Author Note: This is a first draft and will go through the editing process when I have completed a whole first draft of The Girl Who Fell Out of The Ocean- I hope you enjoy! (All critiques welcome)

I'm so lost and I'm afraid there is no one coming to pull me out of the darkness. If you're there and you can hear my cries, just know I can no longer see the light but, I stretch out my arm all the same hoping that someday I will feel your hand.

~

The Gregory's house was full of noise, a certain type of noise which can only be created when a person or people are going somewhere for the first time. The Gregory triplets, which, it so happened they hated being called were going away to University.

Mr. George and Mrs. Anna Gregory couldn't have been more excited and proud at the prospected at 'getting rid' of their three for the price ones. Sam, the only boy and Andrea the eldest by a whole sixty seconds rushed down the stairs bringing their boxes to the car.

They were nervous, but in truth they couldn't wait to get out and into the world, the thought of being free made them clench their fists in anticipation, giving each other the occasional flickering glance.

Lavinia was the youngest of the triplets and was sat on one of her packed boxes upstairs in her empty bedroom.

She couldn't help but let out a sigh, in her mind it all seemed so pointless, she pushed her long, bright red hair out of her face revealing two, big, green eyes that were filled with tears.

Her curtain of hair fell back in front of her face, sometimes it seemed like it was mocking her, she would push it away and it would fly right back with such insistence. Her mother, Anna had always made such a fuss when she threatened to cut it so she never did, it didn't seem worth the fight.

Lavinia felt agitated she felt separated from her belongings, well one belonging in particular and she couldn't stand being parted from it any longer.

She fell to her knees with such urgency her hair falling in front of her face again, she ignored it and vigorously began ripping open one of her boxes. She gave no thought to the people waiting for her below, and even less regard for the mess she was making, being worried about mess, or a timetable all things that had always seemed pointless to Lavinia.

She threw her belongings all over her room looking for the buried item. She tossed away clothes and shoes and all manner of books that had been bought for the year ahead, she knew she couldn't ease her distress until she found it.

The 'it' in question was a sketchbook, she let out an urgent sigh when she saw its black leather cover sitting at the bottom of the now broken box.

As its soft leather cover touched her fingers, her panic subsided and she thought it curious, she let go of the book in the first place.

She never let it go, the pad was her fifth limb, an extension of her very being, how she could have packed it in a cardboard box like it was nothing no more than books and pens and clothes. Lavinia shook head in anger with herself.

The sketchbook, which was now tightly dancing in-between her fingers was bursting with drawings, drawings of places and people.

It was her most treasured possession and to be without it was for Lavinia to be without oxygen. Lavinia found a blank page toward the back of the book and began to sketch; she couldn't contain herself, she had to draw right then and there.

She was a talented artist, but that was not why she would draw, mostly she would draw to soothe herself like putting a pencil to the page could release some kind of inner pain that was desperate to be let out.

When she would get herself into one of her states it was the only thing that worked, but Lavinia worried how long even drawing would do the trick, how long before she would get hysterical, or frenzied and stay that way?

Soon on the blank page a man's face appeared, this same young man appeared over and over in her sketchbook, she ran her thumb over his newly formed picture as if this action could make him magically appear in the room. She stared hard at his half completed face, a fair haired young soldier wearing a uniform from the First World War, she quickly lost control of the emotions that were boiling inside her long petite frame.

Tears fell from her eyes and then onto the drawing but this time she could not make them stop and she had no will to wipe them away and so they fell on the soldiers face who lay motionless on her lap.

"Lavinia," called Anna her shrill voice came through the ceiling and hit Lavinia like a revolving door.

Anna was Lavinia's mother, she was a forthright and assertive woman sometimes bordering on rude. She was little, but that was just in stature in all other ways Anna made her presence known.

George, Lavinia's father said Anna's height or rather lack of it had only added to her fierceness making her un-crossable. All Anna's life she had got what she wanted, it was the way of the world or at least it was the way of Anna's world.

She would pull her glasses to the tip of her nose and her family would groan, knowing she meant business, conquering the world or at least Anna's world had always been her business.

They all knew when it came to Anna and her demands and expectations, it was best just to roll over and give into the fight as no one has as much gusto for getting their own way as Anna Gregory.

Although in some things Anna did not get her way.

It might not have appeared that way to an outsider looking in on Anna's life but it was the truth.

Since she graced the earth with her presence Anna had had it all rather easy, she was beautiful and now in what was left of her forties she remained so.

She went to the university, she wanted, got the grades she wanted, married the man she wanted and she had the career she wanted. To the outsider looking in she had the gorgeous triplets, who looked like they would have golden lives just like Anna, of course, how could someone like Anna have anything less than perfection?

As much as Anna would have liked it, she did not always have it her own way.

Sometimes Anna wondered if her flamed haired daughter was her cross to bear for such a perfect life, and deep down as much as Anna tried to hide it, it was quite clear to Lavinia and all the Gregory's that Lavinia did not fit into Anna's ideas of perfection.

