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Joseph was about the girl's age who was a college student in their local university. His parents both served the Livinggood home and now whenever he was free, he would serve them as a stable boy. It was only because of his love towards horses. 

He desperately wanted one of his own, a white one, but because he was unable to afford it, he used to come and stand the stable as if the three horses and the other ones, was his own. And the girls trusted their horses with Joseph only.

Joseph knew about their escapade through his father who used to open the stable for the girls at night. He had four sons and his dream of having a baby girl stayed a dream, thus his love towards the Livinggood girls was well used by the girls.

Ever since Joseph saw Lucy, Em and Katie saw the butter melting. However being the good old Lucy, she never realized it.

Whenever Em teased her for having a soft heart around her, she would scold Em for her wild thoughts. Lucy never saw him like that; only as a brother and a friend but that was where Em got wilder. She would always say being a friend is the first step of love. Lucy never saw the end of it.

Thus, coming back after closing the gate of the last stable door, he lost all colors to see Lucy falling down unconscious. Within a blink of an eye, he was near to her, taking her into his hands.

"What happened?" he shakily whispered.

"We got lost and the horses ran through a forest to get here. Lucy screamed, and I think she must have got bit or scratched by something." Em exclaimed anxiously.

Katie was silent. She was always like this. When she was angry or confused, she would be silent, unlike Em who would get feral. Katie ripped of Lucy's sleeve after removing the hoodie and jumped when Em cried out seeing the amount of blood.

"Be quiet," Katie said harshly but nothing could console the fidgety Em.

"Oh my God, oh my God..." Em repeated like a tune that gets stuck in our mind but would get irritating after too many repetitions. Kat just wanted to mute Em.

"Would you be quiet?" Kat said once again to Em.

"It looks like something scratched her but why would she fall unconscious?" Kat said to Joseph.

"May be what scratched her was something allergic or poisonous," Joseph said looking at Lucy's pale face.

"I think we should let our parents know," Kat said.

Em, who was until now going in circles, cried out and exclaimed "What? No, no, no..."

Katie knew why Em got anxious. Because of her wild nature, everyone will blame her for doing something rash. She bit her nails. Joseph saw her nervousness and said, "Don't worry, my uncle is a doctor. I will get him. He lives close by but what would we tell him? He is a very strange man; he will know when we are lying."

"Bring him, we will tell him the truth. It's only two in the morning, we have plenty of time. But make haste and tell him not to tell this to a soul apart from us." Katie said. Joseph nodded his head and head out with Cookie. Black slightly whined.

Em was still pacing nervously and it was a miracle that there was no hole in the ground by now. Kat patted Lucy's face but she didn't open her eyes. Kat asked Em to fetch some water but Em just stared blankly at Lucy.

"Oh dear, sometimes I think you are just a hollow Looney who acts like a stuffed lion." Kat scolded Em as she put Lucy slowly down on the grass and fetched to the tap next to the stable doors to get some water.

"What is that even supposed to mean?" Kat always said puzzling things when she was extremely angry and nervous. It seems like sometimes it has a meaning but most times, it sounded gibberish.

"Deem what you must!" Kat said pointedly and Em shut her mouth. If there was someone in this world that could shut Em, then it was Kat.

Kat cleaned the wound carefully. Then sprinkled some water on Lucy who gasped awake with a start, sitting back down, looking here and there, wondering what just happened?

"What happened?" Lucy asked as she took the tumbler from Kat and drank to quench her thirst.

"You fainted. We reached back home. What happened? There was blood on your hands." Em showered questions and statements in a rush of breath.

Lucy shook her head and said, "What blood? I don't feel anything on my hands."

To show her, Em lighted the torch on the mobile on her arms where Lucy clutched before she fell unconscious. Em gasped. Katie was away keeping the bucket and the tumbler down when she heard the gasp and ran back to them. Thank nature; it was a full moon, thought Kat.

What Kat saw was Em twisting Lucy's hand this way and that to see the wound; she exclaimed, "Careful..." and she sat down next to Lucy. Her eyes widened like the full moon to see no wound on her hands.

