold chill of ecstatic laughter whisper into my ears.
The world was rushing, tumbling around me. There was an odd screeching inside of my head, and no matter how hard I willed it to go, it wouldn't. It felt like everything was about to explode, from my pounding head down to my throbbing feet. Everything hurt and felt off balance, and the fear pumping through my system was very much alive and real. I felt the impending doom looming over my shoulders, and I nearly expected to feel the pain of some sort of attack at any second.
I stumbled onto the path, and suddenly it all stopped. The second set of footsteps, the breath, the laughter, and the pounding in my head.
My chest was nearly heaving, trying to reclaim lost air into my poor, shriveled lungs. I couldn't rest, though. I was much too unnerved to stick around, and I quickly started making my way back towards my bike, hoping that my cell phone would pick up enough reception for me to call my mother and get a ride home.
I vowed then and there that I would never go back to that building, or that forest.
No matter how tempting it was.
It was in the school bathroom almost a week later when I noticed that there was something off about me.
I hadn't really felt the best the past couple of days and I could have chalked the odd feelings up to that, but it seemed different then that. It seemed more... alerting, huge, even life changing. It almost felt like my whole world had experienced a paradigm shift.
As I stood, alone, in front of the mirror the bathroom, I tried to figure out what it was that had me feeling so awkward.
At first, nothing seemed too different. Still pale. Still had green eyes. Still had my dark brown hair in that choppy pixie-cut my mother hated so much. However, the longer I stared, the more tiny, little changes seemed to appear. The green of my eyes seemed lighter in color, and there was a thin layer of black around my eyes, even though I very rarely wore eyeliner if any make up at all. I certainly hadn't applied any that morning.
I tried washing away the line, but it didn't come off or even smear in the slightest.
Perplexed, I ran my hand through my hair, noting then that my hair color seemed darker then it had been before and my skin a bit paler.
I wasn't the only one to notice that something was off. I had been asked by several people if I had done something to my hair or something of the like, which I hadn't.
No, I hadn't done anything different.
But I was still changing.
My thoughts were shattered by the bell, signaling that I was officially late to my last period.
Cursing softly, I tore out of the bathroom and left my wandering thoughts behind.
I hadn't understood then how much of my life was going to change aside from my appearance, including both my morals and my sanity.
Doll: A short prologue. I hope all of you enjoyed, and if you did, please review. I want to hear what you think.
Please review!