“Look behind you,” my friend Adam said to me quietly.

“Which picture?” I asked Adam while turning to look behind me. It was easy to spot the man that Adam meant because he was staring right at me and I was suddenly glad I had used the picture excuse, it didn’t make me seem as obvious.

“Oh, yeah, that is a nice photo of the pub back in the old days,” I said to Adam, looking at the picture that was located directly behind the man who was staring. Even if I had of been looking at the picture, I would be lying to Adam about it being nice. I hated that picture, it was the worst one that they had hanging in the pub. I often suggested to the bartender that they should take it down. They always agreed with me yet, never did anything about it.

I turnt back to face Adam.

“You know him?” He asked me, quietly.

I shook my head. “I’ve never seen anyone quite like him in my life.” This was true, I hadn’t. He had an eye patch over one eye and a shaggy beard that grew out in curls. It looked as if he hadn’t made any attempt to maintain his beard in years and he also had a wooden leg. The closest thing I had ever seen to him was Hagrid from Harry Potter and even then, Hagrid looked like a male model compared to this guy.

“Do you know him?” I asked Adam.

Adam shook his head. “Nope, besides, it’s not me he’s watching.”

A cold shiver ran down my spine. What was with this guy? I could still feel his eyes on my back and it was starting to make me uncomfortable. Maybe if I looked at him again he would look away? I did just that and was met by a cold look from him but once again, he didn’t look away, just continued staring.

I wondered if I should confront him but a part of me was afraid that he was some sort of physcho that got his kicks from choosing random victims in bars. The last thing I wanted was for him to follow me home so I would have to stay at the bar until after he left.

“I wonder who he is?” I asked Adam.

Adam shook his head again. “No clue. Hopefully not some physcho choosing random victims in bars. Best to wait here until after he leaves aye?”

I gave Adam a funny look, had he just read my mind? Continue reading →

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“Come on, Lachie!” I called to my eight month old German Shepherd puppy.

He came bounding along the hallway towards me, carrying his lead. At such a young age, Lachie was very clever. He had taken a shine, over the last month, of carrying things for himself.

I slipped the lead on him and handed it to him. He took it in his mouth. He liked to walk himself and I was amazed that, at such a young age, I could trust him to walk himself and not run away.

“Do you think we should go to the beach today, Bud?” I asked him.

Lachie’s ears perked up at my words. People who said animals couldn’t understand humans were only kidding themselves.

The beach was Lachie’s favourite place to go. I had first taken him there when he was four months old but that had been the last time as after that we had hit winter. It was far too dangerous to go to the beach in winter, the ice froze over and the place was a danger zone. Winter had finished officially a week ago and I figured it would be safe enough to go there now.

Lachie went bounding across the yard and stopped in front of a stick. Whenever Lachie knew we were going to be going near water he liked to take a stick with him, for me to throw and him to go splashing in after.

Lachie dropped the lead he was carrying and looked at me, then back between the lead and the stick. Deciding how he was going to carry both no doubt.

I laughed and jogged towards him. “Here, Buddy, how about I walk you today?” Continue reading →

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I was woken by a strange whirring noise. I had never heard this noise before; it was very foreign to me. I didn’t know where it was coming from. I noticed the screen of my cellphone was lit up. Then before my eyes, I had to pinch myself for I thought I was dreaming, a head appeared, then two arms so on and so on until the body of a little elf man was standing in my room.

“Have you got any water?”

He had a slight southern accent, though, he certainly didn’t look southern. Still thinking I was dreaming, I just stared at him.

“Creature doesn’t usually use that method of travel you see?” He pointed at my phone which had gone back to normal now.

“Creature much prefers coming in through computers, but when Creature tried to come through yours, you must have your power turned off and Creature hit a wall.”

This was true; I was paranoid about fires so kept all of my electrical sockets turned off when I wasn’t using them.

“So you see, Creature had to travel through your phone and that trip is quite a bit longer so Creature is rather parched.”

“Creature will get it himself then,” He said after a while, trotting over to my kitchen and pulling a Sippy cup like a baby would drink from- from his silk red robe.

I was still staring at him blankly. Surely I should have woken up from my dream by now. I pinched myself. Nope he was still there, maybe I was going mad.

After all it couldn’t be normal to see an elf that had an uncanny look and sound like Dobby from Harry Potter standing in your kitchen. I would make an appointment first thing tomorrow at the doctors.

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This is the clock upon the wall
This is the story of us all
This is the first sound of a new-born child,
Before he starts to crawl
This is the war that’s never won
This is a soldier and his gun
This is the mother waiting by the phone,
Praying for her son

“I love this song!” I exclaimed, more to myself than anyone else. The Last Goodnight was my favourite band and Pictures of You was my favourite song by them.

Pictures of you, pictures of me
Hung upon your wall for the world to see
Pictures of you, pictures of me
Remind us all of what we used to be

I joined in at the chorus.

“Janie! Would you turn that racket down!”

I scoffed. Mum had not just referred to The Last Goodnight as ‘racket’. I did as I was told though, turning it down and humming the last verse quietly to myself.

