Crimson

Chapter Two

When Raven woke, she was alone. At some point, Adrian must have moved her because she found herself back in her room. There were dream catchers of all colours littering the walls, while the walls themselves were a deep shade of purple with millions of pale blue and silver crease-like imprints running down them. On the edge of her grey covers lay a single hand-written note.

Raven shifted, picking the note up lying back down in her bundle of blankets and pillows again.

It read simply; Raven, I'm sorry to confuse you at all, it began to rain when we were out and I didn't want to wake you. Sorry. -Adrian

Well, he's nice. Raven thought somewhat sarcastically to herself.

She sighed and tossed on her side in the mess of covers for a moment. A million thoughts ran, no, pounded, through her head. With a sudden burst of inspiration, she leaped out of bed, shoving the covers off her and changing into some decent clothes, before pulling a pair of scruffy doc martins on and barrelled down the stairs. Not stopping, she gave a simple shout of "Bye Mum!", before smashing through the front door and out onto the blinding cold street. Her fellow villagers of Finis gawked at her as she shot down the streets, only one thing on her mind. Finding the entrance to that bridge.

Not wasting her time, she darted and weaved through the twisted forest trees, sides heaving heavily and freezing air nipping at her creamy, exposed skin. At one point, she could have sworn she saw a pair of stormy grey eyes peering at her from the shadows, but she put it off to her wildly-mangled imagination.

Eventually, spotting a blur of colour behind the tightly knitted trees, Raven pushed through the leaves. The end of the bridge was there. Right there.

Slowly, she edged towards the bridge. Although it wasn’t  particularly anything to be surprised about, Raven still beamed when she felt the hard stone of the bridge under her feet.

With a new sense of purpose, Raven began furiously ruffling around in her pockets. I'm sure I had some in here somewhere... She thought. After a few seconds, her fingers grasped around what she was looking for. A small stick of chalk. Raven knelt down of the freezing bridge, rubbing her now slightly white-powdered fingers on her jeans. Taking a deep breath, she brushed the light layer of dust and rubble off a small part of the bridge. Knowing how odd and pointless what she was doing was, she began to write.

Hello, whoever may be reading this. My name is Raven Mallory. I'm 16, almost 17. I live with my mother after my father left us when I was a mere child. I used to have a twin brother, Mit, but he killed himself. That's just it; We don't know why, we don't know how. Something bad is going on in this place. Very, very bad. He jumped off the bridge, the Crimson Creek Bridge. This very bridge, actually. Like all those other people. We know, because he was found there, at the bottom of the bridge, smashed up and bloody. But the bridge has no ends.  No accessible ends, anyway. At least, that’s what everyone said. But clearly, there is, or I wouldn’t be here. They checked everywhere, to seal it off and stop the suicides; but they never found the ends of the bridge. Everyone thought it was impossible. Now, we've become too cowardly living in the shadow of this mysterious entity.

She sighed as she finished the chalked-written message. You know, it’s rather weird. Adrian said it had been raining, but the ground’s dry enough for me to write on… oh well, it’s pretty clear now that weird stuff happens here. She couldn’t help the thoughts flitting around her head, doubts and questions ringing everywhere.

There was the sound of chalk on stone again from behind her. Raven gasped.  Her eyes widened and she whipped around, to see the chalk had been moved and under her message, there was another, shorter chalk-written message.

 

Hello Raven.