Make It Matter Day Event

Readers Digest is running an event that promotes literacy and education around the world.

While they do have offline events scheduled, they also support an online system of literacy and creativity. We will be spending the month of September using their online program to expand our own horizons in support of this program.

Feel free to visit their website at: http://readersdigest.com/makeitmatterday




Each day, I will post a new photograph here in this post, and any member who wants to participate writes a short story (up to one page long) about what they see in the photo.

Photos can/will be of any and all subjects, including controversial subjects of today.

Stories can be submitted at any time, not just on the day they were started
Make sure to reference what photo you wrote about!

In response to this photo, I am writing the following:

Little Sally jumped up and down with joy in front of her mother. "I want to get the mail and take it to grandma, please?" Her blonde-haired mother chuckled and smiled, nudging her out the door of their deli. "Go on sweetheart, take the mail to grandma. I think she'll be happy to get this."

Little Sally ran out the door and down two blocks, passing the busy highway and shops. She didn't understand why New York City was always so crowded. Why couldn't people just calm down and take a rest every once and awhile? She turned down an alley way, paying no attention to the two dumpsters that read "SOP."

She continued running as she came out of the alley and back into the view of the warm sun. She thought of "Little Miss Riding Hood" taking goodies to her grandma, but knew there would be no 'big bad wolf' anywhere in sight. She finally came to the bus stop and sat down as she was out of breath.

The buses were running fast today and she had no time to sit down for even five seconds before the next bus flew by. She grabbed onto the railing and climbed up the stairs, taking a stand next to the driver. "Off to grandmas house, Sally?" Little Sally nodded and smiled.

The bus driver couldn't stop the grin forming on his face. He had always loved Sally, such a cheerful little girl without a trouble in the world. He stopped at her grandmas house first and let her out. Sally didn't give the doors time to open, squeezing through hurriedly out of excitement.

She walked past all of the garden gnomes and red roses lined up against the fence and in the gardens that Sally had helped plant and grow. She knocked on the front door and rang the doorbell, impatient. Her grandma opened the door in the white flower gown that she always wore. "Well, hello Sally. What a pleasant surprise."

Expect me to be participating in this, for sure. I'll write an entry for the 8th image when I get home tonight, I'm off to get ready for work.

And thanks DUI, this is an amazing idea, and it really makes some people think outside the box as far as their writing goes.

It's all because I could sleep last night and ended up reading a month old issue of Readers Digest. Tore the page out to look into it. I thought it was super cool, and OMGFITPERFECTLY.

Haha, that's awesome. Yay for not sleeping XD

You know it'll only get worse when I get back up there. You and I hanging out and looking through old stuff = lots of fun ideas ^.^

Totally!

I have a lot more work to do on this forum before you get here...if I can stay awake for it

Well, you have time. I have to work Friday night, so mom and I are leaving early Saturday morning to come back this weekend. There's plenty of time to complete the forums.

And our perma move won't be until the weekend of the 26th, so that's two weeks away. *wishes it was closer*

Photo of the Little Girl

Her daddy had handed her the letter before the police came knocking. "Go, don't stop until you've reached the park."

Why the park, she couldn't understand. She never would.

"Why did he tell you to go to the park?" A reporter asked her, leaning over to get closer to the old woman sitting in front of her.

Monica Stillman licked her old dry lips, thinking back to the day when she had run as fast as her small legs could carry her towards the small New York park on that day. She still didn't understand it. She had sat there waiting, waiting for anything for so long but no one had come. When night fell, she had gotten on the subway and taken it all the way to her Grandmother's house where she stayed until her mother was able to come for her and take her to London.

"I don't know," Monica replied. "I still have the letter..." she stood up, walking across the room to where a large bookshelf full of old, ratty novels held their places. She pulled one out, opening to page 39 and pulling out the old, faded letter. It was still unopened, she hadn't bothered to look at it since she'd put it away.

Monica returned to her seat and handed the old letter gingerly to the reporter. "It's been so long, you're welcome to look, if you'd like."

The reporter smiled, turning the old document over in her hands and reading the front to the camera. "Mrs. Stillman," she smiled up at Monica. "Who was Mrs. Stillman, Monica?" She asked.

"That's the thing, I don't know. We never knew any Stillmans."

"Ironic, isn't it? How your name is Stillman now..."

Monica gulped, having never realised the connection herself. She reached out an old and shaky hand, taking the letter back from the reporter. "Do you think I should?"

The reporter nodded and as carefully as she could, she opened the faded envelope and pulled out a small piece of paper. The words were faded, but she could distinctly make out her father's handwriting on the browning parchment.

I will always love you, Monica.

September 09 photo-

They sat in the dark alone, the feeling of loneliness sweeping over them. They had just come home from ballet practice to see a drunk father with a bloody knife in his hands. Their mother was sprawled over the kitchen floor in a pool of dark red liquid. "Wh...What happened to mother?"

"MOTHER'S GONE, DAMMIT! GO TO YOUR ROOM!"

They did as they were told, running up the stairs to their room. They didn't bother to change as they turned the lights off and turned on a night light that was shining against the sheet they had put up in the middle of the room to create shadows. "What's going to happen to us now, sister? What are we going to do?"

The older sister grabbed her hands as they stood there with tears falling from their eyes. "We're going to make it, little sister. Don't you worry about a thing. I'll take care of both of us." She smiled hopefully to her with a pain in her heart that she knew would never go away.

