The Beginning of The End

Scarlett I read in books how one thing, no matter how small, can destroy the balance of the world and lead to the destruction of so many lives but I never believed it would ever happen, especially when it began in Stanville. This is where I live. It's not a large town but an important one and I fear the truth of its history will be lost as it is something that many people are trying to bury. Until a few weeks ago I would have told you that Stanville is a reasonably busy town. It has an airport which is strange as it is the middle of nowhere, a high street with reasonably basic shops and buses to other local towns which usually takes half an hour to get to anywhere worth the visit. The only other place of any importance is the local school. It is used by everyone in the town between the ages of 4 and 16; after that, we were expected to go to college in the surrounding larger towns which is often the thing most teenagers who live here are waiting for. The whole town is encircled by large expanses of forest and there is a lake only about a 10-minute walk from the centre of town. These woodland areas have been nicknamed 'the boundaries of the prison' by most of the local kids, as beyond them lay miles of nothingness that would claim you if you wander too far, or that's what everyone used to say. I think they just needed something to stop younger children running off and getting lost. Not many people live here but the number has been steadily increasing and last month it stood at just under 2500. But now I can't even begin to explain how everything has changed. No longer will a tourist pass through the town on their way to bigger and better places, planes will not leave or enter through the airport and the peaceful happy nature of this town will be replaced by one of fear and suspicion. And I have to admit that although there were signs of change in this town dating back to 1992 I only really started to notice the strange events a few weeks ago. *** The idea that someone can predict the future is an interesting concept and one that I would never have imagined to be true. I can see how someone might be able to guess what they will be having for lunch the following day or which teacher will give them impossible homework, but those are minor events that can be figured out if your daily routine is predictable. However, I am not talking about predicting a minor event. I'm talking about predicting something that could potentially happen in the distant future and could affect more than a handful of people. For example, could you tell me what the weather will be next month, down to the finest details, or who will join the school next year, things that you can't just easily tell because they are obvious or simple to work out? If you can answer yes to either or both of those questions and not just by a lucky guess then how about something that will happen in 15 years time? I'm sure you're wondering why I am asking all these questions. Well, the truth is, I think I know someone who has done this. A thing that most people would believe is impossible. I just didn't believe them at the time and now I wish I had. It all started late one Sunday evening almost 3 weeks ago. I was rooting through the jungle that is our attic. My mum had asked me to sort through everything as we were moving at the end of the month to America as soon as the school year was over. Naturally, I was saving it until I had no other jobs on my list and even then I was reluctant to venture into the untouched paradise for dust, clutter, rubbish and spiders. How I hate spiders. All I keep thinking about are the ones we saw at the zoo with their 8 legs and hair covered bodies. I know what you're thinking - spiders can't hurt you and that it's tarantulas that I picture when I envision my attic with cobwebs draped along every surface but it still doesn't change the fact: I think they are horrible! Mum says not to worry but the minute I opened the creaking door and saw my vision standing in front of my very eyes I was ready to scream and run back downstairs. But then I saw it. Through the clouds of dust that hung thickly in the air around me was a wooden chest with GRANDAD written on the front in thick, black marker. The chest was made of a dark red-brown wood probably mahogany. The writing had been added later. I sure that it would have looked expensive and out of place if properly polished and maintained but the dirt added to the ancient design of the chest. The layer of dust covering it was so thick you could only just see the letters. It was locked but in the faint glow cast from the dust cover bulb suspended from the ceiling I could just make out the glint of a metal key. Instantly, my head filled with a million questions. My granddad was just a name to me; a name that was hardly every mention by anyone in my family. I know that may seem strange to you. Most people see their grandparents every Christmas and get cards from them on their Birthday but my family is different. My granddad died a year before I was born. I understand that is not an uncommon situation but then most of you have heard stories about them from your parents, seen pictures of them in family albums and when you ask a question about them you are told an answer and you know it is the truth. I have never had this from my family. No one ever talked about him; I had never seen a photo even though I had been through every family photo album I could find and if I asked a question about him my parents would just change the subject or pretend they hadn't heard me. Usually, I didn't question this. It was the way I had been brought up and for me that was normal but I always found myself searching for answers to questions and I didn't even know why. So this seemed to be the perfect opportunity to answers some of the questions constantly nagging at my mind. I made the small trek across the assault course that was the attic floor. I couldn't believe some of the stuff that was kept up there a broken wooden desk chair - it's snapped leg splintering away from the main body of the chair; a torn umbrella that would not keep you dry if you attempted to use it in a drizzle let alone in the stormy weather we often get here; the tent from a camping trip 3 years ago that had been torn, coated in mud and still stank from where it had fallen into the bog and a mess of other boxes crammed with useless items. The stuff that wouldn't fit into the boxes had tumbled out and lay in a misshapen pile on the floor. I could hardly breathe as I knelt in front of the chest that had dragged me away from my safe spot in the hallway to the centre of the dismal attic. The key clicked in the lock and it open with a dull, eerie creek that made me drop the lid. I was rewarded with a shower of dust as the lid hit the wooden floor sending dust flying in every direction. It covered me from head to toe which felt really horrible but it was at least slightly better than cobwebs. Inside covered in a thin layer of dust, that had seeped in through the seal, were various pieces of paper with appeared to be everything from letters and newspaper clippings to official-looking bank documents. Below these were a few simple possessions- an old pocket watch that was still ticking away despite everything; a photo album with pictures of my grandparents when they were younger (now I have a picture to remember him by even if it's about 30 