Chapter 1

Lucas was sitting in his mom's old car. He has been sitting there for the past three hours and he thought he was about to go insane. He had listened to all his favorite songs three times and he also tried to sleep but that wouldn't work. "Mom! When are we going to arrive?" Lucas asked.

It wasn't easy for his mother either. She has been driving through all this chaos and this was Lucas' fifth time asking when they would arrive. "Soon honey, don't worry." The mother said. Lucas sighed. Every time he had asked this question during the ride the answer was the same. Lucas was starting to wonder if mom even knew the way there.

Lucas was an introverted fifteen-year-old boy who had a little nine-year-old sister, Molly, a mother named Jane and father that was nowhere to be seen in the picture. The reason why Lucas was in that car in the warm summer weather was because he was moving to a city named Loody.

When Jane found out that Lucas' father was cheating, she though it would be better for all of them to move to a new start. That's what Jane and Molly thought. Lucas on the other hand didn't like the idea. He thought that moving would just bring more stress in the situation and he had never heard of Loody city.

Lucas was usually hated being the realist but sometimes he needed to. The thought of Lucas being a realist almost sounded funny in Lucas' head. Lucas has always been the quiet, nerdy boy and up until sixth grade he believed in ghosts, he still does but he learned to shut his mouth about it, or the school bullies would target him even more. After all, Lucas was an easy target for any kind of bully. He did not have many friends, if any at all, he always drew or read something in the free periods, he was an outsider and loved gaming and to top it all up he also had spaghetti arms. Sometimes when he and Molly had a fight, she could beat him up (but that did not happen often).

As Lucas was looking out from the window, and straight up praying for good internet connection in their new house, he saw a sign. The sign read "Welcome to (B)Loody city" the 'B' being spray painted on the sign with red paint. The paint was slightly dripping, and it really looked like the 'B' was made of real blood (but the shining of the spray paint gave it up a little).

Suddenly a thick fog came out of nowhere as they entered the city. "Oh my, I can't see anything." Jane exclaimed. Lucas' eyes widen a bit. He had played many horror games where your character visits an old village that is haunted. But that was only in games and horror movies, could not be reality. After around five minutes of Molly screaming about how many friends, she would get in the new school they finally arrived at their new home.

The house was beat up, old and the painting was very rusty. While Lucas was terrified because the house looked like something straight out from a horror movie Jane was also terrified but not because of any ghosts but more because of all the work which needed to be done. Jane took a deep breath and released it. "Well, we are finally here." She said and started bringing packages out from the car. "Weee!!" Molly shouted and started running around in the garden. "Lucas! Come help me over here!" Jane said from the car.

Lucas was still standing frozen in the car, staring at the house. He didn't know if he should be excited or terrified. Sure, horror games were his favorite, but this was real life. If he died, he couldn't respawn. "Lucas!" His mother said once more, this time snapping Lucas out from his thoughts. "Coming!" He said and started helping his mother.

After twenty minutes all the packages were where they needed to be unless Molly, Jane and Lucas' packages. The house has much better quality than it had on the outside. There were two bathrooms, one downstairs and one upstairs. All three bedrooms were upstairs. "Lucas, can you take your stuff upstairs honey? Your room is the last one to the left." Jane said and Lucas did as he was told to. When Lucas walked up the stairs, he noticed that it was very dark.

As he tried to find the light switch, he noticed something moving towards him. It was slow but as soon Lucas noticed it, it charged towards him. As Lucas gave out a small scream and put his hands up in a defensive position, nothing happened. Lucas opened his eyes and the monster was nowhere to be seen. Lucas turned around but the monster was gone. "Lucas! Stop screaming, the neighbors will hear you." Jane shouted from downstairs. 'Geez, thank you mom for being so concerned about me.' Lucas thought sarcastically.

His heart was still racing. Lucas found the light switch and slowly walked towards the last door in the hallway, to the left. As he slowly opened the door, cold wind hit him in the face. Chills ran up his spine and he readied himself for another attack, but he was surprised that nothing came. His room was quite nice too, it had a big window to the left (the reason for the cold wind was that the window was open) and a bed which was against the right wall.