September 10th photo-


The tourists stood there amazed, they couldn't believe scientists has created such a thing. The huge bronze clock on the wall before them was simply a disguise for what it truly held inside. London had changed significantly because of this invention - an invention that, 100 years ago, nobody had ever thought possible.

------------------------------------------------

It is the year 3012 and life as we know it has changed drastically. Cars on wheels are a thing in the past. We now travel in the flying saucers that extraterrestrials have been using since the beginning of time. I look around the golden room and feast my eyes upon the bronze clock in front of me.

I'm alone, and my curiosity is killing me inside. If the scientists can do it, why can't I? I climb the ladder and make my way to the clock, standing on a platform to reach it. I turn the small hand to 'IIII' and the large hand to 'XIII'.

Doing this will cause me to go back sixteen years, to the time that my grandfather died giving his life to this creation. No longer will this clock stand in the middle of this building on display for everyone to see. My plan is to stop the finishing touches on this clock of doom.

I push the center in and immediately the room begins to spin. I become dizzy and fall off the platform, hitting my head on the staircase. I feel the foundation shake as I drift off to sleep. When I wake up, I see my grandfather standing over me with the arms of the clock in his hand. "Grandfather...can I borrow those?"

September 8th Photo -

I'll never forget that day. I was running as fast as I could, weaving in and out of people and crossing streets faster than I ever have before. Why? Because I had letters to deliver.

It was my first day as a delivery girl, my job was to take letters to people all over the city. We had trucks for big packages, but written letters were always delivered by hand. I ran past two small dumpsters with the letters SOP painted on them, and I knew I was headed the right way. My heels clicked on the pavement below my feet as I ran, never slowing down even as I rounded the next corner and dodged between some people, startling them a bit.

Finally, I reached my first delivery of the day. A house near the park, big and surrounded with a wooden fence. Carefully I pushed open the gate and went up the walkway to the large place, one of the mansions belonging to the richer people of our city. Whatever letter was coming to them had to be important, I figured, so I straightened out my jacket and skirt as I walked up, standing on my tippy toes to reach the knocker for the red painted wooden door that stood before me. As my fingers grasped the brass ring I pulled it back and felt my fingers hit the wood as I swung inward, creating a loud knock. I did this several more times, quickly, then let go and took a step back to wait.

After a few moments no one answered the door, so I looked at the letter to double confirm the address, then slipped it into the slot at the bottom of the door that was marked ‘mail’. I turned to walk away, to get back to the street and look at my next letter so I could deliver it to its location, when a gunshot rang out from the home behind me. It was loud enough that I heard it, but I knew that most people would mistake it for normal city sounds. Then another one, and I felt pain spread through my body. I took off running, past the gate and down the street, to the nearest payphone. Quickly, my fingers punched 911 and I waited for the operator to pick up.

“Nine one one, what is your emergency?” A woman’s voice asked on the other end of the line.

“My name is Mary, I heard gunshots fired from twenty-two fifty Lilac Avenue, near the park. I think one hit me.” I knew how to respond to an emergency, that was one thing I’d always been taught all my life and I could only hope that now I wouldn’t be to late to save whoever had been shot.

“Okay Mary, police are heading there now. Can you get back to the house? There will be paramedics there, they can see if you’re injured.” The woman sounded concerned, and I nodded even thought I knew she couldn’t see me.

“I-I’ll try. Thanks.” I hung up the phone and turned around, dashing back towards the house as I heard sirens wail from down the street.

What I saw next surprised me. Police were already on the scene, and they were covering up a body that was laying on the walkway to the house. I was curious to see if it was the person who had been shot, if they’d managed to make it out of the house before collapsing on the walkway, but I saw a pair of little black shoes sticking out from under the sheet. I turned as I heard the scream of ambulance sirens, and was shocked when one of the paramedics who jumped out of the back passed right through me.

I’ll never forget that day. It was the day I died.

September 11th-

The carousel turned and turned, the different colored ponies going around in a circle. It was a wonderful day for Jackson, for he was turning one year old. His two mothers figured a trip to the once-a-year carnival would make him happier than any toddler out there could ever be on their birthday. Jackson followed behind after grabbing a yellow balloon from a man who stood behind a cart filled with tons of multi-colored items that were sure to grab the attention of any small child. Taking a glance to the right, the curious little boy saw a ride that grabbed his attention.

Paying no attention to his mothers walking forward to the food booth, Jackson decided to go his own way. The tea-cups were so close that he could taste them. Yvonne and Genvieve laughed and cut up as the world passed them by. They were the happiest couple in the world, having just adopted a little boy. "Jackson, run on up here next to us now. We wouldn't wanna lose you." They continued walking and turned around a minute later when Jackson never showed up. "Jackson?" They looked all around them and Jackson was nowhere to be found. "JACKSON!"

Tears flew from both their eyes as they ran in panic to the carnival missing-persons office. Yvonne was on the phone to the police while Genvieve was speaking with the desk clerk, slurring her words. What they didn't know was that a man standing by the tea-cups had spotted Jackson almost instantly, and hungrily watched him as if he were a piece of steak. His name was Will, and he had just been released from jail twenty-four hours ago. He had spent seventeen years in jail for raping the cold and lifeless body of a child.

He walked up to Jackson and smiled sweetly. "Hello there, little guy. Are you lost?" Jackson looked around for his mothers and shook his head no, pointing toward the food booth. "You wanna ride a few rides with me? Maybe go to the park later?" Jackson nodded, feeling as if he had nothing to fear from such a nice person who had just handed him a bag of cotton candy. "Tea-cups!" he jumped up and down while grabbing the mans hands. "Alright, alright. Two for the cups, please." They got in line a chose a cup.

