Paranormality - Preface

For as long as I can remember, paranormal things have always fascinated me. I wanted to know more about them, EVERYTHING about them. I wasn't a 'we have to dissect it' type or 'destroy the bad for a better good' type, though. I guess that's because I wanted to become something paranormal, not just study it. I never thought that my paranormal minor obsession would ever result in anything fantastic or life changing. I never believed that I'd have my name in books as an expert or one day travel among the stars to discover other alien life. I just thought of it as a hobby, really. Little did I know what fate had in store for me…

I grew up in a big city, filled with skyscrapers, tons of cars, and lots of different kids. My family, myself, and my parents, lived in a high-rise apartment complex on the east side of town on the 34th floor, just six floors below the roof. I attended the run down Skool that the entire city's children went to until 8th grade. Then everything changed. It was a stormy night in mid-June. It had been raining a lot and the roads were obviously very wet and slippery. I guess that's why the truck speeding down the main street wasn't able to stop in time. I guess that's how I ended up by myself. My parents had gone out to eat with old friends. I had elected to stay home. There was a great movie one and a new episode of Mysterious Mysteries that I didn't want to miss. I still remember what happened. It was right after the section on Chickenfoot that the phone on the table rang and I picked it up.

"Are you Mireiki Noten?" the voice on the other end asked, stumbling over my Japanese name.

"Yes" was my quiet, yet inquisitive answer.

"I'm sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, but there was an accident. You parents have passed away."

"Oh" was my meek reply.

"An officer will be coming to your home to take you to your grandma's house. You should pack your belongings."

A simple "Okay" was all I could muster.

The person on the other end hung up and I was left in silence. Quietly, I shut off Mysterious Mysteries and trudged up the stairs to pack. An hour later, I was sitting in the back of a police car, being brought to my grandmother Tsukito's house. Grandma was very old, in her eighties, with bad hearing, a bad leg, and grey hair always kept up in a bun. She lived about an hour away from my big city in a smaller town. She owned a green house in the middle of town, near the mall.. It was in her musty attic that I made my new room, the room I would live in until I moved out or until grandma died, whichever came first. It was with this quiet woman that I attended my parent's funeral a few weeks later. And I was with her when I had to start school again at the town's High Skool. in a strange class filled with faces I wouldn't soon forget.