There was Mary in 1887. Poor girl poisoned herself with some homemade concoction.  There was Cathy in 1901. Jumped from they hay loft of her daddy’s farm.  There was Amelia in 1913. Drowned herself in the shallow creek out back of her house. We can’t forget Margaret in 1922. Youngest of all, she was only nine when she decided to hang herself from the ceiling beam over her parent’s bedroom.  Skipping ahead some, there was Roger in 1950. Overdosed on oxicondone.  There was Celia in 1961. Shot herself with her uncle’s pistol.  But now, in 2008, only the people who were there, or the people who bothered to research them in the library know these stories. Those who fit those qualifications might have noticed the similarities between all the suicide victims; they all went to Moors High; they were all in their senior year; they all had supposedly everything.

Everything? Yes. They all had scholarships to get out of there. They all had daddy's with a lot of money. They all had popularity. So people wonder; why did they kill themselves? Nobody knows, especially not Annabelle. She is one of those that hasn't gone to the library, hasn't heard the stories. Her parents didn't go to school there. In fact, she just moved up from California this year. No one warned her. Maybe that's why she's the one who got trapped in the middle of it all.

Annabelle was a good student. When she wasn't doing so good, she stayed after and made up those grades. That's what she was doing today. She was staying after to make up a test grade she wasn't too happy with. She had restudied the material,  and was careful with her answers. When she finished the test and gathered her stuff to leave, it was three-thirty.

On her way out she stopped in the bathroom. Which was a casual thing, of course. She immediately noticed the something was different. It was cold, really cold. She exhaled and saw a puff of breath hover for a few seconds in front of her face. She looked around, making sure she was alone. She stepped out in the hall again, quickly. The temperature there was normal. She stepped back in, and the air in there was once again normal. Incredibly confused, she decided to hurry and get out of there, skipping the bathroom break, and hurried home.

The weird incident was still on her mind when she got there, but it was quickly pushed away when she was affectionately attacked by two younger siblings, Amy and Arnold. Amy was nine, and Arnold was eleven. They informed her that Mom was in her bedroom taking a nap; she had another migraine, they said. So she fixed them a snack, sliced apples with juice, and went into the living room, already dreading the three hours worth of homework she was assigned.

Having math, science, english, spanish, and art homework to focus on, she forgot about the temperature occurrence until school the next morning. She was sitting in the cafeteria with some of her friends, when her friend Molly asked her to come to the bathroom with her so she could fix her makeup. Annabelle didn't wear makeup, and didn't understand people who did, but she agreed anyway.

When they walked in, Annabelle immediately felt the chill. She could see her breath hovering in front of her face, but Molly seemed to take no notice. She walked over to the mirror, opening her purse and pulling out her makeup as usual. Annabelle stood there for a moment, dumbfounded, before finally asking “Molly?”.

Molly's head jerked up, “Hm? What?”

Annabelle just stared at her. “...Don't you feel that?”

“Feel what?”

“The... the...” Annabelle exhaled, seeing her breath again. “That! We aren't supposed to be able to see our breath in the bathroom.”

“Annabelle, what are you talking about? I can't see my breath. It's like 70 degrees in here.”

“Seventy? Are you kidding me? It's like twenty-five.”

Molly rolled her eyes and went back to the mirror. About two minutes later, her face was perfect looking, and Annabelle was allowed to leave.

“I swear there's something odd about the bathroom.” She was saying as they walked down the hall. “I stayed after last night, and the upstairs bathroom was also cold. But then I walked out and walked back in again, and it was back to normal...”

“Annabelle, just stop thinking about it. You sound crazy.”

“Maybe I am.” Annabelle said, giving a light snort, “Everything would make so much more sense.” But before Molly could reply, they had entered the cafeteria again, and their conversation was drowned out among the many voices of high school students. By the time they had returned to their friends, Molly had completely forgotten the odd experience, and was talking to Alexis about her new phone. No one noticed that Annabelle was oddly quiet, staring off into space, ignoring what was around her.


Annabelle's first class was math, which gave her a test. She tried, but she couldn't focus at all. She would get through maybe half a problem, then find herself staring into space, thinking about what was going on. Why didn't anyone else notice?

The loud bell brought her out of her thoughts. Looking down at her paper, she despaired to see only the first two problems complete. She'd have to come in some time to finish it. As if her schedule wasn't busy enough.

Come lunch time, she had enough to juggle to distract her from what was going on around her. She had gotten a text from her mom telling her to come right home after school, as she had to work late, then go to the doctors, and someone had to be there to meet Amy and Arnold. She had tried to talk her mom out of making her do it, but she didn't try that hard, because she knew her mother was sick, and an appointment to the doctor would be good for her.