Twenty minutes later, the ride was over. Jackson walked away dizzy, holding onto the hand of this man he had just recently met. "What's your name, little boy?" The boy shrugged his shoulders shyly. The man chuckled. "You wanna go to the park, buddy? It's crowded here." Jackson knew he shouldn't leave, and pulled away from the man. "No, no. I'm going to take you to your parents. They called and told me to bring you to them." Jackson thought for a moment and decided this would be best, he wanted to be with his mommies.

He nodded and smiled. "Where?"
"Where are you parents? The park. They got lost trying to find you at the food booth, and asked me to meet them at the park with you." Jackson believed him, and Will felt accomplished. Soon he would have this young child in his home. Soon he would be having his way with such a beautiful creature. And this time... he wouldn't be caught. He would get away with every single sin, and he would do it again after he was done with this one.

September 9th -

"Can you keep a secret?" Amy asked, her blue eyes staring at mine as we waited behind the curtain, knowing in a moment it would rise and we would have to begin our dance.

"Of course I can." I whispered, not wanting to be heard over the music, not wanting the thousand pairs of ears on the other side of the thin curtain to know that we were speaking.

"I can't do this." She confided, and I could see the fear in her eyes. We'd practiced this routine a hundred times or more, but in front of all those people I could feel that she was nervous.

"Yes you can." I told her, reaching out to hold her hand and smiling gently. "You can I can do this, together." I could only hope my words were reassuring, and I was relieved as she looked down at my hand holding hers before looking back up at me.

"Thank you." Her mouth moved, but her words were lost in the crescendo of music as our turn came up, the paper thin curtain that had been hiding us from the world rising.

And so we began to dance. Slow movements, working together to make each tiny muscle twitch a thing of beauty. It seemed like it went on forever, my mind focused on the music, and my movements in tandem with Amy's. At last it ended, the music raising in volume and then stopping, Amy and I frozen in seemingly impossible poses.

The applause of the crowd that followed was perhaps the most rewarding thing ever. We had done perfectly, and I looked at Amy with a smile. That quickly faded, however, as I saw that she was straining to keep her pose. I prayed for the curtain to close quickly, and once it did I broke pose and caught Amy as she fell, shouting for someone to call an ambulance.

That night, nothing else mattered. I rode to the hospital with Amy, and waited outside the emergency room until they finally let me see her. She was sedated, apparently in pain. Somewhere in all those practices, Amy had strained her bones and while she knew it wasn't good for her to go on she had, wanting to dance with me on that stage and let me have my moment to shine.

Now, Amy is in a wheel chair. She can't walk anymore, her ankles are too strained and weak to support her weight. She'll never dance again, but she always tells me that she does not regret that night because for once I was the star instead of her, and giving me the feeling of being special is something she won't ever feel bad about doing.

September 10th -

Every day I would stop to look at it. In the morning, I didn't have time to stare, I had to catch the train to work. The afternoons, however, were a whole different story. I'd get off the train at the station and head to the upper level and lean on the rails of the balcony. This way, people couldn't walk in front of me and obstruct my view, and I wasn't in anyone's way.

The clock was a beautiful piece of work. I always tried to imagine just how big it must be, that I might only be as tall as the hands on its face were long. That each piece of carved wood and metal was perfect and intricate, even though I had slowly watched the magnificent thing fade over time, the metal becoming dull and the wood worn down by the chemicals in the air. Nature couldn't affect the clock here, everything was in doors and underground there were no animals, and the storms that were so frequent in the city only struck just behind the clock, on the windows which it seemed so precariously set upon.

I remembered the day it was put in, that clock, the first day I stepped off the train and looked up, noticing the large thing there. It was a work of beauty, and even ten years later I never stopped taking time out of my way home to stop and stare at it.

Then, one day I noticed that the clock had stopped working. My watch read just past five, but the clock seemed to be eternally stuck on twelve-thirty. It must have stopped sometime during the day, and that day as I stared at it I prayed that they'd fix it, or even if they left it be that they'd leave it there forever, the monument of beauty just left to rot where it stood.

The next morning I went to work as usual, and when I got off the train that afternoon I looked up to take a glance at the clock. Tears began to well in my eyes as I stood there, the people walking around me as if I were an island in a sea of living beings. The clock was gone, I could still see the scaffolding where workers had been up there to take it down. Parts of the backing that had been holding it up were still there, and I hoped that the only reason the clock had been removed was to fix it.

Days passed, and the clock remained missing. I looked for it every time I got off that train, but it was never there. I started to loose hope that it would come back to me, that the one thing that had always been able to comfort me no matter my problems was gone forever. I stopped looking for it, the disappointment of not seeing it there every day was finally too much for my heart to bear.

One month later, I went up to the balcony again and I stared at the place where the clock had once been. I put my head in my hands and I cried. The backings that had been its only remnants were gone too, and now I had completely lost hope of its return.

"Excuse me miss." A male voice came from behind me, and I took a deep breath to stop my tears before turning to face the man.

He was one of the station workers, I could tell by his uniform, and while he was a little taller than I our eyes were still almost level. On any other day I would have thought him attractive, he had a thin build and pale skin that stood out against his short black hair and bright emerald eyes.

"Yes?" I asked, wiping away the last of my tears.

