Okay... Story Time Kiddies!

So, hopefully this makes sense. It's kind of long. Here goes...

I was supposed to put something else on this blog but I can't remember what it was now... oh well, if I remember I'll just edit this out...

okay i figured out what it was! this! (if you're still reading the count of monte cristo and don't want any spoilers, don't really zoom up too close, you can get the idea from far away)


Also, liking soundtracks is just as bizarre as liking musicals. It's pretty much the same thing anyway.


A HELPING HAND (this title took forever to come up with, so I finally decided on it at midnight. Thats why it's kind of weird)

Amber opened her eyes. She was achy and stiff, as though she had been sleeping a long time. When her eyes finally adjusted to the light she sat up and looked around. She was in her bedroom, but something was different. Jumping to her feet, she realized that her bed was made and her room was spotless. She rushed down the stairs to see her mother. “Mom!” she exclaimed, “Where have you put my things?”
Her mother ignored her and left the room. Amber was in shock. She must have done something really horrible to have her mother ignore her like that. Her mother had always been the one person she could talk to about anything. Why couldn’t she remember what she did? She walked into her kitchen where her father, a cake decorator, made his creations. He was known for miles around for his amazing cakes. Not only did they look amazing, they tasted amazing too, a feature not commonly found in many wedding cakes.
“Dad? Do you know what I did to make Mom so angry?” Amber asked, not sure she really wanted to hear the answer. His eyes were sad. It reminded her of the time she ate handfuls of one of his best, most expensive cakes, two hours before a wedding when she was eight years old. Only then did she notice the cake sitting on the table. Instead of one of his usual masterpieces it looked thrown together and messy. She looked up at her dad and asked what was wrong. His cakes never looked this bad before.
What was going on? Why wouldn’t anyone talk to her? She sat down on the couch, confused and frustrated by the joke she believed her parents were playing on her. Misery was setting in when the phone rang.
“Can you get that?” her father asked.
“Of course!” Amber nearly shouted, jumping up to get the phone. She reached for the phone, but it appeared her mother beat her to it. Curious as to whom it was, Amber looked at the caller ID. Johnson’s Mortuary. “Why is Fred Johnson calling us?” she wondered aloud. She realized one of her grandparents must have died. Her grandmother was ninety years old, and seemed to live a little less each day.
The doorbell rang. “Can you get that?” Amber’s father called again. “I told you I would,” Amber called back to him. She reached for the door and turned the knob. Funny, she must have missed, since the door did not open.
“Since you can’t seem to move, I’ll get it,” her mother called crossly, still on the phone. Amber stepped aside to let her mother open the door. She felt ashamed now. Her mother seemed so angry and upset, and Amber couldn’t even remember what it was she had done. She slunk away, staying only long enough to see who was at the door. Both sets of grandparents were there, even Grandma Pearl, the ninety-year-old.
“Thank you very much Fred. I’m so happy to hear that,” her mother said into the phone. “We’ll see you later then. Okay, bye.” Her mother hung up the handset and looked at her parents and in-laws. “They confirmed the body. It is definitely her. They think she must have drowned in the lake. I just can’t figure out why she wasn’t wearing a life-vest. I thought we taught her better than that,” her mother concluded, looking down, tears again filling her eyes, as they had several times while on the phone.
“WHO DIED?” Amber practically screamed. She was sick of everyone ignoring her, and wanted the joke to end. In her anger she hit the bookshelf was behind her, and toppled over a few books. Everyone looked up at the sudden noise and gazed at the book on the ground. From the kitchen her father asked, “What was that?”
She felt so embarrassed now, with her grandparents and mother all witnessing her blunder. Amber bent to pick up the books. Again it seemed like she missed.
“I don’t know. This book just flew off the bookshelf, all by itself,” her mother returned, picking up the books that fell to the wood flooring below. She turned shakily to the elderly people in the house, and said, “The funeral for Amber is tomorrow at nine. I hope you can all be there. “
“Of course,” Grandma Pearl returned. “Only I never thought I would have to see her buried before I was.” Amber’s breath quickened. She wasn’t dead! She was right here, alive and well! She ran to the calendar. April 1st was the date. She sighed. It was only an April fool’s joke. “Ha ha. I get it now,” she told the congregation in the living room. No one looked up. Amber went back to her room.

