APPLE FESTIVAL: DAY THREE.
PART ONE.

A BOUQUET OF POLAROIDS LAY CHAOTICALLY SCATTERED ACROSS GOLA'S BED. she'd taken majority of the pictures over the course the previous two days at the apple festival. Some of the pictures documented minor things such as her scarlet converse, the sun setting over brooksville and a candid of sylvia. Then there were her favorites such as the picture of Ethan, Beau, Yona and a few more of their companions that Gola had yet to be acquainted with.

Beau leaned against his vintage sleek ebony camaro cooly smoking a cancer stick while gazing directly into the camera. One of his hands running through his midnight hair.  Ethan and Yona embraced each other as if nothing else in the world mattered. Yona's scarlet varsity cheerleading uniform meld perfectly with Ethans cherry varsity football jacket.

All while in the background one of Yona's varsity cheer mates struck a pose. Holding both her arms in the air to form a v while her perfect teeth practically twinkled and off to the side two of Ethan and Beau's saints salt water academy classmates roughly yet playfully wrestled. The photo snapped just in time to catch brown liquid being spilled from one of the plastic red cups the teens clung to.

The picture spurred of foolish reckless youth at their prime. Bountiful in vigor. Rebellious just because it's something to do.

Gola couldn't help but smile to herself as she scribbled the year two-thousand-nineteen messily at the bottom.

Her succeedingly favorite photos were of her lovely older sister Yona. One of Yona cheering at a football game. Another of yona dancing at her ballet recital. One of Dean holding a sleeping yona. The final of yona playing bumper cars with Beau.

Yona being absurdly photogenic Yona , she can't help but appear model like in each one. In all of the pictures a gleam captured in her eyes, her elegant facial structure sculpted by shadows and highlighted by light. it would never cease to dumbfound Gola regarding how  utterly exquisite Yona was. How mercilessly breathtaking and viciously heart wrenching she was.

Gola supposed this was the kind of beauty than men pillaged cities and burned down empires for in the days of old. She couldn't blame them. After all she'd do the same for her sister.

while admiring the mini capsules of the past, feeling a abundance of nostalgia she'd noticed an oversight in the picture of Dean holding yona. A shadowy figure far too vast to be either Deans or Yona's lingered almost grimly in the background. It had to be an error. To be certain Gola inspected all the other photos taken of Dean and Yona.

There existed only one photo of an idle Dean due to fact that he'd lugged Sylvia around like the burdensome baggage Gola knew her to be. In the snap Dean's large hand pushed playfully at camera, covering a corner while he bared a row of pearl like teeth and two deep dimples, clad in a mere colorless bath towel that hugged his waist. Behind him loomed no massive shadowy figure, instead as there should've been brilliant light flooded the bathroom.

She released a breath she'd not known herself to be holding.

It's just a glitch. it's just a glitch. it's just a glitch.

Yet the rather anxious piece of Gola's heart urged her to make sure. More  frantically then she would've liked Gola searched the scenes of all yona's photos for the sizeable grim figure. Sure enough it loomed menacingly in every single one. In the ballet photo the shadow appeared additionally definite. Solid. A horrid looming reality instead of a distant night terror. A hue darker than black.

no.
no.
no.
Not my little bear.
You can't have my little bear.

"Don't play with her. Anyone but her." Gola whimpered, the crack in her voice belonging to a wounded puppy. She had to tell Yona to be careful. But careful of what? a shadow? A little girl that nobody other than herself could see? The wind?

Even if she did warn Yona of shadows, empty hearted little girls and the wind would she listen? Yona had never been as angry at Gola as she had two nights ago, when Gola had just barely missed getting hit by a car. When Yona herself had just barely missed getting hit by a car so that she could push her dumbfound little sister out the way.

She was pissed to say the least. She'd been ignoring Gola ever since. Leaving the room when Gola enters, turning up her music louder when her little sister speaks and once again sleeping all by herself again. On top of that yona hadn't listened at all when Gola strived to explain what she'd seen. Just how she'd been with the shadow prince.

The anxiety in Gola's bones thickened.

The wind howled, cackling, bursting through her closed windows with a booming bang.

Gola cowered in a corner as the pictures on her bed danced in the wild wind and her journals pages rapidly flipped ajar. Meekly she seized journal she'd confided in two many times to count, the journal which was supposed to comfort her instead of terrify. In bold beautiful cursive letters written over Gola's previous oblivious rantings read 'return what has been taken from the young master or the young master will have no choice but to take something in return.' There were also two pictures stuck to the scarlet velvet bookmark due to the fact that it dripped in blood.

Gola quickly recalled that the pictures were the ones she'd taken of Levi. Or should have been. Richards  wasn't exactly present in any of the snaps. The picture she'd taken of him standing in the crowd only shows the shadow of a man with glowing ruby red eyes, while the one of him on the ferris wheel simply shows a charcoal hued cloud where he sat with ruby red eyes peering through it all.

The uncanny pictures reminded her uneasily of the nocturnal animals eyeing inside Beau's car the night they'd almost killed Levi.

Another photo that was supposed to be the last picture she'd taken of Levi fell out of her diary along with two others. The picture should have been a selfie of herself and her best friend goofing off in  the house of mirrors but instead it showed a  silly Gola cheesing from ear to ear while classically Levi smirked at her. Thd mishap in this particular photo could be easily missed if one wasn't already searching for faults. You might miss the fact none of Richards reflections are distorted. Not one of them round and wide, or stick like skinny, or vastly vertically challenged or intensely extended like Gola's were.

Instead they all carry levi's lean physique turned facing the mirrors instead of the camera with his signature devilish smirk sitting upon smug lips. though one of them lacked the smirk as it menacingly bore fangs and glowing ruby eyes.

Head swarming, Gola turned to the other two pictures. One which was taken of Waya looking impossibly ethereal with crimson amulet hanging loosely from one of the hands she used to clasp a baby yona. The other picture being a picture of a woman whom Gola firstly had mistaken as herself.  She quickly learned the picture was of young woman named Elanora. It was taken in the year eighteen-hundred-ninety-nine.

Shakily Gola stood, went to the nearest mirror to retouch her makeup. She was going out tonight. going to learn the truth. She was going m to make it known that she was pawn in no ones petty games.