We moved a lot. When I said a lot, it means it was the twelfth time that we moved since I was eight; since Mom died.

Dad said it was necessary to move. As a novelist, he needed inspiration. At least that was what he had always told me.

Marcel Rayne, also known under the pen name Locke Mort, wasn't really that much famous of a writer. Four of his works had already been published. He sold about more than five hundred copies of his latest book but I guess he was still waiting for his big break, which I doubted would ever come.

Dad wrote science fiction and mystery. Not many liked those genres. People liked vampires and werewolves more. And overcomplicated love triangles.

Who could blame them? The world had become so hopelessly boring everyone would literally gobble up anything that's new. Besides, no one seemed to read books anymore even if the book was any good. Reasonable people would just wait for the movie to come out. If it ever would.

Honestly, Dad got turned down more times than all my fingers combined. They said his works were too morbid. So, to pay the bills, he worked as a ghost-writer for a politician in Boston while being a freelance copywriter for a local tabloid.

It wasn't enough, though.

Most of the time loan sharks would come by our apartment at night. I would hear Dad beg over and over for them to give him more time. They would beat him up and tell him that if he didn't pay his debts, they would take me instead. Dad always promised that he would pay them on his next salary day but he never did. There was never enough money for the bills. From then on, I had always kept a kitchen knife under my pillow.

"Your room is upstairs," Dad muttered without even glancing back at me as he lugged our bags into the living room. "There's a private bathroom like you wanted."

I nodded mechanically even if he wasn't looking. There was no need to say anything-a skill I had mastered after living for too long with him.

Most people don't really see the resemblance between me and my dad, except that he has wavy dark brown hair like mine. His skin is so pale since he spent most of his time indoors in front of his laptop. Dad isn't exceptionally tall but somehow manages to appear lanky. At thirty-nine, he looked older than his age, perhaps owing to the constant crease on his forehead. He rarely smiled after Mom died.

Sniffing, Dad looked around our new house, but as soon as he turned to my direction, he dropped his gaze and started to his truck to get the rest of our meager belongings.

With a deep sigh, my eyes swept through the whole of our new home.

The living room was spacious, with dark mahogany walls and flooring. A wooden framed sofa with burgundy padding was set near the window facing the brick fireplace. The set was the center of the room. In the middle of it was a wooden coffee table where an empty porcelain vase was placed. Most of the other furniture were dusty while the others were still swathed with white sheets of cloth.

To the right of the living room was the kitchen. Pale yellow curtains hung from the grimy panels of its windows. Like the first one, most of the fixtures were made of wood, though lighter in color. In there were a two-burner stove, a conventional oven, the microwave we brought from Boston, and an old single-door fridge with rust on its edges. Not like we could afford more. The mere fact that he was able to afford a house this big was already suspicious.

Just before I was starting to head for my room, one of the cupboard doors creaked open. I stifled a cry and looked around.

There was no wind. The windows were all closed. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, a shudder shooting down my spine. There was an eerie chill in the air. Suddenly, I felt like running but it was like my feet were impaled in the floor.

Thud. Thud .Thud.

My heart raced, surging into my throat. I gulped and told myself to relax but for some reason, I couldn't. There was definitely something wrong with this house.

I nearly jumped upon hearing someone shuffle behind me. With my breathing suddenly becoming ragged, I spun around.

"Dad!" I cried, sighing with relief as I saw him carrying one of the three the bronze skull sculptures he loved to use as bookstands.

"What's wrong? Seen any ghosts yet?" he muttered with a tone between indifference and sarcasm.

"Ghosts? What am I, three?" I managed a pretentious snicker and stepped out of the kitchen.

I hated creepy things. My Dad just adored them. He kept skull key chains and sculptures, books about witchcraft, lycanthropy, spirits and all sorts of weird. It wouldn't take a genius to figure why he chose this place of all the states of America.

Ashland, Pennsylvania. Some few miles away from here was the ghost town, Centralia, known for its anomalous history. Dad said there were only about nine or ten people still living there. But most of the place was deserted. No one was really sure why and I wasn't in any way interested. Maybe the place was cursed and that was why people left the town.

