The Town of Casper

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AshenAngel

AshenAngel

Edgeknight
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  1. 1-3 posts per day
  2. One post per day
  3. 1-3 posts per week
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Whenever I can get on.
Writing Levels
  1. Intermediate
  2. Adept
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  4. Adaptable
Preferred Character Gender
  1. Male
  2. Female
  3. Primarily Prefer Male
Genres
Fantasy, Comedy, Medieval, Romance, Sci-Fi, Modern
A strange young man went missing in a local mangrove swamp in a small coastal town 214 years ago. Lightning struck a single mangrove tree just outside of town twenty four times that day. The man had always been a strange one to the townspeople, as he was often seen talking to himself. He claimed that he could see spirits. He was never seen nor heard from again after he went into the swamp, and rumors spread that he was practicing black magic there.
Fast forward 214 years, and we're back to our lovely current-day society. The town itself is still there, as well as the mangrove tree that had been struck by the lightning. Some of the older people of the town call the mangrove tree the guardian of the town due to some of the interesting things that happened in the past couple hundreds of years. No damage has been caused by natural disasters since that day. And no lightning has struck near the town since then, either.
People have, however, noticed several unexplainable things. Like waking up to a pot of boiling water even though the stove was never on and all the doors and windows were shut and locked. Bookworms throughout the town have noticed a book or two pulled from the shelves of the local libraries, laying open on the tables as if someone was sitting there reading them.
A new girl in town is starting to investigate these occurrences, and might just be shocked to find the answers that she was looking for.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To say that the town of Casper hadn't changed over the past two centuries would be a drastically incorrect statement. However, they maintained a rough similarity to the old style of the town. Decent sized colonial style houses still are the most common building in town. The general store probably changed names at least eight hundred times since way back then. A few hotels had been constructed to entice tourists to venture to the boardwalk and beach, and that successfully brought a bunch of summer beach bums to the typically quiet town every year. With the addition of two piers being built out over the waters, one designed more as an amusement park with a roller coaster or two and a million and one different smaller rides, and the other meant for more... Adult nightlife, so to speak, with enough alcohol on tap to get a whale shark drunk and plenty of casinos and tattoo parlors for extremely stupid and expensive mistakes to be made.
Overall, it had a home-town meets Las Vegas type feeling to it. Watching as the neon and streetlight flickered on, the "young" spirit standing alone on a dark corner could admit that he never even thought that the tiny town surrounded by saltwater marshes and mangrove swamps would ever, ever turn into such a bustling place. The sun was setting behind the rooftops and canopies of the mangroves.
The spirit appeared to be in his mid-twenties. His dark hair looked to be a mixture of incredibly dark brown hair and black hair, not like one could tell from the lack of decent lighting. It was as straight as a needle and fell to his shoulders in very subtle waves. His eyes were a fierce, solid blue-grey that didn't give away too many emotions. It wasn't like anyone could see him, anyways, but keeping his emotions hidden helped him feel a bit more secure. His clothing made him stand out from the humans, as he was dressed in common clothes from his time period. Dark blue jeans, black leather riding boots that rose to his mid-calf, a nice white dress shirt slightly ruffled in the front with a dark blue gemstone embedded in the front, and a light weight black wool overcoat that was never buttoned except for formal occasions. And, being dead kind of eliminated the chances of getting invited to such an occasion.
He frowned softly, wondering how he would waste the night away. The library would be closed at this hour, which meant that he would be able to read in peace. He began to walk at a brisk pace to the library due to the fact that he didn't want to waste any time.
 
Hannah Tyler was a young girl, of 24 years old, that had always been interested in paranormal events. She had blond short hair, dark brown eyes and a skinny body that most of the time was covered with blue jeans and a big sweater. To maintain herself, she worked as a journalist in a newspaper, providing it with boring and common articles about everyday life. Anyways, she considered being a paranormal investigator her real job. Hannah even had a blog, which has an incredibly large amount of 500 views everyday. In that site, she posted the news she really liked telling: ghost appearances, unexplainable events and maybe even some theorys about other creatures.
She heard about weird things going on in a small coastal town thanks to her website, and quickly took some days off her normal job to go and check it out. All the information she collected pointed to some specific houses and a few libraries, so she thought that before interrogating people she could start with the libraries. That way, she ended up in the biggest library in town, analysing the place with her EMF, looking for electromagnetic activity that could belong to a ghost.
 
The spirit frowned softly as he reached the front steps of the old library. Something felt... Different about it tonight. He shifted his weight, rocking back on his heels for a moment as he debated checking out the library. His curiosity and common sense were having a little disagreement, a common occurrence if one spent enough time with him. He finally came up with an excuse to investigate the strange feeling that was coming from the library. If it were being robbed, he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he just let them get away. Then again, he was dead, so living really wasn't an option if you took the word literally. Being dead really sucked when one actually tried to use a phrase right.
He cautiously ventured up the steps and passed through the front door. Already the air felt charged and tense, and his eyes narrowed a fraction. This wasn't right. His sharp gaze scanned for the source of the disturbance.
 