A little while later, after having cooled off and relaxed a bit, Amber went back downstairs. Her family was in the dining room now, excluding her father, who was watching TV. “Dad?” she sadly called again. He did not turn to look at her. She sighed and went to her parent’s room. There she saw a letter on the bed. It concerned the purchase of a headstone and the rental of a funeral parlor. “Maybe… maybe I really AM dead…” she whispered, hardly believing her own voice.
Thinking herself crazy, she went back to her father and jumped in front of the television set. His gaze never moved, instead, it stared into the TV the same way it was before. Amber screamed. No reaction. Panic seized her. She was so frightened she couldn’t move from her place in front of the set. She was light headed and dizzy, and worst of all, her insides were begging to be on the outside. “Oh, please let this be a joke,” she moaned, her step faltering. She sat down on the couch next to her father, making no impression on the couch. He was watching “Most Haunted” a television show investigating paranormal activities in old castles and inns.
“I feel a strong presence here. There is definitely paranormal activity.”
THUMP
“Oh my… did you hear that? It was definitely a ghost. Let’s see if we can communicate with it.”
“Ghosts ordinarily die violent deaths or are murdered, and can be themselves rather violent. Roger must be careful of what he asks”
“What are you watching?” Her mother asked.
“Oh my! Did you see that go by? Do we have playback on that?”
“Most Haunted,” they both replied, but only one voice was heard. Grandma Pearl entered the room. “Maybe… maybe we should see if we can communicate with her! You know… with a Ouija board, like they do on those ghost shows!” Her mother looked reluctant, for she is easily frightened, but the world famous cake decorator agreed.
The family produced a makeshift Ouija board, and Amber remembered the door she couldn’t open, and the phone she couldn’t pick up. How in the world was she going to move the piece on the Ouija board?
“Spirits in this room, please try to communicate with us.”
All hands were on the board. Amber stepped cautiously forward, afraid that she wouldn’t be able to move anything. She gingerly placed her hands on the piece, and tapped it forward. Everyone gasped, including her. She couldn’t believe she had done it!
“What is your name spirit?”
She again put her hands on the small triangle and moved it to the A… then the M… and so on, until she spelled out AMBER. Her mother paled and her father looked ill. He asked a new question, “How did you die?”
Amber didn’t know. She pushed the piece again. I-D-O-N-T-K-N-O-W she spelled out. Y-O-U-T-E-L-L-M-E. Now that everyone in her family was ready to faint, her grandmother said calmly “You drowned in the lake Amber.” Amber pushed a last time: I-D-O-N-O-T-S-E-E-H-O-W-I-D-I-E-D. Her mother pulled her hands away. Amber wanted to comfort her, and tell her it was okay, but when she tried to move the piece again, she seemed to go through it.
How could she have drowned in the lake? She was a wonderful swimmer; she was even a lifeguard at the local pool. Why couldn’t she remember her own death? She walked into her mother’s room, where, after the completion of the Ouija board her mother fainted. Amber looked into the mirror. Her hair was at her shoulders, parted on the side, and she looked the same as she remembered. She was only sixteen, but spent a considerable amount of time at the beach tanning. To her dismay, she looked rather pale, almost… translucent. Her clothes were that of a teenage girl: She wore jeans and a T-shirt.
While contemplating her image, Amber’s poor mother awoke, and a look of horror laid claim to her face. Amber looked back, frightened of her mother’s appearance. “I must be visible in the mirror!” she thought to herself, once more recalling the hours of TV she wasted learning about ghosts. She ran out of the room in a panic, passing through her father as she went. Her mother was howling.
“What? What happened?” Her father asked, worry clouding his brow.
Only muffled cries came from her mother.
“Please, Eleanor, you have to tell me what happened!”
“Amber was here!”
“Amber?”
“Of course it was her!” she wailed, “I should have known this would happen with your stupid grandmother’s idea!”
Her father, now on the defensive, seemed hurt by this, and sat down in a chair as if to say to the crazed woman “I don’t care what happens to you; I’ve been through too much myself.”
During her parents’ Amber herself had been crying. She heard the silence coming from the other room. She tried to be as quiet as possible for it seemed that in the television shows ghosts footsteps and sobs were always the first to be heard.
Amber finally realized two things: She needed to get out of the house, and she had to find “the light.” Again she tried to leave from the front door but found that she could not open the doorknob. Perhaps she merely needed to go through it, as she had done to her father.
Closing her eyes, Amber stepped into the door. She opened her eyes, expecting to be outside on her lawn, but found her nose pressed firmly against the door. Next she tried a running start, and, to her surprise, passed through the door with ease.
It was late at night, and, had Amber been alive, she would have been exhausted. The first thing she did was go the cemetery, which was rumored to be haunted. Praying that she would finally meet someone who could talk to her, she walked through the gate and to the nearest grave. The cemetery was “empty.” Disappointed, she uttered a low groan, which was cut off by something moving in the bushes. It was a fox which gazed at her with interest. On a whim, she approached it and stroked its soft head. It made a small “yipe” and its four kits came out of the bushes. All gazing at her, they began to whine, and the mother fox looked at Amber as if to say, “They are hungry. I have to go.”
Convinced that she could not see the other dead, Amber decided to make her way to the lake where she drowned. The bus was about to pass by, and only one girl was at a bus stop nearby. She ran to catch up with it and ran through the door, a skill which, by now, mastered. The bus pulled past the lake a little while later, and Amber jumped through the bus. She gazed upon the lake, and suddenly, she remembered how she had died.

