Shade of Human

Shade of Human Hannah Graves Series Book One Aria Storm Prologue: Whistling winds of the chilly Autumn air whipped through my brown hair. Sniggers and clacking shoes sounded around me. We were not normal. This was not the average way to spend the weekend of your sixteenth birthday. "We can totes just go have dinner and laugh at the bad karaoke bar next to the sub shop." Ariel said, her brown eyes infused with as much mischief as possible. I smiled, staring into her eyes was enough for me to lose myself. I was lost in a sea of my hormones. Most girls cannot ask to be so sure of who they are by sixteen. I was not them. I had not meant to be this sure of my self-identity. "So, you know the plan, right?" Clarke asked me, he was my male best friend. His extra puffy raven curly hair was swaying with the wind. He appeared to be trembling. He was coming in with us as one of our witnesses. If expressions were anything to judge, he told me he would rather be anywhere else. His straight male ego would not allow him to back the f**k out! "Yep, go in, go up the stairs, and look into the mirror. Call out to the spirit of the dead girl who lived here back in the nineties. Then prove you simpering cowards wrong! Come on people, this is not some horror movie! Let's get this show over!" I said I was a natural queen bee. I did not ask to be born with this much charisma; it was just a part of me. This was also the first generation when an openly gay girl could lead her peers and hold her head high in pride. Girls even one decade before would have hidden their romantic proclivities a lot more. "Babe, this is not what I had in mind when I said I wanted to get freaky after your party!" Ariel said mischievously. She swung her raven hair over her shoulder. I loved her beautiful hair, and well, everything it connected to. She was hourglass shapely and perfect. She was also a strange combo of cheerleader and mathlete. Yet again, not some decades-old stereotype prowling my high school. "Ari, you can wait outside. I won't be gone long." I told her. I pulled her firmly to me, kissing her. Her doe eyes searched deep into mine, and she hummed to herself. She did that when she was thinking. She also muttered math problems in her sleep at night—something I discovered last year when we lost it together. "No, I'm coming too. I don't wanna chicken out and be some typical damsel." She said obstinately. I laughed in amusement. "I don't know, a girl could play out some heroine rescue fantasies every once in a while, right?" I asked her. She captured my lips again, affirming her excitement. "Can you ladies not impregnate one another, while I am watching. I mean it is hot and all, but a brotha needs to sleep at night!" Clarke said. Ari flipped him off without turning to face him. Clarke was harmless, at least to us. He had a sinner's smile that dropped many a girl's panties, just not his gay bestie. He towered over us, six-three. A varsity shooting guard on our basketball squad. Few sophomores make varsity sports, despite what the movies and cliché teen trope shows might say. Typically, you work that JV for two years before you move up. Not Clarke, he was a natural athlete, a lot like me, except with the male parts and darker complexion. We sort of adopted one another in kindergarten. Our families just became tight over the years. "If I called you a brotha, you'd say I was racist!" Ariel sassed to Clarke, who shrugged casually. "If you two are done comparing dildos, how about we get this over with?" Jerry said he was Clarke's male bestie and a member of the basketball squad. He was a year older than us, and our driver for the evening. Being a junior came with some perks, like having your license and an extra year to save for a beater car. Still, it was a damn fine piece of crap because it beat taking the bus everywhere! A lot of people try to befriend someone with a car fast in high school. Transportation is a status in some ways. Mostly it is a good way to avoid hovering rents. "Man, you know I ain't goin' there with my sister's girl. Cause that would be plain wrong!" Clarke said. Jerry gave him one of those bro-punches to his arm. I never will understand boys in the wild, but the mysteries of the human world are boundless. Doylestown, PA is a tiny town most of its residents are packed in less than three-square-miles. Think Andy Griffith, but modern-day, you would be on the nose! So, a supposed haunted house abandoned on a hillside since the nineties, naturally, it turned into a birthday celebration dare! Then again, this was a town that was so accustomed to the "normal" and the "buttoned-up" that anything that stood out was of significant note. Being half Japanese and half white made me stand out by default. Clarke understood that feeling. We have looked out for each other over the years. We have learned how to make this town our own. Even the tiny little hamlets of sleepy America change with time—even if slowly. "Gosh, even the stairs are freaky!" Ariel exclaimed. I stroked my hand delicately on her back. She was brave, but she really did not do scary movie-type of situations well. The