Ned was an ordinary boy in every way. Except for the fact that he was horribly murdered by vampires, but that doesn't happen until the end of the story, so don't worry about that for now. Ned's full name was Ned VampireOrphan, which had always made him and his loving parents laugh, until the day they died horribly in a mysterious vampire accident. The day they died, Ned thought he heard a mysterious voice in the distance say softly, 'you're next'.But he couldn't have been more wrong.
The voice had cried out something that day, but it wasn't 'you're next'. It was 'You're next, Ned'.
This fatal misunderstanding had meant that Ned had gone through life carefree, happy and with no idea about the tragic fate that was to befall him. If only we could go back to that time, and warn Ned about what was to come. Sadly though, the 'up' arrow key on my key board is broken, so there's no going back.
"There's no going back" said Ned, to his only friend in the world, John. John had no distinctive character traits to speak of, which had the effect of making everyone around him think that he was someone who would be killed off fairly quickly in a story. This depressing idea meant that basically no one wanted to hang around with him, and so he and Ned had only each other for company.
"No, there's certainly isn't" Agreed John quite quietly but usefully.
Ned sighed. If only, he thought, if only there was another way to prove to the kids of MurderTown that he was worth being friends with. But he had promised to spend the night in Vampire Manor, and if he survived, he would be heralded as the coolest kid to every walk the street of BloodTerrace.
"Besides," said Ned, "No-one's lived in that rickety old mansion for years,"
"Quite a lot of people have died in it recently though," pointed out John, in a way that helpfully let readers know the history of the house.
"Yes, but no one has lived in it and that's the material point. How scary can an old abandoned house be?"
John shrugged, and keen to move the plot along, picked up his stride.
As they came close to the end of BloodTerrace (so called because of the mysterious synchronisation of the menstrual cycles of those who lived there) a local boy named Pete appeared at a gate. Pete was the kind of guy you bring into a horror story to kill, because he is so annoying and beautifully symmetrical of the face. Unfortunately though, Pete was also bloody clever, and wouldn't get himself mixed up in this kind of story, no matter how much I tried. Instead, he simply spat at Ned's feet, gave him the finger and walked off, shouting "You losers will never make it, see you tomorrow, in your COFFINS!"*
(*This outcry was appropriate for MurderTown purely because of the efficient burial system that had come into place since the late 1970's- great casket business competition meant that market rules applied, and the companies with the best (and quickest) service got the local custom. In a place of a strangely large amount of deaths, this had lead to a great streamlining of the death-to-burial system, and an efficiency rarly seen in small badly named towns)
Ned snarled, and pounded the bloodsoaked ground at his feet, "Why can't I be more like Pete?" he yelled at John. John, said nothing, as that meant the author didn't have to give him an opinion either way. Ned's eyes glinted at Pete's retreating back.
"I swear," he whispered softly, "I will show you what I'm really made of".
"What?" Said John,
"I'm going to show him what I'm made of" said Ned a bit louder.
"Oh right, sorry. You know I've got a gimpy ear" Said John, showing a rare glimpse of an underdeveloped character trait.
As the two boys walked, the great mansion that was to be their final destination rose into view like a horrifying erection. Though the building had been abandoned for years now (due mainly to the fact that the local economy now depended on casketry, and no one had need for a well done up B&B) the turrets stood high and proud. The old gate was swinging open upon their entrance, as if to say "come in you damned fools,", or perhaps "A gust of wind has just hit me".
Ned and John carefully walked past the rusty gate, and stared at the garden they found themselves in. Years of neglect had led to everything dying, meaning that there was a shitload of dandilions everywhere. Like, everywhere.
"I kind of thought there'd be more overgrown ivy and stuff," said Ned, thoughtfully, "intertwined tendrils of exotic petals, bulbous and reeking seed pods and the smells of foreign lands"
"There's some dog shit over there" John pointed out.
"Yes there is, John" laughed Ned quite inappropriately, "yes there is."
Once Ned had gotten over his bizarre and ill-timed laughing fit, the two boys began to make their way through the sea of probably terrifying yellow flowers, to the front door. It was wooden, door-shaped, with a handle that was used for opening it. In short, it was everything a good door should be. Ned raised a fist, and knocked smartly on its peeled surface. The noise rang through the building, causing John to die quite unexpectedly.
"John!" cried Ned, "Are you alright?"
Being dead, John found this question quite difficult to answer, and so Ned repeated it over and over again for several minutes before giving up, placing his body in the piles of dandilions. A single tear ran down Ned's face, as he remembered John's allergy to loud banging noises. If only the narration at some point had mentioned it, he thought angrily to himself, "If only!" he cried. But it was far too late. He had come this far. He'd been walking for nearly 20 minutes now, and by God, he wasn't going to turn back now.
"There's no going back!" he said. If John had been alive, he would have said "You said that already, quite near the start". But luckily, he was dead, so no-one realised how terrible the author was at scripting dialogue.
Pushing the door with all his strength, it gave way and he fell with a crash into a darkened hall-way. His heart beating fast, he slowly got up and looked around. As we mentioned, it was darkened, so there was essentially nothing to see. He looked around for a lightswitch, before remembering the darkened thing again and gave up.
Walking quite unsteadily, Ned felt around for something that could shed some light on this whole not having any light situation. Finally his hands made contact with a switch, and he gratefully flicked it, only to have the Greatest Hits of Aqua blasted at him out of a nearby sound system. Hastily flicking the switch again, he returned gratefully to the terrifying silence of before. Looking further yielded no joy, and Ned was forced to accept that he would spend the night in total darkness if he was to stay here. It was to be the longest night of his life.
In the morning, light streamed through the windows that just hours ago were as black as the underside of dirty fish. Ned opened his eyes and breathed out shakily. He could barely believe that he had survived a night of the Dr Jones lyrics going through his mind over and over again. There had also been the matter of killing a demon by fiendishly solving the riddle of the crypt, but to be honest, it was mainly the Aqua thing. John sat up, and smiled to himself. He had done it. Now he could hold his head high, and prove to everyone that he was someone worth knowing, not just a 'no-parent', like so many kids had called him. Stepping out of the house, onto the jauntily terrifying dandlion field, the sky was clear and the sun beckoned. Ned had never felt so alive. Sadly, he was then killed by a vampire that had been cunningly disguised as some dog shit. The vampire was also probably Pete, in a clever twist that you weren't expecting.
THE. END.
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