I had seen clips of the place in YouTube while we were on the road. There were huge smoking holes everywhere in the wrecked neighborhoods. Deep down the holes, something was burning under the whole town. Some said it might be fossil fuel. Either that or hell was making its way to the surface.

Letting out a sigh, I entered my new room.

It was a lot bigger than the one I left in Boston. The floorboards creaked eerily as I went to my bed. The walls were painted a dull beige color, covered with cheap plaid wall paper that was already peeling off.

Whoever owned this place in the past must not really care about their life that much. Most of the fixtures were made of battered wood. The electrical wirings were protruding out from where the walls and the ceiling met. All in all, the house was a screaming fire hazard from inside out.

I threw my backpack onto the four poster bed and leaned weakly on the headboard. I fought the lump that formed in my throat. My mobile phone rang for the twenty sixth time today. But I had no intention of answering any call from Rose or Madison. Especially Brian. They were my only friends-if having lunch together could ever be considered friendship-but I had to do this.

It had been a hard life being able to make friends but unable to keep them. So in the long run, I learned to keep myself distant from everyone else. I learned to go by without them.

Well, not in Boston.

We stayed there for almost three years. I was so sure we would stay there for good until that night Dad told me to pack my things without so much as a plausible explanation.

All I got to bring with me was my school backpack and an overnight duffel bag stuffed with clothes and a few good books.

We left in the morning after that. Then we spent the next couple of weeks in the road or in hotels.

No time to say goodbye to my friends. No warnings. No trace.

Excruciating as it was, I had to leave without any word. For all they cared, I had never really existed. It was better that way. No sappy farewells. Just me and my Dad disappearing from the neighborhood like what happened the eleven other times we moved away.

"Just consider me dead," I mumbled, staring at the cell phone.

Brian and I, we had something special. According to him. He didn't even know my middle name. I never told him that and everything else about me. Never told anyone, in fact. I had done a great job of not getting myself in too deep. Brian often told me I was such a quitter; starting things but never seeing them to the end. I guess the right term was coward. Pushing people away was the only way to make sure that I wouldn't get hurt.

Distance was the key. It was a good move that I avoided making things official. Maybe deep down, I had always known that we would move away sooner or later.

They would keep looking for me for days, possibly weeks. But after some time, they would probably forget about me.

I curled on top of the sheets, ignoring the stuffy smell and focused hard on not crying. I hated moving. I hated being stuck with my Dad and having to put up with all his eccentricities. I hated the house, the place, everything.

Soon. I consoled myself.

In less than three months, I would finally turn eighteen.

All my life, I waited for that day to come. That fateful day when I would bust through Dad's door with a meager backpack to run away, never to return. I would find somewhere nice where I could settle down and never have to move away forever.

Is Brian thinking of me? Have Rose and Madison pushed through with the sleepover without me?

Of course they had. They were just people who shared the lunch table with me after all. And all because we had no choice but to be stuck with each other.

Questions. And more questions.

The confusion put me to sleep. I dreamt about my life in Boston. I was inside our small place, heading out to go to school. But as soon as I stepped out of the apartment, the whole world swirled around me and turned into a strange dark room.

Alarmed, I stepped back and stumbled on a clay vase. A clanging noise bounced off the walls as it shattered on the floor.

I panicked and tried to get away, hugging the walls because I couldn't see. There was nothing to hear but my own footsteps as I pressed on. It took a minute before my eyes adjusted to the lack of light and when they did, I found myself in a small room with low, domed ceiling and jagged floor. The walls were made of large rectangular blocks of roughly cut stones that made me feel claustrophobic.

It wasn't long before I saw a glimmer of light from the end of a short passageway. I hurried toward it until I turned up at another room. A soft breeze was blowing in from the window. It strongly smelled of the sea, combining with the aroma of brewing herbs permeating the room.

In the middle of the room was a girl with long straight hair the color of straw. Her white flowing dress looked too big for her scrawny form, one of its sleeves slipping off her shoulder, revealing the ugly marks around her neck. She sat on the floor in silence, her heavily-detailed skirt spread about her. In the dark, her face was hard to make out but I could tell she was crying by the way her shoulders shook.

