THE FOLLOWING IS A NON-PROFIT FAN-BASED WORK OF FICTION
THE TOTAL DRAMA FRANCHISE IS OWNED BY FRESH TV, TELETOON, JENNIFER PERTSCH AND TOM MCGILLIS
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER IS OWNED BY JOSS WHEDON AND MUTANT ENEMY
PLEASE SUPPORT THE OFFICIAL RELEASE(S)
Also, before we begin, you get this once, so listen up
WARNING: This fic WILL, at various points in the future, contain canon character death. I mean it's based on a Joss Whedon work, of course people are gonna die. Also there's potential for other dark and/or depressing stuff, that's less set in stone, but be on guard.
But anyhow, I've rambled too long already, and we've not even properly begun yet. So without further ado, I present chapter one of Gwen The Vampire Slayer:
There's something about places you see only in daylight being viewed at night that gives them a sense of foreboding greater than that of the places people usually hang out in at night.
One such place is a school, such as the one we begin this story in. The fact that we are currently in a biology classroom complete with genuine human skeleton only added to the great foreboding. All was quiet, save for crickets desperately screaming for sex; or at least it was until
'CRASH!'
Someone smashed through a window in the biology classroom. They shoved their arm through the new hole and began fidgeting with the latch, only to discover it was in fact locked. The mystery window-smasher swore to themselves, before moving a few feet down and smashing another window. This one was also locked, and so our resident vandal continued punching windows and fidgeting with latches until he gave up and just punched an entire window out. He climbed in, his right arm covered in cuts that were bleeding all down his arm, then offered his non-lacerated arm to someone still outside. He pulled them up and through the window, and the two crawled off the windowsill and into the classroom proper. It is at this point that we can see enough of them to actually give a description.
Our window smasher was a male of around average height, who looked about 16, but dressed like he was trying to look older, with a leather jacket, torn jeans, and an ear stud that he swore was a piercing but was in fact magnetised. His hair was black, his eyes were not visible in this low lighting, and he was chewing a toothpick as if he thought it made him look cool.
The other person was a girl, a small blonde wearing what appeared to be a Catholic School uniform, because apparently people do that outside of pornography. Once inside the classroom, it was the girl who spoke first
"Dereck, I don't think we should be here." The guy, whose name was evidently Dereck, simply gave a chuckle and put his arm around her shoulder
"Relax, babe. There's no-one else here." As if some cosmic force was determined to make a mockery of Dereck's statement, what followed immediately was a rather loud and ominous 'THUD'.
Dereck yelped and twisted around in the direction of the noise, as if expecting some great beastie to be standing in the doorway. There was no beastie, just a closed door next to a poster advertising a biology club that sought members.
"What was that?" asked the girl, peeking out from behind Dereck. Dereck took a few steady breaths to compose himself.
"I-it was probably just the wind" Dereck explained as he straightened his jacket, sounding like he was trying to convince himself more than his friend. "Come on, let's go"
He took the still unnamed girl by the arm and lead her out the classroom, eyes darting to and fro nervously as the pair crept into the corridor.
Despite its lack of genuine human skeleton, the corridor somehow managed to be even creepier than the biology classroom, though a large portion of that could be attributed to the door blowing open in the wind. Our two intrepid delinquents crept down the corridor, taking a left out of the biology classroom, going past a wall that had been graffitied so much that almost none of it was discernible, save for a purple skull that looked like it had been painted on yesterday, and a crudely drawn 'Scott wuz here' in neon orange.
The two technical criminals were in fact so focussed on their little stealth section, that they didn't noticed a figure step out into the corridor behind him. Nor did they notice his faint footsteps.
"And just what are you kids doing here?" They did notice that, however. They jumped about a foot in the air and screamed, a pair of soprano voices threatening to shatter what few glass panes remained on this side of the building. Slowly, postures filled with dread the two turned around, and came face to face with…
The janitor. He was an old man, hair patchy and greying, eyes half-lidded but with noticeable smile lines around them. He was wearing the green overalls typical of his profession, and came with the similarly typical mop, which he leaned on almost as though it was a walking stick.
"I'm waiting" his voice was gravelly, lined with years of wisdom, and he put one hand on his hip and resting his chin on the mop handle while he waited for an explanation. It was Dereck who recovered first, and he stepped forwards to try and smoothly talk his way out of the situation.
"Uh, we were just, we were, we were uh…". Well, 'recovered' and 'smoothly talk' are relative terms. It was better than the girl, who was in what appeared to be a state of complete shock. The janitor just sighed
"First date, huh? You kids are the third couple this week."
Dereck responded by flapping his mouth like a fish for a few moments, before hurrying forwards to close the gap between him and the janitor and throwing an arm around his shoulder
"Look man, I know I really shouldn't have been doing this," he whispered to the older man "it's just this girl actually thinks I'm cool, and that's never happened and I wanted to prove it, y'know?" The janitor sighed, but looked at Dereck with what appeared to be sympathy.
"Tch, young love. Alright kid, I'll cut you two deal: you two skedaddle now, and never do this again, and it's those punks from down the street that broke those windows, not you two. We good?" Dereck let out a sigh of relief, and pulled the janitor into a man-hug.
"Thanks man, my parents would freak if they knew I was breaking into a school." He turned back to the girl "Hey Julie, you hear that, we can- OH GOD WHAT THE HELL?"
Dereck's scream was a rational one. While he had been talking things out with the janitor, Julie had evidently gotten bored with the ruse she was putting up, and decided to end the charade now. Gone was the face of a nervous Catholic schoolgirl. In its place, a demonic, fanged visage, with yellow eyes and ridged brows, a sadistic grin plastered upon it. The janitor noticed this too, and his mouth hung open in stunned shock.
As Julie advanced on the two, fangs bared and preternaturally sharp nails outstretched, Dereck latched onto the janitor in fright, and the two men screamed in utter terror.
A mile and a half away, in a small-ish house in the suburbs, just as Julie advanced on her helpless victims, a girl awoke with a start. She bolted upright in her bed, the covers falling off to reveal a baggy t-shirt worn on her upper body. She was panting heavily, and raised her arm to wipe off the thin sheen of sweat that had accrued on her forehead.
Swinging her legs around, she got up and stumbled on tired legs to the bathroom, and pulled the cord for the light switch. She squinted in the sudden bright like for a few moments, until eventually her eyes adjusted, and she could look in the mirror without shooting pain in her corneas. As she brushed some stray strands of teal fringe out of her eyes and splashed some cold water on her face, she mulled over those images still flashing through her mind's eye.
