𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐘||𝐌𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐆𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐘

𝟑. 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐦𝐚 𝐆𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐚

BROOKE REMEMBERED WHEN SHE WAS
nine years old and her favourite Grandma Gloria passed away. She adored the grey haired lady who would babysit her on the weekends when her mother would be at work conferences and her father 'away on business'. She'd read from an old tattered copy of fairytales, each that began with the same story that the woman told her grandkids every night about how the book first belonged to her grandma and so on, before she actually got to the story telling that was printed on its pages.

Her and Mason often preferred spending time at their grandparents rather than at home, granted this was long before Brooke Bentley met Alison Dilaurentis and her parents marriage fell apart. The woman's home held an ambiance that neither seemed to find anywhere but there and they would beg to stay the night every time they visited. Of course their parents couldn't wait to be rid of them for an evening while Gloria adored having the children stay.

But when Brooke was Nine and Mason was Eleven they got the news that on a tragic Saturday their precious old lady had passed away in her sleep. They seemed to mourn the loss forever and hers was the first funeral they went to. Everything seemed to go down hill from there. The next year Brooke met Alison and even at a young age her parents noticed a shift in her behaviour that undoubtedly blossomed from the pairs friendship.

Brooke remembered feeling as if her grandma was with her through everything, every mistake, every mischievous act, every telling off from her parents. She could practically feel the disapproval that echoed around her. That was the only feeling that she could relate A too. That feeling of being watched and judged only now it wasn't coming from a place of love. Instead it was a bundle of question marks, ravelled together like a ball of yarn, riddled with hatred, loathing and danger.

The constant feeling of being followed, someone always lurking behind the corner. They were being haunted. She wasn't sure whether the other girls shared similar feelings, like their was a pair of burning holes into the backs of their heads all the time, someone standing close, ready to strike and stab them in the back at any moment.

And due to that constant feeling of danger, Brooke would be the first to admit that a walk into the woods alone wasn't the best idea that her and the other four girls had shared. After all, the woods have eyes is what they say and she wasn't too keen on discovering just how right that was.

"Who's idea was this again?" The brunette whined, brushing her hair over her shoulder and narrowly avoiding a low hanging branch which Aria saved her from with a yank of the wrist.

The girls around her chuckled at the girls impatience. She had never been one for nature. "Emily's mom," Spencer told her, looking pointedly at the tallest of them behind her.

Emily shook her head. "The shed was me. My mom just said we should do something for us." She clarified.

The brunette groaned throwing her head back and momentarily looking at the cloudless sky, as if it was going to relief her of the aching in her feet. "It's a nice thought, Em. But couldn't we have done it some where closer?" She asked frustratedly, adjusting the plastic bags in her hands which handles were slowly beginning to stretch and snap,

"And couldn't we do it somewhere without mosquitoes?" Hannah also groaned, swatting her hands aggressively in front of her face and blowing the few out of her nose.

"They're not mosquitos, they're gnats." Aria corrected the blonde, not that Hannah particularly cared for the specific breed. All she cared about was the tickling she felt inside her nostrils.