"Hello there..." I said, my voice echoing all over the room. "I'm sorry to barge in but... where am I?"

She didn't look up at me. There wasn't any indication that she had heard me either. Cautiously, I approached the girl. All the while, she kept on scribbling strange inscriptions on the floor, which were written in a way so that it looked like a giant capital 'I'.

The door flew open, spewing out a few armed men in belted shirts and short trousers. Some of them wore metal armguards, breastplates and greaves. None of them paid any attention to me even though I was in the middle of the room. Two of the armed men barged in and forcibly dragged the girl out of the house, the top of her bare feet being scraped against the rough concrete as they did.

"Wait!" I cried out, but just like the girl, it was as if they couldn't hear or see me.

I followed them.

A lot of people waited outside, shouting angrily at the girl. All of them wore strange clothing-belted tunics and trousers for men and long dresses with fitted bodices for women. All I could see everywhere were rectangular structures with flat roofs, all of them built with large rough slabs of rock.

I'm definitely not in Kansas anymore, I grumbled inwardly.

From the crowd, I heard a middle-aged woman shout "Mágissa!" before throwing a rock towards the girl. It hit her on the head. She didn't recoil. She just kept her head down, her face hidden by the tangle of light-colored hair.

"Magissa!!!"

The crowd was getting out of control now, pushing at each other to get closer to the girl. Some tried to snatch her hair and claw her face. All of a sudden, more stones were already being hurled at the girl's direction, hitting her and the men restraining her. But unlike the men who were wearing thick armor and head protection, the rocks didn't bounce off her olive skin.

Muffled whimpers came out of her lips. Blood began to trickle on the pavement, leaving a smeared trail as they continued to drag her along. All the while, she kept on saying something in a language I didn't understand. It didn't sound like she was pleading for mercy. More like chanting.

When I tried to tell them to stop, nothing came out of my mouth. My voice seemed to have disappeared.

In the end, all I could do was look away. And when I did, I saw a young man coming out from the door of the girl's house. His face was hidden under the hood of his black cloak. He lifted his arm and pointed a finger at me. I saw something on the back of his left hand-a capital 'I' tattoo. Just like the girl's drawing.

I was suddenly woken up by the noise of creaking floorboards. It sounded like someone had just scampered quietly towards the now open window. Weird. I didn't remember opening it before I went to sleep.

With my head pounding, I scooted up and looked around. It was nearly dawn but still dark. An icy, tingling sensation crept from my toes to my cheeks. My eyes shifted uneasily in the darkness of my new room. The only source of light was from the old dithering lamppost outside. I had a creepy feeling that I was being watched even though I was sure I was alone.

It was suffocating but I struggled to keep my breathing even. From the corner of my eye, I saw a sputter in the shadows in the corner of the room. When I took a closer look, there was nothing there.

It got me terrified. I felt my airways constricting. As I was expecting, the wheezes soon started. The familiar choking feeling made me lightheaded.

Quickly, I fumbled for my backpack and found it propped just beside my pillow. I was already groping for air when I found my inhaler inside its pocket. Hurriedly, I puffed a couple doses into my mouth. As soon as I could breathe again, I threw the covers over my face. I was trembling under the sheets in panic, eyes wide-opened while waiting for the sun to rise.

I would like to think that ghosts or other creatures of the night did not exist.

No, I couldn't see them. Nor did I wish to. But still, I was dead-scared. And after that weird dream, I didn't think I would ever sleep soundly again.

Who was that girl? And that boy in the hooded cloak?

I still thought of Mom and the man in the black suit sometimes. That was so ten years ago but the thought of it still crept me out. Maybe it was just a product of my wild imagination as a kid. Mom always said I would be a writer like Dad but I doubted it. I was nothing like him and I never wanted to be.

Hugging myself, I peeked through the folds of my sheets, half-expecting to see the man in the suit inside my room, standing beside my bed. But I was still alone.

A nagging feeling crept in the pit of my stomach like something bad was about to happen.

"It was just a dream, Aramis Rayne. Don't be such a wuss," I chuckled nervously. "Just a dream. What could possibly go wrong?"