Beware of the House (The unedited version)

Chapter 2 - Hugs and Vampires

We both stood there for about 5 minutes frozen from fright. During this time, the two ghosts stared into each other’s eyes lovingly … awkward…

“Uh! What is, like, wrong with you guys? Just come in already!” said the second ghost when they finally broke the gaze.

“We're not allowed to talk to strangers though! Even ask Minigeisha!” exclaimed Taka, her short blonde hair bobbing up and down as she nodded.

“It's true, Taka is not lying! We never lie!” I agreed, my stomach rumbled. See, I said I was hungry – I also said this was a bad idea but oh well.

“Oh all right!” said the first ghost, “I'm Max and he's Jeylen. Ok? See now you know us, we know you, you’re Taka,” he pointed to my friend, “And you’re Minigeisha!” he said pointing to me.

How on earth did he know that? Taka and I sighed and walked in, not the smartest decision I’ve made in my life but oh well. I wasn't scared anymore. To tell the truth I was really quite interested in seeing what it looked like inside, and if they were going to kill us or something, they would’ve done it by now, right?

Taka didn't seem scared either. The way she looked at Max made me feel sick. I tried to keep myself from smiling, she had this thing for gay guys, and I guess you could call her a fan girl?

Just as I glanced over to Max to see what he was doing, he started hugging Taka. She seemed to enjoy this. I sighed and shook my head but then Jeylen started hugging me!!! I squirmed around trying to escape but his grip was too strong, so much for being able to walk through ghosts.

“Boys, boys, boys. You can stop that now, see? Look at them,” said a soothing voice.

Both the ghosts stopped hugging us and joined hands, completely ignoring all three of us and walking away.

I was relieved, but as I looked over to Taka she actually looked disappointed and her witch costume looked more realistic for some reason. Normally her short blonde hair is poofy and shiny but now it looked frizzy and lifeless. Her concealer and foundation was gone replaced with scars, scratched and dark rings under her eyes, she still seemed to pull this off still looking pretty, no fair.

I looked over to the woman who had spoken. I had expected her to be older because of the authority she seemed to have around here and because of the wise tone in her voice but surprisingly she looked about 16, the same age as me. She was very pale and had really, really long hair. It almost touched the ground and looked very smooth, shiny and … dead.

“What's the matter?” she said. I noticed that she was looking right at me. Whoops! I didn't realize that I was staring at her!

“Sorry, it's just that your hair looks…” I started.

“I know,” she said, butting in. “By the way, my name’s Cleo and I can see you've met our two death-masters. You two are really pretty! The prettiest witches and goblins I've ever seen! Here,” she held her hands out to us.

“I'll show you to your rooms.”

I took one and Taka hesitated for a second, but ended up taking her other hand. Cleo's hands seemed strangely cold and I noticed she had fangs…

“Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!” I screamed. “D-Don't you DARE drink my blood!!!”

I tore my hand away from Cleo's and ran out the door. Nope, horrible idea to enter that house; that lady must be the reason why so many children go missing every Halloween. Taka just stood there staring at me from the doorway, confused. I ran for a bit then slowed down for a second to see where I am. What the Hell? Outside was nothing but whiteness. There was no sky. There was no ground. There was NOTHING there. No one came after me, nobody yelled out and I didn't dare look back.

After running for a bit more I checked to see if the mansion was still in sight when I saw Taka running after me. I smiled and tried to pull of my mask because, you know, you get sick of these things after a while but surprisingly my face isn’t itchy, yet. That's strange; I just can seem to get it off…

I felt my face. It felt like skin but I don’t remember taking off my mask. As a matter of fact, it felt a little like… snake skin? My god what is wrong with my hands! I’m not a snake.

I looked at my hands. They’re the same colour as my mask was…

“Hey!”

I turned around to see that Taka had caught up to me. She saw my face and asked what was wrong. I showed her my hands. She didn't look surprised.

“Are you really that slow?!” She asked.

“What!!! No!”

“You know how the two ghosts hugged us?”

“Yes… What has that got to do with anything?”

“You know how Cleo said something along the lines of 'you can stop now, see, look at them'?”

“Yeh…”

“And lastly you know how she called us a witch and a goblin?”

I've always been the slow one, believe me – it’s horrible. I sat cross legged and rested my elbows on my knees as I tried to fit together the pieces of the puzzle. Why is Taka so smart?