[center][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/200505/ebb90e378f4c5638f80733cb0b6b8202.png[/img][/center]
[right][hr][color=gray][b] 218 Turner Street[/b]
Bedroom, June 23rd 2010.
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCZ2Dp6Is9M]Background Music[/url]
[/color][hr][/right] [indent]

[center]2010: A Prologue[/center] 

[color=8A1515] ”Fuck fuck fuck”[/color] the curses came as hushed hisses from the teenage girl’s mouth. Her room was full of vintage posters; Universal Monsters, classic b-horror movies, and the 80’s classic. A worn poster of John Carpenter’s [i]The Thing[/i] hung behind her doorframe. Sarah Morgan was always [i]different[/i] from most of the girls in her 11th-grade class. She’d fallen in love with horror at a young age, devouring the classics with her dad until Will had been born. As soon as he’d been able to talk, Sarah had brought him along on her adventures, already brainwashing his little child-brain with the real good [i]shit[/i]. She could hear music buzzing from her headphones on her dresser, as her iPod shuffle continued to play the [i]Yeah Yeah Yeahs[/i] in a rasp buzz, bringing her back to what she needed to do. 

A black Moleskine journal, decorated in all sorts of vinyl stickers with skulls, blood, and iconography best suited for a Misfits album decked the cover. The pages were filled with scribbles, tons of paranoid writings from a girl who felt [i]trapped.[/i] She had to get out of the house, get out of town. Just get the literal [i]fuck[/i] away from here. She threw on the thick jacket that Bobby Warren had picked up at a Hot Topic in Bangor last fall. He’d begged her to go to prom with him, and she’d acquiesced. She dug his shitty metal band, even if he couldn’t sing or scream. He was [i]fun.[/i] 

Summer was supposed to be fun. But ever since she’d tried walking out of town three weeks ago, making it out of the city limits before she began feeling sick and passing out, only to wake up in the middle of Cider Park, everything in her life had come crashing down. She silently opened her bedroom door, a flash of light filling the hallway. Will’s room was open all the way, and she could see her baby brother asleep in his bed. She loved him, deeply and unconditionally, because ever since her mother and father brought him home from the hospital seven Octobers ago, she’d decided that while the child was born from her parents, he belonged to her. She’d taken to mothering the baby as young girls did with their dolls, and her parents found it more cute than annoying. The connection had stuck, and while he could be a brat some days, she let her baby brother more into her life than she’d let anyone else. 

She couldn’t risk creeping down the wooden stairs of the house and instead opened the second-story window out onto the black tile roof of the house, carefully tip-toeing her way down the ledge until she could jump safely into the hedges. She dropped, falling into a brush of small brambles and leaves, scratching at her hands and her legs. Nothing was broken as she pulled herself out of the brush, but she’d regretted not at least [i]attempting[/i] to sneak out the kitchen door. She opened her notebook and looked over what she’d written the day before: [i]The Library.[/i] 

She couldn’t waste any more time. She was terrified, her heart fluttering in her chest. But she didn’t want to die like the others. [/indent] 

[center] * * * * [/center] 

[center] [img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/200505/4dc96afd940d926811381f2235b82a9d.png[/img][/center] 
[right][hr][color=gray][b] 218 Turner Street[/b]
Outside, May 28th 2020.
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TBj1DveSng]Background Music[/url]
[/color][hr][/right] [indent]

He always had headphones over his ears. Of course, he did. It blocked out the bullshit. His mom and dad arguing, his mom yelling about how he and his dad never came to church with her, the constant yelling from Jeff Warren that he was a [i]fucking freak[/i] and how he’d kick his ass if he didn’t get out of the way in the hallway. There was too much bullshit right now to block out. 

It didn’t help that these were the worst months when mom and dad were at their most acidic with each other. No one wanted to think about Sarah right now, especially when they’d reached a milestone in their lives: 10 years without killing each other or themselves after she’d died. He wasn’t [i]angry.[/i] His therapist said that it was normal feeling anger after a loss. That was totally fine. But over the years after Sarah, he only felt empty. Like someone had taken a knife and carved an important piece of his body and just removed it, leaving a gaping hole where it once was. 

He was walking to the old metal mailbox at the end of their driveway. The mailbox had seen far better days, and the numbers 218 were heavily faded. Any projects that needed to be done were rarely done, especially around the summer. He opened the metal flap downwards and reached in to find several letters. Bills, bills, spam, and...[i]there it was[/i] he thought, the solitary good thing to look forward to in the summer. [i]Bangor Bloodfest,[/i] the premier horror convention in Maine had been something he’d saved up for, with birthdays and Christmases all going to funding his trip.  

