The moon seemed strangely bright tonight. Its too-bright light embraced the droplets of water as they rushed over the mountain, only to find itself shattered into pieces as the water crashed and boomed on the rocks. How could anyone in the house by the waterfall sleep with this tragedy of love and destruction reverberating in their head all night long?
The house by the waterfall. It drew her. It whispered to her.
“Lilith.”, it whispered in soft sweet lullaby tones. “Lilith, come.”
“I am coming”, she answered, and began to walk. She was a lifeless marionette, and the house controlled her strings. It pulled her forward, promising warmth and light and love.
She reached the weed-choked yard and stood for a moment, observing the waterfall and its tragic love affair with the moonlight.
Poor moonlight. She knew what it was to be betrayed and shattered into a million tiny pieces.
“Lilith, come”, the house pleaded.
She shook the droplets of water from her mind and turned toward the house, the weeds and dead leaves crunching under her feet. The house wanted her.
A wind started up, carrying whispers over the shouts of the waterfall.
He can’t find out.
They all think I’m crazy. I’ll show them. I’ll show them who’s crazy.
I can’t take this much longer.
This will work, I know.
“Lilith, please hurry.”
The house called to her, promising to put all of her broken bits back together. She could have the water without the fall. All she had to do was come inside.
The door easily gave way and she stepped on to the hardwood floor. It creaked and groaned under her weight. The house was so cold. So very cold.
There was a little girl coming down the stairs. She was the one who was making it cold.
Lilith instantly hated her. The house loved her. The house wanted her to be warm. The girl was making it cold. She wanted it warm!
Suddenly a picture appeared in her mind – a picture of the house as it once had been. The fire had broken past the bounds of the fireplace, and it was very warm indeed.
Had the girl shown that to her?
“Was that you? That picture in my head? Were you here when that happened?”
The girl stood mutely in front of Lilith. She was cold, but her eyes burned.
Another image appeared in Lilith’s mind. It was Sarah, screaming and scared as the fire grew.
“Is the woman in the picture you showed me your mother?”
The girl walked by Lilith, looking at her with glowing eyes. She didn’t speak, but Lilith knew that the girl wanted her to follow.
She turned and followed the little girl out of the house. The cold also followed. Lilith shivered.
The little girl walked around the house and to the backyard. She was heading towards a circle of old stone.
It was so cold. So very very cold. As cold as the grave.
“Lilith! Lilith!”
For a little girl, she certainly had a deep voice. Maybe that’s why she didn’t talk much.
It was also a familiar voice.
She woke up suddenly, the familiar voice having called her back to reality.
“Lilith!”
“Jason, you are going to tell me what you’re doing here. Then you are going to give me your key. Then you are going to leave. Okay?”
“Lilith, Shannon’s dead.”
Wow! I wanted to say how absolutely amazing this chapter was. It genuinely freaked me out (in a good way).
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Wow. Eerie. This pictures were brilliantly done to capture the dream quality. I am in awe of your writing and your illustrating talents.
I know this isn’t the “legacy” yet, but it is excellent.
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So good! The pictures were amazing, you have major editing skills! And the little girl was uber creepy!
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Wow. You’re pictures are awesome!!! What program do you use to edit them??
Also, the story is so great. I love your writing style. It makes you want more and more…. Can’t wait to see what happened to Shannon!
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Well done! Very creepy, for sure, and I’m interested to find out what happens with Lilith, as well as what happened in the house by the waterfall! Excellent!
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Oh boy this was freaky…and creepy. Your writing was so suspenseful! And the shots…just stunning. Is that waterfall real? It glowed! And seeing it as Lilith walked in the house was…well I am in awe.
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Amazing photography work! Can’t wait till the next chapter 😀
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Can’t wait for the next chapter!
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Awesome! Can’t wait for the next chapter!
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oh and btw, I really think Lilith is beautiful. Will you upload her maybe?
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I will upload the characters after a while, yes. Thank you for the compliment. 🙂
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This is really good. I like your writing style and now I desperately want to know find out the secret to the mystery
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Woah I’m loving the story so far, this chapter felt really Silent Hill-ish it was proper creepy.
I’ve got to subscrie to this.
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Absolutely creepy and beautiful. Reminded me of some of my favorite horror/suspense movies. I have a guess about the little girl, but I’m keeping it to myself for now!
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So fabulous. Absolutely entralling. Can’t wait to read more!
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Still a great story. The stone circle is creepy, and I love what you’re doing to the pictures to make them old/spooky.
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swweeeeeet!
