Crescent View Horrors

Chapter One: The Paper Airplane

Do you ever hear a song on the radio on a long car ride that makes you feel nostalgic, so you stare out the window at the passing trees and pretend you're a movie protagonist? Now add a bag in your lap that you're hugging, raindrops running down the window, and the fact that you're returning to your hometown, which you grew up in and have been away from for ten months, minus the holidays.

If I had to describe Crescent View in two words, I'd use dumpster fire. Or shit show. Both work well considering the state of the town. The streets were covered in trash; the buildings painted with graffiti, and nobody in this backwards town gave a crap about anything or anybody.

But it was home, and I was glad to be back. Ten months ago, when I set off to go attend a Christian boarding school, I was kind of happy to be leaving. But you know what they say; you never know what you have until it's gone. Well, I was gone for half a day before I realized Crescent View was ten times better than that dumbass school. Also, now I'm an atheist, so that's what I got out of that.

I zoned out for half the car ride home while pretending to be a movie protagonist, and before I'd realized it, we were home. It wasn't much, just your average two-story suburban house with white walls and a blue roof. The yard was big, but we haven't used it since my sister and I were kids.

I jumped out of the car before it fully stopped, swinging my backpack over my shoulder and slamming the car door behind me. The first thing I noticed was the old house beside ours. The house used to be dirty; the windows were boarded up, and the shingles were falling off the roof. Now it looked like any other house on the street. My friends and I used to pretend it was haunted. The house had been vacant since the old man who lived there died at the ripe old age of eighty-two. He was supposed to be the ghost, but since it looked like someone moved in, it couldn't have been too haunted.

I turned to my mom, who'd just gotten out of the car. "Did someone move into that house while I was gone?"

"Yeah, they actually moved in a few days ago," She said. "A nice lady and her daughter, a girl your age. You should go say hi some time."

I nodded and went to grab my other bag from the trunk. I didn't really care to introduce myself. I had my own friends; I didn't need any more. Darren, Blair, Aria, and I had been friends since we exited the womb and had been ever since.

I went inside the house and immediately ran up to my bedroom. I shut the door and threw my bags down onto the floor beside my bed, knowing fully well they wouldn't get unpacked until a month later when I finally felt like it or my parents made me. My room was small and colourful, with many different posters from bands I liked plastering the walls. The walls were a pale green, and the carpet was beige. I had a small army of stuffed animals in the corner of my bed, which had white blankets with pink and blue stripes. I had a desk under the window which was covered by blue curtains that reached the ground.

I plopped myself onto the bed and pulled out my phone. I sent a message to my friends and I's group chat and put my phone on charge. I hadn't talked with my friends much since I left for school. I was way too busy, and it seemed like they were, too. I sat there for a while, waiting for a reply, but after a while I decided to do something else.

I pulled out my sketchbook from my desk drawer and placed it on my desk, then pulled the curtains open. Across from my window was the window from the house from earlier. The curtains were pulled back; the lights were on, and a girl sat at her desk under the window, just like mine. She looked up and our eyes met.

Her eyes were grey and her hair was dark chocolate brown, pulled into a tight bun with a few loose strands in the front. She wore a baggy grey sweater, almost the colour of her eyes, and ripped jeans. Her knees were pulled up to her chest. She had a book in her hands, which I assumed she was reading. Upon seeing me, she gave me a smile which I returned, then went back to reading her book, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.