Ch.1-The Beginning is Never the End

    It was a freezing day in the middle of fall, all the trees were empty. You could see the leaves falling the ground, see them falling all around the cemetery mounds. But there was one completely bare area. There lay Erika J. Black.
    Erika was quite a stubborn child, yet quiet and beautiful. She hadn't known she was adopted until the day she died.
                   *                                *                            *
    Mr. Black and Krista Black, Erika's parents, had sent her to town despite the weather conditions. She argued back and forth with her mother until they had had enough, they drove off before Erika could finish her last sentence. It wasn't the long after that her parents crashed in all the commotion, just around the corner from their house. They survived but Erika has seen the hole thing. Her parents were rushed away aster than they had pushed their daughter away. Erika was in tears. She didn't bother to see of her parents were okay, she had assumed they were close to death by the amount of blood spilled across the street. She didn't care if they were dead or alive at this point. Instead of following the ambulance, she went along with her buisness.
    Erika fetched all the items her parents had asked for. She started to walk home calmly, quietly mumbling a song, "Ring around the rosie, pocket full of posies. Ashes, ashes, we all fall..." Her voice trailed off when she realized she wasn't the only one singing. She stopped in her tracks, it was dead silent. The sun was starting to set and it was slowly getting darker. Erika looked at the ground and saw a rock with the number 12 engraved in it, she reached down and picked it up. She held it in her hands feeling the smooth sides of the stone, it was very cold and sent shivers up her spine. She looked around and kicked up the leaves to see if there was any more rocks like this one. There was many. She scooped them all up and dusted the dirt away with her sleeve, the numbers were all different. Instead of leaving the suspicious rocks were she had found them, she stuffed them in her jacket's pocket.
    Erika slowly started to head towards her house once more but a tree kept grabbing her attention. The tree was a very old and dead looking, it had dark brown if not black rough bark. Its branches creaked in the wind. Erika looked at the tree some more, felt its hard rocky textured bark and needle sharp broken off branches, she cut herself. It was deep, her dark red blood flowed from her hand, she winced at the pain. -screeeeeach- Erika quickly turned around and went stiff as a board.
    Standing in front of her was a child. He was much smaller and younger than Erkia. The little boy said to her, "You can't take the souls. You must leave this instant, you can't be out this late. She'll find you here and beat you bad. Here come with me we'll hide in the basement!" Erika reached out to take his hand but pulled her hand back immediately, for the boy was freezing cold. He told her, "You're dead." Erika stood there astonished at what had just happened, the boy just disappeared into thin air. She stood there dazed for a minute. Then and old woman, who appeared to be a school teacher, came inhumanly fast at her, yelling loudly. The lady looked as if she wasn't the ground, gliding in the air towards her. Erika stayed for she wasn't moving, she was too afraid to. The school teacher went right through her. She felt and icy chill throughout her whole body, she shivered.
    Erika started to run home, now she was scared. She stopped at the door, there was a man standing there. She asked him his purpose. He told her she had to go back to an orphanage. She asked him why he had said back to an orphanage. The man paused and stood there wide-eyed for a moment. He didn't know what he'd done. The girl pushed him out of the way and ran inside screaming, "This isn't fair!" She didn't mean her dead parents, she didn't care about them, she meant it isn't she's adopted. Erika couldn't stand the thought of her real parents giving her up because they didn't love her or she wasn't good enough for them. She ran up the stairs yelling, "They never loved me, it was all lies. IT WAS ALL LIES!" She hadn't been watching her step and slipped down the stairs. One by one she hit her head on every step.
    The girl awoke from her comma about four days later, it was dark outside, but there was enough light for her to see her surroundings. It was probably around 2 in the morning. She realized she woke up in a different room than where she had fallen. She'd never been in this room before. "Where am I?" Erika said, there was no answer. She was alone, in a room very foriegn to her. She got up and grabbed her hand. There was a deep gash in it.  She poked at it with her finger and it started spewing blood all her. She winced again in pain. After about twenty minutes or so, she stopped worrying about her wound. She heard something that made her jump in fear. It sounded almost as if someone or something was calling her name. Erika staggered around the strange room. She stumbled upon an old record player. There was no record in it but that's where the music was coming from. She felt silly to think somebody was calling her. Nobody knew her, nobody cared about Erika Jane Black. She didn't mind for she never cared about anybody but herself.
    Erika looked around the room more carefully trying to find a way out. There wasn't one. She found a hatchet and began pounding the wall with it. The wall started to crumble down to pieces. Once she made a hole big enough for her to fit though she climbed out of the room. She was thankful for that hatchet, that room gave her the creeps. She discided to take the hatchet with her, she reached down and held it in her good hand. Now she could see it better, the blade was razor sharp and the handle had a neat design carved into it. It looked like a waterfall with a mermaid, very small details and lots of hard work were put into making this, she thought.
