Nosifer

Chapter 1

I tell you a story of a town called Nosifer. A dark, gloomy ghost town with secrets beyond anyone's imagination. Secrets of trolls and goblins and possessed little girls. Like I said a very dark place. This story begins 3 years ago when Layla died in a volcano. Her skin was melting off her body like hot wax and soon she was nothing but blood and bones. But a small girl remained, floating above the surface of the lava. People wanted to rescue her but did not want to meet Layla's fate. So Lily remained, just there waiting to be rescued. Layla, biding her time until Lily gained enough strength to leave the volcano and actually do something to help Layla continue her plan to power in the world.

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About three years later, it was a cold, dark day toward the end of October when Felice McPherson was walking down the damp and dark street. She was an orphan. But none of her friends knew that now. None of her friends that were alive, that is. The only two girls that Felice had ever connected with were Alex Ranalletti and Moe Johnson. But about three years ago, they had both disappeared without a trace. Felice had been devastated. Those two girls had been her best friends. And she had no idea how they had disappeared.

Now, three years later, she was still hoping that one or the two of them would jump out from behind a tree somewhere, saying "Hey, we're back! And we've missed you!" But no such luck for Felice McPherson. So here she was, walking down a dark and damp street, on a dark, cold day towards the end of October. Alone.

Suddenly, she came to a stop in front of a building. Separate from the other buildings across the street, this particular structure was seemingly isolated. On both sides surrounding it were thick woods, just next to the gray, crackled sidewalk that Felice was standing on. She examined it from top to bottom. With faded red paint peeling off of the exterior walls, and no sign of cars anywhere nearby, the place looked abandoned. But she knew that it wasn't. Not for a while, actually. But it used to be.

Felice had heard stories over the past three years. And there were many of them. The main thread running through each of them was this: over 100 years ago, the inn had been in business, and had been getting complaints
Complaints about clawing at the doors after sunset. Complaints about moaning in the hallways and bathrooms. Complaints about knives being scratched at the walls. Eventually, these complaints drove townspeople away from the inn, putting it out of business. It had been abandoned for 100 years until the old couple had decided to start it up again, with a new name - Nosifer.

So Felice had decided to be that person who actually got up off of their butt and did something about it. After school, she had packed up her things and marched her way down to Nosifer. Now, she was standing in front of it. And she was terrified.

Felice was timid. She was shy. She was not like either Moe or Alex. She was not exceptionally beautiful, daring, or brave. And now that she was standing in front of Nosifer, she was beginning to regret her spur-of-the-moment decision.

She shivered and pulled her blue sweater tighter around her. It wasn't the chilliest day she had seen in the past few weeks, but the wicked autumn wind doubled with the scent of burnt rubber sent more than a couple of chills down her spine.

Felice was then struck by a memory. Simple enough, yet unusual to appear in the situation she was in. She had awoken herself early in the day, earlier than the birds she normally would have heard chirping outside her bedroom window. With a smile on her young face, she had skipped like a happy faun down the stairs, meaning to munch on a snack from the kitchen. On her way, she paused for a fraction of a second in the doorway to the living room. Peculiar as it was, she thought she had seen a snake. A large and green one, twisting itself slowly towards her as if with bad intentions. Deep in her mind she could see its fool's gold eyes, glittering and narrowing as it swivelled closer. At a second glance, however, Felice looked back to the room and saw nothing but empty couches. She laughed to herself and skipped along to the kitchen.

She didn't feel like laughing now.

"Maybe I should just go back..." she muttered to herself. The in her spine flew up to her cheeks, flushing them with the light shade of a rose.

No, she thought with fervor. I won't be fooled. Never again.

Before she could think twice about it, she ran up the steps to the front door, went through, and shut it loudly behind her. What she saw on the other side made her wish that for once in her 15 year old life, she had paused, for even but a fraction of a second, to listen to herself.