PRELUDE TO CHAPTER ONE:
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SEPTEMBER 2009
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An eerie silence had fallen over the town of Crystal Falls. The town, coincidentally located near Lake Eerie in Michigan, was rumoured to be one of the most haunted locations in the whole world.
This day in particular was somewhat uneventful, the autumn leaves had covered the ground, and it seemed like just yesterday that the summer had ended. A light rain was falling over the whole town, and soon would turn into a thunderstorm, which as the town was unaware at the time, may have been an omen of things to come...
CHAPTER ONE:THE NIGHTMARE BEGINS| PART 1|
It had been so long since Seymour Harper had been in a good mood, for numerous reasons too. Sure, summer was nearly over, however, Seymour had never liked summer, due to the humidity and the heat it brought with it. It was the final day before school was set to start back. Seymour, being only sixteen years old, was of course facing the typical days adolescents faced.
Seymour lived in a modern two-story house in the suburban area of Crystal Falls, with his older brother Chip. Chip was thirty-four years old, and had been Seymour's guardian since he was ten, when the brothers's parents disappeared while on an expidetion to Africa. They were, as Chip had told him, archeologists, and had always been away when Chip himself was a child. Chip himself stated several times that he never figured out what exactly had happened to their parents, and after six years, both brothers had given up hope of seeing them again. But today, Seymour felt it in his gut things were going to be different. True he only had two friends, Cooper Holmes, whose father was the mayor of Crystal Falls, and Earnest Dawson, an uber-geek who could fix anything you put in front of him, be it a computer, which he was especially skilled at, or a car. Seymour himself was into the paranormal. Whether it was because he had spent his entire life in Crystal Falls, the self proclaimed "Most Haunted Place in the World" was unclear. But Seymour had always suspected there was something going on, despite Chip's frequent claims that there was NOTHING unusual in the town, and the whole idea was for a tourist trap. At this moment, Seymour was at his computer looking up all the legends about the town, and finding a lot of supected incidents, in fact, he surely would've missed the bus that morning if Chip hadn't called him upstairs from his basement bedroom. Seymour told Chip goodbye and climbed on the bus. He made his way down the aisle and sat down beside Earnest and Cooper, not knowing this would be the day his life would change forever.

CHAPTER ONE:THE NIGHTMARE BEGINS| PART 2|
The rain had yet to let up as the school bus stopped outside the entrance to Crystal Falls High School. As the trio climbed off the bus and entered the school, Seymour had a strange feeling, one he had not experienced in six years. Dread. As he trudged to his locker, he noticed a tall and muscular teen blocking his path. This was Kevin, the star of the football team for the past two years. Kevin smiled as Seymour made his way up to him. "Hey. Looks like your locker's right next to mine." said Kevin. Seymour ignored him as he put his backpack into his locker, and shut it. However, he should have learned by now that ignoring Kevin was not a wise move, because at that moment, Kevin grabbed him by the neck of his hoodie and slammed him into the row of lockers."Never ignore me." Kevin remarked sinisterly. Cooper and Earnest, who had just seen what was happening, immediantly split up, with Earnest going to help Seymour and Cooper going to find a teacher. "Leave him alone Kevin." said Earnest somewhat weakly. Kevin just smirked, and began slamming his locker door into Seymour's face repeatedly. "Like anyone even cares what I do." said Kevin. "I'm the star of the football team, who led us to state championships for the past two years. The most you freaks have ever done is enter the science fair." Earnest noted a teacher sticking her head out the door of her classroom. Watching, but not doing anything to stop it. Seymour fought back tears. He wasn't going to give Kevin the satisfaction of seeing him cry. Cooper came back with the principal. Earnest sighed with relief. Principal Wilson was the fairest of the staff, and had actually stopped Kevin on multiple occasions from hurting students. "Kevin. Stop what you're doing, or I'm removing you from the football team this year."
Wilson said. Kevin simply smirked at Seymour's face and whispered. "He won't carry anything out. He never does." Before dropping Seymour to the ground. Wilson sighed. "One of these days you'll really hurt someone Kevin, and nobody will be able to help you. Not even me. Now, I'm going to be letting your parents know about this." he said as he left. Kevin smiled at the trio and simply said three words. "They won't care." The bell rang signaling the start of classes.
