My heart was pounding and my blood turned to ice. I had seen a ghastly face and I wasn’t going to deny it. I touched the glass slowly, running my fingers down it. It was cold as snow, even though it was the middle of spring. I paced back and forth, sweating and clenching my fists. I had no idea what was happening. I decided to call my parents. I grabbed the telephone, and dialed the number with shaking hands. “Hi mom, this is Alex.”
           “Hi honey, how are you?” my mother asked.
           “I’m fine Mom,” I answered.
         “Is everything alright at home?” Mom asked. “You sound worried.” I was worried, I was hearing voices and seeing shadows. I started to reply, but suddenly, all I could hear was static on the other end. The phone service had been shut off.
          
Do you believe in spirits or ghosts? Do you believe in the afterlife? If you said no, you are wrong, very wrong. There was a boy named Alex. He never believed in those things either until April 2, 2028. That was the day he and his family moved into the mansion. It was also one the last days of his life. It’s my duty to tell his story. Who am I? That’s a story for later. You have missed a lot, my friend. Let me fill you in.

The mansion in Forks was beautiful. Crystal stairs, glass chandeliers and light bulbs that sparkled like diamonds. He went to explore each room in the mansion. He wanted to pick out his room. First was a game room, an indoor pool, and a movie theater. The mansion was perfect! That night Alex’s father got an emergency call that he and Alex’s mother had to fly to Australia immediately. Alex decided he didn’t want to go. So his only choice was to be left in Forks. Alone. What a mistake.
           Alex  went to bed later that night. He slept well, though his sleep wasn’t very deep. He woke up at the crack of dawn the next morning. He had always been an early bird. After a while he heard a scratching noise, the type of sound of scratching nails against a chalkboard, he ignored it at first, but then it started getting louder and unbearable. He finally succumbed and decide to find out what was making that sound. He narrowed the noise down to the kitchen, the kitchen had a stingy smell come from it as well. He walked into the kitchen when suddenly the entire room went dark. He couldn’t see anything the power must have gone out, but how? It hadn’t been raining as far as he knew and everything was fine about 10 minutes ago. It must have been the circuit.  As he walked a step ahead a sharp pain shot through my foot and it lurched me to the ground. He used all his strength to pull him back up. When he was finally balanced on his feet he walked straight until he touched the edge of the wall. He traced around the corners and finally felt a light switch. He didn’t mean to flick the switch, but as he let go of his grasp on the switch the lights turned on. That means that power hadn’t gone out in the first place. Someone had simply turned off the lights. Alex thought to himself, how could the light switch have turned off when he was nowhere close to the switch. There was one thing he couldn’t take his eyes off, he stared ghastly at it thinking how it had happened. The whole kitchen floor was covered with blood, the blood must have been the horrid smell that he had smelt, but how did he miss the entire pool of blood when he walked into the kitchen? He must have missed it because it wasn’t there before. That’s when he recalled the pain he looked to find any cuts which could have caused the excruciating pain that he was in 30 seconds ago but it was a clean slate and the throbbing pain that he was in had gone as if had never been there. If nothing had happened how did all this blood come here? He turned around to a mirror covered words with blood. Someone with appalling handwriting wrote “Don’t think you are safe yet. Your pain hasn’t even started”.
Now, my friend, you must me a little bit familiar with what is happening now that the flashback has ended, but don’t fret my friend the story isn’t over yet, I wouldn’t leave you on a cliffhanger now, would I?  An eerie sound came from the basement. Alex slowly walked over to the steps that lead to the basement. From the top of the stairs, he looked across the vast darkness. He tried to flip the switch for the lights but instead received a slight shock of electricity. He put his foot in front a placed it on each step of the stairs he took them one by one. Each time he placed the soles of his feet on the leveled stairs it made a shrill of a noise, every step he placed on the gelid steps sent goosebumps up his arms.
As he crept down the stairs, he felt a strong gush of wind hit him hard on his back.  he fell from the stairs and impacted hard on the metal floor, he had never been in the basement before. A sharp pain shot up his knee, he screamed, it felt as if he had fallen on a bed of sharp nails, it was the same pain he had gotten in the kitchen. He didn’t understand how he kept getting hurt but ended up with no scabs. He struggled to find his balance, but he finally stood up. “Ah, at last, you’ve come Alex,” said a voice he couldn't recognize.
          “What do you want from me, and who are you?”  he questioned.
“We are the spirits. We’ve been haunting every resident who has ever moved here. Two thousand years ago my siblings and I used to work here in this mansion as servants since we were five years old. Our mother and father died in car crash, we were all going to be sent to adoption services. My siblings and I knew how bad the adoption facility was so we ran away. One night we stumbled upon the huge mansion. We knew it was wrong to break in, but my siblings and I were starving because we hadn't eaten in days. The owner seemed nice at first and said that he would care for us in our time of need, give us shelter, and food. After a while we saw the real side of Mr. Grant he was a criminal, he made us do illegal things, my siblings and I were poor so we had no other option but to complete his tasks for him. One day a fire spread into the mansion. There was a rumor that the owner had started the fire because he had been caught for his illegal doings. He knew the police would search the mansion for evidence so that's why he started the fire to destroy all evidence, but he fled before it grew. He left us burning alone in the mansion in our time of need. Ever since then he was on a run, we lost track of his whereabouts a couple of decades ago. The mansion was rebuilt 30 years later after the fire. Now, Alex, you may be thinking, “we must be haunting you to get revenge for our owner, but that is far from the truth. Alas after we were dead we were actually buoyant, we were free and that meant we could enjoy all the luxuries of heaven. When we reached the doors of heaven there was a lovely angel guarding it. That was when we were filled with sorrow. The angel said that we were being held back on earth because a small part of us wanted revenge, and that small part was what was not letting us into heaven. There was only one way to get rid of this small revengeful part. The angel said that we had to take the lives of ten residents who move into this mansion. Of course, at first we thought that we could just take the lives two entire families of five people, but it turns out we have to take the life of only one member of each family. That turned into a very hard task and it got harder when people learned the number of death rates in this mansion, this prevented fewer people from moving in. Finally, after many of decades we have accumulated to nine lives, and once we will be done with you, it will finally be ten lives which will allow us to enter the mesmerizing place of heaven.” explained the leader of the voices. 

