Fifteen Years Ago:
February 18, 1995
Dear Diary,
Today I, Gregory P. Dergam, have completed my animation potion. I hope I’ll be able to wreak havoc with it, or better yet make myself a wife from one of those delicious female mannequins. This accomplishment….
Gregory lifted up his pen, quietly considering what to write down next. He had done it! His joyfulness could not be concealed, no matter how hard he tried. Diabolical laughs kept escaping from his lips.
“Gregory, come down here! Dinner is ready,” yelled a strong man-like female voice from below him. “Don’t you make me angry, Mister.”
“Ugh…. What a simpleton mother I have,” he thought to himself. “Twenty-two years old, a graduate from Cambridge, a major contributor to many fundraisers, and this is the respect I get, stuck with a freak that won’t let me move out unless I pay her one-million dollars. I’d sooner starve to death than have a peaceful meal with that beast,” he spat. “Thankfully, that’ll soon be over. My serum will make sure of that. Till then, I’ll just have to ignore that fool.”
Pretending to be unaware of his mother, Gregory continued to write about the serum, which lied on the same table as his diary. As soon as he heard stomping coming from the stairs, he became even more absorbed in his work, hoping the creep would abandon trying to get him to eat dinner with her or, according to Gregory, more like it.
Much to Gregory’s dismay, the woman burst into the room full of anger, almost breaking off the hinges of the door. She must have been the most masculine ugly female to have ever walked the Earth or anywhere beyond it. She was even more hideous than a mutated Muk.
“Gregory!” she screamed. “What gives you the right to disobey your mother? Do you not want to be fed? Do you wish to starve to death? You foolish little man. You dare ignore me? Answer me already!”
“But mother, I didn’t hear you,” he lied. “I was too busy working on my animation serum!”
“Here’s what I think of your stupid…. Whatever that thing is,” she madly said as she picked up the glass bottle of serum and smashed it against the hard brick wall. “What did you think, I was talking to the wall?”
With a clever idea for revenge forming in Gregory’s mind, he responded in a calm tone, “Actually, yes I did. Why don’t you give it its punishment?”
Surprised at such a strange comment, she sarcastically said, “Sure. Let’s give the “wall” its punishment.” After her words, she gave the wall a powerful kick, causing a huge gaping hole in the direct center of the wall. “Now as for you Gregory”, she started but got interrupted by a strange whispering sound from behind her.
The noise, at first, was quiet and incomprehensible. Over time, it kept getting louder and easier to make out. Eventually, it echoed so loudly that it was obvious it meant to say, “She hurt us. Let her suffer. She hurt us. Let her suffer.” It kept saying those words over and over.
The woman got extremely frightened, almost to the point of heart attack. She backed up against the wall, but then it happened. The wall started to absorb her, rip her to shreds. Then she disappeared. The whispering died down.
“Serves her right,” Gregory started to think. “Of course, now my genius got wasted on a stupid wall, but I could always make another. Thankfully, that monstrosity is out of my life for good.”
Suddenly, the whispering started up again. This time, it started off loud. It said, “He told her to do it. Let him suffer. He told her to do it. Let him suffer.” Again, it repeated itself continuously, angrily.
Knowing what was going to happen, Gregory tensed up. Without a moment’s hesitation, he charged out the window, dropping to his yard three stories below him. He broke a few bones, but ultimately escaping from a devastating doom.
Present Day:
“Dad, do we really have to move into this dump of a house?”
“Yes we do, Tasha. We’ve been over this. I’ve gotten an unexpected job proposal here, and this happens to be the cheapest house I could get on such short notice. We have no other options.”
“Fine, but I won’t like it,” Tasha moaned as she gloomily stared out of the broken window of her new room.
“Nor do I, young one, nor do I,” her dad replied in an equally gloomy tone. “Now I know this is hard for you, moving away from your friends and all, but we can make this work. Why don’t you make your way to the park down the street? I’m sure you’ll meet some other girls your age there.”
“Sure. I guess. Whatever,” Tasha grumbled while she started moving toward the door.
“Wait,” her dad suddenly shouted. “While your out, can you pick up the can of quick-dry cement I ordered? We’ll need it to patch up the hole in your room. You can find the shop I ordered it from, Builder’s Mayhem, right across the road from that park I told you about.”
“Yeah, sure,” Tasha replied as her spirits started to perk up, realizing she could get out of the hideous house. “I’ll be back in a bit.” Without even waiting for a response, she rushed down the stairs and out of the door as fast as she could.
When Tasha arrived at the park, it appeared to be deserted. Noticing monkey bars in the far corner, she thought, “No one’s here? Might as well go on those bars over there. I don’t want to waste the trip."
Tasha hustled over to the monkey bars, screaming when something dropped from behind her. “Ha, ha,” said a feminine voice, coming from the figure that had dropped. “I scared you, didn’t I?”
