#its me getting my grubby hands all over and introducing you to The Horrors That Tweren't

[inflagrante-delicatessen]

tlt and utdr don't have nearly enough crossover in fanart

[imjustheretoseetheprivateblogs]

Qrowin Week 2021: 6/21-Childhood Friends AU

Two little snowbirds sitting in a row

 They met in the garden at one of her father’s lavish parties. She’d gone outside because little girls didn’t like being told to sit still and not talk nor do anything fun, so she decided she didn’t care if the dress daddy bought her got messy, she’d go outside and spend time in the hedge maze.

They’d gotten it installed, in the shape of the Schnee family crest no less, because the Marigolds had one in the shape of their family crest and daddy could be silly about when people had things he didn’t.

The white roses that grew from the foliage walls, fragrant and delicate, were always calming to her, especially on a cool and cloudless night like this when the moonlight was at its brightest.

For Winter, to get lost in its lush corridors and marble statuary, it’s hidden gardens and fountains would be enough to get the annoyance of her father’s party out of her mind.

Most of that went out of her head when she found a grungy boy in a cape stuffing his face with what looked like a rabbit.

He stared at her, like an animal in a vehicle’s headlights, bits of his meal hanging from his mouth.

He couldn’t be older than her, gaunt with gunsmoke-colored hair stuck up at odd angles and eyes like carbuncles.

The clothes he wore were grubby and layered and obviously used long before he’d begun wearing them, especially that tattered cape.

For a moment, neither spoke, merely staring at one another in the moonlight.

Finally, Winter broke the silence.

“That’s disgusting.”

The boy dropped the rabbit from his mouth.

“Sorry if I’m not fancy enough for you, Miss Uppity.”

Winter felt her cheeks heat with indignation.

“How dare you!”

The boy threw back his head and laughed, a sound that reminded Winter of a pair of birds she’d once heard fighting in the yard.

“Is that all it takes to get under that pale skin!” he laughed, a sound which soon died in his throat when his stomach made a loud groan.

Winter huffed as he reached for the dead rabbit.

“Wait here and don’t touch that,” she said, turning on her heel.

She returned with two plates piled high with hors d'oeuvres.

“I didn’t know what you liked,” she said, handing him one, “so I got you one of everything.”

The boy said nothing, just shoveling food into his mouth in a way that probably promoted choking.

“You’re welcome,” Winter said, sitting down and spearing a piece of salmon on a toothpick to eat.

The boy coughed, pounding his chest.

“You shouldn’t eat so fast,” Winter said, “you’ll get sick.”

“Well, some of us don’t know when our next meal is gonna be,” he said.

His words brought back to Winter the memory of her father sending her to bed with no supper when he found she’d invited a faunus over to play, with threats of no breakfast if she didn’t break it off with the girl tomorrow.

“You might be surprised,” Winter said.

The boy said something through a mouthful of hummace.

“What was that?” Winter asked.

The boy swallowed.

“I’m Qrow,” he said.

Winter smiled.

“I’m Winter.”

One named Winter

She saw him on days when it wasn’t raining or snowing after that. The family he lived with (his “Tribe” as he called them) were camped out in the woods behind their house, the ones nobody would let daddy cut down.

At night, he told her, they danced and played instruments and drank until the early hours of the morning.

Winter never really cared for people who drank (her mother’s growing dependence on liquor was a factor in this) but Qrow never really showed up smelling like wine, so she supposed associating with him was no trouble.

It was also refreshing that he never stood on ceremony.

He never rolled his eyes at her when she spoke of wanting to learn fencing or told her how things were supposed to be when she complained about how someone (usually daddy) was being unfair.

He also taught her new games that were much more fun than anything that the boys and girls daddy introduced her knew.

Kick the can, stickball, and he played hide and seek and tag with her. And he’d tell her all about the places he’d been. Mistral, Vacuo, Menagerie, his tribe had traveled all over Remnant.

And while he could be crass, she still remembered seeing the way he rescued a baby bird from a stray cat and returning it to its nest with the tenderest care.

Or how when she complained of how her father was so bossy and so dumb, that he listened. Didn’t judge, didn’t criticize, just listen.

And sometimes, it was enough to know that they’d meet once a week, at night, in the hedge maze.

One named Qrow

She wasn’t what he expected.

Sure, she told him annoying things like “don’t slouch, eat slower, no burping, don’t pull up the flowers—no! I don’t need them, put them back!”

But she never called him weak. She never said he should practice more like his sister did.

Winter gave him food, and listened to his stories and ideas, and never asked if he wanted to fight. Sometimes, they would even just sit together.

She even taught him how to read; starting with big letters scratched in the dirt with a stick, before lending him books that they could read together.

Mr. Bruin is a Shoe-in was the first he read all by himself. And he was so happy when she let him keep it afterwards.

And she never told him to stop being so dumb, like his sister did.

And sometimes, it was enough to know that they’d meet once a week, at night, in the hedge maze.

Fly away, Winter!

Their shouts bring the servants running. All they saw was Winter on her knees, face in her hands as she wept piteously.

If only they’d come a few minutes earlier, then they could have seen the argument in all it’s glory. Voices rough from the volume and occasionally cracking, tears streaming down their faces, they weren’t that little boy and girl anymore.

He’d grown lanky and lean, she taller and with longer hair.

But they didn’t care right then.

She’d told him she was joining the military.

He said his tribe would be moving and asked if she wanted to join them instead of some stupid army.

She said it was a noble profession.

He said only for assholes.

She defended her position.

He reiterated his opinion.

She shouted at him, asking why couldn’t he be happy for her.

He shouted at her what would be wrong with going with him.

She said something about duty.

He told her to shut up, that he didn’t want to hear duty again in his whole life.

She told him that if he was going to act like a filthy little boy, then he could go off and sulk like one.

He said he wished he’d never met her and hoped she enjoyed killing people.

Arguments like that, they learned, ended with no winners.

Fly away, Qrow!

 That was the end of the time Qrow considered himself happy. Life seemed to plan for him a long drawn out death, bracketed with disappointments and tragedy’s.

Transformation

The death of friends.

The death of family.

The horrors of war.

Secrets and betrayal.

Abandonment.

And the drink

So, so much to drink.

It didn’t fix anything. It didn’t make him feel more human. But it kept the nightmares at bay. It kept him as a predictable disappointment rather than an out-of-the-blue-never-seen-that-kind-of-train-wreck-before disappointment.

But the worst part of the drink, thought, was that no matter how many shots he took, no matter how many chasers. Black liquor, brown liquor, red wine, white wine, it didn’t matter. Melancholy brought back visions of that girl from that time he had been happy.

Come back, Winter!

First impressions had never come easy to Qrow. So really, it should be no surprise that impression number 15 the horrible sequel nobody wanted or needed.

But really, denying common sense by chucking an empty whisky bottle at James Ironwood’s head was not only pointless, it was utterly puerile. He was drunk. He was upset that his latest search for intel on Salem had turned up next to nothing, he was itching for a fight and if that pompous wannabe hero wanted to take it up with him, that was fine.

Except he hadn’t expected the woman by his side to turn out to be someone familiar. Someone he hadn’t seen since he was a dumb, romantic, fifteen-year-old kid.

Someone whose reappearance upset his stomach enough that he emptied it onto the general’s uniform and shoes. With enough force to make his eyes water.

The woman in the Atlesian uniform said she would take care of him and asked another girl, another white haired girl, where their room was.

As they walked towards Beacon, he thought he heard her say “Qrow Branwen, what has the world done to you?”

Come back, Qrow!

Qrow awoke to a cold rag on his forehead.

“Lie still,” she said, “I think you got a hold of some rockgut.”

“More like rockgut got a hold of me.”

Qrow’s attempt at humor was met with a scowl.

“Gee, you got frosty.”

“And you became an alcoholic,” she said, wringing out the cloth into a nearby basin.

Qrow looked away from her and to the wall, as if a better retort than her’s existed there.

“It eases the pain,” he said.

“No it doesn’t,” Winter said. She threw the rag into the basin, causing the water to splash.

“Qrow, my mother is an alcoholic. It doesn’t fix anything! It just makes you want more of what’s essentially fermented grass!”