"This is for you." He held something out to me, and I could see that it was a photo of the clock. It was shiny and new, like the day it had been put in. "That clock broke when they were fixing it, and we don't have the funds to keep on fixing it. It's gone forever, but I hope that this photo will help you remember it forever." He smiled gently at me, then left the photo in my hands and disappeared into the crowd.

I never knew his name, I never saw him again, but I had that photo of that clock blown up and now it hangs on the wall of my home, a forever reminder of the beautiful piece of work forever destroyed by the careless hands of those who did not appreciate its beauty.

September 11th -

I wondered if he was lost, a little boy wandering around all alone like that. I didn't see his parents, but he also didn't seem too worried about being by himself. He wasn't crying or panicked, he was just walking. To where I had no idea, but there he was walking along with his yellow balloon in tow.

Deciding it wasn't a good idea to leave him alone, I slowly got up from the bench I'd been sitting on and started to follow the boy, just a few paces behind him so I could keep an eye on him but not look like I was stalking him. I followed him across the park to what I presumed were his parents, a man and a woman waiting in a patch of grass off to the side that he walked up to and sat down by. It looked like they were doing a family outing sort of thing, but I was disgusted.

How had this mother allowed her little boy to wander off like that? He couldn't have been older than six or seven, he shouldn't have been on his own. What would she have done if some pervert had snatched him up, or if security had taken him because they assumed he was lost? What if he had gotten lost? They had put that child's life in danger, and I was so angry I almost walked up and gave them a piece of my mind. I thought better of it at the last minute, though, and just walked away.

I saw the same couple later leaving, and wrote down the license plate, color, make and model for their car. Then I called children's services and explained the situation, and the woman on the other side of the line promised me they'd look into it. She sounded just as angry as I did about what had happened.

Two days later the woman called me back and gave me some news that I found both relieving and disturbing. She said that an investigation into the family had revealed not only other complaints of a similar nature, but that the boy was not theirs. He was a missing boy who'd been taken from his home almost two years prior, and the supposed 'parents' were actually his grandparents from his mother's side, which was why the boy hadn't made a fuss about being with them.

She said that his real mother was a junkie and his father was out of the picture, so children's services was going to take the boy and place him in foster care since the mother refused to let her parents take care of him. The grandparents didn't want to see the little boy go into the system, so they'd hired a man to kidnap the boy and bring him to them. But now that he'd been found, he was going to go into the system anyway because his mother was still on drugs and in no shape to take care of him.

I asked what it would take for me to become a foster parent, and the woman seemed shocked but she told me that all I had to do was contact a foster agency and follow what they said. I also asked for the boy's name, and she told me it was Timmy Jones. I thanked her, and promptly contacted a foster agency to get things started.

One week later I was officially a foster parent, and I took Timmy in. He had been passed around to a few different homes in the week it took me to become certified, but I promised him when he was brought to me that I wouldn't leave him. He smiled and hugged me, and called me Aunt Suzan.

That was eleven years ago. I have had over twenty foster kids since then, most of them success stories. Timmy graduated high school, got a student loan and is now in his sophomore year of college, studying to become a pediatrician. I've lost some kids, the system has simply taken them from me and all I can hope is that I've made a positive impact on their lives.

I currently have three children, two teens an a nine year old. They all get along, they're all little angels and I'd like to think that I have brought them up well, keeping my job as a high school teacher but always being there for them as a friend and not just as their 'mother'.

All of this thanks to one small boy with a yellow balloon.

September 21st photo -

The tan-skinned couple tossed their heart-shaped rocks to the sea, knowing it was the last bit of existence anyone would ever know of them. They had been stranded on this god forsaken island for months now and knew that they would never be found. They sat on the hot sand next to the fire they had built the night before and watched the waves rush the rocks along. They were much lighter than they looked because they had been carved out of rock dust and recycled plastic.

The smiles on their faces had faded long ago and they no longer felt the happiness in their hearts that they had during their time on the yacht they had been given as a gift for their wedding. The only thing they wished for was for someone they knew to find the rocks that they had thrown out together and read the small note that had been etched by a sharp stick on the back of them. If someone did in fact find them, it would tell them their location.

The sun was slowly hiding behind the horizon, so they layed back on the grainy sand under the leaf hut they had created and huddled together for warmth during the night, falling asleep within thirty minutes. They would continue living their life the same way they had for months now - climbing trees to harvest bananas and coconuts and drinking water out of the bowl they had draped a piece of cloth over to preserve and cleanse it.

Six months later on a beach in Florida, a woman celebrating her honeymoon was walking along the shore when she noticed two similar looking rocks sticking out of the sand. She picked them up and was amazed at the shape of them, having never seen a heart-shaped rock before. "Johnny, come over here and look at this!" Her husband hurried to her side and grabbed one of the rocks, analyzing the front and back. "Amazing."

"But wait, there's something inscribed on the back of them." Johnny said in a tone that greatly detailed his curiosity. "What is it?" Carol asked with a small hint of excitement in her voice. "I can't tell to be quite honest. It seems as if the sand and water have washed away most of what story these rocks told." Carol sighed and shrugged her shoulders. "Oh well, it couldn't have been anything important." Johnny took her wife into a loving embrace and smiled sweetly, "No, maybe not. I think we should keep them, though. Very interesting for us to find a set of rocks like this on such a special night, don't you think?" Carol sighed in acceptance.

Farrah and Daniel were now left with nothing. On a far-away island hoping and wishing that one day they would be saved. Little did they know that their rocks had been found by a couple who received them by the sea on the same night and same special occasion that they had six years ago. What a great event to cherish. What a great event to find the Sacred Stones that loved nothing more than to greet unsuspecting newlyweds with a gift of doom that would ruin their lives forever.

