Town of Richardson (sprinkle in five short stories)

*This piece is underneath my folder titled “Town of Richardson”. Gacha Club character designs are underneath my forum titled “My character designs<33”. Enjoy!*

1. It’s amazing, how much someone can rot

Playground days of going back and forth on swings, the sun almost setting and casting a warm pink glow amongst the dim blue sky, laughing carelessly away. Video game nights of glittering screens and snacking on fruit rollups, playfully bumping into one another in the fight to win.

Those were the days and nights with William. When they were little, they’d play at the playground and when they were teens working at the circus, they’d play video games together and eat ice cream together. Things were simpler back then. Things were brighter back then.

It would have stayed that way if Gabriel hadn’t started dating Denise. If he didn’t fall for all of the things she said, if he didn’t go out to the circus one night to impress her. If he didn’t do any of that, then he wouldn’t have had to watch as Denise left him behind to be murdered by Mr. Ladouceur, he would have been alive…

But William would still be dead. Mr. Ladouceur had already murdered William when Gabriel and Denise arrived. What would be the point of living if William wasn’t around to spend time with him? He was Gabriel’s one true friend and after everything that happened, he felt that nobody could be as real of a friend as William.

Still, as Gabriel sat cross-legged in his circus tent (well, not quite, since he only had one leg), with William sitting beside him, he couldn’t help but feel terrible for not listening to William about Denise, for not trusting what his friend knew. He cared so much about how one girl thought of him that he forgot about the one person who would always care about him no matter what, who always stood up for him, who wanted nothing but the best for him.

Since his mouth was all stitched up, Gabriel grabbed a nearby stick and wrote:

I miss the past, when we were alive and everything was okay. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you about Denise. I’m sorry.

William read what Gabriel wrote, then he looked up at him, his vibrant, lively green eyes a sharp contrast to his deeply wounded and scratched face, a face that did not deserve to have the pain that was inflicted upon it. William smiled softly and said:

“It’s okay. This isn’t your fault. Don’t you ever think that this is. This is the fault of my father. He’s the one who killed us both. Rest assured, we’re gonna be free one day. He’s gonna pay for what he did to us and the others. I promise.”

William’s eyes began glittering with hints of violence and vengeance, his smile began to look less sweet, but Gabriel didn’t mind. In fact, he could feel his sadness of not listening to William boil into simmering anger over what happened to him and so he wrote on the ground with the stick:

I want to make Denise pay for leaving me to die. Is that wrong?

William read what Gabriel wrote and then shook his head, his smile looking as though it would crack into a million pieces and then he said:

“It’s not wrong at all. She deserves every bit of pain, just like my father. Don’t feel bad for being angry. Don’t.”

William’s bruised hand reached over towards Gabriel’s bloody one and squeezed it comfortingly, resting his head on Gabriel’s shoulder. His anger was still there, but also, Gabriel could feel swirls of joy within him, joy at the fact that he would always have his friend by his side, that even with all of the horrible things that happened, William still cared.

“We’re gonna get through this.” William said.

With him, it didn’t feel like wishful thinking. It felt real. Possible.

They may not have been alive, but their friendship still was. Nothing was simple anymore, but that didn’t mean that there were only bad things in the world.

They’d be alright.

2. Bonding about brothers

Gwyneth kicked her legs back and forth on the bench as she listened to people talk about Samuel Clarkson’s disappearance. He was ten years old, a year older than her, and he disappeared the other night. Everybody was talking about Samuel’s disappearance, but nobody talked about Gabriel’s disappearance. When they did, it was to make fun of him. Gwyneth couldn’t forget that one day when everybody in town came and stole all of Gabriel’s stuff, just so there wouldn’t be anything left of him.

Tears brimmed in her eyes as she wondered why people hated her older brother, why they didn’t talk about him like they talked about Samuel, why-

“Was your brother killed by Mr. Ladouceur too?” A girl’s voice asked.

Gwyneth flinched and looked up from her legs. Standing in front of her was seven year old Melinda Clarkson, her violet eyes full of worry. Gwyneth had never spoken to her in her life, so why would Melinda come up to her with such a weird question?

“What?” Gwyneth asked, making sure that she wasn’t imagining things.