“You don’t think I know that!” Qrow snapped. Tears pricked at his eyes and his heart sank when he saw the hurt in her eyes from his tone, something he hadn’t seen there since their last meeting.

“There are nights when no matter how much I drink, I still can’t forget the loss of all the people around me and how--”

He paused and swallowed.

“How everyone is just one day going to leave me!”

Tears were starting to fall as all the regrets he’d kept at bay with drink and fighting and everythng else he could find came rushing back into him and coiling around his lungs.

“I’m bad luck, Winter,” he said, “I lost my sister, my tribe, I lost the people I care about, and every day, it’s missions, missions, and missions to find an enemy I don’t even know exists.”

His shoulders were shaking and he remembered his sister, back when they were little, telling him how ‘boys don’t cry.’

God, Winter must think he’s so pathetic.

Instead, she took him by the shoulders and gently brought him into her embrace.

“It’s alright,” she said, “just let it out. Get it all out.”

Not knowing what else to do, Qrow gripped the back of her uniform and sobbed into her shoulder, years’ worth of pain and loneliness deep inside him rising to the surface and finally escaping. And the pressure went with it.

At some point, they ended up lying together on the bed (wait, were they in a bunk bed?), still in each other’s arms.

“We all have regrets,” Winter said, “things we said. Things we wish we could take back.”

Her hand tightens on his shirt and his hand closes around it.

“But, if you really want to know, if I could do it over...”

Please say it, he wanted to think, but every time he had thoughts like that, life saw fit to swat him down again.

“I would go with you. Even if after the first day, I went back home, I think I would go with you.”

Qrow felt his heart swell and suddenly, he didn’t feel so sick anymore.

“And... if you wanted to start over... I would like that too.”

“I still have Mr. Bruin,” Qrow said.

He didn’t know why he said that. She never asked about the book, never said “Qrow, what kind of literature do you normally read?”

Whatever the reason, Winter looked up at him, shocked.

“Still? I thought you would’ve thrown that away.”

Qrow looked down at her, eyes glassy.

“I tried a few times. But I just couldn’t get rid of something that reminded me of you. It’s missing the page where Mr. Bruin loses his boot, but I tried to keep it safe.”

Winter’s hand rises to his cheek and Qrow leans into it, the human contact easing the hole in his soul he’s tried to fill with booze.

“I’m sorry I didn’t turn out as someone you could be proud of.”

“The fact that you kept that book tells me everything I need to know.”

Later that night, Winter’s sister and Qrow’s niece would get the shock of their lives when they enetered their room and saw the two of them sleeping on Weiss’s bed together.

[fullsundh]

prince! renjun au // angst, fluff //

-

“and what do we have here?” prince! renjun questioned as he slowly made his way from the throne, dragging the tip of his blade across the stone floor as he drew closer to your weakened body that lay before him.

“a thief, your highness”

the young prince glanced over to knight commander! jeno with a raised brow, silently telling him to continue, before looking back down at you with eyes full of mischief.

“guards on the east wing found them sneaking through the spare bedchambers. all that was taken has been restored to its rightful place, your high-“

“do you want me to have your head?” the prince interjected, his voice suddenly more malicious than usual.

“n-no, your highness”

“and do you train your men properly, commander?” his highness began to move away from you and walked towards his inferior.

“i do, your highness. i swore an oath to protect-“

“then why the fuck is there a commoner in my castle? are your knights so badly trained that even a lowlife can squeeze their way past them?” prince! renjun spat at the knight and placed a sword against his neck, gently pressing the blade into the surface of the skin. not enough to kill, but enough for blood to come trickling out onto the steel.

“i-it was a mistake, sir, i will have it seen to that the men responsible are punished” the knight had his eyes tightly shut as his body began to temble. the prince only laughed.

“look at you, trembling for your life the second i put a blade to your throat. you are a man of the battlefield with countless wars won and dozens of deaths dealt. yet here you are, acting like a pathetic little bitch before your prince.”

you watched in silence as renjun placed his bloodied sword back into the scabbard that was attached tightly to his waist. the knight bowed and relieved thank yous tumbled out of his mouth for the prince had let him see another day through.

“so what do you suggest we do with the thief, commander?”

the prince turned his focus back to you and fear started to hit harder than ever. if the knight were to be considered lucky for having his life spared, then you were in store for certain death.

“we could have them killed your highness. a good public execution might scare the peasants into never attempting such a thing again.”

the knight was now confident, as if nothing had ever happened between him and his ruler. and he spoke of you as if you weren’t even in the room listening to him.

“don’t be foolish commander. half of your men would be out of a job without the peasants turning to petty crime.”

renjun sat back on the throne and placed his head in his hand, clearly turning bored at the situation.

“i have men strung up in public so often that peasants hardly bat an eyelid. the only thing that scares them now are the old ghost tales village hags share with the children.”

silence fell upon the room and the prince stared at you with eyes of concentration, trying to figure out what was to be of you. you hung your head low to avoid his gaze and mentally prayed for mercy. your family were starving and your last hope was to steal something small from the castle in order to sell it off for resources. but now all hope of returning home was lost.

“they will be my personal servant” the prince suddenly spoke.

“they will answer to me and only me. they will follow me everywhere i go and do everything i tell them to.”

the knight stood shocked for a short moment then opened his mouth to protest against the idea. only to feel the open cut on his neck. a reminder of what happened to men who angered prince renjun.

“as you wish, your highness.” and with that, the knight left to return to his duties.

“guards, take my new servant to get changed into something suitable. tell the maids to wash them as well but make sure the water is ice cold. i don’t want this to be a luxury.”

two large guards quickly dragged you to your feet. you glanced up to see that the prince had moved from the throne so that he could stand eye level with you.

“you should thank the gods for allowing me to be so merciful on you, peasant. if i see you place your grubby little hands on something that isn’t yours once more, i’ll cut them off. is that clear?”

“yes your highness. thank you your highness.”

-

it had been two long months worth of working in the castle. all of the days were spent the same. you followed renjun around like a dog and you followed his every order without question. you held his sword for him, cleaned his clothes, polished his boots, gave messages to whoever he demanded to talk to, you even fed him once because his highness was ‘too tired to lift his aching arms’.

one night, whilst you were tending to the fire in the prince’s bedchamber, you heard the prince walk into the room and fall onto his bed with a loud sigh of defeat.

“long day, your highness?” you asked without taking your eyes off of the fire in front of you, jabbing the fire poker into the flames as they engulfed the logs of wood you had just thrown in.

“what’s it to you, peasant?” renjun spat back.

you rolled your eyes, tired of the prince’s attitude, and stabbed at the fire a little harder, pretending it were something else.

“forgive me, your highness. i will not ask again.”

the room fell into a tense silence. all that could be heard was the sound of the fire crackling and the prince breathing irregularly. well, that was until the prince spoke up once more.

“i’m sorry.” was all that came from him. you turned to face renjun who was still lying on his bed as he stared up at the ceiling.

“p-pardon?” the shock of the prince’s sudden apology was evident in your voice. you wouldn’t be surprised if that was his first time saying sorry in all the nineteen years he had been living.

“i said i’m sorry, peasant- wait, what is your name?” he sat up and made direct eye contact with you.

“y/n l/n” you replied and bowed to your superior as it was the first time you had officially introduced yourself to him.

“i sincerely apologise for the way i have treated you, y/n. and to answer your question, yes, it has been a long day. you shall help make it better now and that’s an order.”

before you could ask for further instructions, renjun lifted himself up off the bed and began to rummage through his drawers.

“sit.” he demanded and pointed towards a chair near the fire. “sit down and do not move.”

like always, you followed his commands and placed yourself on the finely crafted seat.

“i am going to paint you y/n.” renjun turned back around with scrolls of blank paper in one hand and a fistfull of paints and brushes in the other. “this will help me relax.” he confessed as he positioned himself on another chair in front of you.

curiosity took the better of you as you started to cautiously question the prince on this new side of him.

“i never thought of you to be much of a painter, your highness.”

“i am self taught y/n. it’s certainly a hidden hobby of mine. kings don’t take to the idea of their sons spending their time painting all too well.”

renjun smiled sadly to himself as his mind went back to the time when he was a young boy and had been caught painting pictures of the castle’s flower garden. the king had struck him for wasting precious time that could be used in sword practice on something as peaceful as painting.

