1 Prologue: The Avenging Child And Monsters
A child, about 9 years old, dates her paper October 29 and bounces up to turn in her assignment to the 3rd grade teacher. As she sat down she chatted excitedly about her upcoming birthday party, emerald eyes sparkling, to the girl next to her, named Bailey.
Behind them sat a rich politician's daughter, a girl with tight blonde curls and grey eyes, named Ariel. Filled with a suprising amount of entitlement for a 9 year old, Ariel launches up out of her seat and steps between the emerald eyed girl and Bailey.
"Give me an invitation," she demands, reaching for the pile of invites on the emerald eyed girl's desk.
"She can only invite a few people," says Bailey with a worried look on her face and blocks Ariel's progress.
"Well she was going to invite you, right? See, you can't go anyways so I can take your spot." Ariel snarks, causing the emerald eyes to darken.
Just as Ariel attempts to push Bailey out of the way to go the invitations, a shrill noise erupts from the teacher's smart phone.
"Alright, guys! It's time for lunch. Go ahead and put up your stuff and you can finish after recess." says the somewhat naive and kindhearted teacher.
~•~
Not much later, at recess, the emerald eyes still hold a darker than color than usual as she tries to cheer up her friend. Bailey sits with her arms across her chest on the swing set and brown eyes filled with tears. The day of the funeral for Bailey's mother is on the day of of the emerald eyed girl's birthday and the party. Her mother had been hit while on her afternoon walk by a drunken driver going at 85 miles per hour down the sidewalk. It happened on October 27th at approximately 5:40 pm and the suspect was never caught.
Bailey had no time to grieve, being it her father's belief to continue on no matter what, she was sent to school the next day in tears. Within minutes, almost all the elementary students knew what happened and the date of the funeral-- October 30th.
"I'm going to have my birthday party on Halloween this year. And it'll be a sleep over and we'll learn all about weird hall of eves or what-cha-ma-call-ems," says the emerald eyed girl fidgetting and unsure of how to heal Bailey's wounds.
Bailey strains out a smile, tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes. At this time, Ariel chooses to sashay towards the two.
"Gosh why are you crying?" she sneers at Bailey, "Ugh, I'm the one that should be crying. You're just gross. Stay away from me and don't even think about coming to the party."
The emerald eyed girl freezes and with empty darkened eyes stares at Ariel.
"You're not invited." says the child.
Ariel stops and something flickers in her eyes.
Fear? Anger? Who cares. A broth of hate is brewing in the child's heart.
"Huh? Oh your talking to Bailey right?," says Ariel, a look of confusion on her face.
"No. Get away from us."
"What? No, I'm going to your stupid sleep over no matter what." Ariel says, anger rising.
The teacher sounds the whistle, signalling the end of recess.
Ariel stomps off while conjuring tears in her eyes.
~•~
The teacher calls out the emerald eyed girl and Ariel to the hallway.
"I've called your mom so you can have Ariel over, along with everyone else you were going to invite," the teacher says, smiling as if all issues have been resolved.
Emerald eyes opens her mouth to speak, but Ariel's panicked look stops her. Following Ariel's gaze to the front doors, where the child sees her mother and Ariel's politician mother coming inside and chatting like old friends. However, it isnt the appearance of Ariel's mother that seems to have frightened her but the man following in behind them, the current boyfriend of Ariel's mother.
"Sure, you can come to the party," says the child loudly, leans closer to Ariel and whispers, "Why does he scare you?"
Ariel's eyes fill with tears.
The teacher believes them to be of joy and flounces to the entering parents to tell them the good news.
"Pain," Ariel says, the reply almost being drowned out by the end-of-the-day bell.
Hearing this, the child's eyes go black.
~•~
The child crawls out of bed and turns to face her dresser searching for a hair brushes. Upon finding the brush, her eyes meet her reflection's, showing her a deep amethyst color. The child drops the brush in shock.
"MOM," shouts the child as she runs down the stairs.
"What is it, Sarah? You're quite full of energy today," says the mother with a laugh as she makes waffles.