September 12th -

It was a challenge, one we could not resist. An old building, about to be demolished, and we had free reign of it for a full twenty-four hours. The roof was collapsing, there were bits of paint that crunched under our boots everywhere and we knew we had to be careful. Whatever was left of the cement that had once made up the foundations of the building was damaged and crumbling, but we didn't care. Some of the windows were missing, either the glass had been blown out or the whole frame was gone, and all of the vents had were missing, leaving gaping holes in the upper parts of the walls. We knew better than to go there, though, because the metal that made up the ventilation shafts could very easily have been corroded as well, and we didn't want to hurt ourselves.

No, we weren't here to explore and get injured. We were here to tag, to leave our mark on the building before it went down. Plenty of others had already been through, their paints marred the otherwise perfectly white walls that lay under the cream colored, peeling paint. Still, we didn't have a lot of time so we started moving quickly, unpacking backpacks full of spray paint in every color imaginable and making sure everyone had the colors they needed.

I looked around at the ragtag group I'd managed to assemble, wishing there were more than just a dozen total but also knowing I had to be thankful for what I had. They were all here on their own time, doing this because they wanted to, and there was no way I was ever going to be able to thank them properly for all their help.

"Make sure to wear your masks, and let's go!" I called, putting my own cloth thing over my nose and mouth. The building was full of unknown toxins, and I didn't need anyone getting sick because of them. With my call, everyone split. Some went upstairs, some downstairs, but everyone stuck in pairs as they scrambled to get started.

Night came quicker than any of us would have liked, and in the failing light we all finished our projects then headed back to base camp - a ring of tables on the first floor in what had once been the foyer of the old building. Somehow, between how few of us there were, we'd managed to strip and repaint the entire building in one day, and as we packed up and left we knew that the demolition crew that would be coming in with the light of the new morning would have a very, very interesting surprise waiting for them.

September 13 -

I passed the same tower every day on the way to my classes, it always stood so tall and proud, and yet it looked so lonely. It stood apart from the other buildings, shrouded by trees. At night, there were no lights there, indicating that perhaps there was no life lurking behind its many windows. Every time I asked about it, the answer was the same - you don't want to know.

The teachers knew something, I was sure, and some of the older students did too, but no one would tell me. All I could gather from the books on the history of the school was that the tower was part of the original school building and when it had been demolished and rebuilt the tower had been left alone. I suspected that over the years the trees and other things that blocked its bottom parts from view had just been allowed to grow there. I did note, however, that nothing grew on the tower itself, the vines that covered the trees and what remained of the original school building didn't go near the structure. Plus, it seemed unusually well kept, none of the windows were broken or even discolored, none of the bricks or stone that made its structure were missing or chipped. Someone was taking care of that place, I just couldn't figure out who.

Weeks became months as I spent time on the campus, living across the street from the main buildings in the student dorms. I had no room mate, my parents didn't think having one would be good for me so they paid extra to allow me to have the room to myself so I could study in silence. They had no idea how thin the walls were, and how hard it was for me to study because of all the noise around me. A room mate would have been better, at least then I would have had someone to talk to rather than always having to listen to my music and write in my diary about what I felt. I had no friends, I was the social outcast just like in high school, and while it was lonely I knew it was all for the best, being alone meant fewer distractions from my studies.

Then, something I never would have expected happened. A girl from one of the sorority houses approached me, and asked me to join them. She said that they needed someone with good grades to help boost the sorority’s reputation, and that I was perfect. Naturally, I was apprehensive. Sororities bothered me, the girls were shallow and often they teamed up with the fraternity houses for initiation, and it was hell week for the frats right now, I didn’t want to be involved. Yet, she assured me that the only thing I’d need to do to get in was to meet them by the tower that night. Then I started to think it was one of those devil worshipping sorority houses, but she promised me it wasn’t like that either. After a while, I reluctantly agreed and the blonde chirped her happiness and trotted off, no doubt to tell her sisters I would be joining them.

That night, I left the dorms just after sundown and headed for the tower. I could still see it even at night, a large structure that blocked out the light from the rest of the campus. Nervousness set in, but I ignored it and kept walking until I found myself standing at the gated doorway to the large thing, sighing as I realized no one was around. I half expected something to fall on my head, or for some frat boys to come out of the woods around me screaming and trying to frighten me. Still, I waited, and nothing happened. I busied myself with homework, thankful I'd been thoughtful enough to bring it with me just in case, and finally as the sun began to rise I gave up and went home.

It was a Saturday, the start of the weekend and one of two days I didn't have any classes, so as soon as I got back to my room I crashed on my bed. I was exhausted, but at least my homework was done so I rested easy, sleeping through the day and waking up sometime that afternoon. Normal people would have lingered on the anger of being stood up all night long, but I just shrugged it off and told myself I'd never accept an invite to a sorority again.

As I got dressed I finally took a look out my window and expected to see the tower there, I could always see it from the window over my bed. I was puzzled, however, when it wasn't there. Maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me, I'd been up all night after all. So I decided to go check it out, grabbing my purse as I walked out and made sure to lock the door behind me. I walked quicker than usual towards the tower, only to find that it was in ruins, vines were growing all over what was left of the base, just like the school building it had once been a part of.

September 14 -

"Come on, it'll be fun!" The annoying voice of my little sister rang in my ears as she tugged on my wrist. "We need someone over eighteen or we can't go. Please?" She begged, making a pouting face.

