September 17, 2016

I’m Lily, I’m seventeen and I have to tell you that monsters do exist. I’m rushing ahead of myself, let me start from the beginning…

It was the end of summer and almost time for school, I stood alone in the dark night, cold tendrils of mist were winding through the grass, like snakes of the dead. “Lily!” My mum shouts. “You’ve been out long enough, come inside.” I huff and trudge inside, as I grab the door handle the wind picks up and tugs at my scarlet locks. I hear my brother walk up to the door and I quickly yank the door open and walk inside.

“What took you so long?” My brother sneers, as if he’s never been late.

“It didn’t take me as long as it normally takes you to walk up the steps.” I snap. I push my brother aside and start towards the stairs. Suddenly, a strong gust of wind slams into the door and knocks it open.  Wind streams through the doorway, I raise my hand and, as if that was the cue, the wind stops and a shriek fills the air. I covered my ears but the shriek echoed around my head and rattled my bones. I stumbled down the stairs and tried to close the door… it wouldn’t budge. I started crying, screaming, laughing, I couldn’t control myself, the emotions swept through me and battered my body, soon I lost consciousness. Hours passed, or so I was told, until I woke up, my head pounding like a steam engine. My mum was sitting next to me looking perturbed. “Water.” I croak. She rushes off, then the memories start washing over me, the wind opening the door, the shriek filling the air, my emotions taking over, the pleasant nothingness stealing my consciousness.

My mum comes back holding a glass of water, “I’ll be downstairs.” She says trying to keep the worry from her voice, as she walks out of the room. I sit up and moan, it feels as if someone shattered my skull with a rock, I chug the water and look at my clock, 7 o’clock. Out for seven and a half hours! I think with mock cheer, my headache is gone so I climb out of bed and open my windows, look cautiously out onto the dew soaked yard. What did that shriek come from? I wonder as I tug my clothes on. I finish getting dressed and race down stairs.

I yell, “I’m going--”

“You’re going nowhere until you eat, missy.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“To bad.”

“Can I have something to eat when I’m outside?”

“Fine.”

She took out some whipped cream, strawberries, and a pancake and sets them on the table. “Will this do?” she asks. I nod, eager to get outside, she puts the whipped cream on the pancake and delicately puts the strawberries on the whipped cream. She rolls it up and hands it to me, “Eat all of it.” She says, as she watches me walk out the door. I munch on the roll as I wander to the trail my brother and I made earlier this month. Come to think of it, we saw some pretty weird stuff then too…

We were armed with scissors as we cut our way to the trail we found that leads down the cliff and to the beach. I’m behind my brother doing all the fine work when my brother suddenly stops. Being as I’m not paying attention. I walk into him and he lurches backwards to stay away from whatever is in the path. I peer around him and gasp, a piece of cloth is laying on the ground. I know, you’re probably thinking that we are scaredy cats but it wasn’t that the cloth was scary. It was the fact that it was moving on its own, nothing was attached to it and the wind was absent. Unanticipatedly, the cloth turned around and it looked at us. It’s head was a doll head with red pigtails and big black eyes. My brother pick up a big stick and smashed it, then he took the cloth and cut it into shreds. We went on our way, but we were a little more cautious.