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This is incredible! I can’t wait until your next update 🙂
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WHOA!!!!!! This is like the best story I’ve ever read XD And you’re a pro at editing pictures!
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I just found this story today & this is as far as I got.
WOW this is so great. It sucked me right in & your writing talent blows my mind! I can’t wait to get to the bottom of this mystery!
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I felt like I was behind Lilith! Amazing job just amazing. It kind of freaked me out. That girl, the shots just amazing. This would make such a great movie!
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The stone circle kinda reminded me of The Ring movie and that well and stuff.
Oober creapy chapter, I have goosbumps and that little girl was totally angry looking. And damn Jason for waking her up I wanted to know what was gonna happen, lol
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Woah! This chapter was spooky, and full of tension
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Oh. My. God. I am blown away! I love the images and how they are presented! You were right, this is a chapter worth calling a favorite!
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Thank you! I do quite like Nightmare still – most of the other earlier ones are a bit painful to read now. But Nightmare is good, I think. 🙂
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This chapter gives me the urge to say, “I see dead people.”
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LOL. 🙂 The Sixth Sense is my preferred kind of horror movie, after all.
Thank you for reading and commenting. 🙂
OMG, just realized this was Nightmare and not the one I just published tonight. Nightmare, yeah – I can see that.
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That was a great chapter! It actually scared me a little bit and the pics were terrific!
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Ah yes. Nightmare is a general favorite. 🙂 The next to most recent chapter is also a surreal dream chapter, although the dream is very different.
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Love this chapter!
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I love this chapter. I know every single one of them are amazing, like you, but this is so cool. Maybe you could make another one that looked a bit like this one? With all the cool photography I mean. By the way, how long did this even take you? Looks like a while. I edit pics… and sometimes it takes up to a day to get just one batch finished. GEEZ! Keep writing! You are amazing!!!!
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This one is indeed cool. 🙂
As for making another like Nightmare – Lilith isn’t going to sleep again before the end. But it is very much a heavy influence on the current update and I think probably on the next one. We’ll see how the next one wants to go.
I can’t remember how long Nightmare took. I know that I had the draft window for Night open for 10 hours, but I was eating and surfing the net and stuff too.
The more recent ones tend to average six to eight hours -counting time to eat and surf and stuff like that.
Thank you, and I do plan to keep writing. I think that after the end of the Sims Valley, I’ll keep this blog up and post on occasion about the progress of the non-Sims version.
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Really fabulous. It was pretty scary too. I thought that the girl was going to lure her to the well, but she woke up.
By the way how did you manage to do such a good work with the photos. Everything looks ghostly, even the furniture, and the surroundings.
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You actually won’t see the stone circle again until the update I’m currently working on. So I promise I didn’t forget about it. It just didn’t come up in getting from here to where I currently am.
Thank you.
As for those pictures – it’s the magic of saved camera angles, moveobjects on, and layers with different opacity. 🙂
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That was so awesome it has left me speechless!
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I just re-read this chapter to remember the stone circle from your last update, and now that I do remember it totally creeps me out.
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LOL! 😉 I totally didn’t know how it’d end up when I did this chapter. It just sort of popped into my head.
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Oooh wow am loving the back history of the waterfall house and great work on the photos for the dream with the ghosts! Brilliant!
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“She reached the weed-choked yard and stood for a moment, observing the waterfall and its tragic love affair with the moonlight.”
That was a lovely line!
Well… here I am commenting. I’m really loving the story so far, but I’m going to stop here for now. I don’t like things to be over too quickly. ^_^; Especially when I’m enjoying them this much.
I did take a look at your “I Am Not Goopy!!!” story, too. That’s what lead me here in the first place. I really love the concept, but zombieness freaks me out. o.o; Apologies.
I’m looking forward to reading more of this story, though. ^_^
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Yay!
I did worry about you reading my stuff. I tend to be, well, sort of violent and dark. But then I guess you looked at the story index and saw the chapter titles and so you’d be forewarned that this is a pretty dark story.
Gunky is fun, but Valley – ah, Valley was art. I love it so much and I’m still mourning it months after finishing it. So I certainly don’t mind you reading it instead. 🙂
I’ve always been conflicted about this chapter – it’s certainly a very important chapter, plot wise. And I do like the writing. But that one paragraph dances very close to the border of purple.
I’ve gone back and edited some of the earlier chapters. Guess I need to edit this one at some point.
But yay I’m glad that you like it so far and I hope you continue to like it despite it being dark. I love it so much. So very much. *huggles Valley*
Going to stop now or I’ll cry. God I miss this story.