It had been a long evening with her friends, and one of Amber’s closest friends, Paul, invited a bunch of the sophomores to go swimming. Her friends readily agreed, and Amber, although not wanting to make her parents mad, also agreed: although it required her to stay out after curfew. She met with Paul before the others arrived, and she could smell beer on his breath. She had never seen him drunk before, and this was rather surprising. He was the son of the Deputy Sherriff, and often appeared at events protesting the use of drugs and alcohol by teens; even if used medically. He was also the chief spokesperson for setting up an Alcoholics Anonymous for their area.
He slid into the cold water and asked Amber to follow. Worried that he might hurt himself, Amber consented, knowing she could save him if he started to drown.
“How long’ve you been talkin’ ta Michael?” he asked, slurring his words.
“I fail to see why it matters,” Amber stated, hoping that her friends would come along soon.
To Amber’s amazement, she found that she was watching her own death. Her last few moments were here, and she was now her death was being played back to her. She realized that she could move around the scene to get an optimal view, and she could also see where her friends were. They had deserted her, deciding instead to go to a popular senior’s party.
“Ya know, up ‘till a lil’ bit ago, I thought chou waza real friend,” Paul muttered, almost to himself. “But then ya go ‘n mess it all up fer usss.” He climbed out of the water and groped his way to his clothes. Amber started to follow but was stopped by “Don’t move.” She did as commanded and was beginning to get more and more frightened. Since he was drunk he probably wasn’t thinking straight and could be dangerous. She tried to think of a way to reach her cell phone, but he blocked her path.
By this point, Amber could not help but utter a cry. She could no longer support herself and fell back against a tree. She wished that she could stop watching the horrible scene, but it seemed that once it began, it could not be stopped.
A look of pure hatred crossed Paul’s face and he said simply, “I was going to ask you to the dance. I changed my mind.” With this he plunged into the water, and held Amber’s head down. She screamed once, but was consumed by the water.
Amber shut her eyes. It was too horrible. No one should see their own death, and as though she might pass out, she turned away. The splashing soon ended and Amber turned to see Paul getting out of the lake. He left his empty beer cans there, and stumbled up the path to the road, where he promptly fell asleep. Time seemed to speed up by this point, for Paul had been asleep for only a few minutes, but it was now daylight and he was waking up. She saw Paul’s father pick him up, and no police report was never filed, nor had anyone ever known he was drunk.
The scene died away, and again Amber was left alone at the foot of the lake where her tragedy took place.
A feeling of hatred grew in Amber’s heart. She knew she had to avenge her death; to cause him pain for what he caused her family, but what could she do? The feeling of revenge died away as dread replaced it. As she was thinking about this, a scrawny looking dog walked by her, eyed her curiously much like the foxes she met earlier, and went looking around in the fallen leaves to find something to eat. Amber heard glass tinkle and looked in the direction of the dog.
There, next to her clothes and one of Paul’s socks, were six bottles of beer. She knew what she needed to do, and scooping the dog into her arms (which she previously thought she was permanently unable to do) she began walking home, the semi-transparent dog in her arms.

