The Endless Night

Prologue

A little girl of about three years in age scampered through the freshly cut grass, a doll in hand. A man sat nearby on a lounge chair on the porch of the small wooden house, smiling as he watched her giggle. The doll she gripped in her stubby fingers was brand new; her father had bought it for her that very day because it was her birthday. He recalled how excited she was that morning in her Hello Kitty pajamas to see the bright blue and yellow wrapped package in her father's hands as he told her good morning. As she played, there was a rustle in the bushes at the edge of the yard. Curious, the girl walked towards the sound and peeped through the leaves. Feeling protective, her father stood up and came to his daughter's side to usher her back to the house.

As he pushed her aside, she looked up at him with a distinct look in her fragile, innocent eyes, and slowly pointed into the woods. All of a sudden, something leaped out of the bushes growling ferociously. The man shouted and jumped protectively in front of his daughter. She screamed in her baby-like voice and clutched her doll tightly against herself.

"What are you?!" Her father shouted at the creature. It appeared to be hidden still among the trees. A growl was the only response. "Get out of here!"

Loud footsteps came towards the man, and the hideous voice rose to a wretched shriek.

The man took a look behind his shoulder and noticed his daughter had already gone about fifteen feet from the forest's edge, far enough away from the danger.

"Get off my property before I get my rifle. If I catch you stealing anything, I'll shoot you, understand me?"

There was an awful laugh before a dark, deranged: "It's you I wantssss..."

In seconds the man was gone, leaving the child alone in the field, crying for her papa, and without realizing, beginning a life of abandonment.

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"Annalise?" The teacher stands at the door, tapping her foot, and peers over her glasses at the girl as she finds her seat in the third column, four seats back. It is eight thirty-six and she's just come in to her sophomore chemistry class.

The girl doesn't look up.

"You're late."

"I'm sorry. Please excuse my... uh... insolence."

"Do you have an explanation?"

She hesitates. "No..."


"Then see me after class." The teacher's heels click on the tiled floor of the classroom as she walks back up to the board.

Mandy, who sits across the aisle, leans over and whispers, "Hey, Elise you okay?"

Elise blinks at her friend. "Fine," she replies curtly, "I just don't like it when she calls me by my full name. That's all." Her voice is strangely tight and Mandy reluctantly leaves the subject alone.

After class, Mandy catches up to Elise in the hallway. "Hey! Elise! Wanna come to my place tonight? My parents won't mind." Elise stops. She turns slowly on her heel.

"I can't," her face is expressionless, so unlike her.

"Are you okay?" Mandy walks closer. "Do you want to talk about it? Are you sick? I won't tell anyone if you don't want me to."

Elise's face softens a little as she recognizes her friend's true concern. Her voice is low as she responds. "Thank you for trying to help me Mandy, but I just can't today. I have to work this out on my own. Maybe tomorrow?" She smiles hopefully at her friend.

Mandy smiles back. "Sure."

Elise waits in the hallway until Mandy is gone. She plows sluggishly through the rest of the day then sighs at the final bell and heads towards the back door of the school. Outside, she looks around cautiously and looking back in the school, makes eye contact with a boy of her age, but she quickly turns back around, zips up her thin jacket, climbs on her bike, and rides down the road. Her routine everyday was simple: wake up, ride to school, sit through a bunch of boring lectures, and ride away from school. Elise didn't ride to somewhere, she just rode away. Her classmates just assumed her house was close enough to ride to. They didn't know that she didn't actually have a home. For ten years, she hadn't had a home. Only Mandy and the administrators suspected something like that. It was a lonely and hard life but ever since Elise had turned ten, she had found small, paying jobs that could afford her fast food and cheap clothes. After her father died, Elise had moved to Richmond, Virginia and lived with an aunt whom she rarely saw and barely knew. Seven years of that and she'd had enough. Elise had stolen money from her aunt, bought a bike and some food, and ran away. She rode far, far away, until she'd found Mandy in the park one day near her old hometown. They had talked and played and instantly became friends. When Elise found out about where Mandy went to school, she signed herself up, forging signatures for parents that didn't exist.