Punishment and the Paranormal {for Konmnire}

[CleverFox]

Ava cautiously approached the supposedly abandoned house that a group of locals had reported as having strange phenomena centered around it, the fourteen year old feeling the adrenaline that was pumping through her veins as she gripped a very small pistol that was loaded with rock salt that wouldn’t do much of anything for a human opponent save for pissing them off but was more than effective against what she was hunting for. This was the first time that Ava had actually been out on her own and even now she wasn’t technically supposed to be, she’d just slipped away when the opportunity had presented itself in the form of her brother falling asleep in the hotel room that they were sharing, not that this was all that surprising since it was currently around three in the morning and the two of them had been going pretty much non-stop for the past couple of days at least. Of course Ava, being the impatient soul that she was, hadn’t wanted to sleep even after this marathon of searching out leads and doing research so she’d only pretended to do so, while waiting for the chance to slip away. And she’d gotten it, even if that had taken longer than she’d wanted it to. The only reason she could see at all was due to the fact that it was a full moon and nearly as bright as it was during the day, which Ava thought was a double edged sword because of the things that tended to come out during the full moon but currently the teen was thinking that she was going to take things one step at a time. So possible poltergeist or at least that was her working theory, and then whatever came next.

“Come out, come out wherever you are,” Ava called out softly as she walked toward the house, reaching out and pushing open the door and sort of wincing as it squeaked in response to that, the hinges sounding in desperate need of some oil or something. Not that this was surprising given the obvious age of the place, an old two story farm house situated out in the middle of nowhere. Almost literally in the middle of nowhere as far as Ava was concerned but it wasn’t the worst place she’d been to in her life. Swinging the door wide Ava allowed the light from the moon to filter in so that she could kind of see without the need of getting out the flashlight that she was carrying with her, the girl’s emerald eyes surveying the large room and taking note of the dust covered furniture that was still there. “Okay this place is sort of creepy,” she murmured to herself, sometimes finding that talking to herself helped to calm her nerves even though she would deny the fact that she even got nervous at this point. Ava typically tried to pass herself off as the tough girl, more a tomboy than anything else, but there were times when she of course failed at that.

Taking a few tentative steps into the house Ava paused and sort of jumped when she heard the sound of something large and obviously breakable crashing to the floor upstairs. Anyone else might have tried to play that off as simply the activity of mice or other rodents but Ava knew otherwise, it was just too loud to have been caused by something that small. No, this was more than likely caused by her target and that got her adrenaline pumping all over again, not really a good thing considering that acting rashly was a very good way to get one’s self killed in this line of work. Not something that Jade took into consideration since she was a teenager and being rash was sort of in the job description but something that could come back to haunt her nevertheless.

[Konmnire]

Austin was always excited to go on long research trips. He hadn't exactly wanted to bring his little sister, but she put up a fight until he'd let her come. It might be good for her, he thought, maybe she'd go into the paranormal field when she was older. They could work together one day, perhaps! He had established a few rules if she were to come, and they were: 1.) Don't go anywhere alone. 2.) Don't directly disobey me. 3.) Don't do anything dangerous or stupid.

He thought these rules were fair and easy to abide by. They were good rules, enforced so she wouldn't get in trouble or danger. He hadn't set any consequences for them, he figured he could deal with that when the time came. He knew his little sis could be difficult at times, but he never had to truly punish her -- he thought she knew what the limits were and never truly crossed the line...

Currently he was asleep in the hotel room. They had been going and going and going for a few days now, and he was exhausted. His sister seemed excited to go, go, go! He was a very fun and carefree person at time, but he had a limit. After she had laid down and presumably went to sleep, he lied down and fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

After an hour of sleep, he found himself waking up. He yawned and blinked his eyes rapidly, instinctively rolling over to look for his sister's sleeping form. His eyes slowly adjusted and he froze, not seeing her.

Immediately she was alert. He jolted up and kicked off the blankets in his bed, walking to her bed and pulling back the covers, goosebumps rising. Suddenly he knew exactly where she went. He felt, for the first time, truly angry. How could she have gone to the place without him?! They were supposed to go tomorrow, could she truly not wait? He hurried and changed out his sleep pants and threw on a shirt and normal pants, not caring to tie his shoelaces before storming out of the room, grabbing his own rock-salt pistol just in case and getting into his car and driving. It would be a few minutes before he got to where he knew Ava would be.

