Ok I have decided to put this on fanfic. Don't know if I'll continue with it. I'll put a feedback thread up please only post there and I will see if enough people are interested really to motivate me to continue. Please tell me what you think! Sorry for all the mistakes. Prologue. The flames leapt up around us. We were trapped. I held tightly onto my father, sobbing uncontrollably onto his shoulder. He whispered words of comfort into my ear, though neither he nor I believed a word he was saying. The boat was going down, and we were going with it. "Four minutes and five seconds, four minutes and four seconds, four minutes and-" "Celeste Young!" "-three seconds." I finished. The whole class turned to stare at me, including Jack McGrath, the cutest guy in my class. I blushed and fell off my chair, which is not always the coolest thing to do in front of your biggest crush… "Celeste Young stop daydreaming and get back to work!" barked our teacher, Mr. O'Brien. Yeah, right. I continued counting down the minutes until the bell rang, but in my head this time, after recovering quickly from the embarrassment. As you can probably gather, I'm not exactly top of the class, and this kind of thing happens to me on a regular basis. The only thing that has stopped me from ditching school altogether these past few weeks is the memory of what happened last time, the endless threats if my report wasn't glowing, and the fact that tomorrow I would be free as a bird. Well until Janurary, at least when our Christmas holidays end. I looked out enviously at a young girl, playing outside in the snow. Yes, I said it, snow. What a lovely word. My thoughts were interrupted when Mr. O'Brien (our ancient history teacher) decided to make an announcement. "I suppose you've all thought about your history project," he begins, eyeing me with a malicious glint in his stone grey eyes. God, that guy hates me. "I wouldn't like to ruin the surprise or anything but I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you what you're all doing." he adds, with spectacular sarcasm. You see, we have to do a project on basically anything that's happened in Ireland of historical interest over the last fifty years, should be a piece of cake but I'm afraid I might forget it.... After all, who gives homework for Christmas? There were murmurs of "yes, of course Mr. O'Brien," and "Project? Oh no, not yet." and of course, "We have a project?!" was muttered more than once. "I'm already on page five of my project Mr. O'Brien!" Said smarty-pants-suck-up-bossyboots Ash Carroll. "Yes, thats great Ashling. Has anyone else even thought about theirs?" No hands went up. I avoid telling him what I will be "doing". Needless to say, history is a doss... Just then the bell rang. I threw up my page in to the air and ran out the door. Free at last! I would have ran all the way home if the snow hadn't turned to ice and I was afraid I might break my neck. When I got home my mum was waiting at the door with a list of jobs, complaints and remarks about my hair, teeth etc. Typical welcome home. "Celeste how many times have I told you to TURN ON YOUR PHONE I was ringing you and ringing you and then I tried to get out the drive but I couldn't and what happened to your hair? You look like a fricking fireplace! Oh and as soon as you get in make sure to feed Lyra and Kailua." If you're wondering who Lyra and Kailua are they are my rabbits. Yes I know, stupid names right? Well I got them when I was eight, six years ago now, and at the time I thought they were pretty cool names for rabbits. Now I just call them rabbit one and rabbit two, Lyra being one. Mum insists on calling them their real names. If you're also wondering why I looked like a fireplace it's because of my hair. I have red hair that always looks like it's static and won't behave. And "penetrating", or so I'm told, green eyes. Who needs an Irish passport when you've got them, huh? I am an only child and I hate it. When you're an only child you've no-one else to blame when you get in trouble. And that would be very handy for me... I trudged outside with the rabbit food - which was really heavy - and decided to slide on the ice. I started off holding on to the house and then got a bit braver and started to skate in the middle of the patio. I was going a hundred miles an hour when I tripped over something and fell flat face on to the ice. My nose started gushing and so were my knees and hands. But that's not why I was screaming.... ****again please post on feedback thread. EtaK xx****
"Chapter" Two: I looked down, again, trying to convince myself I was not hallucinating. I wasn't. The frozen girl lying awkwardly on the icy ground was no hallucination. I screamed and ran inside. "Mum, Mum, Mum MUM! Where are you?" I shouted. "What is it Celeste? How many times have I-" she stopped when she saw me. "It's nothing!" I replied, though I was nearly screaming with pain. "Mum, there's someone in our garden," "What are you talking about? Of course there isn't." She looked out the window. "See?" "Come here!" I pushed, exasperated. I led her out into the garden. She was still going on about telling lies, blah, blah, blah. I led her to the spot where I had seen her. She was still there, jet-black hair spread out around her face like a halo, face as pale as the snow she was buried in. I heard my mum gasp and run inside the house. She came back out again with the phone. "Hello?" I heard her say. "Ambulance, yes. Yes, it is. Ok." She then proceeded to tell whoever was on the other end of the phone our address. "Right," she said after a while, "The ambulance is on its way." *** A few minutes later the ambulance arrived. They went straight out into the garden and picked the girl up on a stretcher. I could see we were all thinking the same thing. She was probably dead. They