It was early December, winter had brought along it's close friends, cold and sombre. During this night like most nights, the city streets were empty, there wasn't much to do in this small place during the weekdays so everyone instead just spent their time home with their loved ones. There wasn't any snow around, but small surfaces of water had already started to freeze. Sometimes the wind would blow so hard as if it were singing a song. It was a haunting melody, but to some it brought comfort knowing that they were safe and sound in the warmth of their shelters That night like most nights there weren't any stars at sight, the sky was, as far as the eyes could reach, covered by a thick grey mantel.
The buildings were built next to each other with the windows facing towards the road. In the center of town, the streets were narrow and if you were too see to your left or right, you would be surrounded by small houses aligned as if it were a picture of an old painting. The city looked like one of those forgotten paradises where you could find your peace as the days passed by.
Since the holidays were approaching you could spot some decorative lights here and there. Indeed that night, you didn't need any stars to picture the sky because if you were to lift your head, the lights of the buildings would take you into another universe. Far away from all worries, a place of hope, a place of comfort.
Such a contrast to the unwelcoming weather, and unwelcoming past.
A bit further away however, it looked completely different. The east side of the city was in a very bad shape. During the war, the soldiers threw everyone out of their home and decided to use the area there as an operative base. A lot of families met a tragic end. Those who dared to oppose found themselves imprisoned, or sometimes if they had decided to take action and luck did not smile upon them, they found nothing more but a swift death by execution. Their families however met a much worse fate.
See, if someone from your family were to have been declared a criminal and an enemy of the state back then, all their close relatives would be put under strict "investigation" and be declared guilty until proven innocent. Enemy of the state, traitors of the country were the terms that were jerked around. Sometimes they had it easy, in that they were allowed to continue and live their everyday lives, but no one from the town was allowed to talk to them. This lead to many people taking their own lives, or starving from the hunger due to shop owners refusing selling them anything. But some were lucky enough to get aid in secrecy by the ones who were opposed to the tyranny, opposed to the unjust violence that bred nothing but suffering and hate.
Those who weren't lucky, found themselves imprisoned for undefined periods of time, undergoing strict interrogations and sometimes torture. Sometimes, young boys would be stripped away from their families and sent to become soldiers or be used as lab rats for war experiments. Sometimes, young girls would be stripped from their dignity, losing their innocence while their status as a human being was changed to that of a lump of breathing meat.
Nevertheless, who wants to remember that period? Nowadays people are trying to forget, they are trying to rebuild the country from scratch, trying to avoid the same mistake.
But still, that part of the city stands as a constant reminder of what human are capable of, even if no one dares to speak their mind, it was there, it is there.
Word in town was that the place was haunted, no one dared to approach the houses. It was in a sense, a ghost town. And indeed there had been hunters who had reported to have heard frightening screams coming from the place during late hours. A haunting presence, a habitant of the past, cursed by its own luck, and damned to suffer for all eternity, locked there to never be found. Guarding the past, for it did not belong to the present.
It might sounds like a bedtime story you'd use to scare little kids, and indeed it also served that purpose, since many used it as a means to scare their children in the hope of stopping them from going there. "The tale of the last Ghost" they called it.
However, most adults shrug it off as just an old story, they indebted the noises to the wind and went on with their daily lives. But not little Timmy, he and his friends truly believed in its genuineness. And that night they were about to prove it, because like most kids, when you tell them to not do something, they do the opposite.
