It was night, the stars were cold up in their blankets of darkness, high above the clouds. The houses on each row of roads had fluorescent lighting pouring out of them like a brightly lit fires. It was snowing, but not quite. More of that slushy, smoggy kind of snow, rain, hybrid. The kind that makes you want to stay home for the night, or perhaps the week.
Nothing odd, just a quietly beautiful, cold town. This particular town was old, with churches and elders that were crumbling with their walls and wrinkles drooping down in the twilight.
A river ran straight through the heart of the town, gentle, mucky, rarely touched. As old as the vintage shops that lined the streets, and as vacant as well. The water was shallow and not very good for shipping things, but not shallow enough for wading. So it was left alone, unquestioned, just flowing on its drudging course.
The streets were narrow, with arches just above your head on the pathways. Nooks and crannies, perfect for childish hide and seek on a warmer day. Everywhere outside was deserted, the lights slowly turning off as the later hours crept onto the tired town.
In one home, however, there was group of particularly rambunctious youthful girls who had no desire to slow down like the rest of their aged surroundings. Inside a window on a scarcely lit street were the giggling children. About five of them, young, perhaps in their halfway teens. A blanket fort was draped across a bed and a dresser, with a single light emanating from the center. Their friendly silhouettes faint in the yellow light.
“So, Skylar, whats your biggest fear?” One said.
“I don't know...” Came a quiet reply.
4 weeks later, or, a month prior, depending.
The courtyard was empty, it was always empty during class time. A tilted tree hung over a bench or two, dead branches creeping outward pressed against the building. The building was old fashioned, it used to be a cathedral. With spires on the roof stabbing into the clouds, crumbling bricks falling on every wall.
Walls were stained dark from the morning rain, the ground was moist with hopeful grass attempting to peak out. The only sound was the scribbling on note paper, from a single boy perched on a tilted branch.
He wore the standard uniform, brown hair curled on his forehead. He didn't seem to extraordinary, the typical townsboy. Although it was odd he was here, almost invisible among the branches. His pen scritched on the paper avidly, his brow was deep in thought. On occasion he would sit back and read over his work making little edits. This went on for about an hour, him writing, surrounded by nothing but the deserted courtyard.
Eventually, bells rang out and he dropped from his perch. Walking on the cobblestone path unnoticed by the other students who flooded in rushing and giggling off to their next class. He put his head down softly scurrying about, melding with the surrounding crowd.
Without a warning, he rammed into another figure, falling. Shaking his head he sat up. He had run into a girl, she was pretty, in a homely sort of way. Light hair was parted over one shoulder, bangs drifting in front of her eyes. Her clear, almost sickly eyes.
They looked at eachother for a moment, not exactly sure what had happened and why they were both on the ground. Quickly, a taller girl called, cutting the moment short,
“Skylar! We're gonna be late!”
Both of the students rushed to get their things together and continued walking in separate directions, already shrugging off the strange encounter. Nate, the boy, was already creating a character. One with sickly eyes but a bright smile, she was interesting to him. Not that he would ever fancy someone like her, too boring, too...settled. In his next story she would probably die, the normal ones always did.
Skylar rubbed her temples, another raging headache.
“I'm going insane. I'm going insane. I'm going insane.” She muttered to herself over and over.
It was a boring class, chemistry, no one noticed the nervous girl. Skylar was afraid, for weeks she had been having these headaches. But they weren't the worst of it, it was the hallucinations.
Daydreams that had gotten out of hand, just that morning she could have sworn she saw someone floating in the river. She had convinced herself it was just a shadow in the rain, nothing out of the ordinary, there was never anything out of the ordinary.
A couple hours before she thought she could see a moon, a second moon, one taking up most of the sky. When she blinked, it disappeared. It always disappeared.
“It must have been something I ate...it has to be...” She muttered quietly again.
But no matter how much she tried to justify her day-mares...
They just kept on coming.
