Sylvia scanned all around her surroundings. This new territory was completely unfamiliar. She last remembered drifting to sleep in Todd's bed. Now she was standing in a dark void. There were no walls, ceilings, nor floors. But she was inside something. Sylvia felt as though she was standing within the eye of a violent tornado. The breeze was calm and the cylindrical hollow she was standing was shifty like it was composed of powerful winds. But there was a terrible sound. It was like the tube of a shop vacuum or someone breathing in heavily. It was a sound like the air was being sucked right out of you. (For anyone with no imagination, think of the alter-dimension Frodo goes into when he puts on the ring. It's like that of in a tornado thingy)

Rose!

A shaded voice called out from nowhere. It was a voice she did not recognize, but it came from a man. His voice was young and full of worry.

Rosie!

Another voice called out. But this time, it belonged to a child, a scared child. Sylvia gripped her ears. She did not want to hear these voices. They were calling out her mother's name in distress.

The loudest voice came to pass.

Johnny! Johnny where are you! Squee!

Sylvia's eyes widened dangerously. She recognized that voice. It was the voice of her own mother. She was calling out the names with fear. After what she knew, Johnny was her father's name. And Squee was Todd's nickname when he was a child. All three of them sounded as though they were in peril.

Then, another voice made itself heard in the vortex of memories. It was a dark and sinister laugh. The kind that gives you chills simply because of its terrifying nature. An image formed in the wall of the tornado's eye before Sylvia. She was transfixed on it. First it was a blur; a shadowy silhouette of a man figure. Then the picture sharpened until she recognized deep red hair and a long black coat. His mouth opened in a vile hiss, revealing a set of horrifyingly sharp canine teeth.

---

"NED!" Sylvia screamed as she sat up in bed.

She huffed with heavy breathing. Her eyes were darting all around. She was no longer in the spinning vortex of the past. Sylvia was safely under the covers of Todd's bed in the dark security of his home. She almost jumped out of her skin when a cold hand lightly grasped her shoulder.

"Sylvia, calm down." A familiar reassuring voice settled her nerves a bit.

The dim light of Todd's bedside table clicked on and the corner of the house was lit. Sylvia was sitting up in bed. She wasn't covered in sweat like she normally was in nightmares, but this time, she woke up with tears. Todd, who had been lying down on the couch, sat down on the side of the bed. He gently wrapped his arms around Sylvia, who pretty much threw herself into his inviting and open arms. He stroked her hair soothingly as she sobbed into his shirt.

"Sylvia. Did you have a nightmare?" Todd asked quietly. She nodded in response.

He whispered in her ear, "Do you know who Ned is?"

First Sylvia shook her head. She was silent for a moment then she finally spoke up, "I remember the name somewhere. But I don't know who he is."

Todd held her tight. Normally, in this sort of situation, he would be blushing or looking away, but something had scared Sylvia. This was no time to let the crush set in.

"Sylvia," Todd began, "I think it's time you heard the story. Seventeen years ago, back when I was just a little kid. Your mom was my babysitter. Your dad was my next door neighbor. He was a scary guy. I always heard screams and terrifying noises coming from his house. He killed people, a lot of people. Anyways, your mom and I saved your dad after he had been hit by a car. He stayed at her apartment for months, being nursed back into health. Well, they sort of fell in love with each other, not letting the other know. Then, this fellow named Ned started paying your mother and I visits after dark. We found out that he was a vampire that lived for thousands of years in a separate dimension. In fact, the doorway was a wall in your dad's house. Unless he coated it with fresh blood regularly, the portal could be broken through. He had escaped when your dad was living with your mom. Ned kidnapped your mom and planned to marry her so he'd be able to drink her blood. It was a loophole in some curse he was under. Your dad and I borrowed the bat mobile and went to the castle she was being held at. In the end, your dad died but he came back to life. I was the one that killed Ned."

Sylvia was utterly shocked at what she had heard. But it wasn't the story that was most surprising. It was the fact that she had know about it from somewhere before. Then, it dawned on her.

My dad's diary.

"I remember it now! My dad wrote about it in his diary before he disappeared." Sylvia exclaimed.

Todd then remembered that Johnny did in fact keep a diary.

He questioned, "Do you know where his diary is? Maybe there could be some sort of a clue."

Sylvia bit her bottom lip as she pondered its location, "I know I still have it. I think it's under my bed."

