Notes

Ghost Story Prequel (Where is Here?)
By: Alex Nguyen

Straige. It was a name that resided with the stranger ever since his birth. He was born a bright young boy, a kid born and raised in the 1930s that was so full of joy, yet so full of fear at the same time. He had been living in a house in a lively residential neighborhood, where tons of vibrant people roamed the sidewalks of the area. Ever since he was born into a family, he had wanted to start one of his own when he grew up. Straige was living with his father, mother, and his younger brother. Ever since he and his younger brother were little boys, they were always paranoid around his father. They wouldn’t say anything about it, but the father would get very angry easily. Even the smallest and simplest inconvenience would irritate him a lot. On some days when the father would get very upset, usually when it is a problem revolving himself like forgetting to cook food for dinner, he would simply push or hit her wife without thinking and demand her to do it for him. The wife would eventually do as he says, crying in the process. The brothers were usually upstairs in the room that they shared when this was all happening, and they could hear everything that happened down the stairs. It would get much worse when the parents’ arguments were being held in their bedroom. Sometimes when the conflicts were late at night, the father would just lock the mother in the closet for the entire night. Her screams were not enough to keep her husband from continuing this behavior. She was so scared of him that she had never had thoughts of calling anybody for help to resolve the family’s situation. For the brothers, sometimes they make mistakes big and small from time to time. They tried not to make as many mistakes as possible in the house, but when they did, it would not resonate well with the father well at all. Their mother would probably have been more forgiving to the boys had she not been occupied with so many things that the father could be doing for her. During times when the father couldn’t stand one of the brothers’ mistakes, he would just throw them down the basement stairs and lock him in there for a while. The basement was very small, and there was a small gap between the first step of the staircase and a wall. It wasn’t very pleasant at all for Straige or his younger brother, and them being thrown down the stairs had created huge dents on the wall. With all this happening, all Straige hoped for was to move away from his father and grow up to start a successful career and then start his own family, one where he wouldn't be an abusive father to his kids if he had any. For now though, he had to put up with where he was living right now. It was not a peaceful place in the household.

Now the year is 1949. Technology and other things have improved over time and the entire family has now grown up. Things are still the same as before, although now they have made many improvements to their house. The father has also recently bought a new car, which was painted in black and could fit all four family members. One day, the father was going to take his wife and two children to a beach to relax. They had packed up the things they needed and left the house. It was going to be a long way from their house to the nearest beach. The two brothers, especially Straige, were thinking about their futures now that Straige was a teenager and the younger brother was close to being one. The mother still had second thoughts about asking for help in regards to the family, and the two brothers were desperately waiting for the day that they can leave their father and move on with their lives and their bright future. As they were thinking about all of this, the car had suddenly stopped. There was heavy traffic in the road that led to the beach, and the 10 minutes it would have taken to get from the mountainside road to the seaside beach had unexpectedly made the route much longer. The father was happy at all, and he kept honking the horn of the car furiously, hoping that the cars would move faster. When nothing seemed to improve, he had enough of it. He had turned the car to the other side of the road and drove on the left lane, where oncoming cars would have been driven. The kids and mother screamed to get back on the right side of the road, but the father didn’t listen, as he had pushed the mother to the side and told everyone to be quiet. He was speeding up quickly, and he was too occupied with the family members to focus on the road. A single oncoming car was on the side of the road that the family’s car was on, and it was heading towards them. When the father looked back to the road and saw the oncoming car, he panicked, screamed like the rest of the family members were, and turned the steering wheel to the left to avoid the oncoming car. However, this resulted in the family’s car falling down the mountain very quickly. Everyone was now screaming for their lives. As the car rolled down the mountain, a tree with one of its trunks low enough to reach the car’s roof was about to be hit by the car. The car’s roof had collided with the tree’s trunk, decapitating the mother in the process. Her blood splattered all over the two children and the seats of the car while it was still plummeting down the hill. The car had now hit the rocks occupying the hill and it flipped and shaked down the mountain a ton of times. This resulted in the father being flown out of the car, sending him flying through the air for a few seconds. His body had rolled down the rocky hill, bones and limbs breaking and dislocating with each point of impact. The hill now had a trail of blood crawling through its rocks. The plummeting car had finally come to a stop when it had collided with a huge rock on the ground’s surface and it had come to a halt right-side up.

A few minutes have passed, and many different vehicles have arrived at the crash site. Police cars and an ambulance arrived, and the policemen were about to inspect the area. The policemen had looked on the hill to find debris that came from the destroyed car, as well as patches of stained blood everywhere. The father’s body was eventually found with many injuries and dislocation all over his body, especially around his head. When the policemen went to the crash site, the car was damaged almost to the point where it didn’t resemble a car. They had found the mother’s lifeless body without her head, as well as the debris and blood occupying the car. Straige was found in the car, with both his legs and chest area being impaled by pieces of the bent material of the car. The father, the mother, and Straige had all been pronounced dead at the scene, but the younger brother’s body had been found intact, although he was unconscious and had multiple injuries. The ambulance had taken him to the hospital and he was revived shortly after. The crash scene had been cleaned up, and the three deceased family members had all been buried in a cemetery, although the younger brother didn’t have any time to attend it as he was still being treated. The doctors had told him that he would recover, although due to the crash, he has suffered permanent damage to his brain. Life would not go well for this relatively young man from this moment on.

Straige had suddenly woken up in his house. He was confused as he thought that he had died in the car crash, but soon he realized that he was a ghost. He looked around the empty house, and when he went outside, he saw tape surrounding the perimeter of the house. It turns out that there was a search warrant made for the police to inspect the house of the former family. Years of abuse were found, with tons of holes being found around the walls, especially in the parents’ bedroom and basement. The story of the abuse of the house and the family that occupied it had been shared by many newspapers, and soon the once lively neighborhood street had now become quiet, with the occasional person roaming around the sidewalks every so often. Straige, now a ghost, was not able to leave the house and its surrounding homes, and so he was stuck resting there forever, with no trace of his mother’s or father’s soul to be seen. It was clear to Straige that he had lost everything: his family, his dreams, and his future.

Throughout the following years, the house would be emptied and restored to its original state, the wall now stripped away from its damaging holes. The house would be put up for sale for a relatively cheap price, but no one would want to buy it, due to rumors of it being haunted. Straige was still resting as a ghost in the house, wondering if anything would happen. Finally, one day in the year 1988, almost four decades after the death of Straige and his family, the old house was bought by another family Straige had yet to see. The family, consisting of a mother, a father, a son, and a daughter, had arrived at the empty house. The family’s car was parked, and all of the family members had unpacked their things. Straige was watching all of their actions, most notably the father’s, as he had shown signs of frustration and the same moods that Straige had felt around his father during his years of abuse. The father looked familiar to him, and that’s when it occurred to him that the father was actually his younger brother, who had now started a family and is raising two children. Straige had now feared that his younger brother’s kids would experience the same forms of abuse that they both endured when their father was alive. Straige had now decided that he would come up with a plan to warn the current family of the abusive behaviors that the father may have that would invoke upon the rest of the family. If only it didn't take an entire four years to do so...