Nightmare Dreaming

Chapter 1 The Funeral

     Alora took in a deep breath as she walked up to the makeshift stand they had made for the funeral that day. Even though she could hear herself speaking, she felt as if she was having an out of body experience just watching everything unfold in front of her. Her giving the eulogy, her cousins giving their condolences and even her meeting a strange man that had said nothing but had attended the funeral nonetheless. He was a bit different from everyone else, tall and lanky. His hair looked as if someone had attempted to turn it white but could not get him to hold still long enough so they decided to only streak it. Of course she knew better than to ask anyone else if they could see him, she knew the answers would be no or just questions about her mental health or if she was stressed out about anything. Alora sighed and walked away as she knew that the will was being read inside the house.

Once inside the house it seemed that the memories from her childhood came flooding back to her, but she chose to ignore them and followed the lawyer into the parlor room. As she walked into the parlor she noticed a dark figure in the corner just standing there watching her every move. “Hello?” she called out to the figure, but once she began moving towards it the figure disappeared. As she turned the corner she thought to herself that the shadows moving was a little weird but it wasn’t uncommon in this house. The lawyer looked over to the corner curious as to what Alora was staring at before getting her attention and going through the reading of the will with her. Alora wasn’t really paying attention, she was mainly still thinking about the figure she was sure was in the corner only moments ago when something the lawyer had said caught her attention. She turned her head looking at the older woman and asked, “What do you mean by she left me everything?”

The lawyer looked up from putting away the paper work and told her that her grandmother had left her the house, the family fortune and all three of her properties. Alora looked around the room wondering what other property her grandmother had owned aside from the mansion and the beach house. While she was pondering this the lawyer stood, handed her the keys to the mansion and left. Alora sat there in the dark for a few minutes trying to figure out what had just happened, shaking it off she stood and decided to start upstairs and work her way down while going through everything. As she got to the top of the stairs she had decided to play some music while she worked, starting up her work out list she walked through the attic looking at all of the boxes and old documents that were in the room. She had picked up a stack of the papers noticing that it was all letters to and from a friend of her grandmother, but they were all in a language that Alora did not know about. As she began reading them she realized that it was in a language she somehow knew, how that was possible she wasn't sure she had never taken any language classes growing up. 

While she was reading the letters it was obvious that she hadn’t noticed the baseball bat that had been leaning on a box fall over and roll into the walking space that Alora had made for herself. Alora turned around to place the paper in a container and tripped over the solid oak bat which had sent her flying through the opposite wall, cursing as she sat up rubbing her head. “Shit what was that?” She looked around the dark space and noticed something shiny next to her, picking it up she got up and moved the bat into a large open box before sitting in the center of the floor and opening the box to find a single large skeleton key.