Over the years, Anna had tried to bend Lavinia to her will and one way or another she would make her youngest daughter conform. For Anna that first step was packing her off to university, if Sam and Andrea could do it then so could Lavinia.

"Right, that's it, I'm going to hurry her up," said Anna gathering her long skirt in her hands as she ran up the stairs.

For Sam and Andrea it felt as though they were always waiting for Lavinia in one shape or form, she was their sister, their triplet, but sometimes it didn't feel like she sang their song.

Anna, as usual, had had enough, she was stressed and just wanted to leave and by the time she got upstairs Lavinia had begun to draw the soldiers face over and over again.

Anna found her daughter scribbling in a sort of hysteria which was, for her not an unusual sight. Sadly, finding Lavinia on all fours scrawling was becoming something of normality, but not today, today would be different Anna had promised herself.

Anna was never quite sure if Lavinia knew how panicked, she looked when she was having one of her drawing episodes.

Frustrated by what she was seeing as they were trying to leave, she grabbed Lavinia by the arm and pulled her hand away from the sketch pad and off her bed until they were standing face to face well, sort of more like chin to face.

Lavinia quickly came back to earth, but did nothing but stare at Anna with her bloodshot eyes still unable to stop the tears from leaking from her face. Anna ignored the display, in her mind if she got her out the door and to Chichester Lavinia would find herself and find a way to be normal just like Sam and Andrea, all she had to do was get her out the door and into the car.

"We need to get your boxes downstairs and leave," said Anna attempting to pile Lavinia's scattered belongings back into the ripped box where she had found the sketch pad.

"I'm not going," said Lavinia with a serious face and in a melodic tone she gazed at her now released arm and was shocked by the hand print that still remained there with some vigour.

"You most certainly are going," Anna shouted, straight away, she had lost her patience. Deep down she had anticipated some disruption from Lavinia today and had decided to handle it head on.

"I don't see the point of it, I don't see the point of any of it, you can't make me go," said Lavinia her tone unchanging, that only frustrated Anna further.

"I am your mother, I most certainly can make you go," said Anna her voice getting louder and her little body more animated.

"Well, we both know you're not my mother," said Lavinia smirking at Anna.

Lavinia turned her head away and reached for her sketch pad, but by now Anna was beyond frustrated, she grabbed Lavinia by the shoulders and began to shake her.

"Why are you like this, why?" She shouted hysterically.

As Anna's voice penetrated the ceiling the rest of the family tensed, used to Anna and Lavinia's one on one battles of wills so much so Sam flicked on the kettle and pretended not to listen and hoped the sound of the boil would block out their ongoing rage.

"Because I am not supposed to be here," Lavinia cried back so loudly and so shrill as if she had said this to Anna hundreds of times before, Anna's grip just tightened.

As Anna's screaming further penetrated the floor boards, Sam and Andrea flew up the stairs to their sister's rescue. George could barely take another of his wife and daughter's displays and just sat quietly waiting for the kettle to boil; he had no intention of making tea.

"She thinks she's not coming," cried Anna her face red with anger.

"Let go of her Mum," said Andrea, her blonde hair tied up in a tidy bun, she was the sensible child, for all intents and purposes the middle child. Andrea was a skilled mediator and had broken up enough of her mother and sisters battles to know when something was a lost cause.

"She was never going was she," said Sam his pale face and blue eyes framed by a mop of messy golden hair and black-rimmed glasses which he barely wore.

"I just wanted three, normal, happy, children," said Anna relinquishing her grip on Lavinia's shoulders.

"Yeah, well that's life we don't always get what we want, come on Sam, Dad can take us, Mum can stay with Lav, I think you need to talk or whatever," said Andrea not attempting to hide the disappointment in her voice.

"Andy," Lavinia sobbed back at Andrea but it was no good.

Andrea and Sam knew that their sister had chosen a different path, they believed she owned a third of their soul and they hers, but Lavinia had very different views of where and whom her soul belonged to and in her mind, no part of it belonged to Andrea and Sam whether they were triplets or not.

Anna was heartbroken not to be going with Sam and Andrea to wave them off at Chichester but she knew she couldn't hide anymore, she had to deal with Lavinia and University just wasn't the answer she hoped it would be.

She looked at her daughter sat on the bed next to her staring incessantly at her sketch book and finally, after eighteen years of trauma she made a decision.

Hi Guys, thanks for reading- this is my first time publishing anything on Watt Pad so I would really appreciate any and all honest feedback so I can get a sense of where I'm at and where I need to improve. Thank you so much, Chloe. (If you enjoyed this chapter please vote!)

The posting schedule for The Girl That Fell Out of The Ocean is -  Wednesday and Sundays!

The Girl Who Fell Out of the Ocean is Book 1 in The Ghostly Saga