The lady in charge of the library was looking at Hannah in a weird way, it seemed that she wasn't use to receive paranormal investigators. She sighed and hid the EMF under a book. Curiously, the random book she had picked, was about what happens after death. It looked interesting, so she took a glance at it, but it just talked about philosophy theorys and nothing about what really happens when you die. Nothing about ghost.
At that moment, the EMF started to react. If felt electromagnetic energy somewhere in the place, and she tried to find the source of it, even though it wasn't easy with the eyes of the curious lady on her.
 
The spirit tensed slightly as he spotted the stranger looking at a book, with an odd device hidden beneath it. He shifted his weight uneasily. Who was this woman, and why the hell was she in the library this late? It seemed like the librarian had her under control, at least. Satisfied with that, he turned to leave, but the feeling he got in his gut wouldn't let him leave the poor old lady alone with the strange woman.
 
Her device was going crazy, until it ceased a little. She got excited: she never thought that she would find something so quickly.That didn't mean that there was a ghost around, but she had a feeling. She had a strong sensation that she wasn't alone, and it wasn't because of the old librarian. Of course, it was probably just a psychological thing for getting those results on her EMF, and, in order to avoid distractions, she convinced herself that that was it. Anyways, it wasn't an easy thing to ignore.
"Hello?" she found herself stupidly saying. For god's sake, she was a professional but still did those stupid things. Did she thought that a ghost would came out and say hi?
"Were you talking to me?" answered the lady, looking pointlessly for someone else at the place.
Hannah rolled her eyes, of course she wasn't talking to her. "Nevermind" simply answered, still looking for the source of all that electromagnetic energy.
 
The spirit narrowed his eyes slightly and frowned as he saw the device light up whenever it was aimed at him. Then the woman spoke. It was a simple hello, directed in his general area. She was attempting to speak with him. Perhaps he could lead her to a more private area of the library, where they kept the old newspapers. There were a few that actually mentioned him, if he could just get her to go back into the newspaper section. He began to move away, hoping she would follow.
Ordinarily, he would have prefered to keep himself hidden, but the device was making it difficult, and keeping the stranger away from the librarian was also high on the to-do list.
 
The source of energy started to descend more and more. She quickly moved trying to not lose it, throwing the book away and not really caring about the woman. The girl found it again, and the same thing happened. She followed the path where the EMF lighted harder. That way, she ended up in a section of newspapers, away from the librarian. In there, the energy didn't move anymore.
Hannah smiled. Did a ghost really...? No, she wasn't making up her mind that soon, but there was a high possibility that there was a ghost in there with her. And that ghost may have led her there. It was funny how that made her excited instead of scared.
She waited a second to make sure that the EMF wasn't changing anymore and started exploring that section. She took a newspaper and... wait, it was from the beginning of the 19th century. Another one was taken, and the same year appeared. At that point, Hannah was completely sure that something weird was going on.
 
The spirit smiled so slightly as the woman followed along, and stopped when they reached the newspapers. She was beginning to nose around, though she was looking in the wrong spot. He swiftly pulled one from the shelf and set it on the table for her when she had her back turned. If this woman was here just because of him, she would have to start off with some history homework first.
 
She just started reading a bunch of newspaper but had no idea what to focus on. She sighed and turned aroung, frustrated. At that moment, she saw another one on the table. That newspaper wasn't there before. She hurried to take it.
The news were from exactly 214 years ago. She read the whole thing and what surprised her the most was about a tree that had been struck by lightings 24 times in one day. That same day, one person went missing in the same town were she was and 2 had been killed in places around.
"Should I focus on the missing man?" said out loud, with an amused smile.

((OCC: I'm leaving on vacations today and I'll be back in a week. We can continue when I'm back ^^))
 
((Alright, have fun ^.^))

The spirit smiled when the woman finally noticed the newspaper. Perhaps this wouldn't be as hard as he thought. Upon her question, he let out a soft sigh. How would he answer this one...
He glanced to the newspaper shelves once more. There were a few more papers there that had some basic information and speculations about him. He tapped on the shelf which they could be found, and moved the paper which had his name in it. It was time for someone to know his name again.
As he looked at the old papers, it still felt weird to see Leone Damien Valcrosse in the obituary section. It was a little depressing, really. He was only twenty-five when he went missing.
 
She heard a tap on a shelf and quickly went there. Afterwards, a paper was moved. She was really getting a response, which made her smile.
"Leone Damien Valcrosse" said out loud. She knew she should be scared, because dead people weren't always nice, but she wasn't. She was convinced that a ghost was trying to communicate to her and couldn't let that go away for fear.
She then started reading everything about that man. Maybe he was her invisible companion, or maybe he wasn't, but whomever that spirit was he was surely related with that man that went missing 214 years ago. That was why Hannah wanted to know everything about him.
 