Melinda swallowed hard, blinking her violet eyes as though she were about to cry and then she said:

“It’s just that my brother is dead and nobody believes me! He came to me as a demon and he told me that when he snuck out into the circus to talk to your brother’s ghost, Mr. Ladouceur killed him and made him a demon. He told me all of this last night and then I went to tell my parents but they don’t believe me. Nobody at school believes me either. I know that your brother disappeared, so maybe he was killed by Mr. Ladouceur. I’m sorry if this isn’t true and I’m bothering you and-“

“Gabriel was killed by Mr. Ladouceur. He’s trapped in the circus. He told me. I believe you. Is Samuel also trapped in the circus?”

Melinda nodded, tears spilling from her eyes. She wiped at them furiously, as though she were trying to push down all of her tumbling feelings.

“I don’t know how I can help him! He won’t give me any answers, but I want to help Samuel be happy! I want him to be free! I want my parents to…to believe me!” Melinda sobbed.

The other kids and teachers at school glanced at them both, but they didn’t do anything. They walked on, completely ignoring them. Gwyneth squeezed the fabric of her skirt, something that she always did whenever she was upset. Everybody in Richardson ignored important things and it was starting to get really annoying.

“I know, but most people don’t believe in that ghost stuff. Especially adults. You can sit next to me. When you’re done crying, we can talk about ways to save them. There has to be some way to save them!” Gwyneth said.

Melinda nodded weakly and joined Gwyneth at the bench, wiping away at her red, raw face. Though Gwyneth felt slight tinges of awkwardness on hearing Melinda, a girl she had never spent time with, bawling her eyes out, she also felt so, so bad for her. Gwyneth cried when Gabriel disappeared and cried even harder when she found out that he died. She still felt hopelessly lost knowing that mostly everybody in Richardson didn’t believe her, that they thought that she was making up stories.

But with Melinda, she knew that she wasn’t alone. That somebody believed her. That she wasn’t going to deal with it by herself.

And so, she wrapped her arm around Melinda, trying her best to comfort Melinda. It was something that Gabriel would have done, something that he would have wanted her to do.

She didn’t know how they would, but they’d figure out how to save their brothers. One day, they would.

Not all was lost.

3. A game of dress up!

The year was 1989. Ten year old Gabriel was in his five year old sister Gwyneth’s room, wearing a sparkly pink Princess dress. Gwyneth was also dressed in a sparkly Princess dress, except hers was purple.

She had asked him to play dress-up with her earlier, so he went over and joined her, because why not? He looked to be the finest Princess that ever lived and seeing Gwyneth smile a little made him smile.

“You look so beautiful!” Gwyneth gushed, bouncing in excitement. Her smile had grown so much bigger and her eyes were glittering with joy, so then, he turned around to see himself in her mirror and burst out laughing.

“I really do, just like a movie star!” He said, curving and looping his voice so that he mimicked the voice of an old school Hollywood movie star lady.

At that, Gwyneth got herself into a fit of giggles and Gabriel couldn’t help but smile, for one thing he loved in the world was seeing his little sister be happy.

He’d make sure nothing bad would ever happen to her.

4. Under twisting tree branches and in dirtied school buses, the “different ones” meet

Isabella Hernandez sat on her window seat and stared out of her bedroom window, holding her legs up to her chest as she did so. She had just gotten back from the school field trip to the local woods to “learn about all of the wonderful things nature has to offer!” She personally didn’t see any point in the field trip because she and the rest of her class was in seventh grade, not second grade. Second graders went on field trips for nature, not seventh graders.

She did talk to somebody in the field trip, though. A boy around her age named Lucas Ladouceur. He was running really fast and had bumped into her as he did so. She was quite annoyed with him at first, but then he stuttered an apology and so, she flat-out told him her first and last name and asked what his was.

He looked shocked at first, but then he went along and told her his own first and last name and said something about the woods giving him “bad memories”.

He seemed to have regretted saying that, but then Isabella asked if he wanted to talk about it on the bus and so, he agreed. He bumped into her, the least he could do was tell her about himself.

On the bus, he told her that he and his Mom were hiking one time and that she fell into a deep, seemingly bottomless pit when she wasn’t careful enough. He said that he never knew his father and that his Mom’s friend had been taking care of him for most of his life. He said that he saw a dug-up pit in the woods and though it wasn’t like the kind of pit someone could fall into and die, it was still a colossal pit and upon seeing it, he thought of how his Mom fell further and further down, without him being able to help her…

When the school teacher called out about the field trip ending, he remembered where he was and needed to run away to clear his thoughts and that was when he bumped into Isabella.

