Revenant Girl

Chapter VII—Apprehension

Humming a tune to herself, Petra leaned against the rocky wall just beside the doors of the fortress. She looked up at the azure sky and focused on the clouds as they moved ever so slowly with aid from the wind. When she was bored of cloud gazing, she shifted her focus towards the door, hoping to see it burst open along with a specific little girl rushing out. However, the door remained firmly shut.

To be frank, Petra had said all those harsh words to Jane earlier as a means of scaring her. The redhead was adamant to trespass private property, as the last time she trespassed she suffered many bruises from the beatings of the owner of the property. Even though Soren wasn't likely to beat up trespassers, Petra still respected his privacy.

(When is she coming out? Oh Notch, please don't tell me that she decided to explore anyway…)

It has been over half an hour, and as every minute passed the more unlikely it was for Jane to appear. Crap, Petra did really need to chase after her.

Shaking off any doubt clouding her mind, Petra stepped into the fortress and in pursuit of Jane.

…

"Godfather? Can you hear me? It's Jesse! Heeeyyyyyy!" Jesse yelled, her voice echoing throughout the empty hallway.

Due to the sheer size of the fortress, it seemed impossible to locate him. So Jesse started shouting, hoping that he could her. No luck so far.

"Holy Notch, your screaming hurts my ears." The shrike remarked.

"Do birds have ears?"

"Of course they do! Just because they aren't visible doesn't mean they don't have them!"

They exited the hallway and into a massive library. An endless sea of books were stacked onto numerous quartz shelves. It would almost be impossible for a person to finish reading all these books.

Jesse somehow vaguely remembered someone reading a couple of stories to her before, but she couldn't remember who. She could remember the deep, melodic voice of the storyteller as she read aloud the text from the pages.

As she continued walking, more and more memories of the story started entering her mind like water from a dam that had opened its floodgates.

—performed a good luck charm—friends forever—

It was as if her legs were being controlled by someone else. Jesse made a beeline towards a particular shelf and brushed her fingers across the spines of the books, until she paused at a certain book. She took it out to reveal…

"Awh man, it's not this one." She groaned as she threw the book to a corner.

Jesse continued to yank books at random off their shelf and gazed at their covers, only for her sigh in disappointment. After many minutes of sighing, Jesse gave up.

"You're looking at the wrong section, milady. It's right here." The shrike said as she hovered over another section of shelves.

—tore the paper doll—wound up in an abandoned school—

Jesse swatted the bird out of the way and continued her hunt for the book.

"Found iiiiiiittt!" Jesse yelled triumphantly as she raised the book over her head as if it were some sort of prestigious prize. It was a regular hardcover book with faded gold title lettering. To any other person, it was just a plain old book. However, it was an entirely different case for Jesse.

Reuben oinked curiously as he tried to get a glimpse of the cover.

"Land of The Corpses. My favourite book! Mommy would have never let me read this sort of stuff, but she's not here anymore, so I can do whatever I want~"

"Never knew a cute little brat like you would even be aware of the existence of literature like this…"

"Be quiet birdie, I want to read my book." Jesse snapped as she sat crossed-leg on the polished stone floor, flipped open the cover and began immersing herself in the story.

"Ey, aren't you supposed to be looking for your darling godfather?"

"That can wait!"

…

"NOOOOOOOOOO! STOOOPPPP! AHHHHHH! YAAHHHHHHHH!"

Out of a sudden, the screams of a boy assaulted my ears. They were screams of primal terror and pain; it was unlike anything I've ever heard. His cries were accompanied by a supposedly sharp weapon being stabbed into his body.

Splat. Splat. Crunch. Splush.

The boy screamed in pure agony as the sounds of something wet and squishy were being forcefully pulled out. Since I was blindfolded, I guessed it must have been his…. innards.

Oh Notch, this is horrible! Just listening to his screams were absolute torture! Why would somebody be so cruel as to commit such atrocities?

After what seemed like an eternity, the boy's screams came to a halt. However, the silence was broken by the screams of a girl as the murderer stabbed her repeatedly. I could hear blood spurting from her wounds as they splattered all over the wooden floor, while the girl begged and screamed for mercy.

I was on the verge of losing it. I have never been so frightened in my entire life. I have thought that horror movies were terrifying; oh how wrong I was! Why wasn't she granted unconsciousness? Why let her suffer!?

I didn't know how much time had passed. The girl's voice finally ebbed away. For a brief moment I was glad that the torturous screams had stopped. But after the words that the murderer had muttered before he started the killings caused my heart to stop beating for a moment.

(In order! Oh Notch, why was I glad that the girl next to me died? I'm going to be next!)

All of a sudden, someone yanked at my hair and pulled me into a sitting position. My blindfold was then ripped off.