It had to be just a dream, right? Normally she'd be content with the explanation her mom had told her since her first nightmare, but recently it had been becoming more and more… vivid. It wasn't like she was simply watching those two breaking into her school, it was like she was there. She could feel the breeze from the broken windows on her back, hear the words they said to each other, and feel the growing sense of dread that hung about the place. And that boy. She knew him from school. It wasn't anyone she knew well, it wasn't Duncan, definitely wasn't Cody, and it certainly wasn't… him. She just saw him trying to hang around Duncan a lot and embarrassing himself every time. But no matter how hard she tried to dismiss those thoughts as nothing more than her own hyperactive imagination, she couldn't shake the felling that these dreams had some significance she was missing. And so, she hunched over the sink, forehead almost touching the mirror, and tried to come up with some form explanation for these images, and why they'd shaken her so. Maybe it did mean something. Maybe these dreams were the signs of something important about to happen. Maybe it was 3:22 in the morning and she was tired as shit.
Gwen Fahlenbock sighed as she rubbed her eyes, brushing more errant locks of hair from her face as she did so. As her eyes opened again, she noticed some flecks of auburn brown at the roots of her hair. Great. Now she needed more dye as well.
Sighing, Gwen left the bathroom, flicking off the light as she went, and headed to the window. The curtains were summarily flicked to the side, and Gwen rested her forehead against the cool glass, letting the cold spread across her head to try and cool her brain. Maybe this did mean something. Maybe it didn't. The answer could wait until tomorrow.
Gwen exhaled determinedly, and trudged back to her bed, and tried her best to squeeze in what little sleep she could get between her dreams, and the alarm that loomed ahead in a matter of mere hours.
In contrast to the thick darkness that enveloped the town at night, the following day turned out to be incredibly bright and sunny. The sky was blue, the birds were singing, and it was the first day of the new school year at Wawanakwa High. The positives of this day largely end there. Wawanakwa was a dump, run by a former reality TV presenter wannabe who had his school kept open through out-and-out blackmail. Why keeping a school open kept him satisfied was a mystery to all, school board included, but they weren't complaining too much. The students probably should've, however. Truancy was through the roof, and test scores were so low one guy scored negative on a true or false test. The school itself was lacking in facilities and sorely understaffed, with several faculty members forced to take on multiple roles throughout the school to keep things running. The building was old, almost falling apart in the less-travelled areas, and looked more like a prison from certain angles. Though the grounds were expansive, which was nice at least.
The building was located almost perfectly in the centre of the moderately sized town of New Norwich. The town is one of the many forgotten early settlements from when the pilgrims first made their journey to the New World. A boat got lost, wound up on the coastline of what would later be New Brunswick, and they settled on naming the town after the only name in the shortlist no-one had claimed yet. The town is itself is of decent size, complete with all basic amenities a town might need such as a mall, a beach, some creepy woods for the nature lovers, places of worship for all major (and some minor) religions, a club called The Island for all the kids to hang out and get out of their parents' hair for an evening, and a few too many graveyards for a town of its size.
The grass outside the school, kept nice and green over the summer to offset the aesthetic black hole that was the school, was being trampled by students new and old. Friends reunited in the shade of the various trees dotted around and swapped stories about the summer, while freshmen gazed up at the building with a sense of dread. The road was jam packed with cars dropping off teenagers, the constant opening and closing of doors rendering the pavement an obstacle course for those with the audacity to walk down it.
Currently attempting this feat was boy of far less height than he should have had at his age. As in barely breaching 5 feet tall. Not that he acted it, as he was not simply walking. He was strutting. There was an uncompromising swagger in his step, and a grin he thought was confident plastered on his face that really just showed off the gap in his teeth and made him look stupid. His teal eyes gleamed with a confidence that he at the very least believed. His walk seemed to have a sort of rhythm to it, as though there was some backing music playing in his head, as he bounced every few steps, and walked with the occasional leg flourish, almost as though he was trying to dance. As he went, he flashed an even cheesier grin at any girl he passed, and shot several finger guns to accompany them, all of which were met with looks of confusion and/or disgust. But he paid those looks no mind, continuing to strut on down the pavement.
Until someone opened a car door straight into him, smacking him in the face and knocking him down onto the ground. From the car stepped a girl of Asian descent, about 5"9', with long dark hair running down to her lower back, and eyes currently masked by reflective sunglasses. She looked down at the boy she'd just whacked, frowned, and let out a quiet "ugh" of disgust.
"Don't talk to me" Heather said as she walked away, not sparing a second glance at her victim's prone form.
"I see summer hasn't changed you for the better" came a new voice, thick with cynicism and boredom. The girl wheeled around to see a new figure, am Indian boy in a sweater vest, nonchalantly leaning on her car and reading a book, smirking all the while.
"Get off my car, Noah-it-all"
"How cutting." Noah remarked as he idly slammed the book shut "What are you gonna do, set Justin on me?"
Heather girt her teeth, looking like she very much wanted to punch Noah in the face, but just spun on her heel and walked off
"I so don't have time for your loser ass." She grumbled as she left. Noah just snorted, and turned to the boy who was just now peeling himself off the pavement.
"Cody, I thought I told you Spider-Man 3 is not a guide for picking up women." Noah remarked as he helped pull Cody off the ground.
"I was going for more Saturday Night Fever" Cody replied as he straightened out his shirt and wiped the dirt out of his hair.
Noah rolled his eyes "I recall no finger guns in Saturday Night Fever." This got a confused look from Cody
"You've seen Satruday Night Fever?" he asked
"No, I read the novelisation" Noah deapanned, rolling his eyes. Cody held up his hands in mock surrender
"Alright, sheesh, just taking an interest" he said as he walked up the small flight of stairs that served to bridge the slight hill the school was built on. Then, as a very muscular, very irate looking girl with dark hair walked past, the overly confident grin returned to his face, and he shot her a "Heyyy" and a set of fingers guns. The girl glared at him, then kicked him hard in the shins and stomped off. Cody yelped, and began hopping about in pain while Noah dragged himself up the stairs to stand next to him.
"I thought you'd at least be sensible enough to not hit on Eva. Clearly I give you far too much credit."
"Never hurts to try" said Cody between sharp exhalations of pain. Noah stared blankly at his friend, then groaned and facepalmed.
"Then explain the large bruise forming on your shin". Cody gave no response, instead continuing to hop about, until he hopped backwards too far, hit the guardrail of the stairs, and fell backwards over it. Noah sighed, and continued to walk towards the school
"I'm not picking you up again"
Despite the lower number of students, the hallways of Wawanakwa High somehow managed to sound louder than the field outside, though a lot of that could be attributed to the off-white walls and the light blue lockers bouncing the sound around and about all over the place, causing any conversations not within half a metre to be reduced to an incoherent din of voices.
