October 3rd, 2015
6 Years Earlier
"Get outta this house, ya damned demon! I ain't got no patience to deal with ya no more!"
Clutching the handle of her small bag of belongings in her hand, Jessica hurried, no - darted - to the exit, before the harsh mental wounds from the words of her aunt will turn into even harsher physical ones. Running through the front door, she almost stumbled, and yet picked herself up, like she always did throughout her life. Always chased, always haunted. Always have to outrun the voices, the snares, the judging, even if it wasn't her fault she was born a demon. Filthy, cursed witch, a Devil's spawn - that's what she was used to hearing the moment her powers awoke.
The first time it happened, she just wanted to save a puppy - after suddenly becoming a witness to some unruly delinquent kids torturing the poor thing just for the fun of it, the 12-year old Jessica broke it off, rushing to help it. It was just lying there, barely breathing, and she called and took her aunt Myrtle to help, but barely even looking at it, the middle-aged woman replied there was nothing they could do, and its soul is soon going to heaven, taken by God in the natural order of things, bla bla bla, all the usual lectures about God's will that Jess was already used to hearing. The young girl just thought it was unfair - if going through the pearly gates of heaven requires to experience life cut short by such cruelty with nothing to justify it, she doesn't want to let God take this puppy's soul. So Jessica took the soul herself, cradling the barely breathing puppy in her small hands, ignoring the protests of her squeamish aunt, and she cried, yes, the tears couldn't stop falling, onto the bloodied grass, onto her new white and pristine dress, onto the nearly lifeless wounded tiny body.
And then a miracle happened.
The puppy opened its eyes. The open bloody wounds started to heal, close, disappear, leaving only blotches of fur with dried blood on them. Wide eyed, Jessica stared at it, not even blinking, as the puppy escaped her hands, tail waggling in happiness, as if it was fine and nothing at all just happened to it. Mouth agape and slowly turning her head to her aunt, she read the same surprise and confusion in her eyes. But...over the years, of course she realized it wasn't the worst of it.
For one, she could say with confidence her rug caught on fire definitely over 5 times for no reason at all, every time she came angrily into the room, upset by one thing or another. One time, aunt Myrtle's whole porcelain China tea set collection broke, the moment she hit Jessica across the face. And each one of those instances, of course, earned a further beating and a crucifix shoved in her face, as her god-fearing aunt would keep on reciting prayers. People feared what they couldn't understand, and at some point, Jessica has come to fear herself too. As time passed, the incident with the puppy was suppressed by her, shoved into the deepest corner of her mind, as if she didn't just create a miracle worthy of Christ himself.
No...She was a demon, after all. A monster, who has no place in a proper home. Running along the streets, the raven-haired 16-year old didn't know what to do with her life now. Where will she live now? Can she come back to school? Is she destined to starve and die on the streets, like a kicked out dog? The survival instinct in her kept telling her to keep going forward, find a shelter. Do foster homes accept runaway older teens? She didn't know, but immediately thought against it. She is not allowed to live near normal human beings...Not again. So, that leaves the only option - fend for herself. With a deep sigh, Jessica picked up her pace again, her sandals clattering against the grey pavement of a middle class suburban maze, with identical white idyllic homes to the each side of the road. It's true she has no place there. This picture-perfect California-dream suburb is not for the messy, fucked up likes of her, and so today it finally spat her out, leaving her in this cold cruel world all alone.
She was lucky the weather wasn't actually cold, though. Only having a linen yellow dress and a thin grey cardigan for clothes, survival would become an issue, should winter arrive. And yet, it was still early October, so the sun's rays were warm and bright and welcoming into their embrace, so not fitting for the rains and storms inside her soul right now. Figuratively speaking, of course. But thinking ahead won't do any harm in her situation, so the girl noted that she needed to get warmer clothes, if she were to live on the streets. She was afraid to randomly set anything on fire again if she wished for just a bit of warmth, so she just had to act like a normal person the best she could.
A normal person...
Wait, is that a car running a man over in plain sight?!
Somewhere far ahead, Jessica saw a horrid scene unfold right in front of her eyes. A black SUV with toned windows just ran someone over, and the driver, instead of stopping the car and checking if the person they hit is alright, or just fleeing the scene, or something else any sane person would do, actually pulled back and hit their victim again, driving into him again, pulling back again, and hitting him again, and again...