Next to the big square window was an old wardrobe. The window was bigger than a normal sized window and the sunlight coming in from it lighted up the whole room. Lucas closed the window and thereafter sat down on the bed and looked at the ceiling. He thought of the monster he saw before. It was made of black smoke and it was almost half a meter taller than Lucas.

Lucas was an average 168-centimeter-tall boy, he wasn't short, so it was really terrifying how tall that creature was. The creature didn't have any kind of face, just plain black smoke. Lucas was pretty sure he saw horns on the thing too, but he wasn't sure.

After staring at the ceiling for good twenty minutes he finally realized that he was supposed to unpack. 'Shit, mom will kill me.' He thought and quickly went to the packages he left in front of the door. In there was his computer and some clothes. Lucas didn't own much but that's because he doesn't want to own many things. He just thought it would be a pain to move around too many things, so he made sure to buy only the things he really needed.

He placed the computer on his bed and went to place his clothes in the old wardrobe. Lucas didn't own much clothing, a few hoodies for the winter, three t-shirts for the summer and the rest was jeans, two pair of sweatpants and three shorts (and of course underwear). As he opened the closet, he saw a notebook laying in the wardrobe. The notebook was old and dirty. On the cover was written: 'Welcome to (B)Loody city! Handbook.' The exact text that was written on the sign Lucas saw when they arrived (without the handbook thing), but it was written with red paint (or Lucas hoped it was paint). He slided his hand on the rough surface of the book's cover.

Lucas looked around to be sure that Molly wasn't peeking from his door and then he opened the book. On the first page was a titled: 'Shadow Reapers' and there were small drawings of the so-called Shadow Reapers. They looked exactly like the monster who attacked Lucas earlier.

"1st Experiment: Shadow Reapers" He read. "The Shadow Reapers are very violent creatures; they attack as soon as they see a person. Their weakness is any sort of light (can be flashlight, some kind of lamp, daily sunlight etc.) so a person is 100% safe in daytime. Shadow Reapers usually don't haunt at daytime but they will still be in dark places such as, caves, dark rooms or houses where there hasn't been many humans in a while where they will charge at you (without harming you most of the times) and just scare you or give you a few scratches." That did sound very much like the monster that attacked Lucas. He continued reading. "But if you are so unlucky to step a foot in their nest, they will kill you mercilessly (nest is where they feed and that's where their queen lives. The Shadow Reapers are kinda like bees). The Shadow Reapers are made out of thick, black smoke which allows them to go through walls and blend in the shadows." There was a note next to all the text about the Shadow Reapers that said:

"Level of danger: 2/5 since they are really easy to get rid of as long as you have any sort of light but if in groups and at night then the creatures can get up to 3,9/5 danger.

Age of death: The Shadow Reapers are a creation of my own, they were never humans/alive.

Hunting time: Night.

Summoning: I haven't figured out a way to summon them but there isn't a need to since they will come at you wherever you are (unless in the daytime).

Weakness: Light/the sun." Lucas finished reading and focused at the small drawings again, giving them a bit more attention. There were multiple images of those Shadow Reapers.

Picture one here:

"Lucas!" Lucas immediately turned around to see his little sister in the doorstep. "Lucas! Let's go meet the neighbors." Molly said. Lucas grabbed the book in one hand since the book didn't stand out much and he thought that it wouldn't be a problem if he took it with him and then he started walking downstairs. To be honest, Lucas didn't really want to meet anyone, but he had to. He would rather play on his computer than meet some people he would never need in his life. Lucas started walking down the stairs and he soon was outside he saw her. Of course, Lucas didn't know that the neighbor's kid would be such a big role in his life. In fact, the first time he saw her he didn't think anything of her. Just another kid I need to spend time with. He thought.