My sister wanted to go on a camping trip. Well, hiking trip was more like it. As part of a class project her 'group' had volunteered to check out a set of old graves that sat in the woods to the north of town. They were going to go up there and spend the night near the mysterious things, and document the supposed strange events for a science project. The problem was they needed a chaperone, and since mom and dad were going away for the weekend she only had me to ask. I was twenty-one and I didn't want to go, but at the same time I knew as soon as our parents found out I'd said no I'd be in a lot of trouble. My sister was the perfect little angel to them, and I was expected to pamper her.

"Fine, I'll go. But-" I cut my sister off as she started running away, no doubt to call her friends and deliver the good news. "I am in charge. As soon as anyone disobeys an order from me, I'm leaving." My face was stern, but my sister didn't care and she dashed off to get the phone anyway, then ran for her room.

Saturday came all to quickly, and I found myself with a car full of little girls and camping gear. It was an hours drive to the forest, but my sister had all her friends spend Friday night anyway and as soon as the car was packed Saturday morning we were on our way. I told them all to shut up as I blasted my Nox Arcana music out of the speakers, so the girls all texted one another from the back seats of the van while we drove to avoid talking and having me turn around to go home.

By ten in the morning we were parked at the lot just before the trail that led into the woods and unpacked. Each girl had to carry what they brought, and while my sister carried my sleeping bag and change of clothes I carried all the gear. There was an EVP recorder, two trap cameras, four handheld video cameras and two laptops so we could keep everything in backup. That didn’t include all the tapes, CD’s and batteries we needed for the trip to. It was heavy, but I was the biggest of the girls and the strongest (thank goodness for being a football player in high school and keeping up my workout in my college years).

After a quick breakfast from the guy with the cart selling bagels (and some coffee for me), we began our trek into the woods. We stopped at noon for some lunch (mostly energy bars and bottled water), then kept going. By four, we’d reached the graves. They were off the beaten path, but my sister’s teacher had given them a map so we found them easily. I was just peeved that it took us an hour to drive there and six hours to walk to the graves, on account of three little brats who had no strength and had to keep stopping to rest.

As soon as we arrived we unpacked and set up. There was a clearing about ten feet from the head stones, so we set up our main camp there and started a fire. I knew how to survive in the wild, so I took care of everything while the girls set up the equipment. One of the trap cameras was set at the edge of the clearing facing the graves, and another was set at the end of the row facing down. The EVP recorder was set on top of the grave in the middle, and each of us was given a handheld camera.

When night fell, we began the investigation. The laptops were set up, and we were good to go. I suggested isolation sessions, but the girls didn’t want to be anywhere near the dead bodies alone so my sister went off with one friend and I took the other girl and we split up into the woods to begin recording.

The night was uneventful, no personal experiences, and when the morning light came we packed up and headed back home. I had Sunday to review the evidence, but I found nothing. We’d tried telling ghost stories, provoking the spirits, anything we could think of to bring them out, but still if anything had happened we had no record of it. At least, not on video.

As I began to review the EVP session, something stood out. My sister and her friend were standing just behind the line of the trap cameras, asking questions. One such question was ‘Who are you?’, since the graves were too overgrown with plants and eroded to read. The answer was two words.

“The devil.”

September 15 -

I suppose it was relaxing, to some extent. A little bumpy, but still relaxing. Of course, horseback riding was not my idea of romantic night, but to my husband apparently it was as he insisted that a ride down the beach at sunset would be very romantic.

It didn't appear that we were the only ones, though. There was a man in a horse drawn cart type thing also riding just ahead of us. He seemed older, and I wondered what he was doing riding alone like that, but I paid it no mind as I pulled my horse up beside my husbands and kept on going.

Later, as we rounded a corner, I realized something. The man in the cart had been just a head of us but he went out of sight when he rounded the corner, but as we rounded the corner after him he was gone. There were no more turns, and no places for a horse to hide from sight, let alone a horse pulling a cart with a man inside.

"Hey, where did that man go?" I turned to my husband, giving him a questioning look.

"What man?" He asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

"The man in the horse drawn cart." I stated flatly.

"I didn't see a man in a horse drawn cart dear." My husband looked at me like I was crazy, and I looked at the ground ahead of us.

There should have been track marks from the horse's hooves and the wheels of the cart, but there were none in the muddy sands of the beach. I was puzzled, but since my husband hadn't seen it and the man was no longer in view, I decided to let it go but insisted we turn around and go back.

It was only later that I found out turning around had saved our lives. The area around the curve was discovered to have been the sight of a mass grave, and the ground was slowly caving in over the bodies. Had we continued, our horses would probably have slipped into the hole and when their weight collapsed on us we probably would have been killed under their crushing weight.

One of the bodies discovered was that of an old man who used to work for a business that drove people around in the carts. I think that man saved our lives.

September 16 -

Ruins. They were always so mysterious. Who made them? Who left them? Why did they leave? What made it so that their buildings stood, even in shambles, so many hundreds or thousands of years later? As an archeologist, it was my goal to figure out. But I wasn't content just exploring the big ruins, the things that many of my colleagues and predecessors had been through and seen. No, I wanted something different, something new.

I got my chance when a group of researchers that my friend was a part of asked me to come along to some undiscovered ruins in South America. They said that the people who had been there before hadn't even recognized the language written on the walls of the old stone things, and that as a master of languages I might be able to shed some light on the strange symbols. I was glad to say yes, these ruins hadn't been properly documented or anything yet and if I found something it would be my discovery, it would make my career as an archeologist.