“and, if i may ask, where is your father? you are a prince yet you sit on the throne and demand like you are a king. your father is still alive, is he not?” you kept perfectly still as the prince began sketching your figure onto the paper.

“the king is still alive but he decided to take to the seas and travel. he left me here to run things whilst he is gone. i guess this is his way of seeing the world he ruled over one last time before he dies and a way for me to prove myself to him before i take over. have you ever whitenessed the oceans, y/n?” renjun kept his focus on trying to do your beauty justice in his art.

“i can’t say i have, your highness. the sea lies far from here. but i have heard it’s more dangerous than a cave full of dragons and an army of infinite men combined. i overheard the baker’s wife say that there are sea-people called sirens that can take down an entire shipload of men with their voice alone.”

the prince laughed and looked up at you with a smile that you had never seen on him before. it was a smile full of warmth and genuine happiness.

“so those are the sort of stories that people of the village tell...” renjun took one long stare at your body, which caused you to advert your eyes in embarrassment, before going back to work.

“we are alike. i am yet to see the ocean too, y/n. i am yet to see everything this world has to offer beyond this one kingdom. when i am forced to fight against men on foreign lands i will see it all though. i’ll bring you with me so that you can see it all too.”

your mind seemed to completely forget about the fact that you were his personal servant, that you following renjun on adventures was an obvious part of the job. because you found yourself blushing over his words, already imagining the wonders you would one day see.

“i used to dread the idea of leaving this castle. i would often have nightmares about the horrors that wait beyond these walls. but now i’m not so scared. because i will have you right by my side.” renjun confessed.

the now shy boy held the paper up closer to his face in hopes of hiding his red cheeks.

your heart grew fonder at his words. at first, you thought it was strange to hear the usually vicious prince speak such soft things, but when you glanced back up to take in his features, the words of kindness seemed to suit him more than his unkind ones. for renjun had a face full of beauty, a smile full of sunshine and a laugh full of joy. he took more to the talent of art than he did fighting and it made you wonder why he put up such a harsh demeanour whilst sat on the thrown.

“your highness-“

“please, call me renjun.”

once again the prince left you in shock at his sudden outburst of words you would never have expected to leave his mouth.

“r-renjun, you are said to be the prince with a heart made of stone yet you sit here with worlds full of kindness. why must you act the way you do on the thrown? a ruler with compassion is not a bad one.”

you watched as renjun thought carefully about his answer. his eyes seemed to turn sad the more he thought about it. you were about to tell him to forget you had even asked before he cut you off with his answer.

“i’m scared of disappointing my father more than i already do. i want to be an artist. i want to travel and paint every landscape i see. i want to paint every beautiful person i meet eyes with. i want to paint every animal from the birds i see in the tree outside this room, to the wolves that hunt in the mountains of the north, far beyond here.” his eyes softened as he lost himself in the dream life he had created in his mind, the low glow of the fire adding a shimmer to his dark pupils.

“i don’t want to be this bloodthirsty prince my father demands me to be.”

renjun placed the paintbrush down and proudly turned over the paper in his hand to reveal his art to you. it was beautiful.

“renjun i-“

“it’s beautiful isn’t it? but at the same time, not beautiful enough.” renjun sighed as he turned the art back to face him, his eyes scanned over every detail, analysing for any mistakes. “i’m afraid i could never do your looks justice y/n. the gods took their time creating you.”

you could sense that the prince was being harsh on himself about his work. probably telling himself he should do better next time. he had spent his entire childhood being trained to become the very best. and now, he spent his days trying to please his father through being someone he wasn’t.

it was a bold move but you slowly leaned forward to place your hand atop of renjun’s. he seemed slightly stunned at the sudden contact, probably unfamiliar with such small yet intimate actions, but soon enough, he melted into the touch and intertwined his hand with yours.

“renjun, you need to show the people who you truly are. if you show respect to them, then they will show respect to you. you will have the strongest kingdom of them all. generations from now will speak of the kind king who was just as good with a paintbrush as he was a sword. don’t let the pressures of royalty ruin who you are.”

the prince had never heard someone speak to him like that before. he had never heard someone care so much about him and his wellbeing. his body and heart ached to hear more, for as long as he lived.

“i want you to never leave my side y/n. i want you with me as i become the king i was born to be.” renjun stared down at your hands and began to gently play with your fingers.

“of course i’ll stay by your side. i swore an oath of loyalty-“

“no, y/n, i want you with me forever, but not as my servant. i want you with me as my companion. i want you to rule with me one day, regardless of your background and upbringing, even if the laws don’t allow it.”

the prince moved closer and closer with every word until his nose was brushing against yours. he glanced down at your lips before looking back into your eyes.

“what do you say, my love?” it came out as almost a whisper but you heard every word.

“you’ve got yourself a deal, my prince”

and with that, the prince connected his lips with yours. everything else seemed to fade away around you, your full focus was on him and only him. you smiled into the kiss, breaking it slightly. renjun pulled away only to place another quick peck onto your lips before placing more across every piece of skin exposed to him.

“i look forward to eternity with you, y/n.”

[calwh7]

The Illusionist

(Klaus x Liz next generation)

I found this when I went diving around my old fanfics from a couple year ago. I thought it was okay given my skill back then, I don’t particularly like the ending and I don’t even know what’s canon anymore in Klaus route because I am no where near finished with the sequel. Does he have a son? I honestly don’t know. Here’s a rather mysterious one shot

—————————————————————

She let the illusion take charge of the room, filling every corner possible, intoxicating the surrounding people. The people who could see through the barrier that separated her from the world were all fooled, cast aside to leave the girl in her state of mourn.

Her sister, much more beautiful and much more intelligent, sat in a chair in front of the barrier cell the younger sister sat in. The older sister, Leyne, was fooled by her illusion, talking to nothing but magic.

"I'm going to be bringing in mother and father, they haven't seen you since you were eleven. Please be nice and do not do anything stupid" Leyne's request was short and cold, nothing like the sister she used to be. She made the illusion reply, charismatic charms and all. Her older sister walked away, blonde hair bouncing and her heels clipping.

The girl stalked the magic cage she was confined to, lighting a stolen cigarette in the process. Still keeping the illusion in mind she sank back to the corner where she found most comfort. Her cage was a mess. The little furniture she was allowed was in pieces, burned and broken, scattered across the white floor. Of course the people looking into her illusion did not see this, they saw a perfectly tidy room with a perfectly tidy girl sitting in an armchair reading a Charles Dickens book.

"Ahem" The cough  had caught her attention, startling her from her illusion, making it wobble a little just not enough for the trained eye to notice.

"Hello dear, it's me, your mother. Remember me? And this is your father" The older woman's hand came to rest on the mans shoulder. The man was in a wheelchair.

"I can introduce myself Liz. How are you keeping, Ania?" The blonde mans hair had greyed considerably since the last time she saw him. That was thirteen years ago.

"Well enough, given my situation. How have the two of you been? Any more siblings I should know about?" The illusions tongue was sly and sharp, witty with all the characteristics she could conger. The illusion carried a conversation with her parents well enough for the two to not notice, but now that her older sister walked in, she was in for a reign check.

"Ania take down that illusion now, I told you to not use any magic today" The severity of Leyne's tone was infuriating, does she not want to expose the mess she was into to her parents? The one in which she put her on little sister into? After all that was said towards 'Ania', they called her, she took down the stage she had created and revealed the true horror of her state.

Her parents gasped, her sister gaped. The girl was no longer sitting in the armchair with the Charles Dickens book, neither was she longer the girl in a way. Skinny, but muscular. Short hair and a straight laced face. The odd thing was how grubby she was for looking so put together. Crumpled shirt and stained trousers, smoke starting to slowly fill the room. The cigarette she had mad almost out, but not quite. She took one last drag before scraping the butt against one of the white walls of her cell, creating a long black streak.

"Well, I guess you wanted to see me. How do I look? Not to bad I hope" She adorned a smirk laced with sarcasm.

"Ania please tidy up a little, it's disgraceful" Leyne was getting on her nerves. She took her left hand and held it in front of her, creating a palm sized diagram that sat flushed against her fingertips. She began to rotate her hand anti clockwise, creating a time warp that let the furniture of her cell fly towards the walls then back again in its original state before she had destroyed them. The burnt prices began to materialise back together, creating a backwards fire.

