Midnight Raven

Chapter One

There is a small town called Oleander and it is located in the middle of nowhere in the Mojave Desert in the state of Nevada. Some parts around the town there is greenery and trees and in the middle of the town is a park. The townspeople are nice, but some are pretty peculiar. The town was founded back in the early 1800's and has a few mysterious dark tales surrounding the town's birth. Most people in the town treat those tales as urban legends. It's a small desert town, but what the residents did not know is that they have a dangerous being living in an old mansion on the outskirts, down an old road nobody uses anymore. People say that it is haunted by a poltergeist of sorts and others say the old Victorian mansion is cursed.

But, one Halloween night two boys decided to enter the haunted and cursed estate of old man Willis. The old man had passed away ten years ago due to illness, but others say it was due to a curse that was placed upon the mansion. Some people say it was because a disturbed and wandering soul inhabited the building and killed the old man. There are a lot of other rumors as well, but nothing concrete or solid to be considered as true. No one knows for sure what the real cause of death was. The medical examiner ruled it as a natural death.

A junior had dared the boys to spend Halloween night inside. Their proof would be a video from their own cell phones. The boys are freshmen this year, but they had known each other since the second grade. The relationship was rocky at first because Takahashi Yakedo had to learn to speak English since his family just moved to Oleander that year. Christoff Ivanov had always lived in this town. Taka is the shorter boy of the two with short dark brown hair, fair skin, thin spectacles, and decided to wear a ninja costume. Chris has short red hair from his Irish mom's side, slightly tanned skin with a bit of freckles on his face, his body a bit on the lanky side, and he is wearing a skeleton costume. Both of them brought their backpacks with the essentials like flashlights, first aid kits, sandwiches, and manga.

The night is dark with clouds covering the skies and if there is a full moon you could only see a little bit of it peeking out from the clouds. Chris and Taka are walking up towards the old haunted mansion. It was Chris who spoke first, "Taka, are you sure you want to do this? No one goes near this whole place on account of what happened here."

Taka who started climbing the porch stairs, stopped, and turned his head towards Chris, "Yeah, but those are all rumors and nothing has been proven. Besides I want to prove that jerk wrong anyway." Taka continued to climb the stairs up towards the front door. Chris followed after him.

Chris was always nervous and scared about the supernatural. "Dude, I know you think you have something to prove, but you don't. Why don't we just turn around and..."

Taka had his hand on one of the front double door's handles. He didn't turn around, but he paused for a moment. "I guess it's been in my family's blood for generations not to be afraid of this kind of stuff. You know...if you can proof that it's all just some guy in a mask or something."

Chris came up behind Taka with his knees shaking slightly. "This ain't an episode of Scooby Doo. Besides, we're missing the hot girl, the nerdy girl, and one scaredy cat dog."

Taka turned around to face Chris, but kept his hand on the door handle. "Look if you're that scared you can just turn around and leave. My grandpa used to be the priest of a shrine in Japan a long time ago. He made me a talisman when I was little and told me to never leave home without it and that it would always keep me safe."

"Oh yeah? Where is it?"

Taka put his other hand underneath the collar of his ninja shirt and pulled out a coin on a chain around his neck. It was a bronze coin with a square hole in the middle and some Japanese kanji written around it. "See it's right here. Now will you stop worrying?" He put it back under his costume.