The next day I boarded a plane and took off, landing several hours later and meeting up with my friends. We loaded up in a jeep and did some serious off roading before we came upon the ruins at long last. Dark stone crumbling, the ground already covered by several different varieties of plants and the stone itself now home to many more.

“This way.” My friend called, leading me through the maze of old buildings until at long last we reached a small stone building that had an archway carved into it much like a door, and it appeared to lead underground.

I was led inside by my friend and once we entered we turned on our flashlights so we could see clearly. The stairs leading down were slightly corrupted by the elements, but manageable as we continued our descent into the earth. Eventually the stairs bottomed out into a large chamber, all of its walls filled with strange writings. I had never seen anything like the strange symbols before, they reminded me of a blend of both Egyptian hieroglyphs and Chinese kanji. Symbol pictures, but none I was familiar with.

“What do you think?” My friend asked.

“I’m not sure.....I’ll need time to study this. Will you go back and get my digital camera? Pictures would really help so I can compare them later, and maybe run them through a few programs.” I was fascinated and I didn’t want to leave, so I was glad when my friend agreed with a nod and left to go get the camera as I requested.

Shortly after he left, however, I began to feel uneasy, like someone was watching me. Several sweeps of the small room with my flashlight revealed nothing, however, so I continued to study the one area of the wall that had first drawn me to it. I saw a picture of a woman holding a tube with rays of light coming off of it, and around her was what appeared to be an aura of some sort. Outside of this aura were many different symbols, many of which I did recognize. There was the Chinese kanji for ‘god’, the Greek word for ‘language’ and the Russian word for ‘large’, plus more that I couldn’t translate all the way because of the erosion that had happened over the years.

Footsteps reached my ears and I turned to the stairwell, hoping to see my friend there coming down with my camera. I wanted to photograph everything, to take it back to my computer and begin to analyze what it all meant. However, rather than seeing my friend I saw no one, the stairs were empty. I was convinced my mind was playing tricks on me and decided to ignore it, even though something was rushing in my system and telling me to get out.

After a while I began to wonder what was taking my friend so long and turned back to the stairs, walking to the bottom and looking up. Something horrible hit me at that moment - I couldn’t see the sky at the top of the stairs like I had been able to when we walked down. All that was up there was darkness, so I quickly shone my light up there and saw that part of the stairway tunnel had collapsed. I was closed in, there was no other way out besides the stairway, and my flashlight didn’t have much life left in it. I knew I was as good as dead.

September 17 -

How can I describe that sunset? Or was it a sunrise? I don’t even remember anymore. All I can remember was the sky turning a bright golden color as sun met with the horizon, pinks and purples and undertones of blue all sparkling together with the gold as the sun moved.

Below me were streets, lots of streets, clogged with cars. People on their way to work or on their way home, people out running errands, going to or coming from school. All of them looked the same. Same skin tone, same eye shape and color, same hair. The only thing that seemed to distinguish any of them was what set the children apart from the adults. Children wore uniforms for school, adults wore uniforms for work.

Such was the city I lived in, however. I spoke their language, even though I looked so different from any of them, and I managed to get along just fine in their society. But I was the outcast, I never fit in and I knew I never would. I couldn’t go back to my home country, though. There, I was a wanted felon for crimes I did not commit but the government was insistent on having me charged anyway because I knew the secrets they did not want getting to the public.

Not that it would have mattered, when I first learned these things I tried telling people but no one believed me. When I was chased down by the military I fled. Now I was alone in a strange country, the only thing keeping me from being deported back home was the fact that I had agreed to cooperate with the government here and tell them everything so they could use it against my government. I was branded a wanted traitor, and I knew there was no going back.

That day, when sun met earth and sky exploded with color, I jumped from my balcony onto the street below. It was a painless death, I just closed my eyes and then it was all over. Everything I loved had already been taken from me, why did I deserve to live?

September 18 -

Their makeup and hair made me think of vampires, their bodies were perfect and unmarred by scars, their skin was the perfect blend of flesh tones, and their faces were so expressive you felt every emotion they did, from anger and joy to fear and depression.

The show was amusing if nothing else, one of the better things I’d gone to see. Of course, it was not for all audiences. The woman with the shorter hair had no top on and barely covered her bottom portion while the woman with the longer hair was wearing a flowing gown of some sort. There was something about the combination of black hair, pale skin, red makeup and red clothing that made them even more beautiful, but I knew this was a look but do not touch sort of situation. They were alluring, but going near them would bring nothing but trouble.

As everything began to wind down and the music and lights dimmed, the woman with the longer hair walked up behind the other, and the shorter haired woman proceeded to use the locks of hair from the woman behind her to cover herself, looking horrified as if she just now realized that the whole audience had seen her topless. I wondered if that was an act or not, but before I could come to any conclusion the lights went out and the show was over. I went home that night thinking about the show, about the expression on the topless girl’s face, and I doubted such a thing could be acting, but at the same time how could it not have been since the audience was in full view of her the whole time.

Such thoughts haunted my brain for days until everything came full circle and I remembered how the girls had reminded me of vampires. I knew plenty on the subject of the supposedly mystical creatures, and one of their many powers was the ability to put humans in a trance-like state that made them unaware of the world around them. Slowly, I thought about the possibility that the longer haired woman had been a vampire and the other had been in a trance the whole time, somehow oblivious to the crowd. It was possible, so I decided to go back and investigate this for myself.