[CleverFox]

After taking a minute to calm down from her adrenaline rush Ava shifted her gaze toward a staircase that she could still make out thanks to the moonlight that was allowed to filter into the house through the door that she was planning to leave open wide. Being in the dark was just not something that she wanted to experience right now, not with the sounds that she could hear coming from the second floor. The girl was thinking that her hunch about the poltergeist was correct since what she was hearing seemed to lend credit to that and the girl found herself wondering why her brother hadn't wanted to come to this place since they knew where it was but that didn't seem important in this instance and Ava pushed those thoughts to the side as she cautiously crept toward the stairs, trying her best not to make a lot of noise.

One thing that Ava had learned was to never give away her presence but by the same token she had also learned that it was harder to hide from spirits than it was creatures and things of a more corporeal nature. Even so she was determined to remain unnoticed as long as possible, assuming that her quarry wasn't already aware of the fact that she was there. Reaching the base of the stairs Ava held up her little pistol, ready to shoot first and ask questions later even though that wasn't really the best policy to adopt. The girl slowly and cautiously climbed the stairs but she once again jumped when she heard the unmistakable sound of wood splintering, making her think that whatever called this place home was angry.

"Not good," she murmured to herself as she reached the top of the stairs, just in time to witness one of the wooden doors splintering as though something huge had hit it from the other side. Reflexively Ava raised her arm to shield her face from the shards of wood, her gaze shifting around as she lowered her arm, the girl attempting to figure out if what she was hunting was on the other side of the splintered door, the remnants hanging on by the hinges but not really serving as a proper door any longer.

"Get out..."

It was hard to make out but Ava definitely heard the growled words and they were definitely coming from the other side of that door, the teen taking a deep breath and making a decision. She was going to show her brother that she was just as capable of doing this as he was regardless of what he thought. Blowing out a breath to get a few strands of her hair out of her face Ava slowly advanced toward the door, only to be blown back by a fierce gust of wind, which was almost strong enough to knock her back down the stairs.

"Whoa," she gasped out, gripping the railing with her free hand to keep herself from tumbling head over heels to the floor below, which would have no doubt caused her a fairly serious injury since she was small and slender, with virtually no padding to protect her bones from breaks. Still despite the close call she was not deterred and after regaining her composure the girl bravely, or else foolishly depending on your perspective, began to once again make her way cautiously to the door.

[Konmnire]

It took Austin a good seven minutes to even get to the last place he could drive to. He jumped out, grabbing the pistol with one hand and the flashlight from his glove compartment, after putting his keys in his pocket. He advanced on foot, walking past some trees before coming across a house. The door was wide open, and he figured it would be because she didn't particularly love the dark.

He paused and listened before actually entering the house, glancing around before slowly approaching the door. He didn't want to scare her, he noticed that her pistol had been taken, and he really didn't want to be hit by a bunch of rock salt. He advanced with caution, looking around. She could have been anywhere. He then called out, "Ava?" It wasn't too loud, but not too quiet, either. He also didn't want to disturb anything else that could be in here.

[CleverFox]

Ava had no idea that her brother was approaching or else she would have been aware of the fact that she had more than just the poltergeist to deal with, fortunately for her the teen was able to remain focused on her current problem rather than worrying about the one that she was going to have later. Still gripping the railing in case there was another burst of wind from the room that whatever was inhabiting this house obviously didn't want her to enter Ava tried to see through the now open doorway. She had no idea what she might see but she was really curious as to why all the paranormal activity seemed to be focused in this area.

Usually there was a reason, something tying it all together, and Ava wanted to know what that reason was.

Ava was distracted from that when she heard something from down below, that serving to put her even more on edge than she'd been before, which was really saying something. The teen thought that it was her name being called out but she couldn't know for sure, Ava thinking that it was possible that her mind was playing tricks on her. And since she thought that she had left Austin asleep in the hotel not to awaken until morning there was no reason for her to think anyone would be calling out her name.

No one in this little hole in the wall town even knew what it was after all.