    If that thing had to do with the shriek last night, I was going to find out. I walk down the path and come to the cliff, I peer down and see the beach. Looks peaceful from here, I observe, I begin down the cliff carefully watching the side as I finish the roll. Since I’m about one meter off the ground I jump, I land on the soft sand below and look around. Nothing suspicious, yet. I think, I wander over to the “shelf” in the rock and put my shoes in the cliff. I roll my pants up and set off through to water to get to the “secret” beach. There’s really just a cliff in the way so you have to go through the water. I round the corner and look at the other beach, nothing there either. I get over to the dry sand when I see a weird mound in the sand, I grab a stick and stab it into the mound. It hits something soft, I hear a splashing behind me and look over to see my brother walking through the water with a hand shovel. “Can I have the shovel please?” I ask pointing at the mound. He nods and hands me the shovel. I grab the shovel and set to work digging the mound. A half an hour later I get up and look at what I uncovered. I gasp as I realize that it’s a woman with long whitish red hair and a shredded black dress. She was as pale as snow, and she had big, black eyes that gleamed in the soft light reflecting off the tall white cliffs. My brother walks over and his eyes open wide with shock. “Cover her back up.” He says in a hoarse voice. I nod and set back to work, flinging sand back into the pit. I finish a little while later when my brother walks back carrying a handful of flowers, I hadn't realized that he was gone. He walk over and placed the flowers on the grave. I stand up and sweep the sand off my knees and walk over to the small tunnel leading to another beach. “Come on, let’s go to Sun Beam.” I say softly, Sun Beam was what we named the next beach because when the sun was out, like it was today, the cliff ledge was full of holes and the sun would shine through them. I crawl through the tunnel and drop down onto the sand on the other side and my brother lands beside me. He wanders over to a lower ledge and sits down, I watch him as he trails circles in the sand. Cool ocean water washes over my feet, I bury my toes into the sand and find a shell. I reach down to pick it up when a low moaning sound echos through the tunnel. My brother jerks his head up and looks to the tunnel, red water starts pouring out.. I shriek and scramble away from the tunnel. The water starts spreading through the iridescent sand, staining it, as if trying to swallow all the beauty. My brother jumps up on top of the ledge and tugs me up beside him. A wall of sand juts up between the ocean and the beach, making the bloody water rise higher and higher. “Climb!” My brother shouts in terror. I jump and reach the first hand hold and scramble the the ledge with the holes. My brother clambers up beside me. We race along the edge of the cliff to the other beach, the sand above the grave looks disturbed. Suddenly, the sand flies up in the air, uncovering the woman. I see her, with all her dead beauty, she rises up out of the ground and moans a low, blood curdling moan of mourning. I gasp and my brother pulls me away from the edge of the cliff. We run, tripping over branches, the grass tugs at our feet making us stumble. We get to the shed with the tools and hide inside. My brother turns on the light and grabs me, shoving me outside the shed telling me to run towards the house. I run, as I glance back, I see my brother surrounded by the cloth dolls. All of the dolls are holding knives, they knock my brother over and start stabbing him. He shrieks, I run to the house, before I get there she’s there, every inch of her cold skin glowing with the the light of death. She looks at me with dead black eyes, she breaths in and I hear a rattling. Whizzing through the air a knife suddenly shoots into view and slices through the woman. She falls down, and as if a million years had passed, she starts deteriorating until she is only a skeleton, then, I realized that I survived a banshee attack. The noises behind me stop, I turn around expecting the dolls to be floating towards me ready to kill. Instead, I see my brother laying on the ground and the cloths that were with the dolls fade to white and heal my brother. He jumps up and I gasp and run over to him sobbing, he pats my back.

“I will never be mean to you again.” He vows. He looks around, “Where did that woman go?” He asks. I turn around, a little pool of blood lies on the ground where the body was. I walk over to the blood and look around, a small trail of blood leads away. Streaming down the hill into the grass.

“Come on!” I shout, as I run down the hill, my brother following me. We run through the grass, following the blood. Suddenly I step on the edge of the cliff and the ground gives away. I shriek as fall through the air onto the ground below.

“Lily!” My brother shouts and races down the trail down to the bottom of the cliff. I attempt to sit up and groan, I must have landed on some sticks. I stand up and look around, they aren’t sticks, they’re bones. Thousands of bones, piled up on the coast, I see my brother picking his way across the beach.

“Lily!” A voice shouts. I look to the top of the cliff and see my boyfriend, Wren. I wave and he jumps down, he lands on the bones and grimaces as they crunch beneath his feet. “What are you doing down here, and what’s with all the bones?” He asks.

“I fell off the edge of the cliff and landed here. We were following a trail of blood that came from a banshee.” I say, looking around.

Wren groans and shakes his head, “ Did you attack the banshee? If you did, you probably just ticked it off and now it is going to kill your entire family.”

“Are you joking?” I say, my voice squeaky with fear. I’ve heard stories about banshees but I didn’t think any of it was real. I wandered down the beach to the water and stop, the water is red. Blobs of pink foam float up to the shore. Is this blood? Where is the blood coming from? I wonder, staring down the beach. I look at the cave at the far end and see blood bubble up from the surface of the water. “Over there!” I shout, racing down the beach to the cave, careful to stay out of the water. My brother and Wren run over to me and look at the cave, a small spray of blood is squirting out of the water.

“What the heck…” Wren murmurs, fear choking his words. Suddenly, a loud rumble fills the air, bubbles start popping all over the shore.

“Run!” The boys shout in unison. We sprint to the the edge of the beach and hide beneath an outcropping. I run out and grab a large piece of driftwood and pull it in front of us sealing use from the horror outside. We hear an explosion and a large wave of water hits the driftwood. Dark red liquid starts leaking in through the holes in the wood. I gag as the smell of saltwater and blood fills the small enclosed area. The rumbling stops and I kick the driftwood away and stumble out into the open and throw up on the sand. I wipe my mouth off and look around, blood is everywhere.  It oozes down the cliff and streams off the trees landing in puddles on the blood slick ground. I cover my nose and mouth and cringe as the blood sticks to my bare feet, everything is a dark shade of red.