Gwen sighed to herself as she picked her way through the crowds of people to make her way to her locker, all those irritations of school you forget about during summer ramming themselves to the forefront of her mind. Heather existed, everyone was loud and obnoxious, Heather existed, she probably wasn't going to be sharing any classes with her friends, Heather existed, the entire building had only gotten crummier, Heather existed, and, worst of all, Heather existed.
And think very poorly of the devil and she shall appear it seems, as who should show up but Heather herself. Now for a normal person, trying to avoid attention in a large crowd is easy enough; just avoid eye contact without looking like you're avoiding eye contact, keep your head down, and move with the flow of people. But when you're a girl with partially blue hair and clothing so dark you absorb all surrounding light, avoiding attention is a pipe dream.
"Hey weird goth girl!" Heather crowed with mocking happiness as she saw Gwen approaching down the corridor. "Still as miserable as ever, huh?"
Gwen groaned and slammed her head against her locker. "Go jump off a bridge, Heather"
"Tch, someone's touchy. What's the matter, still couldn't get Trent to even notice you?"
Gwen's frown of exasperation shifted into one of anger, and she grit her teeth
"I said, shut up Heather" she growled as she opened her locker to start putting away the inordinate number of books she needed for this term.
"Or what, you'll do some gothy voodoo on me?"
This could not get any worse, Gwen decided. Well, no, it could. At least-
"Well hello, Gwen! Fancy seeing you here?" nope, never mind, now it could not get any worse, Gwen thought, as the cackling laughter of Heather and her cronies accompanied the arrival of her long-time stalker, Cody Anderson.
"Look Gwen, your boyfriend's here!" called one of Heather's lackeys, one she couldn't remember the name of. She was blonde and on the cheerleading team, and that was about it.
"What do you want, Cody?" she growled as she turned around to view him, that unbreaking 'smooth' grin on his face making her really want to punch it. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Noah slamming his head against the wall in frustration. Now, Gwen didn't hate Cody. She certainly didn't like him, not by a long shot, but hate was a word reserved solely for Heather. But she really wasn't in the mood for his shit right now.
"Well, I was just thinking," he said as he leant on the wall in a manner he thought exuded cool, but just made him look like a douche "with it being the new school year and all, you and me could maybe go out to commiserate together? Say, tonight, at 8?"
"Cody, for the millionth time, the answer is no. Now go away." Gwen tried her best to keep her voice even, but that last part ended up incredibly threatening, but to be honest, she didn't care.
"Aww, you heartbreaker Gwen." Cut in Heather, and Gwen had to lock her joints to stop herself punching the girl "Why not say yes? After all, it's the best a freak like you is gonna get"
That was it. With a primal growl of frustration, Gwen slammed her locker shut with as much force as she could muster, and wheeled around on Heather
"DAMMIT! Why can't you just leave me alone!?" she yelled, her voice backed by the incredibly loud 'slam' of her locker. She was met with a very uncharacteristic wide-eyed stare from the Queen Bee. But the stare wasn't directed at her. It was directed at her locker door, the not exactly rock solid but certainly not flimsy sheet of steel, now rendered nothing but a crumpled pile of twisted metal. It appeared as though the locked door had reached the frame, but had more than enough momentum to try and keep going despite the obstacle in its way, and had effectively caved inwards to an astounding degree. Gwen stared at the locker with just as much confusion as Heather. The corridor, incredibly loud not ten seconds ago, went eerily silent, as the 'slam' continued to reverberate down the corridor, followed closely by the screeching of tortured metal, drawing the attention of all nearby.
"Ugh, freak." Heather's words as she walked off snapped Gwen out of her reverie. She awkwardly shouldered her bag, suddenly feeling incredibly self-conscious for the first time she could remember, and darted off into the crowd of people at a pace far faster than normal walking.
Left stood in the corridor, staring at the ruined locker door with what could only be called awe, was Cody.
"Whoa…" he uttered subconsciously. Behind him, Noah had stopped banging his head on the wall, and was looking at the locker door with a far more pensive expression. He let out a small "hmm" of a concluded thought, then turned to look in the direction Gwen walked off in, and let out more quizzical "hmm?". Eventually, he shrugged, and let out a third "hmm" that seemed to signify he didn't care.
Like most schools, the individual corridors of Wawanakwa High were nigh identical, the only distinguishing features being the numbers on the doors and lockers, and faint details like the locations of water fountains that only those familiar with the halls would know.
As such, I have no idea how many corridors Gwen speed walked down until she finally appeared to relax at least a little, her fingers unclenching themselves a little from the shoulder strap of her rucksack as she let out a small sigh.
As it happened, the corridor she found herself slowing to a normally-paced trudge in was one that contained numerous other members of the anti-social girl's surprisingly large social life.
"Yo! Wassup Gwen-girl?" called a voice familiar to Gwen, snapping her out of her reverie and causing a smile to grace her face for the first time that day. She turned around to see her two closest friends in the hellhole that was Wawanakwa High leant against their lockers, which happened to be right next to each other, and giving the goth girl a wave.
On the left (or right, depending on your perspective) was the friend who had done the calling. Leshawna Edwards, while not completely opposite to Gwen, was pretty darn close. Where Gwen was relatively skinny, Leshawna had "curves in all the right places" as she put it; or "was fat" as people who were about to be punched very hard in the gut would say. Where Gwen was pale to the point of being almost ghostly, Leshawna was the exact opposite of that. Where Gwen preferred to reserve her thoughts to sarcastic under-breath mutterings and violent revenge plots never to be actually enacted, Leshawna made no secrets of what she thought, and if you had a problem with it, tough. I think at this point, you get where I'm going: the two had very little common ground. Save of course, for their mutual disdain of the self-appointed queen of Wawanakwa high, Heather. This hatred is what brought the girls together, and through the fires of her torment, a firm bond of friendship was established.
The friend on the right (or left), on the other hand, managed to be somehow completely opposite from the two girls in entirely different ways. Bridgette Fairlie managed neither the quiet resentment of Gwen nor the brash opposition of Leshawna, instead being almost too laid-back for her own good. She was neither skinny nor, ah, plus-sized, instead maintaining an athletic figure from years of surfing in the mediocre waves of the New Norwich coast. And unlike Leshawna and Gwen, there was no bond forged in the fires of whatever bullshit I said, instead, a series of amicable and entirely coincidental meetings between the three girls throughout middle school led to her slow addition into the group, establishing the three girls as firm friends.
