Anima's Ghost: The Summer Before (Song Line Echoes, book 2)

Chapter 1: NotTheDragon

In 1894, Lincoln Park first  opened to the public as an amusement park. The amusement park had a long lifespan, a popular attraction for about 100 years. It finally closed in 1987, but by then it was already considered haunted. While the park was still open, people would see the ghost of a worker who fell to his death earlier the year it had closed. They would report seeing the worker climbing up the Comet roller coaster, as if on his normal rounds, and disappear at the highest peak. The park closed on December 3rd of that year, but even now people visit the largely abandoned location. It's unknown whether the ghost of the worker is ever spotted still, but visitors often report hearing carousel music and smelling popcorn.

I yawn, checking the clock while I hit the "post" button, letting the world -- or at least the small part of it interested in the paranormal and following my blog -- see my latest story. It's almost 4pm, about an hour past my bedtime. I started sleeping from 3pm-9pm about six months ago in an attempt to avoid my dad as much as possible. Living with him is a nightmare of false smiles and fake normalcy, but it's the lesser of two evils -- a fact I try not to think about too much.

He'll be home any minute now though, so it's time for me to go to bed. I let my dog, Leylina, outside one more time. While she does her business, I get a glass of water and refill Ghastly's food dish. My black cat jumps up onto the bedside table to eat right away, as if he's been starved for days. By the time I get Leylina back inside and the three of us locked safely away in my room, I can hear the front door unlocking.

When I wake up at almost 10pm, I let Leylina outside, make myself some hot chocolate, then sit down to check my blog. I have a few hundred followers, so my posts always generate a fair amount of traffic and occasionally some questions, but this time there's also a message. I've never gotten one of those before. It comes from a blogger with a URL I'm not familiar with -- NotTheDragon.

The worker still haunts the place. Ghosts don't disappear just because people stop looking. There's also a little boy ghost that'll sometimes appear just standing next to the haunted house. If you go over and talk to him, he'll say he lost his parents and that they told him to go to the haunted house and wait for them there if they got separated.

Below his message is a link, which I open in a new tab. It takes me to his blog, to a video post. I press play.

A boy about 16 years old runs away from the camera and toward the abandoned amusement park, Lincoln Park. The grass grows wild and long everywhere and overgrown plants poke between every gap in the buildings and rides that can be seen. He stops at the park's entrance, turning to face the camera. The wind  blows his neatly combed blonde hair just a little bit wild. He's dressed in a white polo shirt and jeans, sunglasses covering his eyes. He lifts his arms up and yells grandly, "Welcome to Lincoln Park!" as if it's the park's grand opening. Off camera, two or three other people laugh. The camera shakes a little bit as the person holding it also laughs.

The boy in the camera's view grins, lowering one arm to his side and the other to point at the camera as he calls, "Keep that thing steady, sport!" He pauses, dropping his other arm too and turning halfway to look at the park behind him. I can just make out his voice adding, "We don't want to miss any of this."

"When have you ever known me to miss anything?" the boy holding the camera says as he walks towards the star. At the edge of the frame, a third boy can sometimes be seen passing in and out of view, too quick and too little shown to make out much more than he's about the same age as the star of the video. The cameraman stops close enough that the blonde boy can only be seen from the chest up now, and only a few of the park's previous attractions can be seen behind him. "You, on the other hand, forgot to do a proper introduction."