brought her back into the ambulance and speeded off in the direction of the hospital, five minutes down the road from us. Mum and I sat at the kitchen table, biting our nails and at a loss to know what to do. Suddenly Mum's phone rang out through the dense silence. Mum must have given the ambulance people her number because it was the hospital. "Hello?" I heard her mumble down the phone. "Yes. Yes, that's right. Really? Now? Okay we're coming over." She calmly replied, a look of bewilderment on her face. "We're going to the hospital Celeste. Get your coat and come on!" she suddenly announced. "What about dad?" I asked, he was bound to come home any minute now and I suppose, I was scared, though I would never admit it, about what I would find out at the hospital. About that ghostly white girl and what might happen to my parents. Having a frozen girl suddenly appear in your back garden doesn't exactly go unnoticed you know... "I'll ring him." Mum huffed back from the hall. "Fine." I huffed back, defeated. Mum mightn't have been able to get out of the drive earlier on but she was now. At soon as we reached the towering gates of St. Mary's Hospital terror seized me. I, Celeste Young, am afraid of nothing, nothing! With the minor exception of hospitals... ***sorry it's so short! I might post more later If I get the chance. Please post what you think on the feedback thread I love hearing what you think!
Ok I have re read it following comments on the feedback thread about the tenses and looking back my usage of them is appalling. You see I wrote the start in notes a year or so ago, then converted the whole story to my laptop, where I have been typing on and off since. I dont have a kaW account on my laptop so the stuff I have on my notes I have been copying and pasting here since, with a lot of editing. I will rewrite the whole thing at some stage but for the moment I'll work with what I have. Thanks
White, endless corridors with the constant smell of bleach. The screeching of the trolley as I was rushed towards whatever lay at the end of this blank, white corridor. The towering burly man leaning over me as I struggled to free myself from whatever was keeping me on this trolley. But I was weak, oh so weak, and fell back down defeated after each fruitless attempt to free myself from this prison. My weak pleads for mummy to come and save me. The needle my pitiful cries were answered with.... The darkness that followed Even though I was only four at the time, the memory still haunts me to this day. The endless white corridor still present in the back of my mind, visited at the mere mention of the word hospital. No. Happy memories are not present there. So when it was time to go in it took a fair amount of bribing, pleading, shouting and threats for me to finally venture inside that foreboding building. The girl from the garden was in a room by herself, machines beeping and screens monitoring her. I had to leave the room, needless to say. When I had the courage to venture in again, I found out her name was Emily, or so the doctors had concluded after discovering a locket around her neck bearing the name. She was unconscious, miraculously otherwise unharmed, and so the conversation turned on to how she got into our garden in the first place. There were a few theories but none of that really mattered at the moment. The guards had been previously contacted, and her parents would be worried to death wondering where she was. No one could obviously ask her anything until she came round, and who knows how long that could take? ***** It turned out it only took a day, which is quite a while to be "asleep" when you think about it, but nothing compared to what might have been. So far, no recently missing children had been reported, or at least none that looked anything like Emily, and no one had contacted the cops in relation to her, though many found it peculiar, so everyone was completely dependent on Emily to tell us. Which was a big dissapointment, because she had lost her memory... ***was in a rush so sorry if it's visible! Will post a longer bit tomorrow, please post feedback I love hearing what you think!***
I went into the Emily's ward with mum, to find her conscious and sitting up in bed, seeming sulky and disorientated. Now was the first time since she lay in our garden, buried in the snow, that I actually could see what she looked like. And I wish I couldn't. Because immediately I was jealous. Emily was very pretty, with long silky hair, black as the night, and striking blue eyes that seemed to see right through you. Even as she sat in the bed, I could see she was about 5'9, and around age fifteen. Her skin was very pale and of course, flawless, without a freckle in sight. "Hi," I mumbled, at a loss to know what to say. "Humph." was all I got back. "Well I'm going to leave you two here while I go talk to that nice man and the doctors for a while." Mum announced, talking to us like we were two unruly five year olds who couldn't be trusted to stay put. But who could blame her I suppose, she deals with those kind of kids every day at work. Sometimes I have to remind her that she left the creche an hour ago. And it would be hard not to realise that the "nice man" is actually a social worker, who has come to talk about Emily, and where she'll be spending the time until her parents find her, and when the hospital lets her out. Which they should have done hours ago, if she had somewhere to go. Knowing Mum, she will probably volunteer us to foster her, and tell Dad later. And knowing Mum, she'll probably succeed. Our family usually fosters a younger child for the summer hols, her good deed of the year, she calls it, so she can sin for the rest of it. So I wouldn't be surprised if we do foster Emily, until her parents come. Needless to say, I wasn't surprised.