A moment of silence placed a pause on their conversation. Then, Todd looked up, "I think it's time we made a trip back to your house."

---

The sun had risen hours ago. When Sylvia had awoken, it was already ten in the morning. Todd decided to let her sleep as long as she needed, but her nightmare saw away to that plan. Todd had whipped them up a breakfast of eggs between two pieces of toast and a glass of apple juice. Sylvia was amazed that a man like Todd would prefer juice above soda, coffee, tea, beer, or any other drink. He told her it was because her mom would always give him juice for a snack because it was healthier than soda and he despised milk with hatred unrivaled by anything else in his life. She was going to ask where his calcium alternative came from but before she could ask she discovered a block of Monterey Jack cheese the size of a cinder block in his refrigerator. Some questions were better left unasked.

Sylvia and Todd slipped through the back entrance of the building to avoid being seen. The last thing Todd wanted was for people to think it was a public building and begin freely waltzing in and out of his house. Sylvia was wearing one of Todd's many black shirts. This one was a button up dress shirt. It was the least he could do after tearing a large hole in her shirt. Todd on the other hand had on his long black coat which he wore outdoors. They begin the walk across the park to Sylvia's home.

"Its days like these I wish I had a car." Todd panted as he rolled his coat off his sweaty shoulders.

They had completed their journey and approached Sylvia's home. Sylvia was huffing a bit as well in the warm day and the black shirt, "Me too."

Once Sylvia had retrieved the key and unlocked the door, she tore straight for her bedroom. It was odd having her room being a destination under a crucial matter. The clothes she had discarded from the day before were strewn across the floor. Sunlight of a bright day streamed into her quarters. Todd entered the room to find Sylvia shuffling through the upper layers of the short bookcase against the wall.

"It's in here somewhere," Sylvia mumbled to herself as she picked apart all the larger books to find a smaller one somewhere hidden between them. In a few additional moments, a thin black book with the words My Die-ary scribbled in white crayon was retrieved from the space between the Dictionary and 'Of Mice and Men'.

Sylvia stood up and turned to face Todd, "Here it is."

He carefully took it from her hands and opened it. There was a comment dying to crawl from Todd's lips and remark on Johnny's terrible handwriting. His eyes scanned over every carefully turned page. The first large portion was merely scrawls of what he did the day it was written and long rants of the human he is and the ones he was surrounded by. Just by glancing over a view words, Todd could see just how deeply Johnny hated people. Something caught his eye.

"Look here," Todd said as he lowered the Journal to Sylvia's angle, "Your dad was mainly consistent with his entries until July. There's a large date skip. The next entry is September 3."

Sylvia pondered, "That was when he was in my mom's care."

"That's right," Todd replied before returning to peel apart each page. After October 17 the handwriting changed to a neat print with a fine point blue pen. He presumed that this was Sylvia's handy work. After no more writing was on Johnny's part, Todd hastily flipped through the rest of the pages until he met the end. There was nothing more.

"Is that it?" Sylvia questioned as she peered over Todd's shoulder.

It looked as though there were only blank leaves after Sylvia's entries. But a tiny spot of black ink in the middle of the last page that bothered Todd. It was there so conspicuously as if it was not meant to be there. As if it belonged on the other side. He immediately turned back a page to the underside of the lined pages. So far, all the entries had been placed on the right page, nothing on the left. Both sets of eyes traced the fine lines and curves of ink scarring over the hidden half of the page.

It was the same marking found on Sylvia.

"Do you know what this means?" Todd turned to Sylvia. He face was a bit fairer in color now.

She nodded her head timidly. She spoke, "My dad must have had this marked on him as well."

Underneath the replica of the tattoo was the same messy handwriting as Johnny's had always been. Sylvia read the words to herself.

Vallen D.

777

The Maiden of Light: My brain hurts. New excuses for slow updates: Spending spring break to work on our cabins in the mountains (it's our family business), sheep and chickens, softball, gardening, yard work (a.k.a. pulling a bunch of heavy rocks out of the ground to make room for a new deck), English homework, volunteer hours at the library, and a boyfriend. It is so difficult to juggle all this. And my creative juices are being hindered by it all. I feel as though this story isn't living up to the first. It's taking me forever. Read and review to my slowly declining number of readers. (-- sad sigh)