The sight before me was the most horrifying sight my eyes have ever laid upon.

The person before me was not the burly man that had captured, tied and blindfolded me.

It was….

….

…

One of the…

….

….

A deafening crash resonated throughout the library, causing Jesse to shriek. She stood up and scanned her surroundings. Numerous books that had somehow fallen off their shelf lay in a messy heap on the floor. Clearly someone or something had purposely disturbed the books as the shelves were sturdy. "Is someone there?" Jesse called out. There was momentary silence, and somewhere at the far corner of the library more books tumbled off their shelves.

Jesse eyed her surroundings warily as an unsettling feeling settled at the pit of her stomach. She tried reassuring herself that it was probably nothing, but a nagging voice at the back of her mind told her that someone else was in the library with her. Was it her godfather? Even if it was him, why would he be throwing his books that he painstakingly organised?

Reuben picked up her book with his mouth and handed it over to Jesse. She would read it later; right now she just wanted to get the heck out of the library.

Just as she stepped a foot out, more books came raining down. This made Jesse yelp as she made a mad dash out. She didn't stop until she was a good distance away from the library.

"What were you so freaked out about? Are falling books really that scary?" The shrike asked in false concern.

"It was unnatural."

"Uh huh, perfectly understandable. Falling books are enough to freak out the little princess. I wonder what would happen if…"

Jesse sharply turned to face the bird. "What?"

"Oh, nothing."

Jesse resumed calling out her godfather as the trio continued walking down endless hallways. However, after an hour of wandering aimlessly, he was just nowhere to be found. Jesse's throat was already sore and she was terribly thirsty. Thus she went to the nearest bathroom to freshen up before continuing on her search.

Looking at herself in the mirror, Jesse's reflection showed a worn-out girl with disheveled hair and shabby clothes that were twice her size. Her ragged appearance made her grimace. She was simply unpresentable, and the thought of her godfather seeing her in such a state was absolutely absurd.

After sorting out her hair and cleaning herself up, she went clothes hunting, checking every single room that had a wardrobe in hopes of finding a suitable shirt or dress that didn't make her look like a kid that had been rummaging through her parent's wardrobe.

Finally, after Jesse almost lost hope, she found a wardrobe that had clothing varying from shirts to pants that were all her size, including some shoes. Jackpot!

While browsing through the wide variety of clothing, she stumbled upon a red shirt paired with a suspender skirt—

…

—started with an accusation—blew into an argument—and a voice: "I hate you!"—

…

With a cry, Jesse yanked the shirt and suspenders from its hanger and threw it onto the ground. She scooted away from it as if it were some the most repulsive item in the world. Curious Reuben tried to inspect the clothing when Jesse pulled him away.

"The hell's wrong with you, missy?" The shrike said.

"Stay away from it!" Jesse snapped. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself before returning to browse through the wardrobe.

She grabbed a white blouse that came with a green pinafore, along with a pair of black flats and socks. She also grabbed a pink tie that was strewn at the corner; thinking that a tie would make her look smart like the men that she saw at ballroom parties, and headed to the connected bathroom to change.

After exiting the bathroom, Jesse admired herself in the mirror, satisfied with her choice of clothes. At least she didn't look like a potato sack anymore.

…

It had been well over a couple of hours and Jesse still had not found her godfather. She just assumed that he went out to do something, so she tried to make herself at home.

She headed to the pantries and grabbed some bread and fruits for herself and a few carrots for Reuben. For the shrike, Jesse just left her alone to do whatever, not caring whether or not she starved to death.

Jesse ate in silence, the only sound she heard was the crunching of carrots. It was suddenly interrupted by a high pitched voice, supposedly belonging to a young child.

"Eeeeiiiii…"

Jesse stopped chewing and looked around.

"Ssssseiiiiiee…."

"Did you hear something?" Jesse asked to nobody in particular. Reuben just looked at her obliviously.

(Probably just my imagination.)

Just then, furious knocking on wood was heard. Jesse jumped, her heart suddenly racing. Her fear overpowered her appetite, and she was feeling extremely uneasy.

Jesse forced herself to finish her food before peeking outside the hallways. It was in the middle of the afternoon, and the atmosphere wasn't supposed to be scary. It would be understandable if it were nighttime, but if she felt scared during the afternoon, what was to say of her state of mind at night?

"There's nothing to be scared about, r-right Reuben?" Jesse said as she stood up and prepared to leave, when there was more knocking on wood as if in response to her question.

Jesse cried out, grabbing Reuben while dashing off blindly to find another place that she thought was safe.

In the end, Jesse decided to just hide in one of the many bedrooms until her godfather came back from doing whatever. She sat on the bed and read her book to kill time.

…

"Jane! Hey, Jane! Can you hear me! Answer me!"