[i]We’re sorry to confirm…[/i] 

First Uncle John and Aunt Patty couldn’t have him escape this bullshit war between his parents. And [i]now[/i] the one thing he’d been excited for, the one thing he’d spent the past year prepping for was canceled? [i]Why?[/i] He felt the tinges of emotion spark through the tips of his fingers, as his left hand curled into a ball. He wanted to punch something, [i]anything[/i] but instead realized that it was worthless. [color=dodgerblue]“Just...kill me now…”[/color] he muttered, walked back to the front door. Screams could be heard inside; so he did what he knew best. He opened the door, quickly slung the papers onto the coffee table in the living room, and quickly dashed out to the garage. He felt anger rising up in his chest as he pulled the old Schwinn bike up, having leaned against the wall for the past month. Being quarantined with his family had been such a hellish, trying time. And now he'd be stuck around them all summer. 

Resentment spurred him forward, as he pedaled towards the center of town, before suddenly swerving to the right, heading towards Prescott Mill Bridge, the only way to exit town if you didn't own a boat, good hiking boots or a helicopter. He pedaled. He wanted to get out of this damn place, and just be somewhere [i]different.[/i] He'd spent the past nine summers insulated from the outside world, cut off from others because [i]why try[/i] when the people you love can just end their lives for no reason. He continued on like this for a solid ten minutes, rounding old streets, passing Courtland Street (but staying off the main road. This wasn't time to get jumped) and finally saw the old concrete and metal bridge in the distance. Even if it was just for an hour. Even if he just rode his bike in the woods. Anything would be better than hanging around the grocery store staring at the handful of cars that drove up the streets. 

As the bike's tires hit the metal of the bridge, something felt [i]off.[/i] A slight pain, like a hair-thin needle being slowly inched into the back of his neck, began acting up. It was as if his primordial lizard brain, its entire function based around keeping him alive, was awake and screaming: [i]"GO BACK GO BACK IT'S DANGEROUS[/i]. But Will was a teenager, and as any good teenager does, he pressed forward. 

The pain began to get worse. That single needle grew in size. Pain throbbed. He pushed forward. He began to feel lightheaded, he had to stop the bike and began to slowly walk it down the bridge now. Further and further. Keep moving. Pain. His vision began to blur. [i]Further and further.[/i]

The world went black, and as his consciousness faded, he felt his body slip and begin to fall over the railing of the bridge.[color=dodgerblue]This is it.[/color] He thought. [color=dodgerblue]I'm dead.[/color] 

[center]***[/center] 

Birds were chirping, chittering and singing, and Will felt warmth crest over his face. Sunlight. There had been no splash, no infinite darkness into death. He was not in the water but instead laying on the soft grass. He opened his eyes to find himself in thick trees. Clouds were blotting the sky like a Rorschach test, and in the distance, Will could hear the sound of children. He pushed himself upwards, wild-eyed. [i]What had happened?[/i] 

He checked his limbs, his clothes. There was nothing wrong with any of it. It was as if he'd taken his bike out for a quiet ride in the woods and taken a nap. But where was he? His Schwinn was discarded nearby on the grass as well; with no apparent damage to the frame, chain or tires. Had he imagined all of it? He pulled his bike upwards, pushing it through the grass, trying to catch a lay of the land. Then he saw it, and he knew exactly where he was: 

[center][color=gray][b]Forever in our Hearts[/b]
Jamie Halsey
Bradley Durrel 
Ginnie Easterwood 
Kylie Bradford 
Sarah Morgan
Owen Grady
Penny Johnson 
Victoria Greenwood
Andy Redford
Karen Pine [/color]
[/center] 

Under the cross inscription was a date: July 15, 2010. This is where Sarah and the others had died. 

His stomach sank, and now he began to feel a different kind of dizzy to that on the bridge. Bile and acid seemed to rise in his chest. He wanted to vomit. He clenched his fist, breathed deep through his nose, and kept pulling the bike away from the memorial. [i]Why here?[/i] If there was one place on this godforsaken planet he [i]never[/i] wanted to be, it was at Cider Park, especially not at the little memorial that his mom's fucking church had decided to erect. There was something wrong about all of this. He needed to think. Somewhere quiet, where kids his age would never go during the start of their vacation: The Library.  

He mounted the bike, pedaling with gusto, the wind pushing through his hair for the first time in a while. The Library was only four blocks from his house, but it was nestled atop a hill, which of course meant walking the bike up. Going down was always good; you could get excellent speed from the top. So he pedaled, his heart picking up pace with each forceful push from his legs against the pedals, rolling past the quiet roads of the town. 

Summer had come to Everbrook, and with the populace finally free of any more quarantining, life was beginning to resurface in the town. Somewhere in the deepest blackness of the town, hidden away from the world and yet so easily ready to manipulate it, something else was waking up. Something very old and very hungry. The time was coming soon, and new sacrifices had to be made. They were already chosen, though none quiet knew it just yet. 

It would all begin at the library. Fate would bring them all there together. [/indent]