"Lucas, meet Ashlyn." Jane said and pulled Lucas a bit more forward. Ashlyn seemed to be as old as Lucas. She had ripped jeans on, and a red shirt wrapped around her waist. She had a white t-shirt and had black, thick hair. Ashlyn also had very dark eyes. She had that kind of 'bad girl' energy coming from her and she looked more masculine than Lucas. Lucas even felt a bit intimidated by her. No, with his spaghetti arms that girl could kick his ass with ease. "H-hi…" Lucas mumbled. "Ashlyn is slightly younger than you, but I still think you will get along." Jane smiled at Ashlyn's mother. Ashlyn's mother on the other hand looked far nicer than Ashlyn herself. "Why don't you kids go get to know each other? Ashlyn, go show Lucas your room." Ashlyn's mom suggested. Ashlyn rolled her eyes and started walking towards her house which was right next to Lucas'. Her house wasn't as beat up and it actually looked pretty nice. As Lucas silently followed, he started wondering if he even was meant to follow along or if Ashlyn just wanted to leave.

They both walked in silence. They didn't say a word even when Ashlyn opened the door to the house, and when they went inside. Not even when they went up the stairs and up to Ashlyn's room.

Ashlyn's room was darker than Lucas'. The walls weren't white but gray and everything else was black. Black curtains, black bed, black wardrobe, black desk, just everything. There was a red guitar besides the bed. On the walls were posters of different rock bands. Ashlyn sat down on her bed and looked at Lucas with a look that straight up said: "I don't like you."

"S-so…" Lucas sat down on the chair by her desk. "I can see you like black…" No response.

"U-um, do you talk…??" Lucas asked. Was this girl deaf or something? Ashlyn rolled her eyes.

"Yes. Yes, I do talk." She said in a tired voice, like she was already tired from Lucas' presents. That fact annoyed Lucas. He was the one who was being ignored and dragged out from his room to meet her, why was she the victim?

"Okay then… Do you wanna do something…? Like play a game?" Another ignore from Ashlyn.

"Look, if you can talk then please stop ignoring me!!" Lucas raised his voice slightly and regretted it quickly after when he saw the scary expression on Ashlyn's face.

"Huh?" She said in a dark voice which was enough to make Lucas run out from that house. "Listen kid, I am not interested in playing your stupid games. If you have anything that will entertain me than go ahead, try to impress me, but if you don't then shut the fuck up." Ashlyn said with a cold voice. Lucas was scared and kind of angry at the same time. This chic, who was younger than Lucas, had just showed him attitude.

"W-well I think I do have something to entertain you." Lucas showed Ashlyn the book he found in his closet.

"What the… Where did you get that from?" Ashlyn grabbed the book out of Lucas' hands.

"Hey! It's mine!" Lucas tried grabbing after it, but Ashlyn wouldn't let him get the book.

"Answer my question!" Ashlyn half yelled.

"I-in my closet. It was just in my closet." Lucas answered and calmed down a bit.

"Whoa…" Ashlyn started to look through the book.

"Do you believe any of this?" Lucas asked and Ashlyn gave him a weird look

"Of course, I do. Everybody does." Ashlyn handed the book back.

"What? How come everybody does?" Lucas asked. He was clutching the book to his chest, even though Ashlyn only took the book for less than a minute, Lucas felt the need to protect the book.

"This is just common knowledge in our town. These things are all over the place!" Ashlyn said and sighed.

"So, you're telling me, these things exist. And nobody is doing anything to stop it?!" Lucas yelled. The fear was rushing through his veins, his heart was beating fast. This was crazy.

"We can't. People have tried talking about it before but if you try to tell a person who doesn't know your lips will be stitched together by The Sewer. And if you try to leave and then tell people your memory will be erased. And not just about the town, but everything. Everything will be erased. Your family, everything you went through, even your name will be erased from your memory!" Ashlyn laid down on her bed with her arms spread out.

"That's… horrible." Lucas didn't even know if he was talking about the fact that his memories could be erased or the fact that his mouth could be stitched shut!

"Yeah. This place we live in has another name too, y'know," Ashlyn sat up. "we also call it hell. Welcome." Ashlyn then gave Lucas a sadistic smile. The smile wasn't creepy like a big clown smile but more like… it had no hope. The smile itself was enough to make Lucas depressed, forget the fact that he practically couldn't get out from this town!

"W-What can we do?" Lucas asked with a trembling voice. Ashlyn looked down at the ground, then gave out a chuckle.

"Survive."