Petra yelled at the top of her lungs as she brisked walked through the hallways, hoping for a reply, or at least hear footsteps approaching her. To her dismay, she could only hear her own echo bouncing off the walls.

How big was this fortress? At this rate she would take forever to locate Jane!

Petra paused, trying to rack up a solution. What about leaving behind a note? Yes, maybe that would work!

"Apologies Soren, I hope you don't mind me 'borrowing' your stuff." Petra mumbled to nobody in particular as she grabbed a piece of paper, pen and some glue.

Dear Jane,

Hey, it's Petra.

If you're reading this, sorry for leaving you behind. But I hope you're done exploring, so meet me at the room with the large pit with platforms. And whatever you do, don't piss off Soren.

P.S: I'm bad at describing; sorry.

With that, Petra applied some glue to the top of the paper and sticked it on the wall. Hopefully Jane could find it first before Soren did. She turned and left to stick a couple more notes around the fortress to increase the chances of Jane actually seeing them.

As soon as she left, the piece of paper was tilted slightly upwards as if someone was trying to get a better view of the note. The bottom half of the note remained suspended for a while, and out of nowhere a small blotch of blood appeared at the edge of the paper before it began to work its way across it. It was not long before the entire note was soaked in crimson blood, with excess blood dripping onto the floor.

The paper miserably fell onto the floor in a small pool of blood, accompanied by a bloody handprint that stained the wall.

It was a tiny handprint, supposedly belonging to a young child.

…

Jesse could not count the number of times that she reread the book. At some point she began a discussion about the book with Reuben, but he was pretty much clueless about the terms such as 'corpses' and 'murder', so she gave up and instead talked to the shrike. The bird knew a startling amount of information on the themes in the book and gave Jesse a full in-depth analysis of it.

While she was talking about the murderer's backstory, the shrike was interrupted by a noise as if someone were scratching a chalkboard. Jesse shrieked.

"I hate the noises! Is this some kind of sick joke?"

"Milady, I suggest that you better shut up first because I'm not done speaking."

"But I've been hearing those noises ever since I stepped foot here! Can you check if anybody's outside?"

The shrike pondered for a moment before shaking her tiny head. "Nope!"

Jesse turned to Reuben. "What about you Reuben? Can you check on my behalf?"

Immediately Reuben oinked in approval, being the loyal friend he is. Jesse opened the door for the pig while he ran outside.

It was already twilight. The sun lazily sank its way down the horizon, casting brilliant orange sunlight across the sky. While the scenery was breathtaking, worry was latched onto her heart like a leech. It was not just the strange, unexplainable occurrences that she encountered.

Seriously, where the nether was her godfather? Why was he taking so long to finish whatever business he was up to?

While waiting for Reuben to return, Jesse continued to listen to the shrike's lengthy, explicit in-depth analysis of Land of The Corpses. Even after she took almost two hours to finish, Reuben still had not returned.

The worry that was present in Jesse's heart before now began to manifest into panic. What was taking Reuben so long? Surely something must have cropped up. Did he fall into a hole? Did he trip down a flight of stairs? Did he get himself injured?

"I suppose that if you want to know, why don't you go after your pet to find out?" The shrike suggested.

It was a logical and simple course of action, yet at the same time it seemed daunting. She was already spooked out by the strange noises, sinister whispers and unnatural falling books. Where would she find courage to venture out into the hallways when it was nearing night?

Jesse opened the door and peered outside. The sunlight streaming through the windows were already diminishing. Soon the entire fortress would be plunged into darkness, the only meek sources of light would be from the glowstone lamps.

There was a sudden thump on the wall, as if warning her not to proceed.

Jesse wanted to go after Reuben to check if he was alright, but the fear of the unknown stopped her from stepping out of her comfort zone.

"Well?" The shrike asked.

.

—Go after Reuben

—It's too scary!

.

Hi guys. After some thought, I decided to implement decision making in the story now, 'cause I have been watching too much Corpse Party walkthroughs. (Speaking of Corpse Party, did you get the reference? Or maybe I'm the only CP fan here... awww)

This is how it works: In the next update, two chapters will be titled after the two choices above. Click on the chapter that is named after your choice. Keep in mind that one of the choices will lead you to a 'wrong end'.

If you chose a wrong end, just select the correct choice and move on.

If you chose the correct choice, at the bottom of the chapter you'll see: "Continue to Chapter (number)."

For Wattpad readers, I would appreciate if you voted on the chapter choice that you guys first chose; I'm curious to see which option you guys took. After that, don't vote on the chapter choice that you didn't initially chose, please!

Soooooo, I hope you like this new feature. Opinions on this feature would be greatly appreciated. And sorry if this chapter is short.

P.S: Thanks for 1.4K views (on both Wattpad and FFnet)! I can't thank you guys enough!