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I don’t mind dark, exactly. I’m just very sensitive to blood and gore type stuff. ^_^; I actually like subtle, psychological creepiness and things like that. Not all darkness is bad.
But anyways, I’m going to read a bit more now. ^_^
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Ah. Then read on. 🙂 Valley is all about subtle psychological darkness and doesn’t have any blood or gore. I’d say more about that but it’d be a spoiler at this point in the story. 🙂
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Ooh – that was chilling. I love how it seemed like a dream. Things seemed weird to us, the readers, and we could tell her thoughts were jumbled, but as in a dream, she doesn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary.
Sorry if that didn’t make sense – it’s 1 am here. I should be getting to hrs. 🙂
FortA
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You know, Nightmare is still one of my favorite chapters. I do love my surreal updates. 🙂
What you said about the dream made me think of Inception. 🙂 Have you seen it yet? It plays a lot on that theme, of dreams being jumbled and weird but normal to you while you’re dreaming them. So yeah, it made sense to me.
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Yes, I have seen Inception. It was AWESOME, no doubt!
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Oh and Medley – I’m taking a break from blogging. I’ve actually been through like 5 blogs in two months and lost each one to various glitches. I have a new computer, but I just don’t have the “want to” to continue blogging, for now. I posted about it on my “main” page, which you can access through my file. I will continue reading and commenting on favorite blogs – one of which is yours now *high fives medley*
So all that to say – there won’t be a first chapter for the Hutherfords. At least not for a LOOONG while. 😦
FortA
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Oh…and by “file” on my above comment, I meant “user profile.” I was actually doing some filing at my desk and guess i got sidetracked?
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Whoa, yeah – that’s a lot of blogs. I don’t doubt you’re a bit burned out.
I think readership has gone down all around – I don’t dare show my stats graph by month or year, because that would kill me. I’ll stick with the daily graph, thanks.
I have to say though, even that post shows writing talent and skill at putting sentences together. When you do feel like blogging again, I’ll definitely be reading.
Enjoy your break. I took a bit of a one after finishing Valley and one of my friends described it as getting my fun meter back into the green. So – have fun, and I hope to see more from you in the future. And also comments. 🙂 Can’t wait to see what you think of the later chapters and of 10. And Gunky, if you want to read it. I’ll update it again next month – feel free to contribute to it when I do.
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I certainly will! I’m actually off to read 10 as we speak (or is it type?).
Oh, and thanks for your words of encouragement – always nice to get those. I’ve actually been playing around on Sims 3, starting various stories and challenges, sketching out backgrounds, etc., trying to see if I get a “feel” for any of them. There’s actually one I’m thinking about (I haven’t started, but I like the concept), so I may be back sooner than I thought. If I can get it to work out – reconciling creativity with the actual game can be harder than coming up with the actual story, you know?
Well, I’m off to read 10! Good night!
FortA
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Beautifully done chapter. I can almost hear the eerie must playing during Lilith’s nightmare. I’m wondering if the stone circle is actually the grave of the little girl and perhaps her mother. Or maybe not if they burned in the fire… I guess I will have to continue reading to find out!
P.S. Poor Shannon!!
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Thank you! Even now, all these years later, it’s still one of my favorites. And it became hugely important and later chapters refer back it to quite heavily.
The stone circle is referred to again, although it ended up being completely different than I thought it would be when I wrote this. You’ll see. 😉
Shannon was pretty cool, for the short time I knew her. She’s Claire Ursine’s daughter, actually – you know how Claire is pregnant when you start the game?
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If only Claire knew what the future had in store for her daughter… 😛
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Omg! I guess someone really doesn’t want the information known. Best luck to Lilith.
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*hugs* You are so innocent. I like it. 🙂
Thank you! I hope you enjoy Lilith’s journey!
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Okay, time to check out the rest of your stories now. 🙂 (but maybe only after I’ve slept. It’s getting way too late). Anyway, this is interesting, and I liked the dream sequence in this. It was a lot of fun.
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Oh my gosh! Thank you!
Valley is old, but I love it. And Nightmare is one of my favorite chapters. 🙂
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It’s great that you can still like your older writing, especially when it’s this good! I myself am usually too harsh on my own older work.
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This chapter was the perfect combination between eerie and spine-chillingly creepy. I wonder what happened. A fire and the death of two people at least… and the little girl… is she Seth’s and Sarah’s? I guess I’ll have to stop asking inane questions and keep reading. Uh oh! Shannon’s dead? Lilith’s boss? Something is very fishy here.
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This is one of my favorite chapters. Even after all these years I don’t cringe at it too very much. 😉
Yep, she is Seth and Sarah’s! 🙂
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