Young Writers Society

*This origin story is important to the story:“Eloise-the demented doll woman.“ You can look at Gacha Club pictures of Lycidas on my wall.Enjoy!

In the year 1985, there was a thirteen year old boy named Lycidas. He was attending his parent's funeral. He couldn't believe it.

His parents died.

His parents died in a car crash, while he was at his friend's house. It was so horrible. He was so devastated.

But that's life sometimes. Horrible and unfair.

Of course, there was the trouble of getting Lycidas a proper guardian but after a few days he finally got one.

His Aunt Auburn who lived in a place called:"Nightmare Hill."  It was a good thing he didn't live too far from that neighborhood, too.

His Aunt was the only living member of his family who was willing to have him live with her.

So, when the day came, Lycidas packed his things and took a taxi to his Aunt's neighborhood.

The taxi halted when the driver stopped in front of an old mansion, next to it was a run-down boutique called:"Eloise's boutique."

"This is your stop!"  The driver yelled enthusiastically.

Lycidas kept staring at the house. This was where he would live?  Next to a creepy and old boutique?

"Well, get out!"  The driver yelled impatiently.

Lycidas shook out of his trance and handed the driver money. Then, he grabbed his luggage and got out of the car.

Before Lycidas could even thank him, the driver was gone.

Lycidas shrugged and walked up to the big house. He knocked on the huge, polished oak doors.

Nothing.

"Hello?  Anybody here?"  He asked.

Another knock.

Still nothing.

He was about to think of another way to get inside the house (it probably wouldn't have been legal), but then the door opened and a tall woman with long, brown hair smiled down at him.

"Hello there!  You must be Lycidas!"  She yelled excitedly.

"Yes."  He said.

"Well then, don't just stand there!  Come in!"  Aunt Auburn said enthusiastically.

Lycidas walked inside of the house. It was a dark, oak and gothic mansion, with paintings of Hell and demons. The windows had looked had a wonderful view and red velvet curtains. There were several chandeliers, rooms and staircases in the house.

The gothic mansion didn't match the positive energy his Aunt was giving off.

"Welcome!  You don't have to call me Aunt Auburn, you can call me Auburn. What would you like?  A tour of the house?"  She asked.

He nodded. He sure could use a tour.

.........................................................................

"And this is where you'll be sleeping!" Auburn said, showing him his room. She was finishing up the tour of the house.

Lycidas couldn't stop thinking about the boutique.

So as Auburn was leaving, he asked:

"Auburn?  What's the story behind that boutique?"

She stopped in her tracks. When she turned to look at him, she wasn't smiling. She was serious.

"You want to know about Eloise's boutique?"  She asked.

Lycidas nodded.

She sat on the bed.

"Come sit and I'll tell you all that I know."  She said, patting a spot next to her.

Lycidas sat next to her.

"Around the sixties, there was a peculiar witch woman named Eloise Blake who wanted to be thin and perfect. Her sisters tried to help her with her magic, but the spell backfired and she turned into a mannequin woman. She now waits for people to turn her back into a human, so she can pass on. There's a spell that she has that's supposed to help her become a human."  Auburn said.

"That wasn't scary."  Lycidas said, disappointed. He was expecting something scarier.

Auburn glared at him and went on:

"Now here’s the interesting part. Every time someone tried to help her, they ended up never being seen or heard from again. Me and a lot of other people suspect that this isn't the true story and that there is something sinister going on."  Auburn said.

"Okay, now THAT was better."  Lycidas said.

"Be careful, Lycidas, if you come across Eloise."  Auburn said, walking away.

Lycidas just shrugged, like he did when that driver was angry with him. He didn't believe in ghosts or the paranormal.

But he didn't say anything about it to Auburn. He suspected that she believed in ghosts more than he did.

........................................................................

The next day, Lycidas ate a breakfast of eggs and pancakes. He had a tall glass of water, too. (Perfect for his eggs!)

When he was done eating his (tasty, totally not creepy and ghoulish) breakfast, he asked his Aunt if he could go outside. (Because hanging around a dingy old mansion was fantastically boring.) She nodded.

"Just don't get lost!"  She warned.

"I won't!"  Lycidas called back (Why would he get lost? Sure, her yard was big, but he wouldn’t get lost in it. It wasn’t like he was five or anything), opening the rear door that led to the garden.

When Lycidas was in the garden of trees and flowers and a forest that one could get lost in for centuries, he looked down and found a pale mannequin with flowing blond hair, cold blue eyes, and a perfect smile. It wore a heavy velvet black dress. Its limbs were splayed like uncooked sausages on the unmowed (He just noticed) grass.

"Huh?  Why is there a mannequin lying on the ground?"  Lycidas asked himself. (Because what else was there to do in a situation like this?)

He picked up a large stick on the ground and poked the porcelain thing, just to see if any bugs were underneath it, waiting to crawl out at the slightest touch.

Suddenly, it MOVED.

He stepped back.

The mannequin stay up from the ground and wobbled as it tried to stand, but when it did, it was calm and composed.

"Hello, I'm Eloise. Would you come closer?  I need your help."  It-she-said.

He didn't believe in the paranormal, yet here he was, talking to a mannequin.

Lycidas remembered what his Aunt said about Eloise. She described her too at some point.

Lycidas backed even further, about to bolt.

Eloise gritted her teeth.

"Hmm..it looks like you won't help me.."  She said.

"So, I'll kill you instead!"  Eloise shrieked.

Before Lycidas could do bolt as he had planned to,she stabbed him with a knife, the sharp point searing into his flesh and making his blood come out in an explosion (Was this how his parents felt when they died?) and he fell to the tangled grass, his warm, rouge blood pooling around him like glitter at a child’s birthday party.

......................................................................

Lycidas woke up in a backroom of cloth and mannequins (most headless and not as detailed as Eloise).

"Is this the afterlife?"   Lycidas asked himself, remembering all that had happened. (He really didn’twant an afterlife that looked like this.)

Eloise walked up to him, smiling smugly. 

"You know, I thought that I wanted to kill you. So I did. But then I decided it would be more fun if I turned you into a vampire and locked you in here."  Eloise said.

"What about my Aunt?!"  Lycidas asked furiously.

"She thinks you're missing right now. She doesn't know that you're here. Meanwhile, I get to torture you.."  Eloise let the word settle into his veins, allowing him to take it all in.

He remembered blood pooling on the grass. No one could clean blood on grass. How did Eloise manage to clean it?  Did she use their backyard hose?  Would she know where their hose was? Wasn’t Auburn smart? Wouldn’t she see the blood and know something was wrong?  Then again, Eloise was a witch (Auburn told him), so she probably could do things like make blood on grass disappear. Even if the blood was gone, wouldn’t she think to look in the boutique? Or was she just a regular woman who was too panicked to put two and two together?

He wasn’t dead.

He was a vampire.

She would make him drink children’s blood, he was certain of it.

Would his parents love him?

Would they understand?

Did anything matter anymore?

Lycidas braced himself for the pain..