Chapter One: The Garden Next Door

A very-tall-and-beautiful woman in her mid-twenties, with long, light brown hair, wearing a very long, red dress, lounged on an oversized couch, while staring at a quite handsome young man (not as young as she) who was reading a quite thick book through his spectacles. They had been in the study for more than an hour already and not one word had been spoken that entire time. She had not dared to speak until now. "Will you please stop reading that ghastly book of yours?! You have been reading it for five hours now today! We could be out in the garden!" Their garden was a lovely garden, and was extremely large, but it was seldom used, except for parties and holidays (and they didn't have many of those.)

After he turned the page, he looked up and asked, "So, you've been counting?" He awaited her answer.

"What else was I supposed to do?"

"I am nearly done."

She stood up and walked over to the window right next to the desk he was sitting at. She opened it. The fresh breeze and sound of birds singing swam throughout the room. "We could be out there... We should be out there."

"But it's so sunny, can't we wait until the sun goes down a little?"

"God damn it Johnny! I'm going, even if you aren't! And if that happens, you'll regret it," she exclaimed and she started walking to the door on the other side of the room.

"Eleanor, it's just a garden."

The door slammed.

He sighed, "What is up with her?" he asked himself under his breath. He shut his book, set it down on his desk, took off his glasses, folded them, and put them down on top of his book. He stood up and left the room.

Their next-door neighbors heard nothing, even though the screaming was so loud; but they were making so much noise themselves. There was a party, but the person the party was allegedly for was upstairs in his bedroom, lying down, staring at the ceiling. He knew the party really wasn't for him; they just said that so they could have a bunch of people over and get gifts. The gifts, they would use themselves, of course. When the party was over he could just go to bed in peace. That's all he wanted, even though his dreams were haunted with nightmares, they were better than when he was awake.

Another hour passed, he was so bored. He could go downstairs, but why would he want to do that? He'd just get tortured. They still don't know about what happened, but he couldn't tell them, they'd just make it worse. His stomach growled.

When was the last time you ate? he asked himself. I don't remember. He got up and went downstairs. There were so many people. Why were there so many people? He made his way to the kitchen, struggling his way through the crowd of people.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING DOWN HERE?!" he heard, though he could barely make it out. He saw a giant, pink face appear in front of him.

"This is my party, isn't it?"

"You know as well as I do…" he was cut off by extremely loud singing. A cake had come out of the kitchen, the lights were turned off and people started singing. They evidently thought that it was a birthday party of some kind; they had no idea how wrong they were.

The man with the great, pink face was making motions to take the cake back into the kitchen, but it was too late. The candles had already been blown out, but by whom? no one knew. It was completely dark. The starving boy felt someone behind him pull him back up the stairs. They got back into his bedroom, when the lights turned on in his bedroom all that could be heard were a gasp and a THUMP.

Downstairs everyone was panicking, things were breaking, people were screaming and everything was in commotion because of the THUMP that was heard, coming from upstairs.

When the lights were finally turned back on, everyone was gone and the house was a mess (not to mention, the cake was completely gone.)