Chapter 1:The Start of Something Scary

Cyreen’s POV:

 

“Cyreen.”

I blinked, waking myself from the trance I was in. Glancing around, I realized I was still in our Peugeot 3008, my father driving through the unusually heavy downpour this early morning in the Philippines.

Looking out the untinted window, a sigh escaped my lips. “Another one of those nightmares.” I thought, suddenly remembering the other nightmares I’ve had about things that normally scare people. My first nightmare was about a walking scarecrow.

But personally, I think my math teacher is scarier.

As my consciousness drove away the nightmares, I looked up at the giant buildings we passed. Some were old, with their paint stripping off and windows broken, while others were totally modern and shiny, as if they came from the future.

“Yeah dad?” I sighed with my normally small voice. For some reason, I was feeling more annoyed than I usually am during the mornings. Well, maybe because it’s 5:30 in the morning, the sun hasn’t even risen and we’re already heading to school.

Seriously, who thought 5 days of the same ‘sit in the building for almost the entire day’ routine was a good idea?

Dad suddenly chuckled from the driver’s seat, right next to where I was; shotgun.

I looked up at dad with my sulky face.

“What’s with the sigh?” he asked, glancing up at me through his lashes. When I didn’t reply, he fell silent and looked back to the road. Staring at him, I studied my father.

 

My father, Richard Todd was the president of the main branch of hardware stores in the Philippines-which until this day I still find hard to believe since he still has the time to bring me to school himself. Also, he doesn’t look like those stressed, middle aged men.

I’ll happily highlight this. My dad actually is very handsome.

Dad had black, slicked back hair. But his hair was so nice, I can say he had Patrick Dempsey’s hair. But unlike the said actor, dad had light brown eyes. He also had very fair skin for a guy and a little bit of stubble under his chin. Today, he was wearing his favorite silver office suit, crisp and neat.

Honestly saying, I was happy he’s my dad. Even my classmates think he’s very young looking for his actual age of 40.

But, dad and I don’t really look alike. People say I’m a mix of both my parents. Like my mom, I have long, wavy black hair and dark brown, almost black eyes. But I have my dad’s thick and ‘well-arched’ brow as my older relatives say. Thankfully, I have my mom’s slender frame but small height of 5’2.

Shaking me out of my thoughts, dad suddenly chuckled, his gravelly voice filling the car.

“Sulking cause’ it’s your last day of 9^th grade?” he teased.

Right then, my thoughts were slapped away and I felt my body tense as dad got ready for the uproar.

“Sulking? As if. I’m glad this is the last day of hell. Have you any idea how many nose bleeding projects I went through this year? Tons! Also, I’m glad I’m finally gonna be rid of Mr. Ratchet and his stupid questions about finding the X and Y! And I will finally stop hearing those boys calling me ‘Siren’!”

And I said all this in a very fast way. I slumped in my seat, taking a deep, annoyed breath through my nose as dad muffled his laughter by biting his lower lip as his shoulders bobbed up and down.

I glared at him and he patted my head, messing up my hair.

“Ah, that’s my girl.” he smiled. Tch. He only wanted to see my annoyed face. I rolled my eyes at him.

 “Anyway, just have fun today. And after school, mind picking up Skye for me? I don’t think I’ll make it for dinner tonight.” He asked, looking down at me apologetically.

Ah yes, picking up the child.  I made a face.

“He can walk home on his own…” I muttered.

Dad raised his brow at me with that ‘I’ll make you feel guilty’ look in his eyes. The edge of my lips twitched and I sighed, still finding the thought of fetching my 13 year old brother annoying. It’s not that I hate my brother. I feel really crabby today so…I’d rather not think about walking home with a noisy kid beside me.

“Cyreen Alicia Todd.” Dad called, saying my full name and making me turn to him hesitantly.

Once I turned to him, I saw that glower in his eyes. My friends says he doesn’t look scary at all. But to me, that look can be ready to shoot lasers into me for all I care.

“Cyreen, I know you think fetching Skye’s a pain but you’re just going to have to take him home with you. He can’t walk home, he doesn’t know the way.” Dad said as he turned a corner.

I scoffed at that. What a guy, can’t even navigate his way home.

“Whatever.” I finally said, giving up. “Can I put him on a leash?” I asked, innocently smiling.

Dad raised his brow at me while glancing at me from the corner of his eye then sighed.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” I smiled, making dad chuckle and ruffle my hair again.

After a short talk about dinner, we drove through Makati city in the normal silence. And again, the memory of the weird creature in my dream resurfaced, making me grimace.

“That thing isn’t even scary.” I thought.

 

After a few minutes of driving in the rain, we finally turned a corner and were greeted by the gigantic, black steel gates that bore a golden emblem with the giant letters: VA which stands for Vernal Academy.