"You happy?" She said the question more as a statement, not really caring for her sisters answer.

"Fix yourself up as well, our parents at least made an effort to come and see you. Now you've shocked them" It was only a blink of her eye and the younger sister disappeared into a cloud of grey smoke and green electricity, only to materialise back in the red velvet armchair, complete with a new suit and washed hair.

"Thank you, keep it that way" Leyne spun around and stalked back up to the door and left leaving a reluctant daughter and distressed parents.

"When were you going to tell us about your talents?" The fathers voice quavered, losing its strong tone.

"It wasn't for you to know" The voice that replied was foreign. Deep and raspy, unusual for a woman. It wasn't just this prominent feature that masculinised her. Deeper set eyes that lost its childlike glow, sharper features from weight loss and a slackened posture made up for this difference, besides the clothes. The parents were shocked to say the least, but they tried their best to hide it.

"Don't worry, I'm shocked too. Little Leyne hasn't been the most substantial host over these past years. I hope you can forgive her" The attitude was heavy in her voice, only to be accentuated by sarcastic laughter.

"I think you two should leave. I've had enough play time for today. Do come by tomorrow, maybe then I'll be in a better mood" The woman waved then vanished with a smirk, just like the Cheshire Cat.

"Mr and Mrs Goldstein, please make your way towards the exit on your left. I'm afraid that is all the time you can have for today" The mechanical voice rang in the parents ears. They both looked at each other with  saddened eyes, grasping each others hands. The mothers eyes seemed to water over, leaving a small stream of tears. The parents sighed and drew in deep breaths, preparing themselves for another day.

[returntopelon]

Pam

My brother has always been my closest friend. He is easily the most loving and genuine person I have ever met and is loved by pretty much everyone he meets. Despite this, he hasn't been in many relationships. I think its partly due to the fact that he's a very "all or nothing" type of guy. When he falls he falls DEEPLY and BLINDLY. A blessing and a curse, I guess.

Anyway, the few girlfriends he's had, I've known quite well, despite being nearly 8 years younger than him. Most of them have been nice, normal, pleasant girls, with the exception of a few. We had high hopes that he'd settle in with a long term, wonderful girlfriend as he entered his adult life. We had no idea we'd spend 6 years sharing a hell with him, our family and our close friends, all by the hands of one girl. I'll call her Pam.

I met Pam when I was 11, my brother 19, and she was 17, graduating High School. I remember being surprised to have him introduce her right off the bat as his girlfriend, since neither my parents of I had heard anything about her. But, she was kind, warm, an honor student and beautiful. I admired her immediately.

For the first year of their relationship, Pam never seemed off. She was always happy, always kind and always had good stories to tell. She and I grew closer, as she seemed eager to bond with me and it was like having an older sister. We shared many of the same interests and friendship came easy between she and I, as I was mature for my age and she was so inviting.

But halfway through their second year of dating, we started noticing things about Pam. Just small, odd habits she had.

If someone was having conversation with my brother that did not directly involve her, or that she wasn't a part of, she tended to insert herself as best she could; sitting closer to my brother, laughing a little louder, calling him away, etc. If any of our family or friends would ask my brother questions about college or future aspirations, she'd grow increasingly uncomfortable and sometimes made comments like, "I hope you have it all planned out, 'cause I'm goin wherever you're goin".

My parents and I would chuckle about these behaviors, assuming that Pam just loved my brother and was a bit protective. We liked her a lot and had high hopes for their relationship. I hate to think now how blind we were.

One night, my brother came home late from a party, I was 13 at this time, he was about to turn 21. He walked in the door, our parents were already asleep, but I was up in the living room. I could immediately tell he was upset about something. I asked him what was wrong. As he walked into the kitchen I realized he had a large welt on his cheek. I asked, "What happened to you?"

He said, "I got in a fight. Its cool." This immediately raised suspicion as my brother was as far from the fighting type as you could be. "I fight over what?" I asked. "Pam." He said simply and went to his room

The next morning he was driving me to my soccer game and I pried again about what had happened. He didn't answer at first but then said, "Pam is kind of... Weird." I asked how so. He said "I don't know, she likes to start things."

Pam was a pathological liar. Apparently, she did it all the time. Looking back, the constant new stories of places she'd been and things she'd done didn't seem to be truthful. That night at the party, Pam had told my brother that another man at the party had attempted to rape her. My brother, being the man he is, confronted him and he said "I've never even seen her before." And a fight ensued over the accusation. On the car ride home, Pam said that my brother must have misinterpreted her words and that nothing close to rape had occurred.

The lying seemed to be a detrimental bump in the road, and my brother broke things off.

After several weeks, Pam contacted me asking if I wanted to go shopping with her. Having had a good relationship in the past with Pam, I agreed. My parents thought it was strange that a 20 year old wanted to spend time with her ex-boyfriend's 14 year old sister, but they let me go anyway.

The day started pleasantly, Pam caught me up on her life and asked how I was/how my family and brother were. Nothing seemed strange, until she began to bring up uncomfortable conversation. She explained to me that she had had a sexually traumatic childhood and thats why she lied so much. But she also aggressively defended herself saying "Whatever your brother told you was a lie. He was the one telling lies. Thats why I had to breakup with him". She seemed to jerk around the conversation from normal to deeply personal and strange topics. She explained in detail a lesbian experience she had had after ending her relationship with my brother and told me that I should try it, when I came of age, of course.

I became increasingly uncomfortable with the conversation. She noticed and immediately apologized, saying that she really liked being my friend and that she loved my brother and thats why she was acting so crazy. I told her I liked being her friend too and that I understood her feelings. This was a mistake

This is when the phone calls began.

It started with just one. She called me a week after we had hung out at 10pm. She was sobbing and saying that she was so sad without my brother and that she needed to get him back.

Then they happened nightly, later and later each time. I'd be dead asleep at 2am and receive a sobbing, hysterical and desperate phone call. I felt so much pity for her that I continued to answer.

One call was different than the other, though. She wasn't hysterical, she wasn't crying. I picked up the phone at 1:30 in the morning and heard a level voiced, monotone Pam. She said one sentence, "Tell your brother I'm going to slit my fucking throat tonight." And then she hung up. I felt numb. I had never experienced that before, no one I knew had ever behaved that way. I texted her over and over again asking if she was okay and telling her to not do anything. I panicked, I thought I had done something wrong and that since she told me I would be responsible in some way.

The next day, I told my brother what had happened and he said he'd go to her house to check on her.

A week later Pam arrived at my house, arm in arm with my brother. They had gotten back together and seemed as if nothing had happened. She smiled at me and never once mentioned the phone calls she had made to me.

The next month is when things escalated again.

I came home from school to my entire family sitting in the living room. They told me to sit down, I thought someone had died. My mother told me, "Your brother let us know how you're feeling." I had no idea what they were talking about. "Feeling?" I asked. My brother looked at me with pity in his eyes, "Pam told me that she wasn't the one who called you, you called her. And you're the one who wasn't feeling well." What the fuck. "No, thats not what happened, she called me every night for 2 weeks crying and saying she wanted you back." "Thats not what she said, she said that you called her with your problems and that she wasn't sure what to do." I was immediately angry that her lies were continuing and that my own family believed them enough to stage an intervention. I showed them the text messages she'd sent me, played them voice messages and showed my call history. That put and end to that lie.

After that I wanted nothing to do with her. My brother broke up with her again. She called him hundreds of times and sent hundred of messages. She showed up at our house a few times with baked goods, wanting to apologize, but we ignored her. Eventually, she left us alone and we didn't hear from her for almost a year.

On my last day of class before winter break during my Sophomore year, I walked out of school and was met by an incredibly unwelcome surprise. This is where things got scary.

Pam was pacing in the front of the school, biting her fingernails and scratching her head. Her face looked sunken in and she had bags under her eyes, I almost didnt recognize her. I began to cut across the front lawn with my friend, Liz, to avoid her, but she saw me and walked as fast as she could in my direction. She outreached her arms for a hug, but I stopped.