"What's today's date?" Sarah asks breathlessly.
"The 27th, why?"
The mother hands Sarah a plate of food.
"Can I hang out at Bailey's after school today?" Sarah says, scarfing down the food as quickly as possible.
"Yeah, sure. I'll call Rose up and tell her you'll be over. Do you need more time to work on the project together?"
"Uh, yeah. I was wondering if you had like a baby monitor thing that we could use so we wouldn't have to get together to work on it tomorrow. Ya know, like a weird walkie talking with video?"
The mother burst out laughing.
"Sure, I have one from when you were a baby. You can use that one."
The mother leaves for a moment and returns with a box.
"Here you are. You know, though, you have a smart phone that you could call each other with." she says, laughing again.
Sarah laughs too, and takes the box anyways.
"Alright, well have a good time at school and be back from Bailey's by 5."
Panick shot through Sarah.
"Can I please stay the until 6? I just wanna play a bit after we work on our project."
The mother's eyes narrowed.
"Alright but no later. And brush your hair."
Sarah rushed upstairs to finish getting ready for school and hurried out to the bus stop.
~•~
"Ariel! Here take this." Sarah says, stopping Ariel in the hallway on the way to lunch and shoves the baby monitor into Ariel's hands, "Give the one for the mom to your mom and set up the other one in your room. If anything happens yell REALLY loud and then your mom will help you. I'm giving this to you since were gonna be working on a project for science after we finish the one we have now. I was thinking we could do a science experiment on sleep. What do you think?"
"Oh, OK." Ariel says, looking very confused.
"Make sure you have it set up before you go to sleep tonight. Oh and make sure its the little red light is on," Sarah says, waving goodbye and going to sit next to Bailey for lunch.
~•~
Sarah sits at the table in the Basil's kitchen, chatting with Bailey about cookies. Bailey's mother passes by looking for her tennis shoes.
"Oh, Mrs.Basil, do you want to play a board game with us? I still have 30 minutes before I have to go home." Sarah says happily with sparks in her eyes.
"Well, I was about to go on a walk. Maybe you two would like to join me?" says Mrs. Basil.
"Oh no!" Sarah gasps, "You can't. I heard there's been ghosts coming out for the night! You have to stay in until Halloween when we scare them all away!!"
"Pffft, well, alright then, I suppose I can play a game with you tonight," says Mrs. Basil sitting here shoes down.
~•~
Sarah's mother stands in the kitchen alone, drinking a cup of coffee.
"Her eyes were purple this morning. I wonder what fate she was trying to change today." says Sarah's mother with a heavy heart.
~•~
Monsters. Sarah dreamed of monsters. She refused to look in the mirror today. Monsters can't be real. Even if they are, Sarah can't change what happened in her dream this time. Not like the last time.
Last time, she managed to stop the death of Bailey's mother and prevent the attack on Ariel by that man. Turns out there was a drunken man that was driving crazily at about 85 miles per hour yesterday. Luckily no one was hurt. Ariel's mother, Mrs.Russ, stopped her drunken boyfriend, now her ex from touching her daughter since she could hear her daughter very clearly for some reason. The man, Lark, was arrested both for the drunken driving and well, the attempt. Due to Ariel's position as a well respected politician, Lark will be in jail for a long time.
Sarah's mother, Mrs. Stone, stepped into Sarah's room.
"Hey, is there anything you need to do today?" she asks.
Sarah thinks back on her dream of the monstersa and shudders.
"Nope!" Sarah says, "Why?"
"No reason, do you want to go to the store with me?"
"Yeah!"
~•~
Sarah sits in the back seat of her mother's car on the way back from the grocery store.
They stop at a red light that seems to be taking too long. Sarah suddenly remembers her dream and the light turns green.
"MOM WAIT!" Sarah shouts.
Ten seconds pass.
"What is it?" says Mrs. Stone as she looks back at Sarah with a worried look.
The earth began to shake and the intersection in front of them begins to crack.
With a loud crunching noise of of rocks being pulverized, a giant squid-like creature pulls itself upwards.
"Monster." Sarah whispered.
