Chapter 1 1

Carrie Stone lived peacefully with incandescent contentment in the safe walls of her home.

On the pages that she flooded with a sea of words, Carrie lived under her pen name, Dani Viola. Dani had the tenacity of a confident and brave pirate, never fearing the unknown but embracing it with her charming smile and ungodly high-sex appeal.

Carrie was a famous author

Well, Carrie was the author, and Dani was the famous one.

That's the beauty of being a faceless author. She made a good living (good was an understatement) and never had to leave her house.

Of course she did leave here and there, because apparently "she needed more sun," according to her doctor, but most of her days she wandered her large and impressive home by herself in the gated community known as Citrus Grove.

Citrus Grove was the most expensive community in her whole county. Her house, among others, was a million-dollar home, and she didn't even get Carrie started on the ridiculous HOA fee.

*HOA stands for the Homeowners Association and is an amount of money that must be paid monthly by owners of certain residential properties. (The money the HOA receives is aimed at being put back into the community.)*

Fortunately, she was able to live this life doing what she loved to do: write. The community had perfect streets, scenic views, and friendly residents. Of course, Carrie, being the reclusive author she was, never really interacted with them. However, from the friendly waves from afar, silent nods across the yard, and no one coming to infringe upon her serene privacy,

She deduced they were good people.

Carrie felt she was truly happy with the life she had. The life she fought hard to earn

Yeah, it was modest. She lived alone with her cat and her words. Her large and beautiful million-dollar home was about the only super expensive thing she bought for herself.

She drove a 2008 Volvo with the passenger door handle broken, for god's sake.

She just didn't need expensive things to feel joy; she felt joy when she wrote. When Carrie got lost in the faraway worlds her mind created-worlds vastly different from the one she lived in-that's when she was happiest.

Her life was steady and predictable. That's how she wanted to keep it.

Today started like any other day; spring had approached with fervour, melting away the chilling affects of the winter.

Carrie was doing what she normally does on a beautiful sunny day.

Telling herself, "Wow, it's such a beautiful day, I should go outside," but never actually going outside.

She did, however, have intentions of enjoying the gorgeous day, but when she walked into her favourite room in her home, the library,

She forgot to leave.

Carrie walked into a glowing room looking for her journal, which she had discarded somewhere, when the book she was reading the night before caught her eye.

And suddenly the cliffhanger of the last chapter she stopped on came flooding back to her in new-found vigour.

"One more chapter, just to find out if they made it out of the temple. Then I'll be an adult and do my chores, work, and whatever else productive adults do." She rationalised silently to herself as she grabbed the book.

She settled herself on the cozy little reading nook at the bottom of a huge window that reached just shy of the ceiling.

One chapter turned into thirty.

Carrie was so lost in the tempting and adventurous words that she didn't even notice the sun go down completely.

It wasn't until she heard the hollering of people and blaring music from the house next to her that she was jolted from her book.

Carrie loved her house for many reasons.

One being, she only had one neighbour around her. Her home was located at the very end of a dead-end street in the very back of the community.

There were only five houses on one side of the street, three of which were vacant because no one wanted their house so far away from the amenities. Only an old couple lived in the house at the very beginning of the street, three houses away from her.

The other three between them were vacant.

Or so she thought they were.

Why was music blasting from the house next to her? The house that was supposed to be vacant

She quickly shoved a bookmark in her book and ran out of her library to the foyer. moved the curtains aside and pressed her face against the window, straining to see what was going on.

Did someone break into the house to throw a party?...This is a highly secured gated community. No one gets in without a pass or visitor pass. She thought as more people dressed in sparkly outfits, or barely any outfit at all, started to walk in.

Carrie's eyebrows knitted together as she bit her nails frantically, looking out the window, wishing she could blink and make all these people disappear.

A man who started stumbling towards her house broke her focus. She noticed him holding his hand over his mouth, and his face twisted uncomfortably.

He was going to hurl. He was going to hurl, and he was heading right towards her petunia bushes.

Panic shot into Carrie's core, and she ran to her door frantically.

She ran out on her porch, waving her arms. "No, no, no! Please, not my-"

He doubled over, holding his stomach, and puked with the force of God behind his vomit into her bushes.

"...petunia's..." Carrie's face twisted in disgust and sadness, and she listened to her poor flowers being desecrated.

"I'm so sorry, flower babies." She whimpered and wiped away a fake tear.

Whoever was throwing this party just fucked with her plant children. Enough was enough.

She sourly ran inside and grabbed her beat-up cardigan. She wrapped it around her body, trying to hide her lack of a bra, and slipped on her dirty white converse.