Gwen felt her smile grow, a happy glint even reaching her eyes, as she picked her way through the crowds of people headed in every possible direction (including an orange-haired girl trying to dig through the floor using a cafeteria spoon), and made her way over to her friends. Before she could get a single word out, she was pulled into a bone-crunching hug by Leshawna, albeit one that didn't feel nearly as powerful as her usual spine-shatterers.
"Oooh, c'mere girl, it feels like forever since I've seen ya!" said Leshawna, smiling happily.
"I missed you too." Replied Gwen dryly, with a small half-smile on her lips.
She was released by Leshawna, only to be instantly pulled into a second hug by Bridgette, this one far gentler.
"Seriously, where were you all summer?" Bridgette asked once she was done hugging. "I get back from California and you're nowhere to be seen"
"Ugh, mom stuff" Gwen replied, rolling her eyes "You know how she is."
"Well, since you're here now, I can tell you all about my trip"
"Ugh, spare me" Gwen said sarcastically. Behind the two of them, Leshawna began walking off slowly.
"Hey, where are you going?" Bridgette asked
"Anywhere that ain't here, I've heard you going on and on about Cali and that guy you met for two weeks, I ain't hearin any more" she replied, hands on her hips and a smile on her face "'Sides, I got history on the other end of the damn school, I gotta get going"
Leshawna's sentence was punctuated by the sound of the bell ringing out across the hall. Gwen took this as an opportunity to scoot away from Bridgette, hoisting her bag back onto her shoulder as she did so
"I got biology, you?" she asked Bridgette
"Maths, sorry"
"Don't worry about it" Gwen replied, turning to walk away "We'll catch up properly at lunch!" she called over her shoulder as she dashed towards her classroom,
After the chaos and rushed reunions that made up Gwen's morning, things were as drearily monotonous as they always were at school, and had things continued as they were, she might actually have convinced herself of that. She may have broken 4 pencils more than normal in biology (up from her normal average of 0), and that dent in her desk was definitely always there, but nothing was done that wasn't dismissible as some slightly odd occurrence, but not outright weird.
All that changed in PE. Or gym, or whatever it is you call the class where nerds get large rubber balls thrown at them.
Thanks to the impossibly low budget of the school, there wasn't enough money to have separate classes for both genders; hell, the budget had barely stretched to separate changing rooms. As a result, the class composition was solely a product of scheduling with no thought given to gender, ability, potential, or in the cases of bureaucratic fuckups, age, as several unlucky freshmen placed with seniors would attest to.
Today, being the first day of term, was the introduction to all the people Gwen would be stuck in a sweaty room with for the next year.
There were a whole bunch of people she knew nothing about for starters, ranging from the tall, buff black guy flexing his arms proudly in the middle of the room and expecting everyone to be in awe; to the freakishly tall girl with a thick Australian accent; to the waifish girl sat in a corner meditating.
And as for the people she knew, there were several.
The first to catch her notice was Cody, because of course he was there, flanked as always by Noah, who looked incredibly annoyed to be there; just to the pair's left was Noah's other best friend, the overly large Owen, who was the exact opposite of Noah in attitude, build, complexion, and just about everything to be honest. There was also Courtney, the Hispanic girl she couldn't help but recognise from all the student council election posters she'd plastered on every inch of every bulletin board in school; she was a little haughty, but manageable in small doses at the very least. The ginger boy unsubtly checking out Courtney's ass was Scott, she semi-knew him from hanging around with Duncan occasionally. And finally, leaning on a wall away from everyone else, was Duncan, who was doing a far better job of subtly checking out Courtney's ass. Smiling for the second time that day, a new personal best, she quietly walked over to the punk, making sure to stay in his peripheral vision while he was so engrossed in other sights.
"You know she'll kill you if she sees you doing that?" she said when she was right next to him. To Duncan's credit, he didn't jump, just chuckled to himself.
"No way, pasty." He said "She's way to occupied braining Scott for doing the same thing"
Gwen looked, and sure enough Courtney had noticed Scott's wandering eye and was beating him over the head repeatedly with her very large and very heavy law textbook. Why Courtney had her law textbook with her in gym was another matter entirely, but it certainly wasn't Gwen's concern.
"So how come I didn't see you all summer?" Duncan asked after the third blow on Scott landed, "Got kinda quiet around without ya"
"Ugh," Gwen sighed, her good mood instantly gone, "My brother had to go to a three-week band camp in Vancouver, and because mom can't let either of us out of her sight for more than a day, I got dragged along with her to stay with Aunt Maureen."
"Ouch" Duncan said, wincing in sympathy, yet not quite supressing the laugh in his voice, which Gwen caught on to.
"Yeah, laugh it up. How much time did you spend in juvie this summer?" she asked
"I am shocked at such an accusation!" Duncan replied in a tone of extremely exaggerated offense "I'll have you know that I was nothing short of an upstanding citizen over the summer."
The two looked at each other for a moment, then both laughed out loud.
"Nah, never did anything serious enough to get thrown back in there" Duncan said "Just did enough to get several warnings and a night or two in lockup"
"Didn't do anything or didn't get caught doing anything?" Gwen asked, eyebrow raised and a smile on her face again
"That's for me to know, and the cops to not find out" Duncan answered with a smug grin on his face
"Pff, smartass"
The two lapsed into a comfortable silence against the wall, Duncan returning his attention to Courtney's rear end, who by this point had left Scott a pile of bruises on the floor and was now standing around irately, as if daring somebody to try something similar.
Gwen, meanwhile, stared idly at the ground while she let her thoughts wander. Inevitably, they wandered back to her dream, specifically the one boy she'd seen. She knew she'd seen him hanging around Duncan, albeit not through any plans of the delinquent to her left. She still couldn't shake the feeling that there was something significant about the dream.
"Hey, Duncan?" she eventually asked after mulling it over for a minute or so
"Yeah?" he replied, not turning to face her
"Have you seen that weird guy who keeps following you around lately?"
Duncan did turn around this time, to look at her with a confused expression
"What, Dereck?" he asked. So that was his name "What do you want to know about that loser for?"
Gwen hadn't really expected to be asked why she wanted to know, and the question stumped her for a second
"Because… he followed you all over the place like Cody does with me, and I haven't seen him around here at all. I was wondering if you'd found some way to get rid of him, see if it might work for me." she lied, trying to avoid looking Duncan in the eye.
