They tell me this bed is haunted. That the last girl to sleep here died. I refuse to die. I refuse to submit to a curse, to a haunting. I have too much to do.

Those are the words that I wrote in my diary on the first day of school. Now I’m not so sure. I’ve been here a month, and there are strange things going on. Only yesterday did I fall down the stairs on the way down to breakfast. I hope that was merely coincidence, but something tells me it isn’t.

“Chris!” A familiar voice beckons me for assembly. I sigh, Kelly is always after me to do better in school, but to be honest, I’m not sure it matters anymore. I’m here because my family couldn’t bear to look at me anymore. Not since Katherine died. Katherine was my identical twin, and she died in a car crash at the end of last year. I feel her loss, sure, but it doesn’t rule me. It didn’t break me. It did break my parents, so here I am, sleeping in a haunted bed, in a boarding school miles from home. Oh well, it’s time to go to assembly, or Kelly will murder me. Hah, maybe then I’ll be haunting this bed instead of the other girl.
“I’m coming!” I yell back exasperatedly. Assembly. This is going to be boring.
“Well hurry up then!” She yells back and I hurry downstairs to join her. “Oh Chris, uniform?” I look down and realise that I’m still wearing my pyjamas.
“This is what they get for holding assemblies at seven on a Saturday, Kell.”
“Fine. Come on.” She takes me by the arm and drags me to assembly. Neither of us can help but laugh at the ridiculous picture we must make. Her in school uniform dragging me along in my pyjamas.

As predicted, this assembly is boring. It’s all the headmistress, talking on, and on, and on, about uniform. Oh, uniform. Dang! I realise that she’s probably glaring at me, but I don’t dare look. Suddenly I feel something wrap around my arm. Is it a hand? I turn, but see nothing on either side of me.
“There’s no escape.” A girl’s voice whispers nastily in my ear. I turn again and there’s nobody there. What is going on?!
As we are being let out of assembly I realise something. The ghost is catching up with me. How can this be? It’s not real, just a prank on the new girl... right? That voice seems to disagree with me. It’s back. With its, or should I say her eerie message. “There’s no escape.” That may be what ghostie thinks, but I know differently. There’s always an escape. I go to the roof. Not to jump. To think.

Even here there’s a voice in my ear, but her message has changed. “Death is an escape.” She whispers her curse in my ear. “Your sister escaped.” That scares me, how does a ghost know about my sister? “If you know it, I know it. You’ve been marked.”
“Marked for what?” I speak to the open air of the roof.
“Guess.”
“Oh Ha, Ha, Ha.”
“You could escape if you wanted to.”
“Never.”

I was resolved to live.
My resolve wouldn’t break.
Or so I thought.
I tell you this story as a warning.

“You’ve been marked.”