It was a sad time in my life. I haven't been able to sleep for the past three days. I couldn’t figure out if it was because Granny Althea had passed or because of these nightmares that plagued my subconscious, every time I managed to fall asleep. They had been going on since my arrival in Port Hope.

Sitting on the window bench, I found myself surrounded by antique furniture, the silk sheers of my canopy bed flowing in the breeze that entered my room, through my opened window. The smell of the ocean filling my nose, the darkness invading my room as the slightest sliver of moonlight shone through my window, illuminating my now paled skin. Granny Althea was all I had left and now, she was gone.

She had raised me as one of her own since the age of sixteen, when my parents had left me at home with one of my girlfriends, for a benefit. Sadly, they never made it back home. They died in a head-on collision with an eighteen wheeler. The driver had fallen asleep at the wheel. That’s when I was shipped out to Port Hope permanently, to live with Granny. I loved visiting Port Hope when I was a child, especially after I had met the little boy that lived next door; Christian. Christian Masterson was my best friend throughout the summer months when I came to stay with Granny Althea until I stopped visiting shortly after I turned eleven. I never knew why we had never gone back, only that we had never bothered to keep in touch. Actually, I don't think we even thought that there would be a time where we wouldn't be seeing one another again.

When I came to live with Granny, after my parents’ fateful submission to death, I was excited and hopeful to find out that Christian still lived next door. I still remember the day I had decided to go over and say hello after five long years of being away. At least I was able to get adjusted with one friend. Or so I thought...

Knock, knock… The door swung open and I found myself staring into the most beautiful bright green eyes I hadn't seen in so long.

“Yeah?” He tells me as he eyes me up and down.

“Uhm…” I began.

“What do you want?” He smirks at me with an air of arrogance.

“Uhm…” I repeated. God, he must be thinking I’m a complete idiot. I thought to myself as I shifted on my feet, grabbing my necklace and fiddling with it nervously. I saw those green eyes flicker with annoyance and the front door slamming in my face. I stood there, dumbfounded and shocked that Christian had failed to recognize me. Aside from those beautiful bright green eyes, the chiseled chest, the strong jaw-line, the guy was now a big jerk. At that moment, he had come off that way, anyway.

The following week, school was starting and I dreaded it. What with being the new kid in school and it being a tiny town in which everyone knew everyone else and their business, I was dreading the task of feeling comfortable, making friends and adjusting to this new life. Sure, I had always loved Port Hope, don’t get me wrong, but that was back when I had a friend I could lean on. That friend, at the moment, was a complete loss of my time apparently; seeing as he couldn’t be bothered remembering me. And so, I found myself facing the next two years of high-school being the quiet, misunderstood and painfully shy beauty of a girl that people whispered about in jealousy and envy, trying to always figure me out. Their opinion of me was that I was a stuck-up rich brat. Rich, yeah... Brat, not so much.

After suffering through the dramas of high-school, I moved back to the city and headed to university. I got my degree majoring in General Arts, with a minor in Interior Design and opened my own business as a Home and Business Design Consultant with the help of the inheritance my parents had left me after they had died. I enjoyed a successful couple of years working in the field until, one day, nearly five months ago, I got the call from Mrs. Masterson, Christian’s mother, telling me that something happened to Granny Althea and that I best be on my way. Mrs. Masterson didn't sound optimistic and the thought of loosing my one remaining relative terrified me.

I had immediately closed up my shop, with every intention on coming back and move on with my life. Leaving a letter of apology to my clients in my shop window, I high-tailed it to Port Hope. My dearest Granny, my whole world rested with her. She was my rock. She had pushed me out of the house and urged me to go off to college and live my dreams. No one can stop you but yourself. Fear is your worst enemy, Sweetheart. Don’t let it stop you. She used to say. Needless to say, I found her in a bed at Saint-Agatha’s Hospital; her address for the next few days, until the doctors deemed her well enough to return home at which point, I would assume the responsibility of caring for her. And that’s when I realized that there was no way I was leaving Port Hope any time soon. Granny was sick and I’d be damned if I left her to suffer alone. She was the only family I had and vice versa. She had taken care of me, all of these years after my parents unfortunate demise; the least I could do was take care of her in return.

It wasn’t until a few weeks after my return to Port Hope that I had gone for a walk on the beach, up the street from Granny's. As I watched the sun set, I couldn't help the feeling that I was now home. I had made up my mind. My dream in the city was coming to an end, for the time being anyway and I was making my move to Port Hope, permanent. I figured that I could live my dream anywhere. Port Hope could be small but there was definite potential for clientele.

And so, after four months, give or take, Granny succumbed to congestive heart failure. I found myself wondering what I was to do next with myself. I knew that Granny wouldn’t have wanted me to stick around the house moping; she would have wanted me to get out there, make her proud and live life to its fullest whether it meant for me to find the man I deserved, set up roots, to have a family and live my happily ever after. She had left me her old Victorian mansion, her money, all of her worldly possessions when all I wanted was her. Was that all too much to ask? She had given me the world and now, the world took her away too quickly and much too easily. I felt abandoned to say the least. Tomorrow was going to be a long and sad day. The day for goodbyes was quickly arriving.

I got up from the window bench and crawled back into my bed, where I wrapped my blankets around me, shivering out of sheer cold emptiness rather than true cold. My eyes closed and not too long after, the dark cloak of slumber overtook me.

I stood there, in the dark. Unable to make out my surroundings when I began to feel a hand on my arm. Ice cold fingers latching onto my skin, making it crawl. Frozen to the ground I stood on, I felt a cool breath on the back of my neck which only deepened the ever growing chill within my bones. I couldn't shake the sense of familiarity.

“What do you want?” I urged the presence. As I waited for an answer to come, an ever so clear voice spoke inside my head, resonating, making me shiver in fear, rather than cold.

“You.” As I felt my panic mounting to a boiling point, I realized that my ability to move had finally returned and I began running. I ran down what appeared to be a hall filled with doors. At the other end, there stood Granny with my parents on either side of her, urging me to move forward, to hurry as I found myself free falling all of a sudden...