New life in Raynerbrook - 1. Strange town, Strange things - Part one

Chapter One - Strange town, Strange things - Part one

Groggily, he opened his eyes and slowly, his blurry vision began to get sharper. His eyesight landed firmly on the roof of his bedroom, and he stared at it intently as if it was the last time he ever would. Incidentally, it was.

Today would be the day he moved home, moving from the place he had grown up in, the place he had gone to school, the place he had made his friends, the place he was going to miss with all his heart. But don't get him wrong, he isn't one of those teenagers who whine and moan about how unfair it was that they had to move because of their parents, he was happy for his mother, and glad she had found a good job, no matter where it was.

Things had been tough since his father had disappeared, and his mother had been forced to juggle her work and both her children and it had been tough on her, tough on all of them.

Theo squirmed slightly in bed, as much as he would have loved to stay in bed for a little longer and think, he really needed to go to the bathroom. With great effort he lifted himself up and out of the covers, rearranging the tent in his black boxer shorts with his hand as he stood. "Sorry big guy, more important business to attend to" he thought out loud, laughing softly to himself.

He strode across the room wearing nothing but his boxers and opened the door. Peering out and checking that nobody would see him, he walked out onto the hallway and was met with a sudden chill. Looking around, he noticed that all of the windows and doors were closed, there was nowhere for a draft to come from, he felt a shiver down his spine. He certainly no longer had a tent in his boxers.

Shaking himself for stopping in the middle of the hallway, he moved on and walked into the bathroom. He had felt that chill before. He felt it almost every time he walked out of his room, but it had never been that strong before...

Setting aside his uneasy feeling, he finished what he needed to do and then stopped to examine himself in the mirror, his medium length black hair was looking very much like a bed head at the moment, he brushed it down and looked at his face, he looked exhausted, probably because of all the cleaning and packing he had done the day before, he hadn't gone to bed until quite late.

His green eyes looked over his body, he was pretty impressed with how he had started to look recently, he had always been rather skinny and pale looking, but had managed to put on a nice amount of muscle and he was rather proud of how he looked, he wasn't a ridiculous looking bundle of muscles on legs like the men he would sometimes see on TV, he was a nice middle ground between skinny and musclebound.

His eyes roamed over his boxers... surely he had enough time to --

"Theo!, it's time to get up, we have a busy day ahead of us!" called his mother from downstairs. Cursing his mothers awful timing, he crept back to his room, swiftly this time, as not feel the full chill that he could not figure out. Quickly, he pulled off his boxers and picked up some clean ones, putting them on as he pulled some clothes out of the suitcase he had packed but left open and threw them on, some dark jeans and a plain bright red T-shirt

Turning away from his suitcases, his eyes lingered on the window, he approached it and looked out, it was autumn, his favourite time of the year. The roads were lined with great trees that were adorned with the golden brown colour of dead leaves that also covered the street. When he was younger he always loved to walk down the street and kick them up in the air, or create huge piles and jump on them with his friends, Autumn held a lot of happy memories for him, he hoped that the town he was moving too, Raynerbrook, would provide him with more happy memories, but there was no way to know, and he was nervous and quite afraid.

Turning his gaze from the beautiful sight, he zipped up his suitcases and carried them out of the room, trying hard to ignore the chill which was now even stronger, despite putting clothes on. He walked down the flight of stairs and placed the cases on the floor in the living room along with the rest of the things. He met his mother and sister in the kitchen where they shared some breakfast together and talked before they began to do a last check of the home they were leaving.

The final check took a couple of hours, and by the time they had done and filled up the car with their luggage, the house was completely empty since the furniture had been sent off in a moving van before them. Theo took out his phone that he had taken from his room and texted his friends to tell them they were leaving, his friends had been distraught at the news when he had told them a month before, but a couple of tears aside, they were fine, Theo was still going to keep in touch with them after all.

As Theo walked out of the door with his mother and sister, he turned for one last look at the window to his room, and his mind wandered to the chill he had always felt outside the room, that nobody else had ever noticed, why had only he noticed it? What was it? or was it just his imagination?

As the thought crossed his mind, he saw movement at the window. A mans face, staring out at him. It disappeared just as fast as it appeared, but Theo was sure he had seen it. It unnerved him, but made him slightly glad he was leaving the place.

"Are you ok?" asked Megan, his younger sister
"Yeah, i'm just going to miss this place" said Theo, his mind reeling from what he had saw
"Me too... but come on, we have to get going, aren't you excited to see the new home?"
"Of course i am, lets go" he said, giving Megan a soft smile and pointing her in the direction of the car

Theo Black climbed into the back seat of the car that day and looked once again at the window of his now ex-bedroom and saw nothing. in his mind he was glad that whatever weirdness he had been experiencing since living there would be nothing but a dream when he reached his new home.

He was wrong.