Duncan regarded her for a moment, sizing her up with his gaze. But he quickly shrugged and returned to his normal nonchalant expression
"I ain't seen him all day. Which now that you mention it, is kinda weird for him. Normally he'd be all over me trying to convince me how much of a 'rebel' he is. Dork"
The two returned to their silence, but while Duncan was still relaxed, Gwen's thoughts continued to run wild. Part of her wanted to dismiss this as some massive coincidence, but the nagging paranoid part of her brain wouldn't shut up about something far bigger going on.
Before she could get her thoughts even more tangled up, she was snapped out of her daze by the shrill sound of a whistle being blown. She looked in its direction to see Coach Hatchet, the school's resident gym teacher/cafeteria cook/nurse, dressed up in his purple gym wear and carrying a dodgeball under his arm
"LISTEN UP MAGGOTS!" he yelled, drawing the attention of the few who ignored the whistle "This unit is dodgeball"
He turned to one of the two people still not paying attention to him, a heavyset boy playing on a handheld games console.
"You boy!" Coach Hatchet yelled, still not drawing the boy's attention "Dodge!"
He threw the ball at him, and the boy realised to late that it was heading for him. It struck him in the head, and he dropped onto the ground, landing next to the still incapacitated Scott, who coincidentally was the other person not paying attention at that time.
"Anyone else feel like not listenin' up?" Coach Hatchet asked the room. He received responses that ranged from shaking heads, to cries of "No!", to incoherent burbling from Scott.
"Good! Right, I'm gonna split you up into teams, and I don't wanna hear no arguing! Team one is…"
40 minutes later
Dodgeball was its usual hell, rubber balls flying everywhere and stinging far more than they should. For whatever reason, everything seemed slower than usual to Gwen. The large black guy, named Lightning if the constant third-person referrals were anything to go by, had a 'fastball' that caught out all but the nimblest of dodgers, which in this case meant Gwen alone, who found the ball to be moving far too slow to be considered a fastball.
But misnamed fastballs or no, the hell was over, and now all Gwen had left in the day was to get changed out of her gym clothes, and a single lesson left before she was home free for 8 glorious hours before the cycle of torment began again at dawn.
"Ugh, can you believe that loser?" the sound of an incredibly bitchy conversation caught Gwen's attention, as Heather and her lackeys strolled on past her to the next aisle of lockers "He thought flowers would get me to go out with him! I mean, come on, how lame can you get?"
From the piercing quality of the voice, it was probably Amy, Heather's chief ass-kisser
"Aww, I think it's sweet" That must have been Lindsay, the only girl among the group Gwen could even come remotely close to tolerating, due to being really nice, just incredibly stupid.
"You would think that, wouldn't you Lindsiot?" and there was Queen Mean herself "You're still dating the most useless quarterback in the history of ever"
It was at this point Gwen rolled her eyes and tuned out of the incessant inane chatter of the harpies nearby, and instead focussed on pulling her socks back up.
A few moments later, and Gwen was back into her normal attire, and just about ready to leave. She slung her bag over her shoulder and turned to leave. She made it about halfway to the door when a strange feeling in the base of her skull stopped her in her tracks. She didn't know why, but she got the distinct feeling something was about to happen.
She stood there for a minute, the only sounds in the locker room that of the incessant chatter between the high court of cruelty, everyone else having long since cleared out.
Then it happened. While Heather was mid-sentence, Gwen managed to catch the 'creak' of a locker door opening. There was a loud 'thump' as something heavy fell out, and then the screaming started.
Gwen didn't waste a second, she dashed towards the screaming, rounded the corner, and as met with a sight that would be burned into her memory for a long time.
Standing around, expressions of terror on their faces, were Heather and her cohort, all in various states of undress, Heather herself clad only in underwear. For some reason that was the first detail Gwen picked up on. All the girls were screaming now, and as Gwen's eyes tore themselves away from Heather, she saw exactly why.
There lying on the ground, was a corpse. It was completely pale, as though something had drained the very life force out of it, and etched on its face was an expression of pure terror.
The corpse was male, and initially Gwen didn't recognise it, only noticing that it was in fact not a student, but a much older man. It was only when Gwen registered the janitorial scrubs and the familiarity of the face that her brain rebooted and put two and two together.
This was the janitor. The same one from her dream, his face still contorted in the scream he'd made as that demonic girl had advanced on him.
Gwen's knees buckled, and she staggered backwards and leaned against the wall, her eyes still fixed on the corpse. As more and more people were drawn by the screaming, she paid less and less attention as her mind raced.
This was real. That demonic looking girl was real, and she'd killed the janitor, and presumably Dereck, and somehow Gwen had known about it.
Some members of staff rushed into the locker room to see what all the ruckus was about, and quickly began ushering everyone out as fast as they could. Gwen followed, her body moving on autopilot. She took one last look inside the locker room before the door slammed shut, and she was able to see a teacher hastily dial his phone and call someone, presumably the police.
Rumours at Wawanakwa high spread incredibly fast, even by the standards of high school. The previous record was twenty minutes for everyone in the school to know, set when Topher Jacot got caught with a bag full of cocaine in the men's bathroom.
But seeing as between Noah hearing the announcement over the intercom announcing the immediate closure of school for the day, and Cody running up to him and frantically exclaiming that someone had found a dead body, not enough time had passed for him to have even finished putting his shirt on, he thought to himself that the record had probably just been broken.
When he emerged from the gym and into the corridor and saw the school's resident conspiracy nut Shawn, who Noah knew to have a class on the other end of the building, running down the corridor in a frenzy, screaming about zombies, Noah knew that the record had been broken.
He spent most of the walk home thinking to himself, only half-listening to Cody and Harold discuss possible causes of death for the body. Well, Harold discussed causes of death, Cody told him to chill on the graphic descriptions.
"I'm telling you, it could have been internal haemorrhaging. See, if someone has high enough blood pressure…"
"Harold!" Cody cut him off "Details!"
"Gosh, it's just internal bleeding, it's not that bad. He could have suffered a massive stomach ulcer, where his stomach ate…"
"Harold!"
"Right, right. All this is speculation anyway. Apparently, there were no injuries on the body, aside from a few puncture marks on the neck Heather thought she saw. Maybe he overdosed?"
