Of all the places Paris Laurent had lived

and that was considering the fact that she moved around so often

, Blackwood was the most uneventful town her family had ever lived. She had moved there barely a week and she couldn’t believe how bored she was already.

In a weird way, Paris was grateful for this lack of excitement because it allowed her a normal move and settlement. She was not met with the prominent stares and whispers that she was used to in the past whenever she walked by people with her hair let down. This was because she had a rather peculiar natural silver hair.

Paris never understood the biology behind her being the only person in her family that did not have the graceful long raven black hair her family was known for, but rather, a plain dull silver. As a child, she thought it pretty cool that she was different and she always felt like a princess, but as she got older and started going to her first school, the reality of her hair color dawned on her, she was different, not unique or peculiar, just different.

She was made fun of a considerable amount that as she got older and started to move around more often, she resorted to starting each new school with a wig. This usually worked, but only for a day or two, sometimes even few hours into her first day. It was either through a gym class disaster, hair getting stuck on a nail or door handle, a typical swim lesson, or just due to her personal carelessness, her true hair color would be revealed and barely a week later, she’d have to move again.

Paris’ parents never admitted it to her, but she knew she was the reason they moved a lot. They always told her that they moved because of her mother’s work as a surgeon and because of how demanding it was, but Paris knew better and she knew her hospitals didn’t trade her that often, but she never said anything to her mother because she knew her heart was in the right place, plus she never really liked anywhere enough to want to stay

Paris’ mum, Corinne, was always working, so she wasn’t particularly close to her daughter. Her dad, Nolan, on the other hand, was blind, and he, for that reason, rarely associated with outsiders, though he was particularly fond of Paris. She had no friends because she was too shy to make any, so she’d spend each afternoon after school talking to her dad for hours. She’d tell him everything she was too shy to tell actual people. “Marge Sanders wore a really cute skirt today, I was going to tell her how cool her skirt was, but…err…the bell had gone and I had to get to class”. “Mitch wielder accidentally got some coal on his pants today and he walked around lunch like that, not noticing. I was really going to let him know, but…my shop teacher called me”

She knew her dad suspected she had trouble making friends, and that there was never a shop teacher calling her, or the bell going right at the very start of lunch, but she was glad he never laughed at her or speak about it. He always trusted her to make friends at the right time and with the right people.

It was the night before Paris’ first day at her new school, “Blackwood High School” and she was pretty anxious. She did not know what to expect, she had moved into the town pretty fine without dragging any attention to her hair, on the contrary, people didn’t seem to notice, or even care. She hoped that they would be the same at the school.

She was lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling, still trying to decide whether she should take the risk of going to school with her natural hair, or start her first day with her black wig when her mum knocked on her open door. She looked up to see her mum was smiling, something she rarely ever did, this made Paris smile too. Corinne said “You can lose the wig, you know”. Paris replied “I wish, but what if they’re different from the rest of the town, I mean…you know how teenagers can be” “I know, but there’s a reason I chose beechwood, our family has…quite a history here” Paris’ eyes grew wide as saucers, “you’ve been here before?” “Been here, grew up here, lived here, gave birth to you here, silly, and I know enough about beechwood to know that the least of their worries is a gorgeous 17 yr old with silver hair”. Paris asked her mum curiously “what do you mean “least of their problems?” What other problems do they have?” Exhaustedly, Corinne replied “nothing that concerns you, and if you must know, they’re not exactly “problems”, but this has never not been a strange place, that’s all I can tell you, now… NO! Back to bed!” Corinne said when Paris stood up about to inquire more about the “weird and strange” stuff about Beechwood since it had been a pretty boring place so far, but her mum whispered “good night, honey” before she shut her door. Paris lay down back till she drifted off to sleep.

It had barely been a minute that she slept off, Paris was jolted awake by a girl she didn’t recognize, she was confused by the appearance of this strange girl in her room bed she looked around and realized that she, in fact was not in her room, but by the creek at the other end of her house in beechwood, past the high school and the woods. She barely had time to think before she was shaken again by the shoulder by the strange girl whom Paris could not see clearly as it was still night, the girl leaned over at Paris who was still on the floor and whispering in her left ear, “follow me”, as she said this, the mystery girl started walking towards the woods, away from the creeks. As unnatural as this entire event was, Paris found herself standing up and following after this strange girl.