Jessica couldn't speak, or scream, or do anything at all. She froze in place, sheer shock of what she's witnessing right now canceling out her ability to move her body. She just helplessly watched a murder taking place and couldn't do anything about it.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the torture came to an end, after the driver of the jeep, (Jessica swore she saw a woman there) seemingly making sure their victim's as good as dead, quickly drove off, fleeing the scene of their horrible crime. You should've done that much, much earlier, you lunatic, Jessica thought, still not being able to move an inch.
And then, she heard a groan.
Quickly realizing that it's the man that was run over, the shock and consternation was quickly taken over by the empathy and desire to help in any kind of way she can, and not thinking about it twice, the raven-haired girl hurried to the man, who was laying on the road on such a nice sunny day in a puddle of his own blood. Just behind his mangled body, the infamous Murder House was looming over, the well-known black sheep of such a clean neighborhood. How fitting.
Coming closer to the man, and kneeling in front of him, Jessica noticed that in fact, he wasn't a man...just yet. He looked about her age, his face having such a youthful child-like feel to it, despite the sharp jawline and cheekbones of an adult, combination looking almost ageless...sort of ethereal. Adding to his natural beauty, were his bright blue eyes and a very pretty shade of strawberry blonde hair. He was so young...Why did that person want him dead so badly? The girl thought to herself, cradling his head in her hands and placing it on her knees. The boy was on the verge of death, his eyes becoming glossier each passing moment, lungs coughing up more and more blood. This is bad...
A long-forgotten memory of a mangled puppy dying in her arms flashed in her mind at this very moment.
That's right...She's good at this, despite trying to subdue and deny it so hard. She could heal him...If only her powers are used for good, it's fine to do it just once, right?
Because if not...This boy is going to die right before her eyes. God will take his soul and send it to heaven, leaving his beaten down ruined body to rot on this earth in the hot California sun, his killer having achieved their goal in full. But that wasn't fair, was it? So as the boy's eyes struggled to fixate on her, a scruffy passerby girl in a yellow dress, a stranger he's never met before, she channeled her healing powers, the best she could.
Transferring her own life force into him, seeping it through his skin, into his veins, passing through the blood cells, his wounds started to slowly cave in and close, his countless broken bones mending themselves in a painful, yet correct way. Soon enough he could even finally move his fingers, raising his hand up in wonder to look at how unscathed it's suddenly become.
Ocean blue eyes met forest green ones, confusion pooling inside them. Why did you save me? Who are you, and how did you do it? He will ask obvious predictable questions right now, or so Jessica imagined to herself. All she could offer in response though, her conscience slowly slipping away from using up so much of her own life force, was a short
"So it worked."
And having stated the obvious, she was plunged into the darkness, falling onto the pavement beside the confused looking blonde-haired boy. As if by an amazing coincidence, her simple yellow dress she put on today in a hurry, unexpectedly needing to leave her home forever on a regular Saturday afternoon, seemed to match his soaked in blood, torn down yellow T-shirt.
*****
Instead of the bloody pavement, she was laying on a bed of fresh grass when she opened her eyes. The sun was still shining, and the boy was still there in his bloody T-shirt, nervously pacing around her. Seems like she wasn't out for long, after all.
Vitalum Vitalis, or the healing power Jessica used, was self-destructive – if she gives someone their life force, she will, on the other hand, lose it. That's what she read about when researching about witches and their powers (something aunt Myrtle would kill her for, if she ever found out). So, predictably, she still was sort of out of it, but nevertheless, tried her best to get up, despite her head hurting so much and vision being all blurry.
Getting back on her feet, she looked at the blond boy she just saved – almost being proud of her work. It looks like after Jessica lost consciousness, he dragged her out of the road onto the fresh grass of the...Murder House. She would be almost thankful for it, if she didn't hear about all the murders that happened on this property. Just being there was giving her strange goosebumps, like an unknown presence from beyond constantly watching her.
Now, as he saw her get up, he darted towards her, and she couldn't help but stifle a giggle. Half an hour after becoming homeless, she just saved a stranger from getting killed with her powers, and now they're both paying a nice visit to a ghost house. This was all too surreal.
"Hey-"
"You...saved me?" Before she could utter even a word, he grabbed her by the shoulders so suddenly, she almost winced.
"I just wanted to say, be more careful on the road from now on." Jessica replied, still smiling in his arms.
"But I was...That person, I think, was trying to kill me." The boy sighed, as he let go of her and sat on the ground, his head hanging low at the memory. In an attempted gesture of understanding, she sat beside him, awkwardly patting his back.