Puncture marks… now that got Noah's attention. He said nothing to the others, but his eyebrows furrowed in thought. A pale corpse with puncture marks on the neck, Gwen's newfound locker destroying strength, it all added up to something... familiar. It could also be a massive coincidence, but he didn't believe in those. But just this once, he hoped
"Why are you so concerned with trying to work out what killed this guy anyway?" Noah got snapped out of his thoughts by Cody's question to Harold, something he had been wondering as well
"Gosh, don't you remember I went to Detective Steve's Detective Camp over the summer? I've got to keep my mad skills sharp; I was going to tear the last page out of a load of Agatha Christie novels and try to work out who the killer was myself, but I guess this is as good an opportunity as any"
"Well, yeah, but doesn't it weird you out that a man died in our school?"
"I mean, yeah, it does. But it's also fascinating. See,…"
Noah tuned the conversation out as Harold went into one of his long-winded explanations about whatever had taken his fancy. He had his own theories to sort out.
He really hoped it was a coincidence.
As per usual, Noah was the first person home that day. When you're the youngest of nine and the only one still in school, it tends to happen. Three of his sisters and two of his brothers were away at college, the oldest had already moved out, and the two who were left both had jobs. Which left him. Well, him his dog, Oz, the only other person in the house he could tolerate on a consistent basis.
Oz bounding up to him in greeting helped greatly to alleviate the pressing sense of doom he felt, allowing Noah a brief moment of respite to give some well-earned tummy rubs.
But tummy rubs can only distract so long, even with a dog as friendly as Oz, and soon Noah had to leave the Irish setter behind and proceed to a room he hadn't been in for several years.
His father's study.
He'd never been allowed in by himself, even before the accident, but sometimes dad had let him in to show him an old book, or something to that effect. But Noah knew that the answers he sought were in there somewhere. He just had to find them before mom got home.
The door was locked, as it had been for the past several years, but one does not spend time around Izzy Crown without picking up a few skills here and there, so several bent hairpins later and Noah was in.
He opened the door slowly, as if expecting someone to jump out of the darkness on his mere entry. At first he couldn't see much, the only light in the room coming through the crack in the door largely occupied by his head, and the few strands filtering in through small gaps in the curtains. Noah felt around on the wall next to the door, looking for the light switch.
He quickly found it, and as the naked bulb in the ceiling flickered to life, the first thing that struck him about the room was how dusty it was. It made sense after all those years of abandonment, but even so; there were books in here thinner than the dust layer.
Pushing the door open fully, Noah stepped forwards tentatively, involuntarily taking a deep breath as he did so. The floorboards creaked with sudden use under his feet, and despite the irrationality of it he couldn't shake the feeling of forbiddance the room possessed. He did his best to push it to the back of his mind as he made his way to the wall-spanning bookshelf at the back of the room.
This was gonna take a lot longer than he thought.
He began scanning the titles of the books, occasionally having to pull a book down off the shelf when he found nothing written on the spine, kicking up a miniature dust storm every time he did so.
So far the books seemed to be standard study stuff. A dictionary, a thesaurus, a few religious texts of various faiths, some classic literature, several volumes of encyclopaedias, that sort of thing. But as Noah finished the middle shelf and moved onto the shelf above, the one conveniently out of reach of any small children, the titles became far more esoteric.
First up was the Necronomicon. Noah did a double take at that, but it turned out to be a Lovecraft anthology. Then came another Necronomicon, and this one wasn't a Lovecraft anthology. When the words on the first page of that one started to make his head spin, he slammed it back on the shelf with as much force as he could muster a made a vow to repress that memory as much as humanly possible.
The next book on the shelf was a Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual. Then a book with no identifiable title that was written in a script Noah didn't recognise. Then The Odyssey, then a Shin Megami Tensei III artbook, and the trend of completely unrelated works, some in English, some in some unidentifiable language, and some with no words in them at all, continued until the very end of the shelf. None of the books he could read contained anything useful, and so he continued until the end of the shelf, until at last he found something with promise.
It was an old, leather-bound tome, its pages torn and yellowed. It had no author, and printed on the front was only the word "Vampyr".
Noah gently opened the book, taking care not to damage the time-worn pages, and once he'd flicked past the image of the demon smiting helpless peasants on the first page, began to slowly read.
'In every generation there is a Chosen One,' read the prologue, once Noah had squinted enough to discern the tiny text. 'She alone will stand against-'
Before Noah could get any further, the sound of the front door opening drifted into his ears, and his head shot up.
"Noah!" called his mother "I heard about what happened at school, are you here?"
Shit. If mom found him in here, it wouldn't have mattered if he'd witnessed the killing first-hand, there would be no sympathy whatsoever for him. He slammed the book shut, hastily put it back on the shelf, and dashed out of the study, quickly remembering to turn off the light before he left. He closed the door as quietly as he could, and made his way silently into his room, picking up the first book from his shelf, opening it to a random page, and collapsing onto his bed as though he'd been there the entire time.
Noah sighed loudly, partially to get himself into character, and partially to give his mother his location.
"I should have guessed you'd be in here" said Noah's mother as she stepped into his doorway, a look of concern on her face.
The years had certainly been kind to Niketa Carter, who looked at least ten years younger than her actual age of 46, despite having raised nine children. She was about the same height as Noah, with straight, shoulder-length black hair; though her face was far rounder than her flat-jawed son. Also unlike her son, she wore a smile most of the time, which went hand-in-hand with her far friendlier demeanour.
"I heard about what happened at school, I-"
"You mentioned that" Noah cut in dryly, turning the page of the book he still had no context for. Niketa sighed.
"A dead body in the gym isn't the same as someone throwing paper balls at your head. I'm worried about you."
"Mom, I'm fine." Noah said, beginning to sound exasperated already as he rolled his eyes. "Jeez, it's not like I'm the one who found the body. If you wanna comfort someone, go find her."
Niketa's face fell slightly
"I know you don't think it, but I do love you, Noah." she said, gazing at her son with concern "I just don't want anything to happen to you."
Noah rolled his eyes again, but couldn't help the smallest of smiles that crept onto his face
"Yeah yeah, I love you too." A moment of silence passed between them, before Noah spoke again. "Hey, what's for dinner?"
At this, Niketa let out an exaggerated noise of annoyance.
"Ugh, you boys, it's always the same!" she ranted, hands on her hips and a frown on her face, but a teasing glint in her eye "It's always about food with you. Five different sons, and you're all the same, appetites like ravenous wolves the lot of you!"
Niketa shook her head as she walked out, muttering to herself until she thought herself out of earshot of Noah.
Noah waited a few more moments, before he put his book down, noticing only then he'd been holding it upside-down. That was his mother dealt with for now. Next step was to sneak back into his father's study. The answers were in there, almost certainly in that Vampyr book. Everything was beginning to feel very familiar.
The dreams that night were far less vivid, in spite of the discovery that afternoon.