The first thing she said was "You're mad at me?". I asked her what she was doing there and she laughed quietly. "I wanted to apologize for whatever your brother told you. I'm sick, Oz." She used a nickname only my brother called me. "I know. Please don't talk to me anymore." I started away, knowing my brother was parked waiting for me around the corner. Pam reached out and grabbed my shoulder as I did. I quickly pulled away and said "I'm serious. Leave us alone, I think you need some help, Pam." She immediately began to cry, but I turned away and left. My brother pulled into the front parking lot of the school and opened his car door for me. "Is that fucking Pam?" He looked through his front mirror. "Yeah, I don't know what she's on, but she's crazy".

That night, at around 1 am, there was a knock at our door. My dad went to it and looked through the peep hole. "Uh," he said, surprised, "I think its, what the fuck, I think its Pam." "Don't open it, I think shes doing drugs." My brother said. My mom wanted to call the police, but my brother and my dad said we should just wait until she went away. A few moments later she rapped on the door harder and more violently. We heard her wailing and yelling "I hear you, fucking let me in!" As she cried. "She has a baseball bat or something" my brother said, coming from his room where he'd looked out the window. I looked from the den window. She looked like something out of a horror movie. She was wearing a grubby dress, bare footed. Her hair had been cut to above her shoulders and was in a wild, halfway in a bun, halfway out mess. She had wiped her makeup down her face like a ghoulish movie character. She looked even thinner than she did in day light and she swung a metal baseball back around as she stumbled about our yard.

"I'm calling the police, she must be drunk." My mother said. "No, it's fine. She's just giving a show. She'll leave." We didn't know people actually behaved like this. It was all eerily entertaining for a moment, like watching a true crime show. But just as she had been manically stumbling around, she stopped. She stood still, staring vacantly up towards the upstairs bedrooms, tilting her head side to side, up and down and licking her lips. "What is she on, heroin or something?" My dad asked.

Pam began to shift back and forth between laughing and yelling and crying. We all sat down as my brother tried her phone and her mom's phone to try and get her to leave. We sat there and listened to the frightening, animalistic sounds of her outside. But then they stopped. We checked the windows and she was gone.

We all sat in silence for a moment, taking in the strange encounter. My father just chuckled and shook his head, my mother shook hers, pitying the girl for being so disturbed. But I was frightened. No one, except perhaps my brother had seen just how quickly her demeanor, her mental state unraveled. From overprotective nature, to small lies, to pathological lies, to full blown manic outbreaks. But this was her worst and we didn't expect anything more to come of it, that she'd fade away from our lives since now she knew we weren't giving in to her desperation.

But in the next 2 years, we learned how wrong we were.

After the wintertime incident at our house, Pam stopped coming around. She was still very present, however. Every member of my family endured daily text messages and phone calls. They ranged from apologetic and stable, to incredibly distraught or outraged, cursing and making threats. I remember wanting to sleep with the lights on for several months after the incident, afraid that she'd climb the fence of our back yard and I'd find her standing at my window with the same vacant, crazed look she had that night in our front yard. All four of us eventually decided to have our phone numbers changed and block her from our devices and social media accounts. She still had our home phone number, however. Pam left some of the most frightening and haunting messages I'd ever heard. I can remember standing in my kitchen with my family, my brother playing the messages back for us. One stood out-- it showed us just how unstable and potentially dangerous she was:

My parents and I had returned from an early morning indoor soccer game in February of 2015. My brother asked us to come into the kitchen because we "had to hear the new crazy" Pam had become. The first message was about 30 seconds long and received at 12:30am the night before. Pam sound mildly angry and demanded that we return the batch of cookies she had brought to a 4th of July party, some years ago, because she didn't want us to have them anymore. We all exchanged humored glances at how ridiculous of a request it was. My mother turned to leave, amused, but my brother stopped her, saying that that wasn't the crazy part. My brother played the message, received at roughly 3 in the morning that day. We were confused at first because the first 15 seconds was that white noise, the kind you hear when a device plays the sound recording of an empty room, if you know what I'm talking about. But all of a sudden, in a deep, animalistic and enraged voice, she screamed, "Stop FUCKING playing with me... You're gonna get it." and abruptly ended the call. We were all startled by this.

"I want to call the police, they need to know... that girl isn't all there and who knows what she can do." My dad decided that if anything physically happened again, we'd file a report with the police, but that they were just phone calls. My brother assured that she was all talk and wouldn't come around again. At this point I agreed with my mother. I no longer felt safe. I had never been around someone who behaved like this. I was constantly anxious and I had no idea what I'd do if she came around again. I felt like I was stuck in a Lifetime movie, because I didn't think that things like this happened-- that someone I knew so personally could be hiding such a deeply withheld, violent and manic side. It had always been there, but we set it in motion.

After disconnecting the land line, the personal phone calls stopped. We didn't hear from her ourselves, but some of the friends my brother shared with Pam would come to him, saying that Pam wanted to speak with him and that she would call and message them regularly wanting his phone number. Luckily none of them gave it.

Just before summer, Pam disappeared.

No one got any messages, no one saw her in town. Nothing. Nothing until my brother received an email from Pam's mother, who my brother continued to speak to occasionally. She informed my brother that Pam's family had moved her to the east coast to undergo treatment for a drug habit.

Pam's mother had given us more information about the mental state of her daughter. Her mother had not spoken to or seen Pam much during the time she unraveled, when she came to our house or when she'd made the phone calls. Pam's mother had been under the impression my brother was still in a healthy relationship with Pam, and only learned about their breakup and the incident's following it. She explained that her daughter had always had been a white liar; making up stories that didn't make sense, blaming others for things she had already been caught for, arguing the truth of things that were already proven facts. "I don't think she ever thought that anything she did was wrong, even when it was. I don't understand it, because she was not raised that way," she had explained to my brother. Pam's issues were something that had always been present, but settled comfortably beneath an intelligent and attractive exterior. She'd fooled us, and maybe even herself.

Without Pam to worry about, our lives seemed to go back to normal; I still looked over my shoulder every now and again. But, I was preparing for 11th grade, my brother was beginning a new career and dating a new girl, the daughter of a close family friend, who he'd grown up with. Pam started to fade away from our minds. For a while.

As myself and my friends began to drive, I remember noticing a car quite a bit. You know that car you see repeatedly around the area you live in, you notice it more than the others, because you noticed it once and now you can't stop noticing it since you know it exists? You know it belongs to someone, but you've never seen the driver, just the car? It was like that. I'd notice it out of the corner of my eye at a stop light, or out the window of a restaurant as it drove past. I didn't think much of it, but I noticed it pretty much every time I was out; walking, driving and many times with my brother. I didn't understand how often I'd seen it until one day it clicked, and it startled me. It scared me. I saw it parked in my neighborhood and I remember thinking, 'That's that fucking car. What is it doing here?'... We lived in a smaller, older neighborhood. Most of the people who lived there had been there for a long time. We knew a lot of the neighbors and houses were pretty much never on the market. New people showed up maybe, once ever 5 or so years, and when they did, most people knew about it. So an out of place, but oddly familiar car came as a huge surprise to me.

I pointed it out to my brother, who had been in the car with me at the time. He said "Oh yeah, I've seen it a few times." I didn't feel right about it, but I assumed I was being paranoid.

A few months later, I was well into school, had a job and was too busy to let myself worry. Even though I did.

One day at work, I was wiping down tables in the front of the restaurant, as it was a pretty slow day, only a few people in the store. I remember seeing someone standing outside the front doors, just barely visible out the window. I was busy and assumed they were deciding where to have lunch, as another restaurant was directly next to ours and people did this often. They weren't there anymore and I assumed they'd gone next door. I went out to clear dishes off the front patio and clean up and I saw them walking away from the store, down the strip of businesses in the plaza. Back inside as I worked, I noticed the same person walked back and forth several more times. I was wary at this point as the person seemed to linger for about an hour. I didn't think anything of it afterwards, though.

I was a theater student and had to take some time off for a play I was in. Come opening night, I was so burnt out, I didn't notice anything, even if it was out of the ordinary. My family came opening night, the 4th show and closing night. Leaving with my family from the 4th show is when I snapped back into my anxiety ridden reality. That car was in the parking lot. It was parked a few rows away from my parents' car. I had never seen it at my school before and I knew it didn't belong to any of my castmates. "What does Pam drive?" I asked my brother. "Pam? I don't know, why?" "That stupid car, it freaks me out. Its like, everywhere we are."