Without saying anything, she just sat down with her hands supporting the ground behind her and stretched her long legs. Lucy folded her legs and sat straight asking Em all sorts of question. Em was busy making a hole in the ground giving Lucy exaggerated answers.

After thirty minutes, they heard the horse and looked up to see a grumpy looking man behind Joseph. He jumped down with a frown and looked at the three girls.

"Where is the unconscious one?"

Joseph was dumbfounded and looked at Lucy, then said, "It was her". The man came down to examine her and asked her few basic questions. Even Joseph saw the blood, so to see her hands without any wound just made him feel as if someone slapped him on both cheeks repeatedly.

"I don't see anything wrong with her as of now, but if you have any pain or any sort of uneasiness, come to my office in the morning," he emphasized the last word and said, "Not at this ungodly hour. I just came back a few hours ago after a complicated surgery and there he was, banging on my door." He grumpily grumbled.

"I am sorry," Lucy said meekly.

Everyone used to fall for Lucy's charm. Everyone used to love her sweet manners and usage of words. Everyone was very fond of her. And thus, the grumpy doctor was no different, listening to her sweet apology actually made him smile. And he was a man who smiled less. He waved to Joseph to take him home and off he went.

The girls slowly walked back to their mansion. It looks like it was about to be sunrise and as expected it was four in the morning. They knew nanny would have had the backdoor opened by now but still they climbed the tree to their room and tiredly fell on their beds.

They couldn't ever utter good night to each other.

As they slipped into undisturbed dreamless sleep, Lucy saw two blue piercing eyes looking at her from the doorways. Too weak to even peek, Lucy fell asleep.

Morning came even before they could believe and the gong for breakfast felt like hammers thumping on their ears. Groggily Katie got up and looked around. She was astonished to see daylight streaming in through their curtains. They didn't close it yesterday.

Katie yawned loudly and nudged Em first before calling Lucy. She was careful around her. Katie couldn't understand what happened yesterday but something did happen and she wasn't a fool to not believe her eyes. She had seen blood. She had felt it on her sleeves too but when they inspected it after cleaning, there wasn't any. How could that happen?

Slowly she went and took off the covers from her body and looked at the hands. There wasn't anything. But suddenly something materialized on her hands and it started to form zigzag patterns on her best friend's hand. Horrified, Katie gasped and held her hands in her mouth. Blood oozed out in a steady rhythm and she felt her breath going abnormally. Her heart beat wildly.

Katie stared at Lucy's porcelain hand being a canvas for crimson color and suddenly Lucy stirred to wake up feeling cold. Katie was looking at Lucy stupefied. Out of the blue, Lucy sat up. Her piercing glare scared Katie. Nothing has ever scared Katie this much before.

"Lu... Lucy..." her stammering sound was the only thing she could hear apart from her beating heart.

Lucy slowly raised her hands and pointed something behind Katie. Holding her breath, slowly, Katie turned unaware of what Lucy was pointing at. Unable to keep her breath any longer, Katie turned around swiftly to see nothing but as she completed a three sixty degree turn, Katie came face to face with a black eyed Lucy with many cuts and rotten flesh on her face.

Her once beautiful face was masked with such ugliness that Katie screamed. She screamed like someone was attacking her. She screamed loudly enough to let the horses out of the stables running for their life. She could hear some gongs going on from somewhere far and suddenly Lucy was at her throat, choking her powerfully. Katie felt as if the gongs were getting nearer, trying to kill her. She screamed as she could with the powerful hands laced around her throat like a choker necklace.

"You will regret it," Lucy screamed in her ears and Katie fell down with one final scream enough to rattle the windows.

Suddenly cold water droplets kissed Katie's face and she got up squinting. Em, Lucy, nanny and her parents along with everyone else were standing by her bed. She looked at them and looked at Lucy with a questioning glare but soon recovered.

"I am sorry, it was a very bad nightmare," Katie said rubbing her eyes.

"You scared us." Her father said devoid of emotion and that was the first time she saw her father after coming from the university. She looked at him for one long minute and then turned to her mother. She gave her a glass of water and Katie drunk it.

Seeing Katie like this made Lucy the most restless. Once again that bad feeling began crawling in the pit of her stomach and she couldn't ignore it this time, unlike the first.