Hello everyone! I didn't like where my old story was going so I'm trying on a diffrerent, brand new story now. Hopefully, this one will turn out better... Anyways, on with the story! Xxx


Twiggy walked down the road. She looked foward and watched the snow drift to the ground under the orange street lamp. As she came to a junction, she checked for cars, then headed to the left. Just when she was about to turn into her house she looked back. It was an old habit of hers that she did everytime she entered a house. Normally, she would see a person or just an empty road, but today it was both. There was no one to be seen, but she felt someone there. Plural. More than one someone. She turned and opened the door, leaving it behind her.

Valkyrie woke up in a mixture of tears and sweat. It was the fifth nightmare she had had over the past week. They all folowed the same routine. She was a spirit-type-being watching from mid-air. A girl came down the street, only to be followed by someone in the shadows. They would go into their house and the person following would go through an upstairs window. They would meet on the stairs, then the girl would be brutally murdered. This didn't affect her too much. After all, she had seen loads of dead bodies. No, what scared her was when Valkyrie in the dream would walk out a bedroom and talk to the murderer. Then the murderer would turn to her in the air with the meanest, scariest look anyone could muster. And it wasn't even their face making the grin and twinkle in their eye.
It would be impossible for that to happen. They didn't have that face in real life. Or that real, raw emotion.
She always looked at the face but it never changed from who she always knew it was. She sensed him.

Skulduggery.

The dream always left her wondering the same questions. Who was that girl? Why did Skulduggery kill her? Is it real, or just fantasy? She knew she was just being silly. All the magical horror of the past ten years had finally got to her. She was twenty two for Goodness' sake! She should have stopped all this nonsense years ago! Anyway, she had other things to worry about. Like hiding her secret feelings for Skulduggery.

He came bursting through the door, also for the fifth time this week. Talk of the devil, she thought, hiding a small smile. He came and hugged her, stroking her hair while she calmed down. After a few minutes, she pulled away. He asked her a number ofquestions, checking she was okay. She rushed through them all, not wanting to be in this uncomfortable position. He left and she snuggled back down into bed, wanting the dream to come. She knew she had to do something, so she had to pay attention to details this time. Feeling braver than before, she closed her eyes and forced herself to dream...

-THE DREAM-

She was floating again. The girl hadn't appeared yet, so shefloated about, lookingfor landmarks or street names and places. Nothing. Except, maybe that... A street lamp with a broken light. Instead of the normal orange, it was a green colour. The girl stepped out of the blackness at the end of the street and Valkyrie threw herself foward. She floated a few centimetres away from her, moving in time with her. She studied the girls' face. Dark, brown eyes that pulled you in. Long, wavy hair, tousled down to the small of her back like a chocolate waterfall. Red lips clashing with the dull, snowy background behind her. Everything slowed down for a minute. The world became greyscale, with only thing in colour. Her red coat, buttoned right up to the top. Valkyrie had never really noticed her coat, but now though, it stood out more than anything in the world. It was a symbol. A sign. Valkyrie found herself staring at it.

They finally reached the junction. Valkyrie looked around, anywhere, floating up and down then left and right. She was about to give up when the girl looked at her. Not in a 'Looking Straight Past You' kind of way, but a certian, assertive way. Her eyes dartedto the right, behind Valkyrie, and she followed the gaze to a street sign.

Red Thorn Avenue.

She floated to it and smiled. Two landmarks to follow then. Valkyrie floated after the girl. She wanted to talk, to shout, but she couldn't move her lips. They refused to move. The girl continued on into her garden, then her house. Valkyrie stayed near the window upstairs, waiting for her partner. He came as she locked the door. He slid through the open window with ease, not casting even a glance in Valkyrie's direction. She followed through the window. Why did she leave the window open on such a cold, snowy day? Valkyrie thought.

She carried on past Skulduggery, past the girl, to have a look around the house. She came across a kitchen first. Even in thedream world, you could smell and taste the air. It was old and musty. She gagged on the stench and carried on through to the living room, finding the source of the pollution. The room was littered with dead bodies, all torn to shreds. It was almost impossible to tell how many people this was. It could have been three, it could have been thirty. Valkyrie looked down from the air to see a boot and a foot inside, without a leg. She blanched, then went upstairs. The girl was being murdered as she went up. Valkyrie looked down and saw the girl look up to her and give her a small -but still powerful- reasuring smile, then her head fell back and she cried out.

Valkyrie carried on to the bedroom she would come out of. She was smashing someone's head against a solid wooden desk, cursing the person as she did so. The person stopped fighting back and the vistim fell limp in her hands. After tossing the body aside, she brushed herself of bits of face and splatters of blood, then went to the door.

Valkyrie went pale. She turned to her dream version and stared. HOW COULD YOU DO THAT?! she screamed. It never left her lips, but it did echo round her head. She was about to follow when she was whipped out the bedroom. Once her head finished spinning, she saw Skulduggery and her dream version. Then it all clouded over and she was awake in her room.

She flung herself out of bed, got changed and ran to the drive outside Skulduggery's house. She fished her keys out her pocket and ran to her car. Skulduggery bought it for her on her eighteenth birthday, four weeks after her driving test which she passed. Her headlights came on and she drove down the road, determined to find the green street lamp on Red Thorn Avenue.