Amber’s mother woke up the next day to the howling of a dog. She looked out of her window and saw the poor shivering animal rooting around in their garbage. Her mother was a strict vegetarian for 20 years now, and was an avid animal rights advocate. She took pity on the poor animal (which she often did considering they owned multiple cats and a dog) and went outside to see him. She could find no tags, and was determined to take him to the no-kill center in their area, since he was an adorable puppy, and would likely be adopted soon. She bent down to pick him up.
“Come on girl,” Amber called, beckoning the dog to come towards her. She had spent the night training her to come on her command, and for some unexplainable reason she did exactly what she asked.
Her mother walked after the dog, and then realized it would be too hard to catch on foot. She ran inside the house and got her keys, calling to Amber’s father to join her in the chase. They arrived outside in time to see the dog jumping onto a bus.
“Did you see that?” Her father asked incredulously. “I can’t believe the bus driver would let him get on like that!”
“Maybe they allow it now…” her mother responded, starting the car to begin their pursuit of the bus.
The truth was, Amber had picked up the dog as the bus was beginning to stop, and, as she learned the night before, the dog also became invisible.
The bus stopped at the cursed lake, and Amber and the dog jumped through the bus.
“There it is!” her mother shouted, pulling to the side and jumping out of the car.
“It’s headed for the base of the lake.”
“What is it doing? It’s digging in that little patch right there. What is that? Oh my goodness…”
“Th-that is Amber’s jacket!”
“Was she drinking?” Her mother asked aloud, holding up one of the bottles.
Her dad held up Paul’s sock. “This isn’t hers.”
Her mother pulled out her cell phone and called the police.
“Thank you Sherriff, I’m sure this has something to do with her murder. There are some bottles here, can we get DNA information from them?” she hung up the phone.
“He said he’s coming.” For the first time in a week her mother smiled. “I believe this little dog just solved our case.”

A little while later, the forensics team was on the scene, and helped identify Paul as the killer. He was arrested the next day, and could enjoy the rest of his life to think about what he had done. He would be spending his high school career in a room with bars instead of bricks.
Amber’s parents adopted the little dog they said “led them to the clues.” They named the little yorkie “Amber.”
“For some reason,” Her mother said, stroking the dog she now held in her hands, “It seems as if Amber got us to come here.”
“Now she can finally be happy and move on without any troubles,” her father agreed.
With that, Amber expected to see rays of light coming down from nowhere and everywhere at once. She closed her eyes, ready to finally move on. When she opened them again, the scene was the same. Confused, Amber went back to the cemetery, this time to view her own grave - she was rather curious to see what it looked like. She knelt down in the rectangular box of new grass next to her headstone, and felt terribly empty. She worked so hard to pass on but it seemed like that was not the plan.
When Amber finally looked up, she saw a girl about her own age, with long flowing hair and a pale face, wearing a beautiful Victorian dress; she did not look happy. Surprisingly, Amber was not afraid. The girl smiled and when Amber turned around, hundreds of people were in the cemetery, wearing clothing from all eras. A young boy stepped forward and said nonchalantly, “Welcome to the afterlife.” The girl, who introduced herself as Victoria, told Amber, “You have done everything required of you in order to see us. Now, for your patient perseverance, we will reward you. You see, we are the supreme beings, for we do not need sleep or sustenance, and we alone can help you avenge your wrongful death. You can now make a choice, and although you have eternity to make up your mind, your acquaintance Paul may not last that long.”
Victoria smiled a sinister smile. “You are with friends here, and we are the dealers of justice. We are willing to help you if you want it.” Amber took Victoria’s outstretched hand and shook it. “I agree,” Amber replied, and, turning to the congregation of ghosts, said calmly, “Let’s not lose a moment.”