His face had flushed a deep pink, as though he were insanely embarrassed that he had said such things, but then she told him not to worry, that he was allowed to talk about his feelings and for the rest of the bus ride, he told her about how much he loved the circus, how he wanted to make the world a brighter, more colorful place, how he wanted everybody to be happy and then she told him about how much she loved reading books about the making of popular movies, for it was fun to learn about all the dedication and teamwork it took to create something unique, and about how she loved listening to nineteen-thirties love song records that her Mom saved from Grandma, for the lyrics sounded so sweet and pure, and had lulled her to a dreamy sleep.

Lucas didn’t question her interests. In fact, he encouraged them, he didn’t judge at all.

So as Isabella sat on her window seat, her black curls cascading around her face as she buried her head in her knees, she wondered if she’d ever be able to talk to Lucas again, if she would get to know him as a friend.

They had one peculiar yet warm interaction on the bus. Surely, they wouldn’t remain strangers, right?

It’d hurt a little if he ignored her as though nothing happened, because she quite enjoyed talking to him…

5. It can’t be…

Thirteen year old Annabelle-Lee choked back sobs as she stared at her Dad’s bleeding body, crushed by the chandelier. It had all happened so fast, too fast for her to really process it until later.

Just seconds ago, they were standing next to the dining room table. Dad was asking Mom what kind of flowers she wanted for Valentine’s Day, since it was coming up soon, only, Annabelle-Lee was the only one who could see and hear her, so he brought her along so she could tell him what Mom said. Mom had died years ago, when Annabelle-Lee was three, but Dad told Annabelle-Lee that she had a gift in communicating with ghosts, and that she had to take advantage of such a gift. She mostly saw Mom, nothing too bad.

One tradition that Dad had was that he’d leave flowers as an offering for Mom on Valentine’s Day. Mom never wanted the same flowers, so he made Annabelle-Lee ask Mom what kind of flowers she wanted. She was doing just that, everything was fine, but then…

A chandelier had fallen right on top of Dad. The manor was old, but it wasn’t so old that it was falling apart. It was well-maintained, the chandeliers weren’t weak enough to fall.

Annabelle-Lee, in the midst of her confusion and sadness, grabbed the mobile phone on the table and punched in the numbers: 9-1-1, just like she was taught to do.

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”

“My Dad just…he got crushed by a chandelier.” Annabelle-Lee said through sobs that were wavering softly in the back of her voice, as though they were waiting to gush out of her in full-blown crying fits. She wouldn’t cry too much, though. Not in front of a stranger. It didn’t feel right to cry when there was a stranger around, even when that stranger was supposed to help.

The operator was the opposite of her. He was calm and collected, He didn’t act as though she had told him that her Dad had gotten crushed by a chandelier. He asked her where she lived, to stay calm. She told him where to find her, where her house was.

Before the call ended, he told her that everything was going to be okay, that she just had to sit and wait for the police to come. She nodded, unable to say any words at the moment.

It was the job of the operator to calm panicking, screaming, bawling callers. To let them know that their problems would be smoothed over by a simple call, that everybody would work tirelessly to fix everything. That help was on the way.

But would he feel the same way if she told him that right before Dad died, she saw a horned, claw shadow in the walls, grinning with a set of jagged-teeth? That she saw a demon seconds before the chandelier fell, seconds before she could warn Dad? Annabelle-Lee knew what demons were, but never saw them until that moment.

Why was there a demon? What did the demon want? Were there more demons? Would anybody believe her if she said anything about them?

No, no they will not. I have to try and live here, by myself, with my parents’ ghosts to accompany me. I can’t let anybody else adopt me, they’re not going to understand. I need to take care of myself. I can do that. I’m going to be okay. Annabelle-Lee thought, trying to make the situation positive.

It worked…kind of. She figured that nobody would want to adopt her anyway because most people thought she was “weird” and there weren’t any foster care places or orphanages to put her in. The town of Richardson was too small for such places to exist.

But her parents were still dead. Demons were still in the shadows.

The tears came pouring out.