As they both went, Paris kept asking the girl questions but was ignored completely, “who are you?” “Can you at least tell me how I got here, I know I didn’t fall asleep in the middle of nowhere” “can we slow down, I’m getting really tired” “are you human? I mean, you have this aura around you, it’s kinda creepy to be honest” “CAN YOU WAIT FOR A MINUTE?” But no matter how hard she shouted, the girl never showed any sign of hearing Paris, finally, they reached a tree that had a lantern hung on one of its low branches, the girl finally spoke, “take it” she said to Paris, pointing at the lantern, already very irritated, Paris replied “I beg your pardon?” The girl replied with the exact same dreamy voice she had been speaking with all night, “take it, the lantern, take it” Paris set aside all her irritation and took the lantern from the low branch and turned back towards the girl and for the first time, Paris noticed just how beautiful this girl was, she had the most radiant face, brightest milk skin and the most peculiar eye colors with her left eye bright green and the other, dull blue. The girl had beautiful blonde hair and she was dressed in a blue knee length dress lined with buttons down the front that went up to her neck, as pretty as this girl was, she had the ugliest ghastly look on her face, she looked like she had seen a ghost, or perhaps she was the ghost, Paris opened her mouth to speak but the girl grabbed Paris by the wrist and began running deeper into the woods until they finally reached a point that had no trees, or even leaves, and they finally stopped.

For a second, Paris didn’t notice anything, then the second later, a smell filled the air and hit her harshly, it was all she could smell and it was everywhere, Paris realized what the smell was and shivered in horror, it was the unmistakable smell of blood! There was something in front of them, something that the girl had her eyes fixed on, no, not something, someone! Paris gasped as she realized the body of a-judging by the short messy hair and broad back- boy, most likely a teenager, he was covered entirely with blood with gashes all around his back from what seemed to be brutal claw marks, “wild animal”, Paris thought. She was so shaken by the sight before her, she couldn’t speak even though she had a thousand questions for the girl who stood beside with the same expression she wore since Paris met her.

Before Paris could bring herself to say anything, the girl, eyes still fixed on the apparently dead teenage boy, said “Go, wake him up” At that moment, Paris lost it and burst into tears, “what do you mean wake him up? He’s DEAD, okay? Not asleep, dead! You don’t wake a dead person up, I shouldn’t even be here” she said loudly amidst tears, but the girl showed no sign of care, or even pity, at least not for Paris. The girl finally took her eyes off the boy and looked at Paris, her heterochromic eyes wider than ever as she stared at Paris, “This is what you do, it’s who you are, Wake Him Up! Go to him!” Even though every thing within her body screamed against it, Paris found herself slowly moving towards the body of the boy, she moved to his front and she slowly and carefully lowered herself to where his head lay, Paris almost threw up at the sight before her, the boy had two nasty cuts over his face, they were the same claw-like marks and a broken nose, and, it would have killed to know that this boy might’ve been really handsome once. Paris, with trembling hands, held the boy’s head in her arms, she was still sobbing for this person she had never even met. The girl said to Paris, in her usual dreamy voice that suggested to Paris that nothing could sway this girl, “you have power that you could not possibly comprehend, the blood of the one birthed through the perigee syzygy flows through you, yet you lack ability and strength, for this reason, you will be responsible for the death of this boy, WAKE HIM UP!”

Paris could not believe her ears, this girl was crazy, that was the only possible explanation for what was happening, she had endangered her life and followed a crazy person into the woods, but despite all of this, she found herself frozen in place, the head of the boy still in her hands. Surprising herself, Paris asked the girl in a low, choked voice “what do I do?” The girl looked up to the sky, the moon was already falling, the sun had started to rise slowly, she looked back at Paris, a horrid expression on her face, it looked almost worrisome, “Tell him to wake up” Paris gasped in disbelief “That’s it? I tell a dead boy “wake up and he just…wakes up?” The girl started to look seriously alarmed and she ran over to Paris, grabbed her shoulder and began to shake her violently repeating only the words “perigee syzygy” over and over, Paris was terrified of the situation she was in, the sun had risen so high the moon was almost completely gone, the girl behind Paris kept muttering “perigee syzygy”, it was almost hysterical, at the moment when it seemed the moon would vanish, the girl screamed “now!” Without thinking, Paris screamed “wake up!!!” The boy suddenly awoke with a jerk, his eyes shot open, they were blood red, Paris stumbled back as quickly as she screamed, the boy then let out a loud roar, fangs protruding from his canines, at the same time, Paris let out a loud scream, she didn’t stop until she suddenly woke up in her room, her mother, hugging her and calming her down, as soon as Paris realized where she was, she stopped screaming, she was shaking violently, her mother looked horrified as she hugged her.

Paris could not believe what had happened, it was all a horrible nightmare, she was safe, no strange ghost girl, no “perigee syzygy” and no monster teenager, she was okay, she hugged her mom tightly and gave a weak smile “it’s okay mum, I just… had a bad dream” Contrary to the relieved expression she had expected from her mum, her mum seemed more terrified than she was initially, Paris asked her mum “what?”, still smiling, though less genuine this time, her mum replied in a whisper “honey, you weren’t asleep”.