Questions for Answers

Chapter One

River's POV

10 years later...

"Hello?? Earth to River. Where are you right now", Kat said to me as she poked me with a plastic fork.

"What? I'm here, getting stabbed with a fork", I joked, rubbing the area she had poked.

She laughed, "Sorry, but are you okay though? You seem like you're in another world right now."

I thought about her question. Was I okay? The answer was no. I spoke up, "No, I haven't been okay for a long time now. I thought it was over. You know, I used to have nightmares about that night. They were really bad when I was younger. I couldn't go one night without dreaming about it. After I got adopted, my new parents tried to get me to see a therapist. They thought it'd help, but it only made things worse. Talking about it only made me imagine it, but more vividly. After therapy didn't work, they suggested that I try to make friends. But no one wanted to be friends with the weirdo orphan girl. My adoptive sister, though, was always nice to me. I confided in her and we became super close. Things started looking up in my life and miraculously, the nightmares stopped, for years. I was able to live a normal life, became friends with you, and started focusing on school, it was perfect. But recently, the nightmares have come back and it's messing me up more than I thought it would. I thought I'd accepted what happened. Why now, you know?"

"I mean, you were just a kid. You never even really got the chance to experience them; your parents. And now there's nothing that you have left of them but that cursed nightmare. I can't believe the police wouldn't let you take anything, not everything in that house was evidence! Maybe you'd have some closure if they told you what was going on or if they let you go back", Kat said.

"Go back?" I questioned.

She shrugged, "I mean, yeah. Have you never thought about going back to your old house to see if anything was left behind? It's a long shot, but maybe you could find something there. I know the house was closed off after..that happened, so it's probably abandoned, right?"

Of course, I had thought about that house; my house. But I was honestly just trying to forget about it all. It had been so long, that my memories of the place, and my parents, were slowly starting to fade. I only lived there until I was six years old, so there wasn't much that I remembered anyway. I brought myself out of my thoughts to answer my friend, "I guess I can try to find out if anyone lives there now, but it's probably best to look it up online before just popping up unannounced."

I pulled out my phone and searched for my old address. A few results popped up and I happened upon a news article from a couple of years ago. The title read 'New Family Moves Into Murder House & Wants To Know If It's Haunted'. I rolled my eyes at the article, "Seriously, they're calling it a murder house and pretending as if it's haunted now because of what happened."

Kat frowned, "I'm sorry, River. People shouldn't even be allowed to write articles like that, especially since the police never really explained what happened. But at least now we know that someone does live there, so you could explain who you are and maybe they'll let you search the house."

I shrugged, "Maybe. Or they might think I'm just some freak trying to get the latest scoop on the 'murder house.' Whatever, I can't think about that right now. I have something even scarier than that to worry about...Physics!"

Technically, I didn't have physics until the end of the day, but it was still the class I dreaded the most. I had a free period after lunch and before history, so I usually took that time to just chill or catch up on any homework I hadn't completed yet. One time I even pretended I was supposed to be in Kat's math class, but her teacher kicked me out and told me to go back where I belonged.