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*12 years later*
Anna pelted through the forest, her feet irregular and her breath forced. The beast behind her snarled as it gave chase, faster than a car and twice as deadly. Anna ran, jumping over roots and gliding over leaves. She knew she was going to die, knew that this would be the last time she would breath and she knew who would miss her.
Anna turned sharply hoping to lose the creature in the trees it didn’t work; in fact it made the whole thing worse, the beast cut through the trees, Anna could hear the rustling of the leaves.
Then everything went quiet.
Anna walked slowly through the trees, stitch in her side made every movement painful. She was tense but still felt safer than she had in what felt like years, but had actually been five minutes.
Then something swung down from the trees, its legs hooked around braches it dangled in front of her face and roared.
It was dead, that was evident by the fact that it had no skin, red stained the outside of its lips, a ginger mane of head came out from its head and the skirt of a red coat hung down. Black boots encased its feet and tight black skirt and waist coat going over a white shirt made its body look even thinner.
It swung down with grace and style. Walked over to Anna and pinned her against a tree, its fingers so sharp that it ripped her top that she had been wearing that night. The beast roared one more time. Anna flinched back waiting for the final strike, she felt the beast let go of her, probably wanting to get a better aim.
After five minutes, Anna opened her eyes, and looked into nothing, no one was there, she looked around, and the only prints in the ground were hers. She must have been day dreaming. She straitened the arm of her top, and then held back the screams as she felt the place where it was ripped open by fingers oh so sharp.
Jessica skellington Watched Anna ran out of the forest at full pelt, clutching her arm. Jessica reached into the pocket of her coat pulled out a mirror, and redid her lipstick, she then reached into her pocket and pulled out a bat bow, she fixed into her hair, making sure it did not mess up her two bangs. She knew she wasn’t meant to be here, but she needed to stretch her wings, she took out her phone from the deepest reaches of her pockets in her coat and checked the time, she had twenty minutes to get home, just great. Jessica began to rhythmically beat her wings, lifting her into the air she flew, faster and faster she knew she had to slow down quick or she would break the sound barrier…again.
Fifteen minutes later Jessica ran into the town square, dashed up the steps to her house unlocked the door and ran in.
“And you have been?” Jack called out from the kitchen.
“Scaring” Jessica replied
“Had fun?” Carlos came down the stairs to meet his sister, he had brown hair with a splash of red in the middle now, and he had also lost all the skin on one of his forearms and wore black trousers white shirt and an orange and black coat with no sleeves.
“Yes” Jessica instantly regretted saying that. Her father stormed out of the kitchen fixing her to the spot with a glare that could have destroyed an army.
“And how many people did you manage to scare?” Jessica knew her father wasn’t actually interested, she knew whatever she said would be processed, and turned against her. She thought about it then said.
“About hundred” Jessica looked at her father, trying to make it look as though she wasn’t scared of him.
“That many, in half an hour?” Jessica nodded. “Look,” jack looked down at Jessica as he spoke “I know the real world is fun, but you know we had guests today.” Jessica’s face gave him all the answer he needed to know. “I forgot to tell you?”
“Yes” Jessica rolled her head, “oh well, who is it anyway?”
“uncle Bonejangles” Jack clapped his hands over his non-existent ears to try and block out Jessica’s whoop of delight, Bonejangles was actually not even the slightest bit related to jack, but they were such good friends that they were like brothers, just without the DNA connection. So Jessica and Carlos had always known him as uncle Bonejangles or Uncle Jangles for short.
“When is he gonna be here?” Jessica asked, exited as a twelve year old can get.
“Soon and well…” Jack trailed off
“Yes” Jessica prompted her father to finish
“There were three children, they were killed, and Uncle Bonejangles took them in when they came to the land of the dead”
“So I have cousins now? In a way”
“In a way yes” jack hoped Jessica wouldn’t take this badly, she had always been very attached to Bonejangles, and these children would get more attention than she would.
“How old are they?”
“About your age” Jessica smiled then said
“Finally”
“What?” Jack did not have a clue what his daughter was going on about.
“Uncle Jangles always looked lonely when he left, now he has people to keep him company” Jack smiled his widest grin in his worry he had forgotten to take one thing into account, Jessica’s natural kindness.
Jessica suddenly cocked her head, she heard it a gentle creaking, the main gate had opened, she bolted out of the room, out of the house, and over to were Bonejangles and three children, two boys one girl, of whom would had been very good looking if it hadn’t been for the burns of over them the blue skin and the girls right eye was missing. But to Jessica Skellington this was nothing new, so in her books the three children looked fine to her. Jessica slammed into Bonejangles almost knocking him over with a hug that would have made a normal person die of asphyxiation. Bonejangles ruffled Jessica’s hair.
“Hello Jess” Jessica let go of Bonejangles.
“Hi uncle jangles” Bonejangles stepped back and pushed the three children forward.
“Meet burnt, smouldered and singed” Burnt, the girl waved, then said
“If you haven’t guessed we are triplets” Jessica smiled then stretched out her hand to them. Burnt took it first, no one knew this but Jessica used the way people shook her hand to tell what kind of person people were, Jessica knew that she would have to earn their trust, but she was no stranger to that.
“AW, sis you beat me”
“I always do” Jessica grinned, Carlos ran over to his uncle and hugged him, Jack and Sally followed, after a lot of hugging Jessica and Carlos collected their guests cases and carried them to where they would be staying. They later had dinner well more, sally eats the other talk and laugh at Bonejangles’s tricks, and even later still all went to bed, well not quite all.
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