#thank you all for reading my unedited and just shat out writing!

[thedeitychildren]

Rosie Ghost: Chapter 1

Author’s Note: So, I just finished writing this, and thought I’d share it. It’s unlikely I’ll ever finish Rosie’s story, but like, I’ve drawn her enough I feel like I should at least post a writing of her. Also, I really need a new title for her story, seriously. Anyway, hope you enjoy, and maybe I’ll write more of this!

The sky is a matted mix of grays and blacks, which only from experience is she able to distinguish from the true night sky. Rain drizzles down from the clouds and slides, drop after drop, down the glass she is staring out of.

She can hear it, the soft pitter-patter of raindrops against the roof, and she thinks today is one of the days it will drive her crazy, rather than comforting her. She sighs, and folds up the book she had been trying to read in the dim light. 

“Guess today’s just not my day,” she announces to the potted plant a few feet from her, and gets up off the padded armchair she had been curled up on.

She arches her back as she stretches, bringing her hands all the way above her head for a count of three breaths. Was that yoga? It sounded like it, stretching and breathing, that was yoga, right?

She was going to have to sit in on another one of Ms. Theo’s classes soon, she had forgotten so much.

The steady tinkling of raindrops, which really wasn’t all that steady, there was no pattern to it, they just dropped down from the sky whenever they wished, but the sound of raindrops was interrupted by a sharp clack against the glass. 

She turned around to see a raven pecking at the window, its dark eyes meeting hers as it begged to be let in. She giggled at it, and fumbled with the latch for a few minutes before finally opening it. The raven wasted no time, cawing as it dashed into the room, spraying droplets of water everywhere as it unfurled its wings.

She laughed as the droplets splattered everywhere. “Come on now, this is a library, be mindful of all the paper here, this is a public place that we should leave in as good condition as we found it in,” she chastised as she closed the window back up, blocking out any more rain from dampening the waiting books.

The raven croaked in dismissal of her rebuttal, and walked around the shelves, its beady eyes fixed on her as it waited for her to entertain it. Not that she minded, she thrived on the attention.

“Now then, you're going to have to leave before daylight breaks, you know how much administration doesn’t like animals in the school,” She warned the raven, wagging her finger in front of its face. It followed the finger closely, more than it followed her words, and it looked seconds away from trying to bite her.

Ha! Joke’s on it, it can’t hurt her.

“I’m serious, young avian, listen to your elders!” She barely managed to finish the sentence without laughter escaping her lips.

The raven cawed, ruffling its feathers as though to reject her authority, and she doubled over, clutching at her stomach as she cackles.

When she was finally able to live again, she looked up at the bird and found it standing there, looking proud at its accomplishment of raising her spirits. She smiled at it in thanks, it's polite to thank those that do nice things for you, but quickly, she must move on.

“Now,” she warned, “If you promise not to get anything wet, I think there’s a story here that you may enjoy.” She walked through the library, tapping her finger against her bottom lip as she perused title after title. The raven followed behind her, walking with a weird hop-skip-jump on its little talons.

It was then she heard the faint sound of a door slamming somewhere in the building. The familiar click of the lock sliding into place reverberated faintly in the library, and as she strained her hearing, she could hear light footfalls against the linoleum floor.

Breath caught in her throat as she instinctively stilled. The raven, too, seemed to sense a disturbance, as it quieted down to barely a whisper of sound.

Was it- was it time for the school day to restart? No, a quick look at the clock told her the day was still hours away. Why would someone be in the school at the dead of night? Well, someone besides her, but she was an exception!

And she could still hear the footfalls.

“What do I do, what do I do, what do I do,” She mumbled to herself, tugging harshly at her lightly bound hair. 

Maybe it was just students planning an elaborate prank. Maybe. Hopefully.

Should she run and hide until daylight comes? No, that would be stupid, she couldn’t be seen anyway.

“Let’s go check it out then,” She needlessly whispered to the raven, and she glided across the floor, leaving the library as the raven followed behind, squeezing through the crack in the door.

The outer halls were just as dark as the library, the gloom of dusk making it nigh impossible to see. Yet still, a flash of movement caught her eye, and she went towards it.

Rounding a bend, she saw a figure dressed in all black next to the wall, their features were hidden, and those that were not were made indistinguishable from the night. They were running a gloved hand against a wall, murmuring words that she could not hear, but more could feel reverberating in the air. There was a pressure around the figure, one that made Rosie’s ears pop and her stomach drop. She wanted to run, and run, and run-

But where was there to go to get away? It's not like she could leave the school.

So closer she crept, and she followed the figure as they walked. Their hand remained on the wall as they went, and letters of faint and faded light formed where they had touched. The letters looked like interconnected swirls, looping into one another until she forgot where she had begun.

And as those words expanded, circling further and further out, a doorway formed, a dark cave that she could faintly see had a staircase leading downward.

Down

        And down

                        And down.

And down that staircase the figure did go, and down that staircase did she follow. The bricks of the building were replaced with dark, old stones that looked ancient. Looping patterns, like those of the letters, were carved into the rock.

After a minute of walking they came upon an opening leading into a cavern. It was lit by faint, white light that glowed from the swirls on the walls. And in the center of the cavern was a pedestal, it looked as though it had been carved out of the ground, for there was no place where the pedestal ended and the ground began. On that pedestal a pendant sat, the gems that lay on it faintly glowing in a rainbow of colors.

And her body felt as though it was exploding. Every inch of her skin itched with the need to leave. She did not want to be here- she did not want to be here- she did not want to be here!

The figure entered the cavern, and the light reflected off them like they were an angel. And as they stepped up to the pedestal, the light almost seemed to form a crown around them, claiming them.

Oh God, everything was wrong and she should not be here.

She had begun to cry at some point, silent tears that streamed down her face, and she made no move to wipe them away.

The figure’s hands inched closer and closer to the pendant and she should stop them, they should not have the pendant, that terrible, terrible pendant. But, she could not move, her entire body rejected entering the cavern.

They picked up the pendant, holding it reverently in front of their face, before stringing it around their neck.

“Finally,” their breath of pure shock and accomplishment echoed through the cavern and rang in her ears. “I’ve finally done it.”

They shouldn’t have the pendant. They ran their fingers along each gem, lingering on each, and she wanted to tear their fingers from it, to pry them away from the thing they should not have. But their fingers stilled at a gem, a single gem, and both of them looked at that gem in pure horror.

“No,” The figure whispered, their finger twitching as movement returned to it and it frantically traced the gem again and again. “This can’t be.”

The gem was pink, and its glow was so, so faint, nearly flickering. And while every other gem was clamped to the pendant with three small hooks, the pink gem hung out wrong, sideways, broken from to chains.

“Fuck!” They swore, slamming their palm down on the pedestal, the sound crackling through the air, sharp and painful.

And it is that sound that finally broke through her stupor, but as the figure turned around, she did not rush them as she should. She did not try to pry the pendant away from them. She- she hid.

She hid and watched the figure leave, and only when the passage began to close did she follow. By the time she left, she knew that the figure had left the school entirely.

The raven cawed at Rosie as her tears joined the now pouring rain.