A few days later, I had an answer.

At closing night of my show, I went out into the lobby of the theater to greet everyone when we finished. I hugged my parents and my brother, but I noticed that they all looked distraught. My brother was visibly upset and my parents were trying to make conversation, the way they do to avoid something. "What happened?" I asked. "Uh, Pam. She was here." I sort of felt the color run out of my face. I didn't know how much what Pam had done had frightened me until then. "Did she leave?" "I don't know," My brother said, "don't worry about it."

I went and got my things and remembered how strangely violated I felt. That Pam had watched me for the past two hours without me knowing she was in the same state, let alone the same building.

I decided to go home straight away. We left the building and there she was. She was looking at her phone, standing at the mouth of one of the hallways in front of the theater. I stopped for a moment, but the four of us decided to walk as hurried as we could towards the parking lot, hoping to ignore her and breeze past her. She looked different; still skinny, but she wore makeup again. From a distance she looked almost like the old Pam. But as we got closer, she looked up from her phone and still had the vacant, animal quality to her face. A bit of anger flashed over her face as she noticed us. She looked like she was going to say something, but we all pretended to not notice her and continued on. She followed closely behind us, "Hey, wait a minute." At the front of the school, my brother stopped as we kept walking. I heard him say, "You need to stop." We got to our car and watched them talk from a distance. I wanted to get in our car and leave. My mom and I got in while my dad stood outside. Pam was yelling at my brother at this point. He made his way towards his car. Pam smiled artificially and waved towards my brother, shouting a goodbye to him as he went before storming off to her car. My brother stopped to talk to my dad a moment, got in his own car and left after Pam peeled out of the lot. In the same car I had been seeing for the past month and a half.

"Welp, just as crazy as ever." My dad said as he started the car, "We may need to call the police." We lived a short distance from the school, but I was shaken up and wanted my dad to drive as fast as possible. Every headlight we saw chilled me. I stared at my phone trying not to look out the window. I nearly dropped it.

We reached a street convergence in our neighborhood, at the stop sign to the right of us was her car. "Dad that's her." He drove straight and she turned the same direction. "Dad she's following us!" I had never felt quite so panicked. "Call the police, please." My dad said to my mother, his voice as level as ever. I stared out the back window, ducking low in my seat. My dad turned down another street and she followed again. "I'm gonna go in a circle, to see if she follows us, okay?" my dad said. I was crying at this point as I came to a realization. For 4 more turns, my mom spoke to a 911 operator, unable to accurately name streets, as they were not lit and it was pitch black outside. I laid across the back seat listening to my parents yell at each other, frustrated and I'm sure frightened, and my dad curse as she continued to follow more closely. The car was flooded with light as she turned on her brights, the grill of her car almost touching our bumper. My dad turned to mirror away to keep the light out of his eyes and sped the car up. Eventually the light was gone and I could no longer hear the drone of her engine behind us. She was gone.

We got home 10 minutes later and turned every light in our house on. My dad checked every closet and our back and side yards, carrying his gun with him. "She's been fucking watching me and [my brother]." I was almost hysterical in my realization.

For the past month, Pam had been stalking both my brother and I. Seeing that car had not been a coincidence. She knew what we were both doing; she came to my school function, on both nights my family was there (maybe all three nights). She knew where I was; she had followed me all over town, she'd been around our neighborhood and had been her lurking around my work place.

All of a sudden the threats became real. Pam was no longer afraid of crossing boundaries, if she ever had been. We were now in the middle of a full blown nightmare. My family was no longer safe. She had gone away to cure one disease, but returned having fed and grown another. She was our personal terrorist with the power to single-handedly pull our everyday lives apart. And she had already begun to do just that.

What may seem like the plot of a bad horror movie-- the psychotic ex-girlfriend reeking havoc-- became our reality, times ten. I cannot express to you how terrible it is to be kept awake by something you cannot see, but you know exists and is waiting for you when you get out of bed. I never expected a human being could terrify me more than any horrible monster or boogieman-- those things don't exist. I'm sharing this ordeal to help others understand warning signs and pressure those who see them to take action to protect themselves.

Despite the terror of that night, this was only halfway year 5 of 6. And things would continue to approach a boiling point.

After we told my brother about what Pam had done the night after my show, he finally began to confide in me the details of his relationship with Pam. She had come to his high school as a sophomore during his senior year. She immediately caught the attention of my brother and his friends, as she was beautiful and expected to be reserved as a new student. However, my brother recalled his female friends saying she was aggressive in trying to make friends and liked to talk about how her family had moved here from an affluent community in Texas, so elite that it didn't have a name. Many of his friends also had gotten strange vibes from her and pinned her as a "weird, snobby girl" right away. My brother met her again a few years later when she came in to where he was working at the time and said how she had seemed to mature vastly. He took her on one date and almost immediately she wanted to officiate their relationship. He thought it was a bit forward, but didn't hesitate because she impressed him with her elegant way of speaking, kind words and pretty face.

However, he noticed red flags only a few weeks into their relationship. Pam was very insecure: constantly asking my brother if he still had feelings for her, if he was angry with her and if he thought she was attractive enough. Eventually this insecurity took a different shape. Pam would send my brother unsolicited nude pictures of herself in the middle of the day attached to messages asking if he still liked the way her body looked. If my brother went a period of time in their conversations without calling her "beautiful" or telling her how nice she looked, Pam would point this out. If he protested in anyway she'd become emotional and claim he didn't love her anymore.

This behavior mellowed until the end of the second year of their relationship. This is when the narcissism became apparent. Pam would often talk lowly of my brother's previous girlfriends and female friends, boasting about how much more attractive she was than them. Pam refused to attended several of the events my brother asked her to go to (like my birthday dinner or our Aunt's funeral) because she "Wouldn't know anyone and would have no one to talk to". She also enjoyed referring to herself as a "princess" and wanting to constantly be doted upon. She often argued with my brother about him spending time with his friends without her because she didn't understand why he wanted to be around anyone but her. She was 100% convinced she would one day be a celebrity and marry my brother. (At this point I was in disbelief that my brother, a smart, kind and good looking man was wasting any more of his time with a girl who behaved like that.)

However, anytime my brother hinted at wanting to end the relationship, Pam would fly off the handle, becoming belligerent and promising to kill herself. My brother was trapped by the fear of her harming herself. He'd often think that she was simply bluffing and wouldn't actually do anything, but one day he discovered several bottles of prescription pills in Pam's home. He asked her about them and she told him that they were antidepressants prescribed to her after the death of her brother (a brother who he later found out never existed).

Eventually Pam began to become angry when my brother would want to spend time with his family without her around. He also told me that Pam fixated a lot of that anger on me. Once she proceeded to refer to me as a "slut" and made comments and theories about how my mother must have had an affair of which I was the product, because I was so ugly and my brother was not, so my brother decided it was time to end it no matter what. This information troubled me, as all of her actions following that (asking me to spend time with her, she wanting to be my friend, showing up at my school and the phone calls) seemed heinous, ill-intended and even more psychotic than they had been at the time.

But for the final year and a half of our ordeal with Pam, psychotic could not begin to explain what she did to us:

I slept little in the weeks following the car incident. My brother, who lived across town, visited and called more regularly. I suspected he felt as uneasy as I did. The nights I did sleep, I often sweat through nightmares of girls with axes or gowned women standing at the foot of my bed or in my window. One night in early December of 2015, it was a rainy and particularly windy night. I wanted to let the cold air in and I thought that the sound of rain would help me sleep, so I cracked the window only enough to where it could reach the second latch. I also placed the piece of wood my father had cut to help with security behind the window. I pulled my curtain in front of window, leaving the cracked part of the window uncovered to allow air to pass the heavy blackout curtain. I remember waking from sleep, vaguely hearing a foreign noise against the roof out my window. My room was on the second floor of our house. Our house had 3 levels and the "second story" was only 6 or 7 steps up from the primary floor of our house. All of the spaces where different levels, but the bedrooms where the highest, slightly lower than they'd be in a classic 2 story home. What I'm getting at is that my room was hard to get to from the outside, but not if you were aware of the parts of our home and the access points from other roof levels over the living room and garage.