    She started walking there she stood in a beautiful garden, she heard water. Erika raced around trying to find the water. She slowly started to realize she was in her yard and the room she had been in was her shed. She walked past a large arch with vines wrapped around the base. She dropped the hatchet and reached out to touch them, they instantly shriveled up turned brown and died. Erika was slightly horrified and confused but picked up her weapon and carried on with her journey to find the water source. She went under the arch and onto a bridge, she looked down and saw a bunch of brightly colored koi fish. The stupid girl reached down to feel one, but she stabbed it with her pointed nails. It was dead, the pond was turning a deep red-purple color. She waved her hand around in the water trying to get the blood off. She looked back at the water, all of the fish had cuts in them, everywhere. They were all dead now. The girl saw her reflection in the reddend water. She was wearing torn clothes, with blood and dirt covering them and her face. Her hair was matted, knotted, and scruffy. Her legs were covered with dried mud, dust, and bruises. She was no longer beautiful, she was a monster.
    The numbered stones fell out of her pocket to the ground as she stood up, she knelt back down onto the soft green grass, and turned the rocks over face up. She organized the numbers smallest to largest. "12, 14, 26, 27, 35, 49, 78." She counted the numbers off aloud. Erika kept wondering what they meant and stood for. She was lost in thought but when she looked up she did a double take. The boy from the forest stood before her. He yelled at her, "NO! NO! NOOOOO! You musn't take the souls! Those belong to the kids underground! You, you. . .MONSTER!" He vanished again. The air reeked of rotting flesh. It wasn't her. She gently put the rocks back in her pocket ignoring the boys message. She didn't care what he said, she didn't have to listen to him if she didn't want to. She didn't want to. It also made absolutely no sense to her.
    Erika skipped to the front of her house as if she was happy. She was never happy, nothing was ever good enough for her. Her pep and smile disappeared quickly when she saw there was a note on the door. She read it out loud, "Go away, leave and NEVER come back!" She whispered it over and over again to herself. She tore the note off, crumpled it into a tiny ball and tossed it onto the pond of blood.
    Accomplished she felt. Enraged she looked. Erika walked into her house, she didn't close the door or take off her shoes, she didn't care. She walked straight up the stairs into her room, she looked at every step this time. There was dried blood on each one half way up the grand staircase, with a small pool of blood at the very bottom. Once she reached her room she closed her eyes took a deep breath and opened her door with confidence, she was finally home. At least she thought. When she opened her eyes, there was a surprise for her, what a surprise it was. It was a disaster, everything even her bed was broken. The smaller things were smashed to pieces and tossed about the room. Erika felt hot tears rolling down her cheeks, they picked up the dried blood and dirt and rolled off her chin and plopped to the floor. She ran out of her room bawling. She closed the door, as she did the handle became hotter and hotter, it started glowing like an ember. She couldn't let go it started melting into her already wounded hand, the blood stuck like glue to the crystal handle. It was burning her hand, it was steaming her bones. Then bang! it suddenly fell to the floor. She held her hand close to her chest and peered down at it, it was charred black. It looked as thought somebody has rubbed charcol all over it. She wasn't concerned. It was just a coincidence.
    Erika walked calmly and quietly down the hallway into the kitchen searching for ice of water to put on her burnt flesh, she had to clean it out and get the blood off. Concentrating too much on her hand, she stopped mid-step, she heard the heavy metal front door slam shut. It swung back open and smashed into the wall, braking  family portraits and finger paintings. The front door slammed shut for the last time. Erika had fallen to the floor during the rucuss, she had her face buried in the carpet and her hands tightly cupped over her ears. She raised her head very slowly, removed her hands from her ears and opened her eyes one at a time. It was safe now. She carefully got to her knees, using the counters for support, if they weren't there she would have fallen again from her violent shaking. Once she climbed up the counters and got to her feet she wrapped her arms around herself and took baby steps towards the refrigerator she opened it. One eye squinting afraid something would jump out at her, only spoiled, moldy, rotten food sat neatly on the shelves. The only thing jumping out at her was a horrible stench. The light was shattered across the plates of disgusting food and the air had stopped working. She opened her freezer only to find the same results. There was nothing useful in this house, let alone something cold.

Author's Note

should I keep writing the end of the story?

Reviews

[WhimsicalAutomatonophob..]

DEFINITELY FINISH IT. It's really good. Just one thing, in the beginning you said "There lied Erika J. Black." It should have been "There lay..." That's the only mistake I've found so far. Great job! Thumbs up!

[ℰmerald ⚓]

I shall fix my mistake, thank you for pointing that out.