Chapter 1

Day 1, 10:01 pm – one week left

It was a dark and stormy night, mainly because it was raining but also ‘cause the popcorn ran out. It was a Saturday, with only 1 week left before Halloween. We were watching a horror film about a surfer girl named Dianna and she gets attacked by a ghost shark. ‘Huh, that would never really happen in the real world’ I thought. My name also happens to be Dianna. My friends who are watching the movie with me at my house are Jack and Camilia. My mom and dad are out doing “Adult stuff”, whatever that is. So we got the whole house to ourselves. Jack has a funny and outgoing personality, plus he’s a total hunk. He’s 15. Camilia on the other hand, is the complete opposite. She’s shy but she’s really good at art and doesn’t talk too much, only when she has something important to say. So when she speaks, we always listen. She’s 13 and 1⁄2. She’s the youngest, more of the baby of the family. But there my best friends, and I wouldn’t trade them even if there was a ghost shark attacking me. I myself am more of the modest and smart type, according to Jake: ‘you’re a complete genius, but I wouldn’t say you’re very modest about it! ’ My IQ is 156. I am also more of a realistic person, if you didn’t know already. I’m 14. I also just remembered, to tell you that my bad luck number is 7. For some it’s lucky, but not for me. I don’t like to talk about it much. I told Camilia but only her, because I know she won’t tell anybody. Anyway, we finished the movie and said good-bye to Jack, since he was a boy and couldn’t sleep over. Me and Camilia had some comments on that. “ What do they think we will do, make the movie ‘Hanky Panky’  into real life? ” Camilia just shrugged. She seemed a little out of it. Maybe she was just tired. “Are you ready for bed?” . She nodded.  I got the left and she got the right. And I drifted off into a deep, peaceful sleep. The next morning, I woke up early and ate a bowl of cereal. When I  dumped the empty bowl  into the sink, I turned around and yelped in surprise. Camilia was standing there, paler than usual. 

“You okay?”  Now I was worried. First, she’s acting strange, then she looks like she barely slept even though I didn’t hear her get up once. She just nodded. We didn’t do too much that day. Mom and Dad still weren’t home. Strange. There things were just longer, or maybe traffic or something. I went to bed early, around 8:30. Camilia said she’s going to go out for a walk. Around midnight, I woke up to go to the bathroom. I walked back into the bedroom. While I was washing my hands, I looked up and into the mirror. What I saw then made my blood turn to ice. Then I heard a blood-churning scream. It was coming from me. 

Chapter 2

Day 2-3, 12:10pm midnight

My dead parents were staring back at me, paler than the whitest white. There was ever-lasting horror painted on their faces, and there were ghosts. I blinked once, then they were gone. I went back to bed, shaken, getting no sleep that night. The next day I found out my parents died in a car crash. And they looked exactly the way I saw them in the mirror last night. I was an orphan. Jack came over around 9 in the morning, and found me lying on the couch, with a clean, empty bowl in my hand. 

“I was gonna get ice cream, but then I decided, ‘What’s the point?’ ‘ He looked concerned, then grabbed my empty bowl and started to scoop vanilla ice cream in it, and handed it to me. “

I’m sorry about your parents, is there anything you want to tell me?”  I stared at the vanilla ice cream, then took a bite. It made me feel a little bit better. 

“Well…”  I started, but then Camilia came over and dragged Jack away. Camilia came back for me. 

“But…”

“Just come on.”  We went upstairs and she turned me around, and before I knew it, she bonked me on the head, shoved me in the closet, but before I  blacked out, I saw something gleaming behind her. Then everything went black. …

~ To be continued, an excerpt from Alicia C.