I sat down on my bed and pulled out my sketch pad. I wanted to be a singer one day but I wanted to be the one to design the covers for my own cds so I was getting in some practice now.

There was a knock on my door and my nana stood there, smiling at me.

“Hey Nana. What’s up?”

“Just coming to see what you are doing. What are you drawing?”

“Oh, just messing around with potential album cover designs.” Nana was the only one, other than my best friend Emma-Lee, that I had told about wanting to be a singer. My parents thought I wanted to be a lawyer, follow in their footsteps. That wasn’t the case. Though every time I tried to tell them this they switched off, didn’t hear me.

“Can I look?”

“Sure,” I tilted my sketchpad so Nana could see better.

“Janie, these are really good!”

“Thanks, Nana,” I smiled at her. At least someone supported me.

“I think you should pursue being a singer,” Nana said to me after a moment of silence.

I gave her a sad smile. “Mum and Dad would love that.”

She gave me a look of sympathy and turned towards my door. She seemed to change her mind, turning back to face me, “You know, Janie, you shouldn’t be so hard on them. It’s not their fault that they don’t want you to be a singer.”

Nana gave me another smile before walking out of my room and down the hallway. What did she mean by it wasn’t their fault?

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“Ethan?” I called to my best friend. “Where are you?”

I received no response and I started to worry. Was he okay? Was he injured? Was he still alive? The last thought made me shudder and I wrapped my hooded cardigan tighter around my shoulders, trying to comfort myself. It didn’t work.

“Ethan?”

“Ethan?!” I screamed, hoping among hope that he wasn’t responding to my calls because I wasn’t shouting loud enough and he couldn’t hear me.

I heard moans of pain.

“Ethan!”

I tried to follow his moans of pain in the hope that they would lead me to him. I sprinted along trying to be careful not to slip on the shards of glass that were scattered across the wooden floor of the church. I almost fell into the pile of glass about fifty times but somehow I managed to stay upright.

I couldn’t see Ethan anywhere and I searched for him, wildly flinging my head around. I may as well have been searching with my eyes closed for all the luck I was having.

I heard another moan of pain and flung my head in the direction it had come from. Over there, under the window. I couldn’t see Ethan’s face because there was a large piece of what looked like the bell from the bell tower squishing him. I could just see his feet sticking out of the rubble.

I rushed to him. He had three pieces of glass sticking out of his face and I winced. He had been sitting under the window when the earthquake had struck and had paid dearly for that. That was the least of his worries though, how was I going to get the bell off of him?

“Ethan? I’m going to try and get this off of you, okay? I know that it will hurt but if I don’t you could die. Okay?”

Ethan didn’t respond to my words, he didn’t even turn to face me. Was he ignoring me? Did he blame me for him getting injured? It was hardly my fault. I didn’t know Dunedin was going to be struck by a large earthquake and the church would cave in.

I focused my thoughts on Ethan. I needed to get that heavy weight off of him before it squished him to death. I concentrated all my energy on the piece of bell and heaved. It didn’t budge. I went around the other side of it and pulled. It didn’t budge. For all the success I was having I may as well have been a dead weight.

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I looked at the scene that was unfolding in front of me. Across the field from where I stood there was a fire and, all I could do was watch. Intrigued.

“We better get out of here, Tessa,” My best friend Caroline said walking up beside me. “I just got a call from my dad.  He knew we were here today and apparently this is one of the biggest bush fires to date.”

I nodded my head, still engrossed at the scene before me.

“It’s sad isn’t it. They say this was the work of The Fire Starter. Again.” Caroline sighed, letting me know she was generally sad about what was happening.

I nodded my head. It was sad, but yet, interesting. He had been nicknamed The Fire Starter. He was responsible for setting about eighty fires in Gisbourne where we lived. No one had seen his face, just the back of him. The people that had seen him said, he moved like no one they had ever seen. It was as if he glided rather than ran. They also said that he had a long black robe, which billowed out behind him.

I wanted to be a physciatrist and I longed to meet The Fire Starter. I would have loved to pick his brains for a few minutes, if not only to see what went on in his mind. I knew this was wishful thinking on my part though. However, dreams were free.

“Come on then, Tessa. That fire may spread soon and I for one do not want to get caught in that.”

Caroline stalked off towards the car park where she had parked her mothers blue minivan. She had just gotten her restricted licence and was allowed to drive by herself on the conditions that she didn’t speed and that the only passenger she took was me. Technically, she wasn’t meant to take passengers with her at all but her dad was one of the local police men so she got away with it. Caroline’s parents really liked me, they claimed I was a good influence on her. Oh, how wrong they were.

Caroline and I had been best friends since age six, primary school, and every time we got in trouble over the eleven years we had been friends, it was almost always due to something I had wanted to do. Caroline never ditched me though, she was a good friend. The best.

I climbed in the passenger side of Caroline’s car and buckled my seat belt. I couldn’t help but look back over at the bush fire.

“What are you thinking, Tessa?” Caroline asked me curiously. She could always tell when I was thinking hard. She claimed that she could hear the cogs in my brain rotating.

“I would love to meet him,” I murmured.

“Meet who?” Caroline asked, confused.

“The Fire Starter.”

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