“Oh! I know how to make this interesting Brock! Let’s turn this into a game. We will have 24 hours to take his life, if we don’t take his life within 24 hours we will let him live and instead take the life of the next resident who moves in, but if we do take his life in the next 24 hours or if he asks us to take his life then we will finally be able to get the alluring luxuries of heaven” Another voice proposed.
“You guys are sick! You guys make life a game! Why would I ever want you to take my life?  Alex snapped.
“Alex you will see, you will come crying back to us like a puppy without a bone, and James I love the idea! So what do you say Alex is it a deal? Even if you do not agree we will take your life, but you can take a chance and see if you can have a hope of survival, which I highly doubt.” the voice that he identified with Brock simpered.
“Deal” Alex murmured.
Now that he thought of it, these ghosts didn't seem that scary, they haven’t done anything, and Alex Vain wasn’t a person who gets scared easily. After a few hours, he had fallen asleep while watching a movie. When he woke up the grandfather clock in the living room read 8:00pm. “Great now I will have to only survive 4 more hours, and then I could just go to bed early at 9pm,” he thought to himself. As got up he looked up at the ceiling and noticed that the chandelier was getting closer and closer to him. It was falling on top of him! At the last second, he leaped swiftly as the glass shards flew everywhere. Many glass shards hit him and he was scraped all over. Even though the spirits had said that they were going to take his life he thought the ghosts were only going to try to scare him, he didn't know that they would actually try to take his life! The only thing worse than getting killed is the fear that you know you are going to get killed. He now knew what they meant.
“Fine, I give up, I am done,” Alex accepted .
“Well, that's not as fun but at least we will now get to go to heaven,” whined James.

A week later there was a for Sale Sign in the Vain’s lawn. The Vains had moved out and were never to be heard of ever again in the town of Forks. Now, my friend if you have been reading this story carefully you may recall that I owe you an explanation of who I am. Now I know I said that I wouldn’t leave you off on a cliffhanger but I really couldn’t help myself. I am the son of Alex Vain.

~Arya Nalavade