Gwen had expected her dreams to be plagued with images of that pallid corpse, and the expression of terror that was etched into its face; instead, they were far jumpier, like the brief flashes of out of context nonsense you get when rapidly switching through TV channels.
There was an image of her, stood defiant in the face of something large and menacing, a small length of wood grasped in her hand. She was flanked by four other, shadowy figures, but before any detail could resolve the image changed.
The next one was of another figure cloaked in shadow. Unlike the other figures, there was enough light to make out details. The figure was clearly male, well built with broad shoulders and thick, tanned arms.
Before any more identifiable features could appear, the vision changed again, this time to a brief flash of a bloody, fanged mouth. It shifted again, to a puddle of blood slowly pouring into a drain by the road. It changed again, to the deserted hallways of her school, looking as though a horde of beasts had rampaged through, locker doors bent at unusual angles and strange stains adorning the walls and floor. A carving in a stone wall, which appeared only long enough for Gwen to discern humanoid figures on it and not much else. More and more visions filled her mind's eye, going faster and faster until it was all nothing but rapid blurs of motion Gwen could no longer make out any details in any of them.
Abruptly, the cascade of visions slowed, and she saw a hand reaching out to grasp at something out of sight, only to be engulfed in total blackness.
Then, a low, sinister voice whispered to her, sending chills down her spine
"Gwendolyn…"
Gwen awoke with a start, bolting upright and panting heavily, the voice from her dream echoing in her ears like a siren on an ambulance as it drove away.
She threw the covers off of her, and stood up, wobbling slightly on tired legs, and she gently walked to the window. She threw back the curtains, and leant forwards to rest her head on the cool glass as she watched the street outside. She screwed her eyes shut, trying to glean any sort of sense out of what she saw.
When she found nothing, she sighed and opened her eyes. No answers, no ideas, no hints, nothing. Everything was just getting more and more confusing, and it was starting to give Gwen what she knew to be the beginnings of a migraine. She looked back towards her clock. 2:43 a.m., it blinked at her in a manner she read as being insultingly cheerful.
Gwen sighed again, and turned to go back to bed. She managed a step, when a strange nagging sensation in the base of her skull stopped her in her tracks
'Turn back' it seemed to say to her 'Look again. Find what you missed'
Gwen really should have ignored that voice. Maybe if she had, things would have turned out different.
But she did turn back, peering out of the window with the focus of someone in a Where's Wally competition.
There! Gwen spied a brief flicker of movement from behind a tree on the other side of the street. She focussed, willing her eyes to work past the sleep deprived haze they seemed to have accrued, and soon enough the tree with a funny shape behind it resolved itself into the tree with the person behind it. Despite whoever it was being on the other side of the road, she could feel the moment their eyes met, and despite the logical impossibility, she could have sworn the figure's eyes widening; that one could have been the tiredness speaking, but when the figure broke cover from the tree and sprinted into a nearby alley, it confirmed the suspicions that had been building in Gwen's mind.
Whoever it was had been watching her house.
And this made Gwen utterly furious. Now she had two stalkers. That, or she still had one stalker who had just crossed several lines. Either way, someone was getting kicked in the kidney.
It took until almost 3 am for Noah to be absolutely sure no-one else in his house was awake. He silently rolled out of bed, his feet landing gently in the strategically placed slippers he'd laid down earlier. He straightened up, and crept over to his door, stepping as quietly as he could. The door opened with nary a creak, and now came the hard part.
There were innumerable floorboards that creaked like an old man's knees in a rainstorm, and trying to remember which was which when it was too dark to actually see the distinctions between the floorboards was no mean feat.
Noah had to move incredibly slowly, gently feeling around with his feet for each tiny gap between the forwards, then checking his mental image of the corridor's floor to see if he was around a creaker. But he couldn't be too slow, or he'd run the risk of being caught by someone on their way to the bathroom or in need of a drink.
It took Noah several agonisingly slow minutes, punctuated every so often by him freezing at the slightest noise in case his jig was busted, but at long last he reached the door to his father's study. He tried the handle, and just as he suspected, it was still unlocked. It's not like anyone knew it needed relocking, after all.
He opened the door as little as he could, and uncomfortably squeezed through the gap, his nose bending to the side as he slid his head in the slightly too small gap. But he'd done it. He was in.
He quietly shut the door, and pulled the torch he'd kept at the ready from his dressing gown pocket. He didn't want to risk turning on the lights, only for someone to see the glow from the beneath the door.
Noah flicked on the torch, and the pale beam shot through the room, providing some paltry illumination and making the shadows all about the place dance as Noah looked around. He crept over to the bookshelf, and scanned it for the book he was looking for.
Noah pulled the Vampyr book off of the shelf, and gently laid it down on his father's desk, kicking up a cloud of dust as it landed. He opened it to the first page, and, free of interruptions, peered at the tiny writing of the opening page, illuminated only by the torchlight and the faint glow of the moon through the gap in the curtains
'In every generation there is a Chosen One' yep read that bit 'She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer'
Of course! That was why it all sounded so familiar. He thought back to his early childhood, when he'd been woken nightmares of various foul beasts, and his dad would comfort him with stories of a girl whose job it was to fight the monsters, a girl he claimed to know personally. A girl called the Slayer.
He'd always dismissed it as just another bedtime story, but seeing a girl crumple sheet metal with no signs of exertion whatsoever, and now this very non-fictional looking account, in a book titled Vampyr, a thing he suspected to be responsible for the death of a man, he was starting to think otherwise.
He kept reading, the text somehow getting even smaller on the next page. He was able to decipher enough to work out the following
There was only one Slayer, a girl gifted with superhuman strength, reflexes, stamina, and occasional prophetic dreams. A new Slayer was called when the previous Slayer died, and it was her task to defend humanity from the supernatural forces of innumerable demons, alone and in secret. The only help she would receive was from her Watcher, whose duty was to train and observe her.
There were two possible explanations for the scenario Noah was facing. The first was that he was going crazy, seeing supernatural events and patterns of some grand cosmic design where there were none, and acting on these suspicions may end up getting him locked up in the looney bin. The second was that his possible paranoia was right, that this book wasn't some weird collector's item of his dad's, in which case not acting on his suspicions would result in far worse consequences for everyone.
He gently closed the book. He needed to talk to Gwen, as soon as possible, and to do that he needed to not be falling asleep on his feet all day tomorrow.
Scowling to herself, Gwen threw on some clothes as quickly as she could, slipped into her shoes, too angry to bother with socks; lifted the window as quietly as she could and climbed out onto the porch roof, making sure not to slip on any loose shingles.