old colonial-style house was so weathered that the grayish base under the white paint was exposed from years of white flaking free. This house had seen far more death than any singular spot in a small town should allow. As a result, it was no longer listed, and the current owner had abandoned it to the elements. They say the last girl who lived here went mad and killed herself. Her parents also went insane after they found her. The truth is a little more mundane, mainly that grief drove people to terrible ends. I am very girly in so many ways, but I love a good ghost story. They have fascinated me all my life. There is something primal that connects us to things that are haunted. What scares us about the past? What pieces of history lurking in the shadows? As beings, humans are unaccustomed to being the prey. We are terrified of anything capable of making a meal of us. Not exactly the inner musings of your typical sophomore "it" girl, I know. What can I say, my life is a delicate and intricate weave of the macabre and part Vouge? We moved to the front door. Like a dork, Jerry knocks. "Hello clown, do you see any cars, lights, or other evidence of life here?" I asked him in a feisty tone. I was ready to get in, look for the ghost, then take Ariel back to my bed for the night. She already had her excuse in place for where she was supposed to be sleeping. I had a rope ladder on the side of my house. We had our little system worked out like two old pros. Jerry smiled sheepishly at me as if his charms even worked on me. "Be a man and break it in already!" I said, waving towards the door. No need for a girl to get her own hands dirty when there were males present to do the work for her, right?! I could make a few more cracks about men being useful, but I am above all that previous century BS. Truth is, I like women, end of. I am not so simple as to believe men are my enemy, nor are they irredeemable. That would be like saying half our damn world is a waste of oxygen. They have their uses, like breaking and entering, for instance. "Last time I let a girl talk to me like that, she was under me every night." Jerry murmured. Ariel sassed, "More like your momma. She talks to you however she pleases." He made a sour face and replied, "There are some things mothers are best left out of, this being one of them." I tuned out their witty dialog for a moment, as I checked my smartphone. My mom sent me several messages. I huffed. I started to put my phone away, as the door popped open finally. I noticed the screen dim unnaturally as I took a step inside. I frowned. I stuffed my phone back into my pocket. Jerry had my purse locked in his truck. He was a good boy at heart and we—his female friends—had trained him brilliantly. "Is it just me or did it just get colder?" Ariel asked me. I instinctively rubbed her small back supportively. I was only five-seven, but Ariel was five-three. She was my tiny little lady. I loved my girl, and her smaller, curvy body did many things to my hormone-laden mind. The inside was worse than the outside. Brittle leaves were blown throughout the open and empty rooms. The stairs leading to the second floor were to the right of the door. "So up there?" I asked. Clarke nodded and waved me over. "Please, ladies first." He insisted. I shot him a sassy look as I sauntered past him. I tested the creaking step thoroughly before I ascended. The boards were noisy. I could feel the weight I placed on each step. They were not about to break yet, but the boards unnerved a girl as she climbed further. Ariel held onto the back of my shirt as she climbed behind me. I could feel her trembling hand on me, bracing for some unseen impact. I felt a hum or a buzzing around me, but I assumed it was a trick of the fear that I could smell on the air like sour grapes. "Left bedroom." Clarke said as he climbed behind us. I swallowed my nerves and walked into the door. I could hear something akin to growling or gurgling as I entered the room. My neck hairs rose as I came face-to-face with a mass of darkness that took the shadowy silhouette of a human. I was freaked, but I felt a strange calm wash over me. The thing lunged at me, but it seemed to bounce off. Ariel stepped in just behind me. The black shadowy mass shot by me. It forced its translucent form down Ariel's throat so suddenly I barely had time to register what was happening until it was nearly hidden inside her. When the mass was gone, inside Ariel, she looked at me through white eyes milky and devoid of pupils. She screamed in horror and agony. She tumbled down the stairs, past the three of us. I rushed down the stairs, chasing after her as she fell. She landed hard on her right hand. I was certain I heard the bone break from the fall. I pulled my phone out as I propped her neck up for support and I dialed nine-one-one. It was a simple dare, one that hundreds of others had done before! There were so many who had survived spending a night in the haunted house of Doylestown. I could live a hundred years, and her screams would forever haunt my sleep. I cradled her to my chest softly as I waited for the ambulance to arrive.