“Yes, I guess you did,” Tasha remarked, trying to make herself seem less foolish. “I’m Tasha, I just moved here. Who are you?”
“It’s nice to meet you. My name’s Jessie, but everyone calls me Jay. Wait a minute, what do you mean you just moved here? I thought all the houses were sold? Well, all except for old Dawollives, but that doesn’t count.”
Curiously wondering if that was where she now resided, Tasha asked, “What’s Dawollives? Why isn’t it occupied? Did something horrible happen there?”
“Pft, you can say that all right.” Jay remarked. “Word on the street is the house’s owners mysteriously vanished without a trace fifteen years ago, leaving only a broken window and a fist-sized hole in the wall. On that day, a shouting voice could be heard saying something like, “Dawollives” over and over again, hence the name “Dawollives.”
“Oh my Arceus,” Tasha exclaimed. “That must be where I moved to! I’ve got a broken window and a dent in my wall! Do you know where I could more information about it?”
“Great! You like Pokemon,” Jay exclaimed. “Anyways, my boyfriend, Noah, seems to know a lot about it. Maybe he could tell you more about it.”
“Sure, where can I find him?”
“How about I bring him here tomorrow to meet you at around…. Let’s say about five before noon.” Noticing that the sun was dropping quickly, Jay said, “It’s getting kind of late. See you tomorrow? Well if you survive the night that is,” joked Jay.
“See you tomorrow,” Tasha confirmed, while Jay dashed off to the distance. “Well, better go get that cement,” she thought.
“Dad, I got the cement,” Tasha yelled into the empty house. “Dad? Dad, where are you?” Getting increasingly worried that something had gone horribly wrong, Tasha bounded up the stairs with surprising speed.
After a while on the stairs, she began to hear a strange perplexing moaning sound. The words slipped past the standard of Tasha’s comprehension limit. Although it was hard to catch a grasp on the specific characters of the words, it sounded similar to what Jay had called this place. “Dawollives, Dawollives.”
Immediately checking her room, she got a nasty surprise. Indented in the wall was the outline of her father’s face. The shape of his lips started to move as his voice enveloped through the room. “Taaakkshhaaaaa!! Roooouuuun!! Dawollives!!” The walls started shimmering, as if a major heat wave flowed through the room. Then the indentation evaporated into thin air.
Tasha then let out a large screech, about fifteen times louder than the one she let slip earlier at the monkey bars. “She hurt our ears. Let her suffer.” Scared out of her wits, Tasha threw the bucket of cement onto the floor and charged out of the already damaged window, unhurt but slipping out of consciousness the moment she hit the ground.
“Are you all right, Tasha,” came a familiar voice. As Tasha’s senses started to perk up, she noticed Jay and a nicely dressed boy kneeling over her.
“Stop pestering her, Jay,” said the soothing voice of the boy. “She’ll wake up when she’s ready.”
“Oh, shut up, Noah. Why do you think a little coaxing won’t hurt?”
“Ugh….” Tasha groaned. “I think the wall lives….”
“What about Dawollives,” the boy known as Noah quickly jumped in.
“I don’t think she said “Dawollives,” Noah. It sounded more like “the wall lives” to me.”
“Wait you don’t think….” Noah and Jay exclaimed at the same time.
“Yes, that’s what Dawollives meant. It’s a warning,” Tasha interrupted as she lifted herself off the ground. “So you’re Noah, I presume?”
“Why yes, Noah R. Dergam at your service. Me and Jay were um…”
“I already told her we were going out, Noah. And for such a sophisticated boy, you used improper grammar? Jeez.”
“Hey! Well in that case, we were out dating and we heard a scream. We came rushing to where it came from. What happened?”
Tasha then described to the couple exactly what had happened. She got lots of gasps from Jay, but Noah remained silent.
“So my dad was right,” he muttered. “Jay, go get my dad and bring him here. Tasha, come upstairs with me to investigate. I want to see your room first hand.”
“Do you really want to do it, Noah? According to Tasha, it could be dangerous,” Jay worried.
“Just go get him,” he yelled. Hurt, Jay ran into the distance. “What are you waiting for, Tasha? Let’s go!”
The room was just as Tasha left it. The cement lied on the floor next to an odd diary. “What’s this book on the ground? It wasn’t here before,” Tasha observed.
“Let me see,” Noah ordered as he grabbed it out of her hands. “Oh god, this is my dad’s!”
“You called for me,” his dad said as he walked into the room.
At that moment, the whispering started up again. “He’s back. Let him suffer.” Everyone in the room tensed up.
Tasha got frightened the most. Out of fear, she screamed and chucked the cement at the wall. It hit the wall precisely at the dent, completely healing its brokenness. “Thank you,” came the whisper, finally at peace.
Then two figures fell from the ceiling. One was Tasha’s father landing gracefully onto the floor. The other one was an obese lady that lande right on top of Gregory, Noah’s father. “And that, Noah, is why you never disobey your Grandma.”
