Dead Girl's Fate (discontinued)

Chapter 6

"Cara, maybe this can wait until tomorrow."

Isaac and I wandered the living room, searching blindly for the stairs. Though we had flashlights, they didn't help much, being that they weren't that bright, and Isaac's flashlight kept flickering on and off. Not to mention, we didn't know the house that well, and it is quite large. The living room covers most of the area, and the stairs are just around the corner from it. 

"Ever seen a ghost out in the during the day? Didn't think so," I said in a half-whisper.

I turned the corner and found the carpeted stairs. The stair rail went up like a spiral, weaving around to the top.

"Isaac, over here," I called to him. A half smirk came upon my lips, like one half of me is saying "This is so cool," and the other half is saying "Run! Avoid contact with scary ghosts!"

I started my journey up the steps. I heard Isaac following right behind me. It was deafeningly quiet; I could hear Isaac's breathing right behind me as well as my own quavering voice humming quietly to fill the silence. Once I reached the top, I turned left, remembering where Isaac stood the first time we entered this eerie place.

Maybe I'm just overreacting. There's nothing here but a silly old house. What a fool you are, Cara.

Thoughts pushed aside, I found the, what I'm hoping is, the correct room. Scarcely, I raised my flashlight from the floor to the room. The light shone through the room into a dim yellow glow. I could make out a few details from the doorframe. There's a bed against the left wall with a purple and white blanket that has flowers climbing up to the top of it, but the bed spread looks like it has seen the last of it's days. There's a rug on the floor, green and tainted, in front of the bed. The closet is across from the bed, and it's opened. A few articles of clothing peak out from the floor. There's an small nightstand next to the bed. Otherwise, there are small things scattered on the table and on the floor, still unidentifiable.

Isaac came to stand next to me. Shoulder to shoulder, we stared into the room, trying to wrap our minds around it.

"Well, let's go, we came this far, right?" Isaac begins to walk in. I shrug and follow behind him.

Walking in, I can see more of the room. The walls are white and green, but the white has turned into a musty, yellow-brown color.

Isaac and I spot it at the same time. The big, black board standing out like a sore thumb on the green wall. This must be the window they covered up. Curious, I walk toward it.

"It looks like it's nailed into the wall," he says, pointing to the screws all along the edge of the board.

"Here," I hand him my flashlight, since his is no use. He holds it up for me to see, putting his flashlight in his back pocket at the same time. Taking a closer look, I noticed that a few of the screws are missing.

 "Look, four screws aren't there," I repeat my thought aloud, gesturing to the tiny holes where the nails should be. I take a step closer to get a better look, but when I set my foot down I feel something roll under my shoe.

One of the missing screws. Isaac sees my surprise and shines the flashlight down to the floor. Stepping back, the other ones come into sight. They're all scattered on the floor just below the board. I bent down to pick one up, examining it. They're not incredibly old, I notice. They are not worn by age like everything else in this house.

I stand back up when it suddenly goes dark on the floor. Isaac has shifted his attention back to the board, causing him to take the light with him.

"Cara look at this," he says, prodding at one of the screws.

"The nails, they aren't screwed in all the way. They're unscrewed just enough just to twist them out," he proves this by twisting out the one he was poking at. I took the flashlight from him as he took the other nails out. As he was doing so, I noticed the bags under his eyes. He looked tired, and not just because it's now about 3:00 in the morning, but tired of something, like he's fighting a battle he can't win and it exhausts him.

My thoughts were cut off by the scraping sound that came when Isaac moved the board from the wall. I walked up to the window quickly, but the view was not the thing that caught my attention. Sitting on the window sill was a book bound in red leather, worn by the powers of time. Cob webs surrounded the rest of the window, but that book was perfectly untouched. I picked it up, not knowing exactly what to think of it. There was a title on the front in a language I did not know. I ran my fingers across it, soaking it all in.

"What's it say?" Isaac asked, obviously just as curious as me.

"I-I don't know what it says it's in a different language," I told him. He let out a breath, like he was expecting something bigger. 

"This doesn't make se-" my sentence was cut off when I opened the book and a little piece of paper fell out and fluttered to the ground. Slowly, I reached down to pick it up. The paper was ripped, possibly out of a notebook, rough and unevenly. The paper, too, is not worn by ages of being in that book; It looks new. Losing patience with myself, I unfold it. The words on the paper, scrawled in loopy handwriting, left me in shock.

She's fine, but I'm not.

I couldn't help but go back to the memory of the dream I had just hours before. Jess and the girl, sitting in a room just like the one I'm standing in right now.

She's fine?  A thousand thoughts swirl in my head. Jess? No, don't be stupid Cara. 

But I'm not?  The girl in my dreams? This could mean nothing.

This could mean everything.

A thought appeared in my head.

The book.

This was the book the girl was reading. I stared down at it, finding a fear in myself that I've never felt before. Being scared was nothing to me, but this is a whole different level of scary. This isn't someone dressed up as a creepy monster or venturing out at night, this is real.

"We should go," I push past Isaac and descend the stairs as fast as I can. He catches my wrist when I'm about to walk out the door.

"Are you okay?" he asks me. His face is sincere, but I can't talk about this.

"Please, you can talk to me about this. We're like ghost hunting buddies," he says. He's trying to make me laugh, to make me smile. And he succeeded. I had the slightest smile on my face. And at that, he grinned.

"It's-uh, it's nothing. Maybe tomorrow,' I told him. He nods and lets me go.

We walk in silence across the street, back to my house. The book is still in my hand, the note tucked in the pages.

"Thanks for coming with me," I said to Isaac.

"Thanks for waking me up in the middle of the night."

I push him lightly on the arm, laughing.

"See you at school," he says, then he's walking down the sidewalk, then he's gone before I know it. I slide back into my room through the window. I set the book on my night stand and tried to go back to sleep, but I kept peeking an eye open to look at it, look at it haunting me. Finally, determined to get some sleep, I throw it in my drawer and lay back down.

No more nightmares.