******
As the school day wore on, everyone wondered why Principal Wilson had announced a surprise assembally. As he had never done anything like that out of nowhere on the first day of school. At one o'clock, the entire school gathered in the auditorium for the assembally. The trio made sure to avoid Kevin, and ended up only a few seats away from him, which under the circumstances, was at least SOME distance away. As soon as Prinicipal Wilson entered the auditorium, everyone went silent. They remained that way as he raced down the aisle to the stage and adjusted the microphone as he cleared his throat. "Good afternoon students. Welcome to another year at Crystal Falls High. For those of you new to the school, welcome!" Wilson paused as he cleared his throat again. "Anyhow, you must be wondering why I called for this assembally, so I'll get right to it." Wilson nodded towards the projectionist in the room above the auditorium. "This morning everything was as it should be. Then I left my office for five minutes during break, and when I came back. I saw... this." As he finished, he pulled down the projection screen, and the projectionist switched on the projector. Everyone immediantly knew what caused him to summon everyone. In the image, his office was completely trashed, papers were ripped to pieces, his desk was turned over, there was some kind of liquid all over the floor, and, the most disturbing thing was revealed in another slide. A message scrawled all over the left wall of his office in what seemed to be red crayon. It read "GO". Wilson signaled for the projector to be turned off, which it did, before clearing his throat again. "You can of course imagine my shock when I saw my office, and as I said, I was out of the room for only five minutes, and Vice Principal Anderson was watching the door the whole time. Can anyone tell me what happened?" When nobody answered, he spoke again. "I was hoping this could be the best first day of the school year we've had in awhile, but now..." suddenly he stopped, for the projector was flickering on and off repeatedly, sending flashes of light all through the auditorium. "Anderson, can you please shut that off?" he shouted up. "Sir, I just unplugged it." he said, apparently shocked. Wilson's eyes widened, suddenly, all the doors to the auditorium slammed shut at once. Then, following that, all the lights went out. Everything was silent for a moment, until screams filled the room, along with a gurgling sound. Up in the projection room, Vice Principal Anderson turned on the projector, and everyone screamed. Principal Wilson was floating in midair, screaming, as slashes appeared on his chest. He then fell to the floor, hard, and the projection screen began to be torn, until it formed a message. Three words only. "YOU WERE WARNED!"

CHAPTER ONE:THE NIGHTMARE BEGINS| PART 3|
The moment the doors were able to be opened again, everyone ran out of the auditorium (and the school itself) as fast as they could. The paramedics arrived and took Principal Wilson to the hospital, while the police began interrigating the staff about what happened. Classes had been cancelled for the rest of the day, at least. Cooper and Earnest got a ride back from Cooper's mom, who had invited Seymour to come with them, but he decided to call Chip and ask him to pick him up. After dialing Chip's cell, he found it was busy, and sighed. He knew the only way to get home now would be to walk, and the only route that wouldn't take him forever was through the Crystal Falls Woods, which nobody ever entered due to the fact they were supposedly haunted, but Seymour had to get home quick, because the storm was getting worse with no signs of letting up. He took a deep breath and began running until he reached the entrance to the woods. His heart pounding, he began running again. This time through various levels of mud and roots. Eventually, he became aware of the fact that he didn't know where he was. He looked down to at his ruined sneakers and socks and remembered the GPS on his phone. He quickly checked it and saw he was way off track. He turned in the direction he needed to go, and was about to take off again before something caught his eye. It was something sticking up out of the mud. Seymour sighed and walked over to it. Upon closer inspection, he noted it was a thick wooden box with a keyhole, although the keyhole had obviously rusted severely as time had passed. He pryed open the box fairly easily, and caught sight of what was inside. It was a musty old book. The thing that caught his eye was that it had a number on it. "1". He skimmed through the pages and noticed they had yellowed over the many years it must have been buried. He looked at the font on the pages. It was from an old typewriter. The ink had faded somewhat, but all of the pages were still readable, and what the pages said was... This is when Seymour noticed something else. They were all about monsters or paranormal beings. He would have read more, but the rumble of thunder reminded him that he was in a huge hurry to get home. So he stuck the book into his backpack, and raced back through the woods towards his house. He noticed Chip wasn't home yet as he finally reached it. The rain was getting even worse by the second as he made his way up to his porch. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his housekey and finally opened the door. Once inside, he raced to his bedroom and sat down at his desk. Then he pulled the book out of his backpack and read the first page. It read "TRUST NOONE". He turned to the next page which had a full paragraph. "Dear reader, if you are reading this, you have found where I hid this book. I had hoped it would never be found, but it just may save your life. I am a dedicated researcher of the paranormal, or as I call it, 'The Unnatural'. This book is only the first of many, which will catalouge all my research into the evil of this town. This first volume contains information on all the known creatures I have been able to research from the locals, or legends themselves. I have placed each book in a different location, if by some miracle all are located, the truth behind the evil beneath Crystal Falls will be revealed..." The paragraph was written in pen, and it was dated for twelve years ago. Seymour spent the rest of the afternoon reading the book, fascinated by the detail in each creature, and wondering who could've written it.
At about six o'clock, he heard Chip's car pull into the garage, but he didn't look up from the book at all. The rain was pounding heavily against the windows now, as loud rumbles of thunder roared throughout the town. Chip knocked on the door, and walked into Seymour's room. Seymour didn't look up at all until... "Hey man! What're you reading?" Seymour looked at him, and simply replied "Just a new book I got on the way home." he said, slipping it back into his backpack. Chip nodded. "Anyway, sorry I missed your call, I left the phone in the car, and I didn't want to go out into the storm. But when I heard about what happened to your principal..." Chip shuttered. "Anyway, Seymour.. I just want to let you know if you need someone to talk too..."
"Thanks Chip. I really appriciate it, but I'm fine. Really." Chip raised an eyebrow. "You sure? I mean, he was practically gutted from what I heard."
"Look, I really am alright. I've got to go somewhere though. Okay?" he asked. Chip sighed. "Sure. Where?" "Cooper's." replied Seymour. Chip nodded. "Be back before midnight. Or sooner, if this storm gets any worse." Seymour nodded, and as soon as he went downstairs out of earshot, he dialed Earnest to see if he was still at Cooper's. When he found out he was, he whispered. "I'm on my way. You'll never guess what I found!"