Far from home..

It's only the beginning..

Saturday 19th January 2012

Dear Diary,

                       It happened again- I woke up sweating with tears falling down my chilled cheeks. These nightmares really need to give me a break.. Hannah reckons something bad is coming, I mean I know she is the Banshee but not everything in life is gonna be reckless. I always keep my nose in my own business, which is why I lack in the friend department- 'head down, no trouble' is what Mom has always said, which is what I live by..  It does seem a bit strange that I am suddenly having nights where I'm terrified to sleep- I just cannot shake the feeling of darkness, but then again- that could just be my sleep paralysis demon seeping into my veins, really wouldn't be a shock at all. Whatever happens, I know I'll make it out stronger because Momma didn't raise a weak wolf. She raised a fierce and fiery dragon- but.. I'm still a wolf.. boring (FYI, I just rolled my eyes)  Anyways-

'Casey breakfast is ready! Come down before it gets cold!!', Mary called up to her daughter , who had barely pulled herself out of bed yet.

Casey's ears spiked up as she heard her mother and smelled the bacon coming from the kitchen. 'Hold that thought, Mother bear has made bacon and eggs! Talk later!'     She leaps out of bed, puts her slippers on and pats down her hair- she couldn't really care for her appearance at that moment, there was bacon to be devoured. She speeds down to the kitchen and heads straight for the food but is stopped by her mothers demanding tone

'Wait.' Mary said crossing her arms with her  signature 'what the bloody hell is going on?' look plastered on her face.

Casey turns around and huffs in defeat, 'What now? What crime have I suddenly committed for me to not be able to eat this gorgeous piece of bacon', she says pouring herself a cup of tea

Mary looks around, suddenly nervous, she twists her hands into knots. 'You woke up practically yelling, what happened?'  she feared that something dark was going on behind the scenes..

Casey takes a slow sip of her hot tea, quickly coming up with a believable lie- but obviously that would be hard to do because.. well.. hearing abilities, She didn't want her mother to know about the nightmares or the warning signs Hannah had been giving- Mary had enough on her plate as it is. After a couple moments of silence, she finally speaks up 'The boogie man is a bitch', she laughs, brushing it off. 'Honestly, i just had a strange dream- I'm fine' she smiles reassuringly, 'Now can I PLEASE go back to my bacon?' she says turning around.

Mary sighs, she can tell that something is going untold but she doesn't push it, there is no point. She knows how stubborn her daughter is, she gets it from her mother. 'Fine, but don't be an animal and eat with a knife and fork!' She says in a scalding-joke manor.

"Mom.. we are animals, that's kind of the point" she says laughing while grabbing the cutlery from the draw.

'I don't remember raising you to think that the point of being a wolf is to be a manner-less animal. I've clearly done something wrong', she says laughing- the phone rings, she smiles and rushes out to take the call.

As soon as Mary leaves the room, Casey lets out a big sigh.. she hated lying to her mother, especially since they have always been so close, but this wasn't Marys problem to deal with. Casey rests her elbows on the counter with her head in her hands- her mind wanders to the nightmare again, she never used to remember her dreams but recently they have become brutal enough to remember..

Casey recalls the feeling of deep, thick, red blood  running coldly down her face- staining it a colour she has never seen before as the autumn leaves pass by her in a flash, The feeling of heavy hands and a heavy heart pounds through her veins, her mind is screaming a terrifyingly loud scream- telling her to go, escape. HIDE... but something kept drawing her back and after a while, she realises what it is- who it is... she remembers the silhouette of some kind of creature..  walking up to her and  placing a hand on her cheek and....  

The sound of  glass smashing in her hands woke her up from her nightmare, she stares at the broken pieces of glass that had her blood splattered all over them, she quickly cleaned up and washed her hands. She then ran up to her room, got changed and headed out to meet Hannah- but not without giving her mom a kiss on the  cheek first.

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Casey's phone buzzed in her pocket as she got to the destination- which happened to be the woods- She pulled her phone from her jacket and checked the text. It was from Hannah.

'Hey, sorry to be a buzz kill but I'm gonna be late, Moms being a pain in the ass. I'll try be quick. Promise. love you!x' 

Cass sighs and types out a quick response, she puts her phone away and start walking  around aimlessly, feeling the twigs snap and the autumn leaves crunch under her black boots. After a while of wandering around she comes across the old hale house and decides to chill out there until Hannah arrives, she sits peacefully on the steps, her heart softly beating. She pulls out her phone again to text Hannah, to let her know where she is but.. the signal had cut. Cass lifts her phone in the air trying to find signal until she heard a twig snap.. she jumps up and says in a brave manor  'Who is it? I'm not afraid.' 

Nothing.

Not a single sound.

Suddenly, Casey feels warm breath against the back of her neck- it makes the hairs on her arms stand tall, she goes still.

'OH HI THERE', It was Hannah standing behind her. She starts laughing so much to the point where Cass questioned whether or not she could still breathe. They both laughed together, as relief washes over Casey.

'You scared the hell out of me H! I almost had a heart attack! I heard twigs snapping and a crap ton of sudden wind, i got scared!" she laughs as she hugs her best friend

"I'm not sure about the twig snapping since i drove my car up the path that was cleared" she points the opposite way as to where the wind and noise was coming from, fear grew within the pit of Casey's stomach, she knew something was up.

Her mind flashes back to her dream she had been having on repeat for the past week.. and the knot in her stomach grew tighter and tighter.. causing so much tension that she felt like she couldn't breathe. Hannah noticed and grabbed Casey's shoulders, asking if she was okay. Casey nodded softly, clearly out of it.

"Listen, there's something you should know", Hannah started saying, "The dreams are becoming more real, something really- really bad is going to happen.. Like Life or Death", She says- it was morbid and something Cass would normally avoid thinking about but suddenly it all made perfect sense... she put the pieces together and turned to her best friend, her eyes wide and filled with panic

"Our time is up Han.. Your dreams- OUR dreams they're so much more than that..", she looks around as  the patterns make sense, the dreams, the blood, the banshee, the death, they were given time and warnings but it was coming and their time was officially up. 

"We have to get out of here, quick" Casey ran as fast as she could to Hannah's car but bounced right back before she could get to the drivers seat. Mountain Ash. Cass tried getting up but by now, the winds had picked up and the leaves flew in a frenzy.

"Hannah? Han! Come help me up!", There was no answer, not a single sound.

"Hannah come on!", Casey turned around to see a faceless man wearing a thick black leather jacket, Hands tightly wrapped around Hannah's throat, to the point that she was bleeding. Cass immediately recognised it, she never had a picture but she heard of the stories from her mother. The Savage Nogitsune. Who collects and slowly kills lost souls. 

All it took was a blink of an eye before Hannah had completely vanished.

"Hannah!!" Cass had pure terror in her eyes as the strongly built monster marched over to her. As he neared closer, it became obvious that he had no face, in fact he was just one big mummified mess. He didn't speak much, there wasn't much to say. It was clear about what his motives were, this was the end of the line for Casey, a tear fell down her cheek as the Oni dragged her to her feet and stared straight into her soul, he lifted her from the ground and tightened his grip around her throat. Before Casey could process what was going on, a bright blinding white light flashed before her eyes, suffocating and sending her into a deep sleep..

and when she woke up,

she realised she was..

far from home.