I’ll say this first. The name sounds pretty cool. But since Vernal means fresh and youthful….I find my school a little weird.

The gates were at the far end of the wide street, which was empty by the way.

And I mean empty like, there are no other buildings or small houses. Just that large gate and a small guard house at the right corner.

The school was a co-ed school and it wasn’t really far from home. I could actually walk to get here. But today, I just came with dad since it was raining really hard and he wanted to take me to school himself.

As the gates automatically opened, dad drove in and I silently sighed at the sight.

I didn’t sigh because the school wasn’t nice to look at. It was quite the sight actually. If you see it, you’ll think you’ve driven into a royal lot.

And because the campus was so huge, it actually rivaled the famous UP campus in Manila and Ateneo in Quezon City. But unlike Ateneo and UP, there were only a total of five buildings.

Starting from the left side of the campus, there was the Grade school building filled with the little trolls, next to it the gigantic gym which had its own big swimming pool and very nice showers, then the thankfully air conditioned cafeteria that sold a variety of foods.

Like, the more affordable and my usual lunch, the food that the sweet, old cafeteria people sell: homemade bento, bacon and my favorite pesto bread. Then there’s the section for the expensive and outside foods-Fiorgelato, KFC, Papa John’s, hell, there’s even a French baker here.

Yeah, I know what you’re saying: “Wow, it’s a mall.”

Actually, there’s a mini mall here too. Something the daughter of some famous fashion designer decided to put up out of the blue. I could care less about clothes though. The one building I truly loved was the library and maybe I could add the high school building to that since the music hall was there.

The library was a single giant building filled with awesome books while the music hall was in the High school building. The last building would be the main building that was made for meetings and student gatherings.

“Speaking of gatherings, hope the teachers don’t start one. I wanna sleep all day.” I thought.

Setting these thoughts aside, I sighed as the car stopped right under the roof of the High school building. Sluggishly, I dragged my body out of the car, dry in my white shirt, black jogging pant PE uniform.

“I’ll call you when Skye and I get home.” I said, giving my dad a kiss on the cheek and leaving the car, slamming the door with a little too much force that made dad glare at me.

I shuddered, feeling the cold sweat run down my spine. Dad has this thing about treating cars nicely. But thankfully, dad’s probably in a good mood since he just gave me a smile and drove off.

After the car passed the gates, I turned on my heels, heading straight for the music hall which should still be empty right now.

“Duh, it’s 5:40 in the morning. You really expect high school kids to be this early in school?” my conscience snapped, making me roll my eyes as I stomped towards the music hall.

Stomping into the school ‘lobby’ as we call it, my pace slowed down and my eyes ended up taking in my surroundings. After years in this school, I still can’t get over the fact that this is well…. a school. 

The inside looked like a five star hotel. Complete with the giant, crystal chandelier, lighting up thick limestone pillars and the wide, carpeted staircase attached to the cream colored walls.

But thinking about it now, it would be nice to paint on these walls.

Chuckling at myself, I sighed, heading to the east wing and walking through the long hallway which at the end had double doors saying in bold letters: “Music Hall”

I smiled. “My world.”

With all my new excitement, I ran towards the doors then BAM!

“OW!” I yelped as I hit the locked doors so hard, I fell on my butt in the most embarrassing way.

Blinking, my jaw fell. How dare they lock my room! I growled deeply in my throat and stood up again, fixing my backpack as I calmly approached the doors.

How to open locks. I blinked, remembering a bobby pin will do nice. My hands quickly rummaged through my pack but I froze, realizing I don’t use accessories on my hair.

So I did the old fashioned way. I took the two long knobs in my hands then shook them vigorously as if my life depended on it.

“If anyone saw me right now, they would be thinking I’m a complete nutter.”

I sighed in exasperation, giving up as I face palmed.

Looking around, there was no sign of any janitor that could open the doors for me. I know what you’re thinking: “Why not just go to your classroom?”

No thanks. Frankly speaking, that room is really disturbing in the morning. It’s big, wide, the windows are the same too. Plus, the classroom has this…asylum aura to it.

 Not just that, the on and off switch for the lights are really funny. Since a mischievous group of junior engineers made it so that the lights went on only when you spoke a very embarrassing word [which I’m not allowed to say.]

Sighing and angrily running my hand over my face, I leaned on the wall and slid down it, falling to the floor like a puddle.

Right then, I heard keys jingling. Like a hungry dog, I looked up in hope that the guard or the janitor was here. And from where I came from a shadow came before a tall guy wearing a gray loose jump suit and cap. In his hands was a giant ring filled with the keys to possibly every room in this building.

Looking at his face, I smiled inwardly.

“Mr. Benny.” I called, standing up and feeling as if he just saved me from being trapped in a box.