The rest of the day passed in a blur. And all too quickly, because time passes very slowly when your sitting in your own bedroom feeling like a stranger in your own house, while the real stranger sits across from you on your bed, watching your every move. "So..." I began, desperate to break the awkward silence, "What age are you?" "Fifteen." sighed Emily after a while, a look in her eyes I couldn't quite place. "Cool. I'm fourteen." I replied, as cheerily as I could. We had had this conversation several times, though we had only met a couple of hours before. It was intriguing to know how Emily could remember her name, age, and just about everything else, but not her parents. That's if she had any. "So what subjects do you like in school?" I asked, thoroughly testing her now. "What's it to you?" she snapped back at me. "No need to be a ***** at least I'm trying to be remotely polite!" I replied coolly back, my temper flaring up. I then exited the room dramatically, angered at this girls refusal to make friends. I didn't like having enemies, I had enough of them as it is. I went to my Dad's poky little office. I absolutely detested the dusty little cuboardhole, but it was the only place with internet access. I took out my battered laptop and turned it on, aiming to check my Facebook page, before I got the chance to do so however, a huge wall of digital sticky notes obscured my view of the screen. They all read the same. History Project!! History Project!! History Project!! Mum. The traitor. So she never wanted to ask Mr. O' Boring about the exams at all. No, instead she wanted to know about homework. Huh. I began deleting the sticky notes one by one, but soon realised it was hopeless. I was going to have to do the stupid project after all. Damn it. ***** It turned out there were a lot of results for "history" then I thought there would be. So then I searched "history project" and still too much work involved going through the 1,873 results. As you can gather, I'm quite lazy. So then I decided to be more specific and go for "accidents in history". Realising that mine was a hopeless case and I was doomed to searching through pages of useless information I just picked a random page and tapped the first thing that came up. Page thirteen. I was printing off the pages, after skimming through the first paragraph on some sunken boat or other and was sitting there happily copy-and-pasting when Emily walked in. And saw the computer. She took one horrified glance at me and at the computer and retreated back out of the room. Maybe I was too hard on her earlier on. She was throughly scared of me now. I copied the link to the web page and collected the printed pieces of paper, not bothered to do any more today. That night the nightmares started. At first it was Emily, lying on the ground, frozen face glaring up at me, then it was the boat on the web page I had brought up that evening, mixed in with images of Emily snapping at me, and Mum getting calls from my various teachers all complaining about my behaviour and "wicked temper". I had never liked school, partly because of the fact I never had many friends, just enemies and those who were, blatantly scared of me. The boys in my class were pretty much in awe, I guess, and I was never the cheerleading type, or a tomboy either. As my mum said, I never fitted in to any of your typical categories. I decided there and then to forget about doing the stupid project on that spooky boat. But I needn't have worried. In the morning everything I had printed off, even the link i had copied and the web page, was gone. ********************************************** hope you liked please feedback! Don't care where. €T@|<
I ran up the stairs to my Dad's study, convinced I had not been dreaming the whole thing up. But I needed proof. And that proof was sitting on the top of my laptop where I had left it yesterday. Nope. Not there. But there was something else in its place, titled : "The Melissa" boat crash, 50th Anniversary mass held in Cork. It was the same page that I had printed off the previous day, but there was one major problem with it. Besides the title, it was a blank page. I hurriedly switched on my battered laptop and typed in the link to the web page. And found it didn't exist. I returned upstairs to my bedroom and flopped down on my bed. I went over the past two days in my mind. So much had changed. And not just the let's-try-a-new-toothpaste change, everything was now strange, and distorted, and overall, just weird. I looked around my small bedroom. It had been the same way for over seven years, still full of crap, still the sickest shade of yellow, still lovely. There was only one window in the room, and it would have been dark as hell if it hadn't