Chapter 1- Hera

I live in an unremarkable piece of nowhere called Novadale. Small. Banal. Spooky, yet at its core, inane. A sleepy town swarming with all sorts of creatures, including the usual freak, like me. Nothingville is the perfect hiding spot. I have blended in nicely even though the contrast between this limbo and the powdered megalopolises of Europe where I used to live prior, is the least to say, jarring.

For those who do not know me, I am unfriendly. Cynical. Vulgar. An unabashed eccentric. Blessed with talents that cannot be put on resumes; the kind of money that people only talk about but never touch… as well as a line-up of savagery that never really left my head, because I am a recluse, you see, despite all I own. I haven't got a lot of victims. The two friends I have, are unfortunately a little too dear to be pushed away by the worst parts of me.

I am not antisocial by any means. That would be high praise, really. If only I were, I wouldn't care about the fact that I haven't spoken with my parents in close to three months. On the contrary, I like people. But my fascination with the human race comes with a very serious aversion for idiots, rats and snakes- like my relatives, for instance. Well, except Aunt Hilda. She is an angel in a den of upperclass vipers. A woman who understands me, no matter what language I speak.

Everyone else… finds me a little disturbing.

But this does not come as a surprise. There is a reason my parents stopped at birthing just one demon. I am the kind of person that you lock up in a lab to study for months and still find out nothing about. I have lived without parental control for the longest time, resentful at my abandonment, obvious in my current misanthropy, and the money my family has seems to scare rather than attract- the sheer size of it; I too would be afraid- so my resultant ostracization from society is easy to arrive at.

Not that I mind.

I fall in love with horror flicks, opera music, vintage and retro more often than I do with actual people. While they are not the average person's first resort, they age like fine wine. I should know. I have been raiding the underground cellar below my parents' mansion these past few months, and once, I saw Zinfandel in the timelessness of classics, felt the beauty of antique furniture burst on my tongue like a good glass of Shiraz. Ten-year-old Domaine Romaneé Conti is as ageless as fear- a force of nature center to existence itself. One that every prey out there, and on occasion, predator, knows like their very skin.

And while I am afraid of a lot of things- social situations being top of that list- a good fright film teaches you that there are even greater things to be scared of. Your current fears are, in comparison, insignificant. So you must face them. Grow up. Frankly, that is what I have been trying to do, forced to. It is a responsibility that has been brutally thrust on my shoulders.

Once upon a time I used to be normal. Years ago, I had something I would call a family. It was filled with colour, laughter, and the chaos of planning trips, botched holiday preparations and intimate, shared moments. Now it is all greyscale. But is that a bad thing?

Silence can be comforting, despite the rumours. The shadows of this house know me better than most people do, and quiet solitude has become my new aura. Loneliness, I have found, is beautiful depending on your viewpoint. If you are in a crowd of executives who are waiting to bootlick you at every turn then tear your name to shreds when you leave, then it is an ugly, unfeeling monster. But secluded in a stone villa atop a hill in the picturesque North side of Tennessee…? Pure. Gold.

It is something my parents never got to enjoy before their unceremonious disappearance, nearly three months ago: peace, calm, authenticity… A deeply relaxed state of mind similar to what I feel as my eyes fix on the spread of woodland I am staring at now, from the embellished, balustrade-lined terrace of my bedroom, looking like some disoriented, fairytale princess unsure of what she is waiting for. A dragon? Some prince? Wish-granting fairies? No, my parents. The ones who left me to rot in this pit raging with utter desolation.

I miss them.

This cold I feel… scorches. The emptiness is an unrelenting, abusive master lashing me into submission and the bite of its whip seeps into my very soul, snaking under the expensive cashmere that wraps around me to lodge itself deep within like a new identity; a red-hot brand.

And while in my first few days in this backwater, it seemed as if my caregivers brought me here to suffer, two years down the line, I took the shadows and made them mine. I built a fortress out of my prison. The ghosts are quiet now, the drafts gone. The sounds of the house settling aren't there anymore. Quite unfortunate, yes. I liked the thought of the place being haunted.

Not a lot of five-star hotels or luxury penthouse in New York, Paris, Milan, Tokyo or London have reluctant spirits waiting to steal the peace of the living. I know. It's been from marble floors and high-rises to domed ceilings and weeping frescoes for me the first sixteen years of my life. Until this town happened, that is. One day, my loving parents came down with something- they must have- and beyond other worrying symptoms, they decided it was time to dump me here- Nova-fucking-dale- in this lavish structure of stone and glass just before they disappeared, with just a call every other week whenever they could spare a moment from their gloriously-busy schedules

Am I resentful?

No, that word is very merciful in comparison.

I have been livid for longer than is good for me; stewed and simmered, boiled and burned in my rage, my fury unexpected and explosive. But months down the line, the sprawling emptiness waving from the greenwoods, drifting in the soot-free air, settling over me like a warm mist has been the least to say, therapeutic. These days, the quiet melancholy seems like a long-lost friend, not the horrible gremlin it used to be.

I have stopped hating my parents, and instead, begun to worry about them. Because for the first time, they are not in Pompeii, Napoli, Rimini, Bordeaux or Beijing. I do not know where they are.