1 Chapter 01

Living, near a forest, is not an ideal type of thought to have. This sticks up to a majority of people except, one person particularly.

And that particular person indicates to Aster De Cordelia. Aster used to live with her parents in the small town not far from her current house. She and her parents got into a car accident when they were on their way, to the beach.

The petite girl looks around her as her eyes landed on a woman who looks much older with confusion showing on her face.

It appears that Aster was diagnosed to have a long-term memory loss from the car incident.

This made her receive pity looks from the nurses and doctor. Everyone pity the 20 years old girl. After a few months, Aster was discharged from the hospital. Unfortunately, the house that was used to be occupied by her family, was now occupied by another family. Now, she lives with her grandmother who lives near the forest.

Ever since she started to live there with her grandmother, she kept going into the forest to have an adventure. She rarely goes to town. When she does Aster would straight to do what she came for, and leave. People would assume there is not much Aster can do at home. And, that is where they are wrong. There is a lot of stuff Aster does at home. Also, since she is a writer, she doesn't crave to go out to work.

As always, the brown-haired had set herself onto another adventure. Usually, she wouldn't take a lot of stuff with her but this time, it seems like she will stay for the night.

She packed up a torchlight, some snacks, a camera along with some spare batteries. Since she is staying overnight, she packed herself a sleeping bag.

She also packed a lot of scented candles, a lighter, an umbrella, two jackets, also her special knife. With, a few bottles of water.

After putting on her shoes, she locks the door and puts the key into her bag. After that, she leaves immediately, into the forest that's placed just across her house. While looking around, making sure no individuals were watching her. And goes into the thick wood. As she was walking, she passes by some trees that have branches sticking from it slaps her face while she was distracted by a squirrel on the tree. This kept on going as she walks further into the thick forest.

After passing a lake the petite girl, a cement house comes into her sight of view. The house was painted in white colour, while the roof was black it looks like a typical cottage.

"A house in the middle of this forest? Not weird at all" she mutters to herself sarcastically. The house looks abandoned. The windows are barricaded up, there is a big hole on the roof, mosses grow along with some vines. Even, the colour of the house is off.

"I wonder what is inside" she mutters to herself out loud. A tiny smile emerges from the corner of her lips, as she does love adventuring, she loves finding out things to satisfy her curiosity, she has always been like this as long as she remembered. As she walks closer to the door carefully. When she twists the doorknob, fortunately for her, the door was unlocked. The girl peeked her head inside the house.

Surprisingly, unlike the exterior, the inside of the house is pretty nice. Also, the decorations remind her of a modern Japanese home. Except, some dust here and there, it still looks clean. Unlike, the outside, the interior looks like it had been taken care of. Also, it seems like there was someone here before her. Judging by the dust, the person probably hasn't been here for 2 to 4 weeks now.

as she walks inside

"eeeeeeeekkkkkkkkkkkkk" Aster spontaneously pinch her nose as she suddenly smells something horrible

something horrible it almost, smells like rotten flesh. Ignoring, the smell, she steps into the living room from the front door.

The living room was not that small, but not that big either.

The last room she decided to check was the bedroom. The master bedroom to be specific. But, as soon as she steps into the room, she froze in shock her eyes widen.

In the room, the walls were filled by pictures they, were not just any pictures. But, these pictures are all pictures of Aster herself. Each one, of them, was taken from afar. She looks around the pictures, and it seems like she can recognize some of the pictures.

A wooden table sits in the middle of the bedroom, which makes it weirder. 'This person must have a bad taste in style' she thought to herself. 'Who puts a table in the middle of a bedroom?' "where are the bed? Did they sleep on the table?" She thought to herself again.

Moving on, as she moves closer to the table wondering what it is for she sees a picture on top of the table and, it seems like it is one of her pictures. The freckled girl sigh and thought 'why I would this person have so many pictures of me?' Now, she is annoyed. "This table looks like grand shrines of me or something,"

She looks at the picture, and examine it, and found numbers at the back of the picture. '20.11.15? 2015? This one is pretty old' "wait, I don't have any of my old memories before my accident. Did I take these picture with people that I know?, If not then who took them?" The more she thinks about it, the more she gets confused. "Maybe, I can take this one as a memory?" She mutters to herself loudly.

Her mind just goes blank as she sees a trapdoor under the table. Aster tries to open the trapdoor and fortunately, it opens. She peeks to see what is inside but, it was too dark. So, she takes out her flashlight and points the light into the unknown room. "Basement? Aw, hell no" she looks at the dark stairs to the basement in disgust "I'm about to get murdered," she says as she steps back.

"Basements are actually, very disgusting" the freckled girl ruffles her brown hair. "I'm going to murder you if you are hiding to attack me!" She says loudly to just make sure.

Breath in, breath out.

She takes a step forward. As she goes down further, into the darkness, she smells something horrible. Opening her bag, she takes out her flashlight and turns it on. Pointing her light, at the certain places she wants to see, and eventually found the light switch.

When the light goes on, she kept looking around as she follows the smell she kept breathing in. Also, fortunately, she found nobody hiding to jump her. And finally, she found what smelled so bad. It comes from a chest that was put near a bookcase. The chest was at the corner while the bookcase was beside it was placed horizontally cutting the sight of the chest. Out of curiosity, she opens the box and reveals something inside.

It was a corpse.

She looks at it with her eyebrows going up and her lips pursed into a thin line. After, looking at it with a weird expression, she just closed the chest and go back to the place she started. After she feels satisfied, she closed the chest and decided to go out of the basement.

"Maybe there is a hint on the identity of the corpse in those pictures" Aster thinking out loud.

Soon Aster began climbing the ladder, squeezing out the trapdoor and frantically looking around.

Aster kept looking at the portraits on the wall. They are all pictures of Aster except, some pictures include a woman that has the same features as her. Except, the woman has light blue eyes while Aster has dark brown eyes.

She noticed, that the picture she was holding also had numbers written on the back. This one says, 2.01.2002 squinting her eyes in confusion, she looks closely into the picture. It was, definitely a picture of her. "Huh, how come I don't-" she stops her sentence as she realised something. "Wait, a damn minute I was born in the 2000" she looks at the picture in disbelief.

To Be Continued....