I shook the noise off, as it was storming and I thought maybe some leaves or branches were moving around. I turned over to face the wall opposite my window. Not even a second later my room was illuminated by a surge of white light. I shot up in bed. I was momentarily paralyzed with horror. Every one of my limbs felt as if they were floating as I tried to make sense of what had happened. Then, again, myself and every item in my room became a black silhouette as another flash filled the space. I threw the blankets off of me and ran as fast as I could down the hallway. I was screaming so loud I surprised myself. I ran into my dad as he threw open his bedroom door. He was panicked and held me by my shoulders in the doorway to their bedroom and yelled at me to tell him what was wrong.

"Someone was taking pictures of me through my window!"

The roof and house was checked and they, of course, found nothing and no one. My mother sat up with me and asked every basic question a parent asks "Were you dreaming? Are you sure it wasn't lightening?" There was no thunder and I was sure that there had not been at the time it happened. The flashes did not have the same hue as lightening did. I had taken enough cell phone pictures in my life to identify the flash of a camera. I don't know if they believed me then, but I would eventually have proof that would astonish them.

My brother adopted Ike in January of 2016. Ike was a 2 month old Chesapeake Bay Retriever with one gold eye and one green eye. He had a very distinct white marking on his chest that looked like an hour glass and a white sock on his front left paw. Ike was the love of my brother's life, aside from his now fiancee, Kara. Ike would end our torture just 3 months later.

The holidays and my brother's engagement to Kara, who was amazing, beautiful and who's family we had known all our lives, had lifted my family's spirits immensely. My brother was starting his family, almost done with the police academy and seemed untouchable by any memory of Pam. We felt optimistic for the first time in a long time, Pam hadn't been around (to our knowing) in several weeks, all was normal and things were looking up. But that, again, didn't last.

A month or so after bringing him home, after letting him into the backyard for a few minutes by himself, Kara told us that Ike had escaped from the yard. She panicked and ran around the neighborhood looking for him. She got in her car, called me upset, and drove around the block looking for him. She picked me up and I helped her look in the creek area behind where my brother's house was. We couldn't find him. However, when we arrived back at my brother's house, Ike was sitting on the front porch. We were relieved as he was unharmed and seemed to be as happy as ever, despite missing his collar. I helped Kara check the yard for ways he could've gotten out. We both decided he must have shimmied through a small gap in the gate on the side yard. I couldn't help being confused to find no grass or burs in his fur.

We thought nothing of it.

A few weeks later, both my brother and Kara were going on a weekend trip with some friends and I offered to take care of Ike. They dropped him off on the Friday before the three day weekend. Ike was happy to play with our older lab, Dez. The second night he was with us, I was out with friends and my dad had let both the dogs into the yard at around 8pm. He sat in his chair in the living room watching a show with my mom. They say they remember hearing Dez barking because he yelled for him to be quiet. But they assumed the puppy was riling him up. A few minutes later Dez came to the door to be let in. He ran inside and barked at my dad. My dad was confused, as our dog was not a regular barker. He called for Ike but he didn't come. My dad went out and looked around in the bushes and still did not find him. He became concerned and hurried into the house to get a light. He checked the swimming pool and still did not find him. My mother joined him and they both scoured the large yard but did not find him.

When I got home, they had just finished searching the front and side yards. I told them that he had escaped once before, so we decided to take the car to look for him. As we drove around yelling for him, attracting the help of a few neighbors, I thought how strange it was that such a well behaved puppy had suddenly become a master escape artist in the past three or so weeks. Our yard had seen 3 or so dogs grow up in it, some younger and smaller than Ike, and we had never had that problem. The fences were high and well built and my dad had replaced the ones on the side of the house just a few summers ago.

We did not find him.

I hoped that he'd return that night, like he did last time, but he didn't. I informed my brother on Sunday and proceeded to look all day in surrounding areas, the pound, shelters, vet clinics and even looked to the sides of roads from bodies. We found nothing.

My brother was heartbroken. I helped him make fliers to post in our neighborhood and his.

A couple weeks past and we heard nothing.

My dad was doing yard work in mid-February. He came in after a few hours and he set something on the kitchen table. "What's that?" I knit my brow as I saw it. "It's Ike's collar, it was in the front yard, I almost hit it with the mower. You'll have to take it to your brother." It was Ike's collar. His first collar. Not the one he had been wearing the night he went missing from our yard. It was his puppy collar, which he had lost the day he got out of the yard at my brother's house.

I called Kara and asked her if they had found it, and she said they hadn't and had bought him a new one.

That's when it clicked. Someone had stolen my brother's dog not once, but twice.

I told my brother, Kara and my parents my theory and it was not a difficult one for them to understand. It had to be connected to everything else.

Right when we thought she was out of our lives...

We decided to take it to the police to add to our case file on Pam. I also told them about the night I had been photographed from my window. The police, like many times before, told us they could not do anything, as there was no proof she had done any of these things.

Frustrated, defeated and frightened again.

But a few short weeks later, in April of 2016, new developments would finally end it all.

By complete, God-sent coincidence, Kara was with her mother in a small town 45 minutes away from ours. We were planning for my 17th birthday that month and so preoccupied we almost put Pam and the fact that she undoubtedly had been watching us for months and had stolen, probably killed, my brother's puppy and thrown his collar in our front yard to help us connect the dots and give her credit for the crime. However, while Kara window shopped in the center of the town, she and her mother noticed a car parked on the street. A car with a puppy in it. It was a bit warm out, so they walked to the window and peeked in at the animal. Kara immediately recognized him by his eyes and the marking on his chest (and the fact that he began crying as soon as she called his name and he saw her).

She phoned the police, phoned my brother and sat on the back trunk of the car. The police arrived as the owner of the car came back to it. The girl was immediately upset by the presence of the police and Kara's angry accusations. The girl was not Pam, and she became rather helpful. The girl said that she had purchased the dog only a few days ago from an add online. She told police that the girl she purchased her from was "super shady" and eager to get rid of the dog who was skinny and a very cheap price. The girl who had sold her the dog claimed that she "didn't want the stupid dog, it was a present from her boyfriend, but it was the wrong kind". Pam had always liked small dogs. She told the police that she had met the girl to purchase the dog at an apartment complex a few minutes from where they were, but that she wasn't sure what apartment the girl lived in.

The police, after Kara had informed them of our situation, used Pam's name to find out that she indeed lived in the apartment complex with two roommates. They interviewed Pam's roommates the next day, but Pam was not there. They told detectives that they almost never saw Pam, her room was always locked and she was almost always gone. She didn't have a job, though she claimed to have one, and her mother was there a lot checking up on her and dropping off her rent to them. However, when they did speak to her, she talked a lot about her past relationship and switched between how much she loved him and his family to how they all "deserved to die" and were "going to hell".

With the information given by the girl who had purchased Ike and by Pam's roommates, the police finally had sufficient evidence to search Pam's apartment. I don't know much about what they found, but what I do know horrified my family and horrified me. On Pam's computer they found hundreds upon hundreds of pictures of my brother, my parents, Kara and of me. Our cars, our houses, my school, my brother's school, of Ike. Pictures taken through our windows at night. Picture of us sleeping. Photos taken from our social media of vacations, the picture of my brother's proposal to Kara, she had even doctored herself into some of them. She still had pictures of her and my brother and her with my family up around her room. She had kept Ike in her closet for weeks on a towel and with just water and little food. In her search history they found everything from rape-fantasy and other violent pornography to weapon research.

The police now had sufficient evidence to arrest Pam.

Pam had been obsessively stalking my family for more than a two years. She had stalked us from her car, following us around town. It had been her snapping photos of me from the roof outside my window. She had watched my brother drop Ike off at our house. She had documented her opinions of us, our habits and her plans in a journal which we will not get to see until the case is taken to trial next month. My brother, myself, my father, the girl we found Ike with, Pam's roommates, several of my brother's friends and Pam's mother will testify against her. It will be the first face to face interaction any of us will have had with her in many months and I am terrified.

And I'm angry. I'm angry that an evil, narcissistic, malevolent, psychotic parasite like her had latched onto my brother, onto my family and single-handedly stripped us of our security, our sanity and our trust. Every creak, every bump, every unknown face and every vehicle following too closely will send me into a tailspin of dread and I'll see her again, standing in my front yard in her dress and looking up to the sky with a vacant, animalistic gaze.