A few seconds of tentative sliding down the slight slope of the porch, Gwen dropped onto the lawn, landing with a small thud that she really hoped no-one inside heard. When no sound indicative of an angry mother or confused brother waking up came, the concerned frown on Gwen's face turned back into her angry scowl, and she marched across the street towards the alleyway, intent on finding at least some answer as to who the hell was watching her bedroom at almost 3 in the morning.
The first thing Gwen noticed about the alleyway was it was as dark as anything. It took a good while for her eyes to adjust to the extremely limited light, and when they did, she saw no signs of anyone being there. But she knew the area, and she knew this alleyway was a dead end, mostly full of bins and the odd homeless man. And since she hadn't seen anyone leave the alleyway in the pan of time since she'd seen the figure dash in and now, she knew that whoever it was had to be here somewhere.
She stopped in the entrance, scanning every nook and cranny she could see in the dim light. When nothing revealed itself, Gwen slowly stepped into the alley, looking left and right for any crevasses her would-be stalker could have concealed themselves in.
Several steps later, and Gwen was almost at the end of the alleyway, and she still hadn't seen anyone. She was beginning to think this was all just a sleeplessness-induced hallucination, and this whole excursion outside was only going to result in her getting in trouble when her mom found out.
She was about to turn around and give up when the nagging sensation returned.
'Two more steps' it said 'to the left'
'Alright, creepy instincts' Gwen thought to herself 'last chance'
She took two more strides forwards, turned to the left, and saw something that was definitely not more ageing brickwork.
She was looking at a boy. He looked about her age, with long blonde hair capped with a cowboy hat, a pink shirt left unbuttoned that revealed his abs, blue surfer shorts, and flip flops.
He smiled at her nervously "Uh, hi!"
Gwen's shock quickly turned to anger, and before the strange boy could say any more, she brought her right leg up and kicked him hard in the stomach.
The boy dropped with a pained cry of "Ow my kidney!", clutching his injured midsection as he knelt doubled-over.
"What the hell are you doing?" Gwen asked, devoid of any sympathy
"Agh, gimme a sec, dude" the boy replied, shifting his weight back to sit up against the alley wall "You got a hell of a kick on you"
"And I'll kick you in more painful places if you don't tell me why you were watching my house!"
The boy's eyes darted from side to side, as if trying to look for a convincing excuse.
"Would you believe I'm in real estate?" he said, smiling nervously and adjusting his hat.
The resounding 'whack' from Gwen's second kick provided a concise response
"I guess not" the boy squeaked, now curled up in the foetal position, his voice having gone up at least an octave
"Who the hell are you?" Gwen asked, receiving no reply as the boy continued to whimper in pain. She rolled her eyes and began tapping her foot impatiently, waiting for the boy to recover.
Eventually, he stopped whimpering, and slowly stood up against the wall, muttering to himself
"Well the strength's definitely come in." Gwen's eyes widened, but the boy wasn't done "Have you been having dreams recently?" he asked
Gwen's eyes widened further. How did he know about the dreams? The shock quickly turned to anger
"Do you know what the hell is going on? Because I will kick you again if you don't tell me"
Now it was the boy's turn to have his eyes widen
"Oh shoot, you have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?" he asked. Gwen gaped at his for a second
"Apparently I know a lot less than you do, right?!" she practically yelled, any miniscule concern for her neighbours' sleep schedules gone.
"Ah geez," he said, slowly sidling his way out of the alcove he was in until his back to the exit "I'm really not the guy to explain this"
"Well someone better, and I don't see anyone else around here!" Gwen was fully yelling at this point, and the response to her shouting came not from the boy in front of her, but from a voice several stories up and to her left
"It's three in the fucking morning, people are trying to sleep!" came the irate yell of a man with a thick Brooklyn accent.
"Bite me!" Gwen growled as she turned to look up in his general direction. But when she had turned back, she was no longer face to face with the boy. He'd taken his opportunity immediately, and was now stood at the mouth of the alley.
"I, uh, I gotta jet" he said. Then a flash of remembrance became visible on his face, and he dug about in his shorts pocket until he produced two items, neither of which Gwen could discern from that distance
"You're gonna need these!" he said as he threw them to Gwen. She caught them awkwardly against her chest, and when she'd finished fumbling and looked back the boy was gone.
"Oh no you don't!" she muttered to herself as she sprinted towards the end of the alley. But it was too late. By the time she'd reached the end of the alley, the boy had somehow vanished from sight. Gwen groaned angrily and kicked a nearby wall in frustration. She wound up taking a massive chunk out of the brickwork. Gwen gaped at first, then cringed at her mistake, then finally decided to cut her losses and run.
It was only when she was back in her room that she finally thought to look at the things the strange boy had given her. The first was a small wooden stake, only a couple of inches in length, with one end sharpened to a rather dangerous looking point. The other was a small jewellery box, made of an expensive feeling navy blue velvet, inside of which was a small silver cross necklace. Gwen took the necklace from the box and dangled it in front of her, the cross gently spinning at the end of the chain, seeming almost to glitter in the pale moonlight.
Something bad was about to happen. Gwen couldn't exactly say why, she could just feel it, not quite as strongly as the nagging sensation in her skull; more like the twisting feeling you get in your stomach as something dreaded draws nearer.
Gwen sighed to herself as she collapsed back onto her bed, the cross necklace still tangled up in her hand and her shoes still on her feet. Once again, the answers would have to wait until tomorrow. But if the universe pulled another delay on her, she was gonna start getting really annoyed.
And so ends part one of episode one. Yep two-parter, I know, but I couldn't realistically fit everything I wanted in the 'pilot', as it were, without making this chapter longer than half the works published on this site. But still, the major players have been established (for the most part), and I like to think there's at least an element of mystery in my confused ramblings.
I've had this on the back burner for about a year now, and I've finally scraped together chapter one from the various bits and pieces in my head. This one is gonna be a slow updater, what you see here is just about all I've written for this, but hopefully, there will be more.
Also, I have literally no idea how Canadian high schools are structured, as far as I can tell we do things completely different here in England, so forgive any inaccuracies in that department.
You know, I originally wanted this out for Halloween, because hey, it felt appropriate. So hello the end of November, I heard a Christmas song on the radio the other day, and the John Lewis Christmas advert has been out for weeks, so I got the season just right.
So, that was that. Please, let me know what you thought, am I kinda alright or a disgrace to the written word who should self-flagellate with an intricate whip carved from the complete works of Shakespeare? Or just say 'h'. Any option works really.