fireflies and waterfalls

TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of suicide, depression, death, and rape. Do not read if you can not handle these topics. Also this book is meant to be slightly a horror novel.



this book is about a sixteen year old girl named Victoria who moved into a small town for a fresh start after her mother died. Little did she know what would go down in the town. Mysterious disappearances that can't be explained. An untraceable virus? Victoria and her two other friends try to get to the bottom of it.



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epilogue:

  Dad would always say that our mom used to take me to the waterfall when I was a kid.



  I don't really remember this of course. I was only four when she did, but we would catch fireflies and she'd tell me I was her beautiful Angel. When my brother got old enough she would take him there since I felt I was too old to catch fireflies and play in the water. I do have memories of my mother, it's only been eight months since she's passed. I'm sixteen now and unlike most girls my age who go out and do drugs do to peer pressure with their friends, I've been home schooled for the past eleven years due to my mother thinking the bullying would lead to depression later in life. I don't have friends or anyone to talk to. My mother was my only friend and now she's gone.



  It's not like I can look for any comfort nor company in my father now these days. He's been a ghost since mom passed. Meaninglessly roaming around the house bumping into things as he goes, not really paying attention to what he's doing. My brother is too young to deal with this type of loss being only six. I know that dad tries his best with us in the sense of being there, but no matter how many fake smiles he puts on I still hear him crying in his room some nights. With that being said I'm the one who does the comforting in my family and together, yet alone, we cry.



  I thought it was going to be like this for the rest of our lives. I never planned to move out at eighteen because I didn't want to leave my father here alone to rot. A shell of his former self slowly decaying along with the house. With my little brother being motherless and pretty much fatherless I had to learn to be a parent and raise him the best that I can. I'm guessing my dad had different plans. He burst into my room early one morning without warning.



"I need you to pack you and your brother's stuff. We're leaving to Oregon. Please pack as light as possible. You'll have time to choose what you want to keep or leave because you have two weeks."



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Cover artist: Roxanne Jane Black

insta: roxanne.janeblack