Hearing my voice, he jumped a bit as he froze in his tracks. He seemed to be studying me and realizing he was just looking at a student, Mr. Benny immediately regained himself as he chuckled.

“Ah, Cyreen Todd. I knew you’d be here.” he said as he approached me.

Mr. Benny, an old guy with graying hair at his temples, was the HS building’s head janitor and he always knew that I came to the music hall first thing in the morning.  And he’s been here longer than I have.

Honestly, I can’t understand how he manages working here since there are lots of spoiled brats here.

“Haha, thank God you’re here. I thought I wasn’t gonna be able to have-“

“Your daily dose of heaven. I know.” He chuckled, unlocking the doors and making me relax as the doors opened. He then turned to me and motioned me in.

I nodded to him with a thankful smile. “Thank you Mr. Benny. You saved me.” I smiled, making him chuckle.

“Anytime. Don’t be late for class!” he shouted, leaving me to my business.

I smiled and as he left, I leapt into the room, taking a deep breath as I looked around the room.

The music hall isn’t a hall as you now know. It was actually a large room filled with of course, instruments like guitars of every kind, a grand piano and a keyboard, trumpets and flutes. Also, a corner of the room was carpeted and had a small cabinet filled with music papers for those that do composing.

And just so that it could be cozier, some other music students put in fluffy pillows, big and small. They even put some blankets around so that we could be comfy even with the air conditioning turned up to Antarctic level.

Smiling to myself and relaxing, I ran to the ‘Fluff section’ as we call it and took out my mp3, plugging it into the speakers and playing Flumpool’s ‘Hana ni Nare’.

While I was in the midst of singing along to the music….the air suddenly went heavy.

Feeling the change in the air, I looked up, glancing around to see if anyone else was coming in. But, I was on my own. My eyes flew up to the bright LED lights. With that brightness, it could drive away any creepy things.

Why did these kind of thoughts come into my head? Well, every time I get nightmares, the next day I end up jumpy and a little (just a little) scared.

And, okay. I’ll admit it, I get nervous when ghost stories suddenly rise up to the occasion. I know it’s childish but, stories like this pop out so often I start believing them.

Exhaling loudly, I slumped on the wall, taking out my favorite book; Smaller and Smaller circles-a crime novel made by F.H. Batacan. It’s probably my 10^th time reading it. And I’ve never gotten bored by it.

 

Once I opened the book, the air got heavier than it was, making goose bumps rise on my skin. I took a deep and shaky breath, knitting my brows together and glancing around as my hands pushed the small book close.

Feeling unsatisfied when my eyes saw there was no one around, I got up and walked towards the middle of the room. I then turned, searching with my body tense. Then, once I turned towards the window, from outside, a small black thing passed by, making me freeze up and the blood in my arms go cold.

It looked like fur, maybe from a dog or a large cat. God, if the music hall was at the second floor, I probably would’ve been running out the room by now.

I blinked many times and whistled, making noise fill the quiet room and attempting to show, whatever it was, that I was so not afraid of it and taking it on would be as easy as whistling.

Once my eyes finished searching, a nervous smile rose up on my face.

“Haha, yeah. It might be a dog.” I muttered to myself, laughing weakly.

But even with that thought……there really was something else.

I felt like I was being watched. Of course, there were lots of times in my life when there was that feeling as if someone was behind me when in fact, I’m the only on the room.

It’s a feeling I get every time I come near a corner of my house we don’t often hang out in. But, this was perhaps worse. It was like I was a little rabbit trapped under the shadow of a giant hawk.

With that thought, a weight on my shoulders pressed down on me, making it hard for me to breath. Immediately, my imagination went into turbo. Many of the old people around our neighborhood and even some of our maids tell tons of stories about ghosts and even sometimes the appearance of demons.

My body stiffened and it took a lot of my will to move from where I was just to get my things and switch off the speakers.

For the first time in my life, , I hurried out the music room once my things were complete, feeling the weight on my shoulders get off only when I got out into the lobby.

Looking around, it seems students were pouring in now. All of the other third years were wearing the same thing as me; PE uniform but many students had lavish accessories dangling around their necks or wrists.

As I swallowed and straightened myself, someone suddenly plopped their hand on my shoulder, making me gasp and jump higher than I usually would.

I whipped my head back and saw a taller girl with brown hair held in a ponytail. She had light brown eyes and had the built of an athlete, strong, lean and tall. Which I found annoying.

 “Hi Cy.” Her slightly high voice greeted as she made a funny face.

Charlie Fernandez. My best friend.

Author's Note

Sorry if there were any grammar problems. Hope you guys enjoy.

Reviews

[Dai Hanshou]

Punctuation problems here and there and some mistakes in capitalization. You might want to proof-read it. Interesting story, but work more on the flow.