The final bell rang at two o'clock, and Annabelle stopped quickly at her locker before walking home. But as she was walking down the hall, alone, she passed the bathroom in the english wing. She had passed this bathroom numerous times in her high school career, but today she found herself stopping in front of it. Something was pulling her in. She tried to fight it, tried to reason with herself that she didn't need to go to the bathroom, but the force wouldn't let up, and she ended up going in anyway. Sighing, she opened the door.

It wasn't the bathroom she knew. Not at all. Not only was it also freezing, but the lights were red. The walls were red. Red and oozing. Oozing blood. She dropped her stuff, and when she got back to her feet after picking it up, she saw the body. A dead body, hanging from the ceiling. Cockroaches swarmed it.  Blood dripped from it's neck, which had a rope tied around it. She dropped her stuff again, putting her hands to her mouth to stifle a scream, and ran out of the bathroom. Leaving her stuff behind, she ran all the way home. But this was only the first experience.


Weeks passed without another incident. She was suffering from insomnia and failing grades. She always made up excuses to go home after school rather then spend time with her friends. And when she was home, she spent the day locked up in her room with the blinds down and the door locked. She scarcely ate. She had black bags under her eyes, and she was growing sickly thin. Her friends tried talking to her, trying to get her to tell them what was wrong. Her mom tried getting her to eat. She made all her favorite meals. But nothing got through to Annabelle.

This day, the seventeenth of February, Annabelle had been unable to get home immediately. She had gotten herself into detention for mouthing off to, then flipping off, a teacher. Since the first incident, Annabelle had avoided any of the bathrooms or locker rooms in the school. She was afraid. She didn't know what she was afraid of, exactly, but she was afraid. Today, however, after detention got out, she was walking to her locker, and, though she didn't know how, she found herself in one of the bathrooms. Blinking and looking around her, everything seemed normal. She couldn't see her breath; an upside. There were no dead bodies hanging from the ceiling; another upside. And she did have to pee. She walked further into the bathroom. Something wasn't right. Looking around, she saw a large crack going down the middle of the mirror. There was blood seeping from the crack. Using all of her courage, Annabelle got herself close enough to the crack to get a better look. The blood was already dry. There was nowehre for it to come from. She looked passed the crack, at her own reflection, and saw that of a girl standing behind her. She was a pale girl, very pale. She was wearing a long skirt, and a long sleeved button up shirt, buttoned all the way to her neck. She didn't talk, only stared. Annabelle didn't dare turn around. She exhaled slowly, trying to control her heart beat, and found that she could see her breath. Unlike the past times, though, she didn't actually feel the cold. She only saw it. With shaking legs, she turned around, astonished to see that the girl still stood before her.

Annabelle let out another shaking breath, giving a shaky hello. She had noticed immediately that she could see right through this girl. But one that worse was uttered, the girl threw her head back, emitting a scream powerful enough to chill even the deafest of ears. The room grew dark, and the girl was gone.

Annabelle's legs gave out in shock, and she found herself on the floor. Her brow was sweaty, her eyes were wide, her heart was pounding. Looking around and finding herself alone, she put a hand on the sink near her, and used it to lift herself up off the ground. Shakily grabbing her books, she stumbled out of the bathroom, down the hall, and out the front door. At the time, she had no idea that that hello would be the last word Annabelle ever uttered.

Annabelle tried to talk again. The fact that she couldn't speak worried her more then it worried her mother and siblings. She took out multiple books on sign language from her school library, and now spent hours upon hours of her afternoons learning how to tell her story. But she felt like she was running out of time. She felt like once her time was up, people would forget about her, and she'd just be another one of them.

She still had to go to school. She spent lunch time in the library, and spent class time in the back of the room, slouched in her chair. However, today she had come in late and gotten a seat in the front of the room. So when the teacher needed someone to run down to the office, Annabelle got chosen. She ran the errand, but on the way back, she felt a familiar tug towards the girls bathroom. She was used to these tugs, and had learned to ignore them, but this time it was stronger. She couldn't fight it. So she stopped trying and went into the bathroom.

It was a completely unfamiliar place. It was dark, but there was a light being emitted from the mirror. On the mirror she saw written words, written in blood. Dry blood. They were old words, in some other language that she didn't recognize. As she stood staring at them, the letters shifted and moved, until they were gone, and she was left staring at herself. But there was something different about her reflection, something that she didn't recognize. Her eyes were sunken in, leaving deep black rings like that of a ghost. She was pale, and cold. She reached out to touch her reflection, but dropped her hand when she saw the bony reflection reaching for her. Then she blinked, and it was gone. The reflection, and in it's place was just the background. She didn't see herself. But as she was staring and what was supposed to be her, the mirror lifted up, and crashed itself over her head. The glass shattered over her, and she fell to the floor, blood draining from her skull. Surely someone would find her now dead body, then scream and run for a teacher. But a curious thing happened. No one came in to use the bathroom that afternoon, but by the time the janitor wandered in to clean, the mirror was repaired, the blood was gone, and Annabelle's body was never to be seen. Ever.