My life became a real horror story. Not because of a haunted house or because of an ax wielding murderer. But because of a sick girl with a broken mind and a fixation on something unobtainable. I'm 17 years old and I've experienced an ordeal most will read and think is a sad attempt at a thrilling fiction post. My family is healing, I'm healing and she did NOT break us.

I hope that this story helps anyone who has gone through something similar feel not so alone. I hope that those of you who read this and think of someone who shows the same warning signs as Pam did, are now prepared to take action to protect yourselves. Don't wait until things get as bad as they got for me. Be aware of the power of mental instability and the danger behind it.

[ecotone99]

[HM] Beary Nice

Beary Nice

“An’ Sunday night, mommy made hot chocolate and we drunk it by the fireplace!” Cassie held up a polaroid picture of herself seated on what appeared to be a fold out sofa bed covered with what looked like very old and very stained “My Little Pony” sheets. In one hand she held a mug that proclaimed “World’s Greatest Grandma” and in the other she held a death grip on a small brown teddy bear with big goofy eyes and a red bow tie. “And Beary had a beary good time!” she finished with a giggle.

Cassie, like many of the kids in Mrs. Bloomer’s first grade class, was very fond of their class pet, a stuffed teddy bear Mrs. Bloomer introduced to them as “Beary Nice”. During the week, Beary sat in a little rocking chair by Mrs. Bloomer’s desk, and every weekend one of the children got to take Beary home and would later report on what they did together.

Mrs. Bloomer forced a smile. “Very good Cassie, thank you”. The little girl sat down, a smile beaming from her dirt-smudged face. “Well, it looks like Beary Nice had a good weekend with you. Thank you for taking care of him Cassie. Well, lets see, whose turn is it to take him home this weekend…” Mrs. Bloomer turned to the chart on the wall, though she already knew who was next. She’d been dreading this day all year. Dakota’s turn.

Dakota was already waving his hand wildly and making an “ooh” sound. Mrs. Bloomer gritted her teeth and turned to look at him. His long, filthy blond hair stood out starkly against the faded black AC/DC T-shirt he’d been wearing the last three days. Dakota was at least two years older than everyone else in the class and, given that he couldn’t even begin to read, he was likely going to be back in 1st grade again next year. He had, however, developed an even stronger attachment to Beary than most of the other children, to the point where he sometimes interrupted class to ask questions about the bear- “Does Beary have a daddy?” or “Does Beary cuss?” ”Yes…Dakota. I think its your turn.” Mrs. Bloomer said at last.

“I know it is Miss Bloomer! I counted the days from the start of the year and this is the 84th.” He smiled back at her, his crooked yellow teeth taunting her.

“Yes... Well, its almost time to go, so why don’t you go get Beary from his chair. Now remember you have to be nice to him.”

“We’re gonna shoot my dad’s gun!” Dakota announced loudly as he seized the bear roughly from its chair. The rest of the class laughed. Mrs. Bloomer sighed and realized she would probably never see Beary Nice again.

*********

On Monday, Dakota didn’t bother coming to school. When Tuesday came, he actually showed up for school, and, as Mrs. Bloomer feared, Dakota failed to return the bear. “He’s okay, I left him home watchin’ cartoons with my mama” he said reassuringly. “I’ll bring him back tomorrow.”

On Wednesday, once again, Dakota failed to produce the bear. Mrs. Bloomer decided to not make a scene during class, and instead asked Dakota to come see her before he went to recess. When he approached the desk, his face was already red and a look of consternation filled his normally impish face, so Mrs. Bloomer proceeded with caution.

“Now Dakota…You made a promise to bring Beary back. Why haven’t you done it yet?” Dakota fidgeted and looked down at his feet.

“Dakota, you have to bring Beary back. He is probably very lonely sitting at your house by himself.”

“He aint there by his self. My mama’s there with him.”

“Well be that as it may…” ”Miss Bloomer, Beary told me he don’t wanna come back here. He said he likes it at my house. Can I have him?” Dakota’s grubby face peered up at Mrs. Bloomer pleadingly.

“Uh…No, Dakota, we can’t do that. He belongs to the whole class.”

”But I love him Miss Bloomer. He wants to stay with me. . Please Miss Bloomer.” Tears began to well up in Dakota’s eyes.

“Dakota,” Mrs. Bloomer cleared her throat and looked away momentarily, “We …You need to bring Beary Nice back.” Dakota’s eyes dropped and tears began to roll down his cheeks, leaving brown streaks of dirt as they fell to the floor. He nodded and walked out the door. After she was sure he was gone, Mrs. Bloomer quietly locked the door and dug through her purse for the tiny bottle of Crown Royal she kept hidden in the middle pocket.

*******

The bell rang to begin class on Friday morning. After missing school Thursday, Dakota was back, seated in his chair, making faces at the boy behind him and laughing. Mrs. Bloomer had already decided to not make a scene by asking for the bear in front of the other children. As she got up to call role, a little girl raised her hand.

“Yes Rachel?”

“Do I get to take Beary home this weekend?”

Mrs. Bloomer gritted her teeth and swallowed. “We’ll talk about that later.”

The little girl pressed the issue. “But Mrs. Bloomer, its my weekend. We were gonna take him to the zoo.”

Mrs. Bloomer swallowed hard, gauging Dakota’s reaction. He was looking agitated, glaring at the little girl and wiggling around in his desk uncomfortably.

“Rachel, I said we’ll talk about this later.”

“No fair!” the little girl pouted. “Dakota was supposed to bring him back!”

“No!” shouted Dakota, giggling.

“Dakota! That’s very rude.” Mrs. Bloomer glared at the boy. “Dakota, see me at recess.” The boy stood up and grinned at her and shook his head.

“Dakota, sit down. Do you want me to call Mr. George?”

He shook his head again, then between giggles said, “You aint ever gettin' Beary back”.

“Dakota-“ ”He’s dead. He’s in hell with my daddy.”

“Dakota!” Children gasped around the room. Cassie started crying loudly. Mrs. Bloomer pressed the button to summon a principal to the classroom. “Dakota, sit down. You are in big trouble.” The little boy shook his head again, violently, his dirty hair flailing wildly around his head.

“You want Beary?” Dakota said, laughing maniacally. “You can have him!” Dakota reached deep into his G.I. Joe backpack and triumphantly yanked out what appeared to be a big piece of steel wool. He flung it at Mrs. Bloomer, who narrowly avoided the projectile, causing it to bounce off the white board and land on the tile floor with a plastic clacking sound. The room fell deathly silent as a smell of smoke and ash filled everybody’s nostrils. Staring back at the class were a pair of big melted plastic eyes.

“I burned him just like I burned my mawmaw’s cat!”

The next few minutes would forever be a blur in Mrs. Bloomer's memory. Dakota fell to his knees laughing while the other children screamed in horror. Leaping with almost preternatural speed, he snatched a bucket of safety scissors from Mrs. Bloomer's desk, and flung it around his head, sending scissors flying in every direction, all the while laughing and laughing and laughing. The children in the front row dove behind their desks, while those in the back just wailed. Somewhere in the distance, Mrs. Bloomer thought she heard a dog barking. She remembered a knock at the door, then the sound of old hinges squealing as it was thrust open, then Principal George's booming voice. Dakota, still laughing, dove for the classroom window, but was too short to get over the windowsill, and crash landed on his back. Mr. George grabbed him by the collar and drug him away, the sound of his heels squeaking on the vinyl floors barely audible over his laughter. Mrs. Bloomer stared dumbly as he disappeared into the hallway, his eyes bloodshot, his cheeks wet with tears, and his mouth agape and curled with hysterics as he laughed and laughed and laughed. It was over. Mrs. Bloomer looked around the room. Children were still crying, but started to take their seats. They looked to her for guidance. She stood, meaning to say something, but the words just weren't there. Then she saw it, the charred remains of Beary Nice, blackened limbs akimbo on the floor where Dakota left him. She approached it, toeing at it first, then bent down and took it into her hands. Its melted eyes glared at her accusingly. "Alright, Rachel," she held it out, "You may have Beary this weekend."

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