So after briefly glancing down the stairs the blond teen turned her emerald eyes back to the gaping hole in the door, through which an ominous wind was still blowing though not with enough force to send her toppling at least. Or such was the case before the poltergeist or whatever it was decided to once again make its displeasure known, Ava actually losing her grip on the railing this time and feeling herself start to fall backwards.

Which was enough to get a sharp little yelp out of the girl as she felt herself falling into nothing, just empty space.

[Konmnire]

Austin grumbled and stalked off down the hall, shining the flashlight into random dark rooms when suddenly he heard the yelp. He froze immediately, whipping around and racing back to where he came. He caught a glimpse of blonde hair and he immediately skid, jumping up the stairs and diving forward in attempts to catch her, even though he'd probably hit his head in his valiant attempt.

[CleverFox]

Ava had been too distracted by the fact that she thought she heard her name to keep up her guard so the next puff of wind caused her to lose her balance. As she realized she was falling Ava frantically tried to grab onto something but there was really nothing there to grab, the teen's arms flailing in a futile attempt to save herself from falling. As it turned out this was unnecessary since she ended up tumbling into something that was very firm...and moving.

Gasping Ava immediately caught her balance and then waved around, shining the flashlight that she had managed to hold onto directly into the face of her rescuer and possible would be assailant. Mixed feelings flooded the kid when Ava saw that it was Austin, relief that she wasn't about to be mauled by something but also slight nervousness since she wasn't expecting that her brother was going to be very happy with her right now.

Because she'd broken most of the few rules that he had given to her when he took her along on this trip, not that he'd had much of a choice since their parents were dead and she had nowhere else to go but still he hadn't had to do it. He could have let her go into foster care or something of that nature, which he hadn't done. Though Ava was currently wishing for an escape, even if that was only because she was pretty sure she was going to be in trouble.

[Konmnire]

Austin felt a wave of relief as she caught herself. He wouldn't know what to do if his little sister could have gotten hurt! Especially falling down a set of stairs? That would most definitely result in a bad injury.

He had mixed feelings of happiness and pure rage towards his sibling and rubbed his temple for a moment, not speaking. He attempted to gather his thoughts on what to say to her, but he decided that here wouldn't be the best place to start the conversation.

"Come on," he said, reaching forward and grabbing her hand firmly, but not too hard, and proceeded to pull her quickly downstairs and outside to his car. While driving, he was silent as well. His knuckles were white from how hard he was clenching on the steering wheel, and he drove a little faster than he did normally.

He wasn't sure what he was going to do when he got back to their hotel room. What COULD he do? She was fourteen now. She couldn't exactly be 'grounded' because they never went anywhere besides to 'haunted houses' anyways. He couldn't revoke her right to go to the next haunted house -- she'd probably find a way to sneak to it anyways! He racked his brain, trying to think of a suitable punishment for her.

[CleverFox]

Ava was startled when Austin told her to come on and then grabbed her hand as though she were a misbehaving toddler instead of a teenager, the girl trying briefly to pull her hand free but that didn't work out the way that she thought it would. Admittedly the fact that they were leaving the haunted house surprised Ava but she didn't ask about that, mainly because she could tell that her brother was not a happy person right now and that was something that served to make her a little bit nervous.

"Austin...I just wanted to check the place out and I can handle myself," she said softly after awhile of silence, not liking the way that the drive was turning out. "And you should really slow down before you crash...kill me and I'll haunt your ass," she told him, trying to let him know that he was driving a little recklessly while at the same time making an attempt to lighten the mood by joking around that she would haunt him if he got her killed in a car wreck.

Ava had no idea how that would go over but she made the attempt, laughing a bit nervously as she shifted her green eyes toward her brother. It was dark in the car so she couldn't see his grip on the steering wheel but she didn't need to in order to be able to tell that he was upset.

[Konmnire]

Austin shot an angry glance at her when she spoke, lifting his foot a little off the gas. He could admit he was going a bit too fast, and they really didn't need to get in an accident. He could barely gather his thoughts before he spoke.

"Ava. You could have hurt yourself. Do you fully understand how that would... hurt me, if you were in danger without me around? Because I don't think you understand." The last bit was similar to a bit of a growl, he was barely able to keep the anger out of his tone of voice.

If she HAD gotten hurt, he wouldn't know what he could do either! He'd be devastated even if it was a minor injury! Why didn't she understand that?