“That wasn’t water, it was… well, you know…” Says my brother looking a little green in the face. He walks carefully over to me avoiding all the worst spots. Wren follows close behind looking happy. I give him a weird look and he laughs, but his laugh echos slightly and is filled with a shrill squeal. He starts laughing harder and harder, tears are streaming down his face. Then he shrieks, my brother doubles over and starts coughing, he moans again and falls to the ground. Dead. I look at Wren and instead see a banshee standing over his body. Dead. My mum and my da hover near by. Dead. I stumble back and fall onto the slick earth, I open my mouth to scream, but not a single breath of air comes out. I look into the banshee’s eyes, they are cool pit of darkness, they consume me. Dragging me down to death, an ice wave sweeps over me. I blink, I see my family, my boyfriend, they’re dead. A low moan of mourning rumbling up from deep within my bosom and rattly noise fills the space. I get up and look around, to my disbelief I find that I am not standing, but floating above the ground.

“So I see that the child has risen, a fresh new banshee to join our ranks.” A voice rattles. A new banshee… what are they talking about… are they talking about… me? I wonder, slightly rattled at the fact.

“Welcome, Lily, to the ranks of banshees. You will, undoubtedly, be the best.” Says another rattly voice. I figure holding a light floats over to a stone pillar and sets the fire in the bowl in the center. All around fires ignite, lighting up a big hall that looks like it’s from the medieval age. Floating figures reveal themselves from the shadows and float carefully towards me. Four more figures float towards me holding a big cloth covered object. “Would you like to see yourself?” Says one of the figures. I nod, wondering what horror awaits me. They set the object down in front of me and rip the cloth off of it. I look into the mirror, my once beautiful image is now pale as a ghost, my scarlet hair floats freely around me and I am wearing a long blue dress. I gasp and float away from the mirror.

“What have you done to me?!” I shriek, staring at the mirror with my cold, black eyes.

“You are simply a banshee. There is nothing else to say. You have seen your dead family, that is what made you what you are. We will give you this talisman, it has the hair of all your dead loved ones.” One of the banshees says, she holds out the talisman and I snatch it away from her. I put it over my head and feel the undying feeling to kill. I fly out of the hall and touch down on the soft sand. I feel nothing, I see a family walking down the beach, they were my parent’s friends. I float over and look at them with curious black eyes. One of the little boys looks up and points to me. I wave the smile, hoping I don’t look as terrifying as I think I look. I hear a strange noise in the background, I turn around and see a young man.  I float over and look at him. “You are… beautiful…” He says with a strange look in his eyes. I stare at him, I feel a vibration in my legs, it spreads slowly through my entire body. I float away as fast as I can to a cave in a cliff. I fall down unable to float any longer. A wave of heat surges over me as my heart comes back to life, my eyes change and sharpen, I feel my legs shift and change. My feet shift into long black talons. I lift up the edge of my dress and see falcon legs. I shriek, it tears through the sky as the sound of an eagle. The rest of my body changes into the form of a siren. I tear free of my dress and take to the skies. The wind tugging at my feathers as I caress the air. I laugh, it sounds like the tinkling of thousands of silver bells. I fly back over to the cave and stare into the darkness, a rustling noise was echoing from deep in the cave.

“Hello?” I call out in my new singsong voice. Mist starts pouring out of the cave, I seem figures starting to float towards the entrance.

“Traiter! The only way we will allow you to be safe from use is if you give use some dead.” Says the closest figure.

The banshees, of course they would be able to threaten me, I’m alive again! I think. “Very well, I shall call out to the sailors and seduce them to come to me and they shall dash their ships on the rocks. But you must give me the money and other stuff you get off of them. Then we have a deal?” I say in a commanding voice.

“Deal.” They say as they vanish, the fog and the noise vanish with them. A row of torches on the wall ignite and light the way to a large cavern. I look around and see a nest in the corner made of feathers and a desk by the end. I walk over to the dest and open the top drawer. I take out the notebook and pen and sit down to start writing. This is what I write:

September 17, 2016

I’m Lily, I’m seventeen and I have to tell you that monsters do exist. I’m rushing ahead of myself, let me start from the beginning…

That is the end of… many people… and my story.