been for the huge mirror that hung over my bed. Yes, I know, it's a stupid place to put a gigantic mirror that weighs about six tonnes, but my parents were also stupid, and the screws have rusted in, so it will never come out. The mirror in itself is quite old, Mum got it in a car boot sale when I was four. It's not the kind of mirror that you would do your make up in, the reflection is distorted, and also because of another reason. The shadows. It happens really fast, but it happens all the same. One minute you are admiring your new top in the mirror, the next you're looking at a ghostly boy with flaming red hair and blue eyes. And then, in a heartbeat, he's gone. The Shadow Boy. It's quite spooky. ***** The nightmares came again that night. The same ship, except this time it was coming towards me, trying to crush me, with an army of Shadow Boys on board. It was coming towards me, and I was about to be crushed, when suddenly the picture froze. The whole dream was interrupted and I found myself in a room I recognised as my Dad's study. Emily was there, beckoning urgently to me, telling me to follow her. I did as she said, and found myself suddenly looking at the page I had discovered on my laptop that day. Except it was different. There was a tiny little picture at the bottom scribbled in black ink. I asked Emily what it was but I found the room deserted. I turned the picture this way and that, trying to make it out. I dropped it by accident, and it landed with the picture upside down. Only it wasn't a picture at all. It was writing, and I gasped as I deciphered the words that were, no doubt, written in Emily's untidy scrawl. The three words that jerked me awake. EMiLy wAs HErE
Oh and sorry but I don't write what "chapter" they are, because none of these are chapters so you can put them in if you want idm
Emily's Pov. I tossed and turned in the hard bed, wondering how the hell these people could sleep in them at night. Every night. It blatantly baffled me. Though I didn't sleep anyway, so maybe that was part of the problem. In my mind I went over the days events. I had been dropping hints all the way for Celeste, and she still hadn't asked me one question. Well, since the first day anyway. Maybe I should be a bit more straightforward? After all, I was going to have to tell her at some stage, and I dreaded that moment. Suddenly my arms started tingling. Then my legs, then my whole body. My vision became blurred and I realised what was happening. And groaned. I was about to lose time again. As I knew I would, I found myself back on that damned boat, surrounded by the towering walls of fire that prevented me moving on. I screamed desperately for Karo, but it was stupid, he was already on a lifeboat, believing I was too. I found my father crouched behind the main mast, weeping softly to himself, and in that moment I knew exactly what was coming next, and braced myself for the pain about to come. ***I know its short but I'm posting more, and this bit is important if you are attentive
Celeste's Pov. My eyes fluttered open and that's when I screamed. I looked down at my shaking hands, that were now holding the page that was on my laptop earlier. Only it had changed again. Down at the bottom was the same "picture" that was on the dream one. The same three words. Why couldn't I just have a normal life? I decided to go out and get some fresh air. The keys are always left in the front door, in case of fire, and my parents are too lazy to turn on the alarm every night, so whenever I couldn't sleep, I went outside for a bit. I found the night air always seemed to clear my head. As I was descending the stairs, I was joined by another restless figure. "You too?" I asked Emily, without turning around. "Where you going?" she yawned, avoiding my question. "Outside." I shrugged. "I'll come too." "Suit yourself." *** We both sat shivering on the doorstep, looking at the stars that littered the cloudless night sky. I couldn't stop thinking about that spooky ever-changing page that was now somewhere on my bedroom floor. I tried to make the connection between Emily and it but it made no sense. I eventually decided to break the silence. "Emily," I murmured, "Emily, when were you born?" "1998." she replied, a distant look in her eyes. "Hmm? And what's your favourite colour?" She looked at me strangely, but said nothing about my sudden round of questions. "Green." she decided, after a while. "Ah. And, where were you born?" I stammered, out of ideas now. "Kilkenny. I moved to Cork when I was ten though." "Oh. Cool. Just one last thing," I pressed on, "Tell me, have you ever lost your memory?" She fixed me with a wide smile I was not expecting and gave a little laugh. "No." she giggled girlishly, "Have you?"