Tanya
Welcome to my first ever one shot fic! Suggested by Tamia, Chinee, Anna, Benson, Michael, Kristi, and a few other friends of mine (huehuehue...)
Late Halloween special, because if you read on, there'll be dealings with ghosts and stuff.
A bit different, and a few corners cut, but enjoy!
1987
My name is Tanya Barnes, and I'm a Sunflower. I was born on Halloween. Just my luck. Also, I've been through some of the worst hell at school. Plants would always call me a witch, because of my uncommon birthday, and because I had a weird ability. That weird ability was the power I had to conjure fire, and control heat. Even my teachers would snicker behind my stem. It was nerve wracking, and unpleasant.
One day, I totally lost it, just because of all of these memories.
I woke up one soggy Friday to my mother barging into my room. "Tanya, wake up!" she yelled as she tugged the covers off my body, leaving me to shiver in the cold caused by the wet weather outside. "Can't I just have a few more minutes?" I groaned. "Come on, Tanya. One part of being a Catholic is being a good girl, and sacrificing things that mean a lot to you― like sleep." my mother reminded me. "Fricking religion!" I muttered. "Tanya, get up. You've done this for eight and a half years. You can survive, can't you?" my mother asked. "NO! NOT TODAY! NOW GET OUTTA MY ROOM, DAMN BROADSTEM! " I screamed. "When you're good and ready, come downstairs, and I'll give you a talk." my mother snapped as she swept out of the room. I looked at the only picture on my bedside table and sighed. It was a picture of me as a sprout, and my father playing with me. "The old days are dead, man!" my father would always say whenever I went on and on about the past. Damn, he was right. Tears came to my eyes as I thought about how he had died in that battle with the zombies. Stratford is so full of combat these days...
But there's nothing I can do about it.
Living with only my mother was a pain. Before Dad died, there weren't so many strict rules. I didn't have to endure all those painful minutes in church, listening to a priest yammer on and on about the most boring things in history.
Forcing myself out of bed with a groan, I went down the stairs, only to be greeted by my angry mother. "Young missy, you do not talk to your superiors that way, and you absolutely do not call them broadstems! That is the worst insult that a Catholic can have hurled at him or her!" she scolded. "Yeah, yeah..." I mumbled as I grabbed an orange and an apple and stuffed them into a paper bag. I then set off to school.
I walked through the doors with apprehension― a process I was very used to by this point in time. I dealt with plants making fun of me, this and that...
... Until my temper got the better of me, the same way it did for years on end.
"Hey, Suntan!" a Marigold shrieked as she came waltzing up to me. "Jesus... what the hell do you want from my damn life?" I asked, making it sound like a "What plan to beat me up do you have in mind?" Marigold only laughed, and tugged off one of my petals, earning a slight whimper. "You're dumb, and ugly. I wish you were dead, like your pathetic father!" she spat. I could feel my heart boiling, and I did my best to keep it all in. But to no avail. "GO TO HELL!" I screamed as my petals turned blue, and I started shooting bursts of fire at Marigold. "Ow! Ouch! Stop!" she shrieked. "Not if I don't want to!" I retorted as I kept on shooting jets of fire out of my leaves. Just then, out of nowhere,
BLAM!
I was flat on my stem, when a voice started speaking. The esoteric tone was beating a wild tattoo on my mind.
Tanya, why do you wrong my precious people? You realize that it is wrong, don't you? Bring yourself to justice, and stop this nonsense. This is only a warning about what consequences that your behaviour can, and will bring about.
I knew only one person that would speak to me like that, and it gave me the creeps. It could only be God himself. Abandoning my scuffle with Marigold, I ran all the way home, only to find my mother gone. I ate a snack, rushed through my homework, and ran up to my room to sleep. The dreams I had were haunting, with that same voice repeatedly saying, use your powers wisely...
I woke up the next morning, finding that I had slept for more than twelve hours. Needless to say, I felt energetic and ready to take on the new day. I had a new sense of what was right, and what was wrong. Was it the dreams? Would I ever know?
Every day after that, I was becoming better, in the sense of being the righteous girl that my mother raised me to be. I was seen as truly powerful by everyone in our little community.
Then came the day when I fell in love.
The days of zombies were over, in Stratford, at least, and I was enjoying what I truly thought was life. A close colleague, a Peashooter named Francis, became even closer to me― and I became even closer to him. That eventually brought the worst events into my life.
1992
I heard the phone ring on October 31 ― my birthday. I ran to answer the phone, wondering if any of my friends would be calling to say, "Happy birthday". Before I could even say, "Hello," bad news was thrumming through the receiver. My mother was very sick, and I had to leave the country for God-knows-how-long so that I could visit my her in the old country, France. When Francis heard this news, he became enraged. "You... you double crosser!" he screamed. "I'd have a good mind to feed you to the zombies!" "I-I'm sorry, Francis. I didn't want to go, but my mother needs me." I whispered. "I'll be back soon..." But I had no idea just how long my mother'd need me. "I HATE YOU!" Francis yelled. With that, he grabbed a knife, and next thing I knew, I felt a cool, sharp sensation. I screamed my last as my life slipped through the cracks...
Mistakes come to haunt everyone. Especially mistakes in which one's life was taken away. This realization hit Francis like a bullet as he watched Tanya's funeral pass through the quiet streets of Stratford. He had no idea what the hell was going through his mind, and he had no idea that he'd be this heartbroken. Although nobody knew Tanya's murderer was Francis, he felt just as guilty as a criminal as he heard the sad whispers through the streets.
"The poor girl... she lived a bad sprouthood, now look what she became. A righteous girl― almost a saint, in my eyes."
"Tanya Barnes, full of wisdom and will..."
"May God praise her..."
"Dead! And on the night of her birthday!"
"Her mother in France would be in agony."
Every year after that, on the night of October 31, Tanya's spirit always seemed to haunt Francis's house. Then, five years later, something drastic happened.
It was Tanya's birthday the year of 1997, and Francis could still feel that haunting feeling that Tanya's spirit was watching him. Then, round midnight, the same knife used to kill her mysteriously picked itself up. While Francis was pacing back and forth in the kitchen, he heard an icy voice speak in his head.
You did this to me, I'll do this to you.
It was Tanya's spirit all right. And surely enough, before he could react, Francis was stabbed. The knife dropped itself to the floor with a clatter, spattered with blood, and Tanya's spirit fled the room and hid in the attic, with haunting screams. Everyone in the little town of Stratford could hear it, and when they heard the bells ring at midnight, and some teenage human girls reporting Francis as dead, they ran in droves to the little house.
On the walls, written with blood, was a note.
This is the one who took my life. May he go to hell and rot with the zombies.
The connection was made instantly. Francis killed Tanya. Tanya did come back every Halloween. And she was looking at the townsfolk of Stratford.
And surely enough, when they heard a slight shuffle behind them, they could see a pale Tanya, holding the bloody knife in her leaf, with a satisfied grin on her face.
Her hazel eyes darted here and there, before they welled up with tears. She dropped the knife to the floor and left with a haunting scream.
But on the wall, imprinted with strange white ink, was Tanya, immortalized holding a knife in her leaf, the same satisfied grin on her face.
Okay, I was tired. Might go back and edit this and yeah...
But how was that? Leave a review!
This was actually based on a true story!