The Prologue

5: Ghosts and delusions

Jensen and Amell exchange words, trading them in the warm air around them. The air being warmed up by the fireplace, resting in middle of one of the four walls in the small living room of Jensen's house. Their conversation is light, being carried equally by the two boys as they laugh at the words that escape their mouths. 

The warm air cools down slightly and their words stop and hang around in the air, as a figure walks in the door. As it walks closer and sits on the couch, a few pages in its hands, the two boys can make out the figure as their friend Syd. She lays the papers down on the small coffee table, while Jensen and Amell wait patiently for the words she's been waiting to say to leave her mouth. 

"So I did some research on the place, and get this," she says, as she shakes off her coat, "There was a woman that lived there- well, actually- she was held hostage. The local news papers from the 1980's say that she had been brutally murdered, after being kidnapped for two whole weeks." she looks at the boys, waiting for a reaction. 

"And you're saying that that creature was a woman, who has been dead for about fourty years?" Amell scoffs, thinking the very notion of that thing being a pissed-off ghost ridiculous. He knows that Sydney has always believed in ghosts, and he respected her opinion, but wouldn't allow the girl to drag him into what she believes. 

"Wait, let me hear more about this. Why do you believe so strongly that it's a supernatural being, other than a logical explaination?" Jensen chimes in, curious to know what his friend was thinking. 

The words swarming around in Syd's head, eager to come out ever since she made her way to the house, start to form sentences and escape her lips before she can stop them. 

"Well, this woman was unusually tall, 6'3" to be exact. We were basically just an inch off. No one knew who she was. There had been notes lying around the building, making her presence clear. She wrote about how she was captured and everything that was going on. She drew pictures of the people who kidnapped her and pictures of herself. She'd slide them under the back door, where the police had found them. They put up the pictures but no one ever knew who she or the the other guys were. So the police didn't investigate the scene, thinking it was just a joke." the girl explained, looking at her friends with hopeful eyes. 

"Why didn't the police investigate it as soon as they saw the notes and drawings?" Jensen thought out loud. Sydney laughed, "Well it was the 80's, Jensen. Police in the 80's suck." 

"Okay, but if they never invesigated it, then why do people say she was murdered?" Amell pointed out, eyes filling with hope. Hoping that Sydney was wrong, and there was no such thing as ghosts.

"Because a guy named Mac DeLange walked by the place, and found her blood leaking out under the back door. So he went to the police and they broke the door, and found a woman, murdered. She had been tortured for a while, so the police couldn't even find any way of identifying the woman as the one in the pictures. They searched the whole building for two days, but couldn't find the murderers." Sydney explained further, finding the story rather interesting. 

"And you believe that this thing was that woman." Amell stated, rather than asked. Sydney nodded. The two boys looked at each other, before Jensen spoke up, "Why do you want to believe it so badly?" 

"Because," Sydney started, looking through her papers, finding the ones she was looking for, "I found the pictures." she smiled proudly as she put the copies on the top of the pile, waiting for her friends to see and react. But all they do is stay quiet, so the girl speaks up, "I don't know how good of a look you guys could have at those people and that thing, but they look an awfully lot like these guys. Just fourty years older. And the woman," she grabbed another picture, showing it to the boys, "Looks like the woman we've been calling a creature. Except, instead of her looking fourty years older, she looks like she's dead." 

The boys stay quiet, not able to form an agruement against the girl's many words. They don't fully believe it, but can't find a cocky arguement against her. While the boys try so hard, Syd has found more words to say; another agruement. 

"Amell, you tried to shoot it, right?" she pointed out, turning to him. "Yeah..?" he half asks, confused on what Sydney had to say about it. 

"Well, it wouldn't budge, right?" Amell nods, furrowing his thick eyebrows, "Well, maybe it's because it was already dead. Now I don't no how to kill a ghost, but maybe salt will work. And otherwise we're dead." she continues, yet again, making another arguement. In the real world, this would never work, and Jensen would absolutely not believe it. But in a book, anything can happen. 

"If it's a ghost, like you say it is, then we probably have to burn the body. Salt's only gonna keep it away, it's not gonna kill it." he sighed, dissapointed that he believes this. 

After a while of convincing, Amell gives in too. After making plans that would only go wrong, empty words with no meaning start to float into the air. Stupid jokes and dumb sentences reservace into the open air, like they did before Sydney walked in. 

Deep down, the teenagers knew it wouldn't work. But they were so heart-broken by the death of thei friend, that they would believe anything. They needed an explaination, closure. Anything, to help them cope. Pourly-written lines in their heads, coming out as unbelievable sentences. Things that happen in TV-shows, in books. But a loss of such a great friend makes you a little crazy sometimes. It makes you want to believ things that could never be true. 

And that is exactly why they wanted to do this. Their sadness, and desperation has made them believe that they can win this.