However, luck was not on my side that day. The band that had been performing the show had moved on to another city, and it seemed the two women had not gone with them.

Though I never saw either woman again, my thoughts still like to turn to the what ifs of the situation, and on how things might have been different if I had figured things out sooner.

September 19 -

It was going to be a night of wonder, that much I knew the moment we stepped through the doors. The restaurant was fancy, he wanted to impress me, and he'd done a good job. Strings of lights hung from the ceiling, looking like falling snow against the gray cloud colored ceiling above. Couples sat at tables, wandered around, danced on the floor. The music was beautiful too, not the classical junk I hated so but something a little more modern and upbeat, just shy of what you'd hear at a nightclub.

"Do you like it?" He asked, putting one arm around my bare shoulder. His touch made me shiver, it was as cold as it was warm, something I didn't want to deal with but at the same time knew I had to.

"It's lovely." I half lied, adjusting the straps on my dress and wondering why I'd let him convince me to dress up. Sure I was pretty enough to pass for a woman, but this was going too far.

"Good. Let's go find a table." He led me off by the hand, and I followed so it didn't look like I was being dragged.

The food was wonderful, and we talked as we always did. We spoke about our jobs, his business work and my part-time at the local haunted house. We spoke about our families, his crazy sister and my whore mother. Things just kind of flowed when I was with him, as if he were my best friend that I could confide all my secrets in. And in a way, he was, for we'd been lovers for nearly four years. Anti-gay laws forbid us to marry, so we remained in love and living together, doing our best to get by.

When dinner was over, he helped me up in the heels that I was wearing and supported me as I wobbled my way to the front door, still wondering how women managed to wear the things with so little support they held in that tiny stick. Once back in the car we made out happily, but he was drunk from the wine so I took the keys and shoved him into the passengers seat, taking us home. He was rough when he was drunk, but I didn't mind, and what followed was a flurry of passion, another night that like many before it would remain a blur in my mind, my only true memories being those of coming through the door and being pushed against the wall as he kissed me and the morning after when I woke up sore to the blaring alarm that my lover used to wake himself up. He turned it off, kissed me good morning and went down to make himself breakfast while I snuggled back down into the sheets, having a few more hours before he had to get up and go through the long process of getting my makeup and costume ready for my own work that evening.

September 20 -

It was the middle of the night, and I knew that something didn't feel normal. I lived alone, and while nothing usually scared me when the air itself began to feel different I knew I needed to be afraid. Usually, when the air begins to change it means one of two things. First is a storm, but I knew what storms felt like, this wasn't a storm. The second thing was something much, much worse - demons. It sounds absurd, I know, but I'm not like most people, I don't live my life unable to connect with nature and the things around me.

True that I lived in a house, but that was purely for protective reasons. When the weather is good, I spend as much of my time as possible outside. I talk to my flowers, feed the local animals, and do my best to live as eco-friendly as possible, taking advantage of all the new advances in our technologies. Because of this, I am able to see spirits that linger behind, feel their presences all around. I've also learned to tell the difference between them and living beings, and while I often do my best to help spirits pass over things don't often go as planned. Spirits who were violent in life find themselves with new powers and use them to cause greater destruction. Those kinds of spirits will become demonic if left to their own devices, and I knew that was the sort of thing I was dealing with now.

However, demons have the ability to disguise themselves from everyone, people like myself included, so I quickly grabbed my digital camera and ran to the end of my driveway, ignoring the fact that it was two in the morning, and I snapped a shot of my house. Everything was blurry, and it looked as if snow was falling over everything. Plus, even though I didn't have it set for black and white, that's how the picture came out. Running back inside, I plugged my camera into the computer and picked up the phone, quickly dialing one of my sisters.

"What do you want Anna? It's two in the morning." Came the sleepy response as soon as the phone was picked up.

"May, there's a demon here." I said quickly, making a few clicks on my computer as the picture uploaded. "I'm e-mailing you a photo I took just a minute ago. I'm not sure what it is, but it has to be powerful."

"Tch, damn." May yawned and I heard her getting up as she walked to her computer. There was a pause as the thing started up and she made a few clicks of her own, then another yawn before she started talking again. "Looks like more than one, actually. Something like this, the snowfall affect with the black and white, it has to be more than one and they're powerful. You have your charms up right?"

"Yea, they're all up. I haven't put new ones up recently, but these should hold." I looked at the rectangular pieces of paper hung on every wall, every floor, every ceiling of my house, the symbols painted on them symbols of power and protection.

"I'd say update them, then. Make new ones, stick them on different places on the same wall as a buffer. I can't come out tonight, it'll be too dangerous, but I'll be out first thing in the morning. Light should weaken them, so just make sure you lock all the windows and doors and update your charms." May sighed, then hung up the phone.

I put mine back in its holster and went to make sure everything was locked up, then dug out my kit and began to make new charms to hang on all the outside walls and the upstairs ceiling, just so that I felt safer. I finished just after dawn, and hunkered down on my couch to wait for May to arrive, hoping I'd done the right thing by calling her.

The noon sun woke me first, no sign of May anywhere. I looked out the window nearest the driveway and saw that her car was there, but she hadn't rang the doorbell and she wasn't on the front step, or in her car. I quickly called her phone and got nothing, then called the police. They found her mutilated body in my backyard, and blamed it on an animal. The photos they took of the body all had the same thing, though - a snowfall affect and black and white qualities. No one could figure it out, and I said nothing. Who would believe that my friend had been killed by demons anyway?