November 2, 1983-A father trusts his four-year-old son to carry out his baby brother from the burning house. Meanwhile, he grabs his baby daughter and runs to try to save his wife. Seeing no way to save his wife, who was on the ceiling of the nursery and on fire, he runs out with the baby and then carries his other two children further from the fire. The next day, he leaves his daughter with a family down the street to take care of and tells them to never let her know of what happened...to treat her like their daughter.
22 years later, she has researched constantly about the things that go bump in the night, against the wishes of her "parents". She is confronted by two men in suits about something she saw...and nothing can ever be the same from then on.
Chapter 1: Rude Awakening
Katie Smith was adopted by Michael and Beth Smith when she was only six months old. Her adopted parents refuse to tell her anything about her biological family, though they seem to have known them well. The Smiths are well-behaved, courteous, and even a bit old-fashioned. Katie, however, wishes to be different.
In middle school, she started to read all the time: fantasies, science fiction, and mythology...anything paranormal. After a while, she started to believe all of this was true! That's when her parents cracked down on her, wanting her to act like a lady and not an "obsessed, reckless boy".
At the start of high school, her wardrobe consisted entirely of dresses, skirts, blouses, heels, and ballet flats. She started to take etiquette lessons, piano classes, dance classes, anything that her parents believed would make her like a lady. She did, however, find ways to study the paranormal in her free time. She hid books in her room so she could read them and even had a journal that she hid under her pillow full of notes about what she read. Little did she know that she would need to use that knowledge later when incidents prove her correct.
Her parents enrolled her in Stanford University as a music major and double minor in literature and theater because those were the "most girly" things that she could study according to her parents. Unbeknownst to Mr. and Mrs. Smith, this gave Katie the perfect opportunities to research the supernatural because this gave her the unlimited access to books she needed without the watchful eyes of her mother and father. She went to the library to check out books every day and would read every chance she got, constantly adding entries and even pictures to her journal. Even with the extensive side research, she graduated at almost 22 years old.
She moved out of her parents' house after graduation and got a job as a music tutor. She is still completely obsessed with the supernatural. She started to stock up on things that would help protect against and even track such beings.
Now, at 23, Katie still spends almost all of her time researching and studying. She has about four friends total: Rachael Carmichael, Meredith McDonell, Ruthie Lovegood, and Virgina Wayworth. They are the only ones that don't find this obsession of hers weird. However, one day she goes to Meredith's house and Meredith doesn't answer the door. Katie decides to just use the key Meredith gave her to let herself in, then turns the alarm off. (They were such close friends that she knew the code). When she takes a look around the room, she is shocked to find Meredith's body in pieces all over the apartment along with a terrifying amount of blood.
Shocked and frightened, she screams and collapses to her knees by Meredith's torso. That is when she notices the gaping hole in her chest and the scratches all over her body. Curious, Katie steels herself and looks directly into the wound, not expecting what she saw in Meredith's chest, or lack thereof...Meredith's heart was missing.
Katie slowly gets up and backs away, trying to calm down. When her back hits the front door, she fumbles for the doorknob, then opens the door and walks with increasing speed to her car. As soon as she gets in, she shakily grabs her phone and calls 9-1-1 to report Meredith's death. Leaving her name and cell phone number, Katie hangs up and drives home as fast as is legal.
When she gets home, she realizes the amount of blood on her dress. Panicking, she practically runs to the bathroom to shower and change, setting her dress aside to deal with later. Then, she grabs her phone yet again, dialing her mother's number. Hysterically, she rambles to her parents all of what she saw. When they ask if the cops know, she says yes, explaining that she had called them herself. They ask if she gave her name and she matter-of-factly answers saying that she had given her name and phone number.
After a moment of silence on the other end of the phone, her mother reassures her that everything will be okay, mentioning something about an old friend that could help. She said it was "right up their alley".
After her mother promptly hangs up, she attempts to get images of Meredith out of her mind. Trying to forget your best friend is not easy. She looks at the time. Realizing that she needs to eat dinner soon, she gets a frozen pizza from the freezer and puts it in the oven. Shortly after she sets the timer for the pizza, she hears a knock on the front door. She opens it to reveal two police officers on her doorstep.
"Can I help you?" she asks, hiding her uneasiness.
"Yes, we're looking for a Katie Smith. Is that you?" the woman officer asks.
"That's me. What can I do for you?" Katie responds.
"We understand that you found the body of Meredith McDonall, earlier today. Is this true?" the man officer asks.
Katie nods, unable to form words.
"We're sorry you had to see such a thing. Would you mind if we asked you a few questions?" the woman asks.
Katie nods and steps to the side. "Come on in."
The officers enter and Katie closes the door behind them. She leads them to the living room and sits in an arm chair across from the couch, where the officers have settled. They start asking questions and she answers them all, eventually relaying piece by piece everything she had seen...even the missing heart.
"What do you think happened?" the man inquires.
"Well, based on the scratches on her, it was an animal. However, the missing heart tells me it was not an everyday animal." Katie explains, distancing herself from the real situation by saying it as though it was straight out of one of her research books.
"Then what do you think did it?" the woman asks, growing impatient.
"I believe it may have been a werewolf." she says, matter-of-factly.
After a moment of tense silence, the man asks "A what?"
"A werewolf. Or it could be a Lamia since the lunar cycle isn't quite right, but I'd have to do a bit more research to be sure there aren't any other options." Katie informs them, as if it were obvious. They sit and contemplate for a moment, then start awkwardly leaving to go back to the station. As soon as they leave, Katie berates herself for sounding like a lunatic. After eating half of the now cooked pizza she took out of the oven during the police visit, she changes into her nightgown. She grabs the dress from earlier and, turning on the fireplace, throws the bloody dress into the flames. Once the dress has completely burned, she goes to bed. However, she cannot sleep...not after what she had seen.
A/N: This is my first time putting a story on this website. Please comment what you liked, what you thought, and any ideas you have and I will do my best to be the best writer I can be. I look forward to your comments!