years too young) and a few other things that obviously only really had sentimental value to him. But right at the bottom was something small, stiff and covered in fabric. At first, I thought it was just a notebook until I shifted an old bone paperweight that was placed on top of it. The diary enclosed in a pouch made of gold velvet with a royal red pattern spread in spirals across the material held my gaze. I lifted it out of the hollow that I had made inside the chest and carefully removed the fabric. The diary itself was simple, plain and black but its cover was smooth. I opened it. It was written in gold ink which formed swirly writing when scratched onto the page with a quill. The ancient pages felt rough, crisp and almost familiar under my fingertips although I don't know why as I have never owned a diary myself until now. Dust clung to them disguising the real beauty of the uncovered treasure. Each entry was special to me as it unearthed the reality of my granddad's life. Until now I hadn't thought it that strange that my parents never told me much about him but as I read I became more angry at them for keeping all this secret for so long. The diary was better than anything my parents could have told me. It helped me to understand how my granddad's mind worked. Reading his words I could almost picture thoughts travelling from his head through his arm and on to the page in front of me. His diary was filling the gap in my family story better than my mum's confessions ever could. It was like a murder mystery: the more you read, the more the truth came out. I believe that I am very like him- never taking anything at face value, always searching for the truth and trying to answer my own questions. And it was that nature of mine that brought my attention to a few pages. It looked as if someone was trying to stop them from being read. The writing had been smudged and there were a few holes where someone had tried to burn it. Before it, the start of the entry was clearer. It was from 16 years ago not long before my granddad died. It read: 23rd September 93 The rumours that I have been hearing for over a year now have been intensifying. Everyone wants answers to the questions we have had ever since the incident last November. The press gave up a long time ago and ever since then our small town has been trying to rebuild itself and move on. But the unanswered questions hang in the air and suspicion build as no explanation is offered. Most people have stopped searching for answers, hoping that the problems will just go away but I wanted to know the truth. And after the disappearances of others like me whose aim was to discover the truth behind the secrets everyone has given up. But I haven't. And it is this curiosity that leads me to write at this late hour. The information I have uncovered could be the answer we have been searching for all this time but I can't share it with anyone until the time is right. There is a reason they have been hiding this from us and they will stop at nothing to keep it a secret from the world. But as I am the last person still searching for the answers I feel it is important to record everything I discover. If they find out that I am aware of this information then I may not be able to warn anyone and their dreadful secret will remain that way. I don't know how much time I will have so it is essential I miss out no details. Something this big could affect the entire population and not just the ever-increasing number of people in our town. Slowly it is being revealed how this could have massive consequences in the future but I cannot completely conclude what the future will hold. However, as always I have my theories... Following this, the next part of the entry was hard to read it was about other evidence including the very important information I guess. I didn't really understand what it all meant there was a lot of scientific jargon and complicated explanations that were half missing and difficult for a teenager to follow. The theories at the end seemed quite short and simple not as flamboyant as the rest of the entry. Nothing was one hundred percent certain. The following entry had been ripped out and there were only a few entries after that which didn't help me to explain anything. After that, it just came to an abrupt finish. There was no natural end to the diary and the last entry finished mid-sentence despite the fact that there were lots of empty pages at the back of the book. It was certainly not somewhere I would naturally stop with a final word followed by a line where the tip of the quill had been dragged across the page. A million new questions flashed through my mind. I should probably have asked mum about it but I didn't think she even knew of its existence and besides I thought it was something special between me and my granddad. I didn't want her to take it away from me. There was something important about this diary but at the time I had no idea what it was I just believed that I had to keep it. I had hardly made a dent in the mountain of 3 legged chairs; cookery books that were so filthy you could read half the recipe, baby clothes that I can't believe ever fitted anyone, jumble sale rubbish dad brought and never found a place for in the house and everything else that we had ever lost in the 20 years that my family has lived here for when mum told me that I needed to get my stuff ready for school the following day. I jumped at the chance to escape this damp, dark, dusty room filled with spiders and was out the door and down the stairs faster than you could blink, shoving the diary in the pocket of my jeans as I went. That night I had a really long bath. I was covered in grey dust. Mum laughed about it and said it made me look like an old lady with greying hair and dull, pale skin. I didn't find it funny and I still think I had dust in my hair when I went to bed but at least I had the diary hidden in my bedroom. I not going to forget that I have a granddad like my parents want me to. *** I later found the newspaper report that had been written about the girl's death, which was the incident spoken of in the diary. All the other copies had been destroyed, either by people who were trying to move on or the people trying to cover it up, but this one clipping had survived stashed in the casing of my granddad's pocket watch. I wouldn't have looked there if it hadn't been for the watch itself which eventually gave up ticking at 9:00 am on 20th July this year. I wanted to replace the battery to bring it back to life but instead found the article and a timer which had stopped the watch at this exact time on this exact day just 3 days after the flight we had booked to go to America. The piece was written by Lewis Connor, a failing journalist from the Stanville Standard who was close to losing his job at the time. This didn't happen though as he too died of a heart attack soon after writing the article. Since I found the article I have research him. I found very little information and none that was of any real importance. It is said that he was different than the other journalists at the time. He wanted to prove himself but he wasn't afraid to break conventions. His writing style was different too- more conversational, more controversial. Apparently, that was the thing that threatened his job. His articles often left people thinking about what he was saying but certain people didn't like this.