"Nice deduction, considering they ran you over like...5 times? Maybe more. Lucky I was there, huh?" The raven-haired girl nudged him with such familiarity, as if they've known each other for years, instead of being two unlucky strangers.
"Yeah..." He replied, smiling at her with gratitude. "How did you do it, by the way?"
"Well...I'm a witch. You may have recently heard that we're actually a real thing, with the Miss Robichaux's Academy advertisements and whatnot." She sighed, averting her eyes and hugging her knees. "And look, if that makes you uncomfortable around me, or anything, I'll go, okay? I know...I know that I make people weirded out by my abilities." The boy's eyes widened with surprise and disbelief.
"Are you kidding?! Why would I be? I'm only still alive because of you! When..." He started, as if unsure whether he could share it or not, "When I was laying there, and...everything hurt so much, I was already prepared to..." His heavy gaze immediately softened when he looked at her again. "And yet...You made all the pain go away. Thank you, really."
And those simple words were enough to melt Jessica's heart, who was getting ready to run on command from torches and pitchforks. Was it...alright to be happy about finding someone who is okay with her demonic being?
"What's your name?" She inquired, stretching out her hand to him with a huge grin on her face. "I'm Jessica. Jessica Young. Let's be friends!"
The boy looked at her with sheer surprise in his eyes, as if no one has ever asked him that before. Then, he shyly looked away, with a bashful smile blossoming on his face, which Jessica offhandedly thought was extremely adorable. He took her outstretched hand in his and shook it.
"I'm Michael...Langdon. It's very nice to meet you, Jessica."
He's especially pretty when he smiles, the girl thought to herself, smiling even wider. An awkward silence fell after that, as they both simply exchanged glances, unsure what to say now. Jessica hated awkward silences, so her eyes immediately started looking around, searching for a topic, eventually landing on the gloomy building right behind them. Right...Having grown up quite near it, she's of course heard all kinds of horror stories involving this house, which definitely earned its title in full...36 people meeting their untimely end in this very place, according to the legend.
"Now...It's almost a lucky coincidence we're here, at the Murder House after what just happened, huh?" Jessica joked, trying to light up the mood. Michael chuckled, despite the gravity of "what just happened" in question, picking up on the girl's lighthearted remark.
"Oh, I was actually heading there. I needed a place to stay, after my gran kicked me out." He confessed, getting up to walk over to the entrance.
Jessica was about to follow suit, yet stopped in her tracks.
"Huh...?" Her eyes widened in surprise. "You too?"
"What?"
The girl hesitated, crossing her arms. Somehow, saying this out loud felt much more foul than she'd have expected.
"...I was sort of kicked out today as well. My aunt couldn't handle me and my powers. She called me a demon and told me to get out of her house."
The understanding in the boys eyes was almost too hard to bear.
"My gran...told me the same thing." He simply said, his voice void of any emotion, before turning away again to the main entrance. What is this string of weird coincidences between them? Before Jessica could even respond, Michael already let go of that uncomfortable topic. "You can live here with me, if you'd like. You saved me, so...If you really need a place to stay too, come on over. There is everything you would need, I assure you."
Is living in the Murder House even a good idea in the first place? No one who has inhabited these old decrepid walls, ever survived, or so the legend says. And yet...For a homeless teen, the tempting offer of having a free empty mansion as a home, albeit temporary, with many rooms and possibly clothes and necessary utensils, was too good to be true, and it seemed like Michael was willing to risk it. Will she...?
Yes.
Oh well, maybe she can befriend the ghosts or something. She was never the cowardly type.
"But is it even okay? What if it belongs to someone?" Despite asking that, Jessica eagerly hurried to the front stairs, catching up to him.
"Don't worry, right now it also belongs to my family."
"What do you mean?"
"Do you believe in ghosts?" He suddenly asked.
"Michael..." The girl looked at him blankly. "I'm literally a witch. I have no choice but to believe in all that supernatural crap." Michael only grinned.
"Then...You're going to get to know them all soon enough. Come in!" Before Jessica had any chance to think over what exactly these words meant, the boy already opened the door before her first in a gentleman-like manner, letting her come inside, carefully looking over the old, yet beautiful abandoned building, and closed it behind him, walking in.
Unbeknownst to them, on the opposite side of the street, an elderly woman was watching them on the patio, her arms crossed. Bringing a hand up to her freshly bruised neck, she wept. Right now, she was about to bury someone because of that boy yet again.