Satisfied that the woman had finally gotten his hints, he backed off a little and took a seat. It felt strange to have someone saying his name again. Though, he was happy about it. Tiredness soon worked against his happy mood. Revealing himself to a mortal certainly took it's toll on him. He propped his head up on his chin and watched as the woman delved into his past. He soon dozed off, despite the fact that he wanted to watch her and see what she would find.
 
She read everything she could find about that year, and kept away everything about that missing man. There was a lot of information, but most of them were just theories... no one had ever discovered what really happened to Leone Damien Valcrosse. She went over once again the information she had. That man was 25 years old the moment he went missing, he could talk to ghost, and people said he practiced black magic. 214 years ago, he just went into a swamp and disappeared. No one heard or saw him ever again. His body had never been found. And that was pretty much everything, of course there was many theories about what happened to him, like drowning in the swamp and being eaten by alligators, but they were just that: theories. The lightings that took place the same day that the man went missing were definitely related with her investigation.

Hannah yawned and watched her clock; it was 4 am in the morning. She spent half the night reading those papers. The librarian probably closed the place without realising she was still there, in fact she found weird that the library was still open when she arrived. She just stoped thinking and rest a little, lying her head on her arms, and quickly fell asleep.
 
The man awoke with a start as the sun streamed into the library's windows. For a second he didn't recognize where he was, then he put two and two together. His gaze fell upon the woman from last night. Old papers were skewn around her, the whole section from 1800 stripped bare. She had actually read the entire year's worth of papers? A soft smile lighted his features.

He stood from the chair, groaning at the ache in his lower back. He stretched, hearing the gentle pop of his joints as he did so. He frowned softly as his thoughts ventured back to the swamp. The library was going to be opening soon, which meant that they had to make themselves scarce. Or at least, the woman had to. Nobody seemed to recognize his presence for obvious reasons, so he could stay. He just wanted to get the woman out before the librarian came in and had a heart attack when she saw her. He ventured closer to the girl, and gently tapped her on the shoulder in attempt to get her to wake.
 
Hannah woke up as she felt someone tapping her shoulder. She quickly looked everywhere, but there was nobody around. She frowned, maybe it was just her immagination. Afterwards, she yawned and remembered everything about the previous night. She smiled, it was her immagination or maybe her new dead friend.
She looked at her clock and it was already 8 am, so the library was probably opening soon. She hurried to grab everything that she separated about the missing man and took it with her as she ran to the front door. Great, it was locked. She started checking every window until she found one unlocked. Hannah climbed to it and jumped getting out. Then, she just checked if someone had seen her and approached to her car.
 
Leone watched as the woman quickly left the library, and let out a soft sigh. He quickly followed after her, matching her route due to the fact that passing through any solid object was a gross thing for him to personally do, wondering where he might be able to find her again. He supposed that it would be called stalking if he was still alive, though with him being dead, he needed a new term. Haunting might work, though he didn't mean any malice, so it wasn't exactly correct either. He let out an annoyed sigh, this was going to bug him.

He hurried after the woman as she went towards a car. Oh great. Either pass through metal and glass and steal a seat in the back, or sprint after the car for however long she planned on driving. He chose the lesser of two evils, knowing that he wasn't nearly fast enough to keep up with a car.
 
Hannah got inside the car and drove to the hotel she was staying. That town didn't receive much tourists, so it was actually a cheap motel. She left the car, taking the pieces of paper she stole, or, according to her, "borrowed", and entered into her room. In there, she took her laptop and started doing some more research. First of all, she googled Leone Damien Valcrosse, but she didn't find anything else that she didn't know. She looked for some more information about that town, and, in between many insults directed to the slowness of the Wi-fi connection, she finally got the directions to go to the swamp where the man disappeared all those years ago. She wrote it down, ready to go in there.
 
Leone felt like he was going to be sick by the time they reached the hotel. He hated cars. He really did. They went way too fast for his liking, and the fact that he had to pass through the door was seriously making him regret his decision to ride along with the woman. He hurried after her, anyways, and waited patiently outside her room for obvious reasons.
 
Hannah came out of the room and quickly went inside her car once again. She had no idea that the ghost was still after her, but she kind of sensed another presence, a feeling that she ignored. After about 15 minutos of driving she stoped the car in a side of the rode. She went down and entered in a close wood, a wood that she needed to go through to find the swamp. Finally she saw it: a big dirty river going through a lot of vegetation. It smelt awful and she though that there could be hundreds of corpses hiding in there. How should she proceed? She wasn't getting inside that water... and there wasn't much to see from there. She just sighed and sat, thinking.
 
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