Miss Ashe

Overview: A teenage girl returns home from rehab. Her father has moved to a somewhat secluded house, with a forest surrounding. Finding her father happily remarried, and her family with a new feeling to it. She has a little brother, whose found a friend in the Stepmom’s son. So she can’t help but feel unwanted. These “unwanted” feelings begin to manifest in the form of resentment towards the family. Her emotions get the best of her one day resulting into an argument with the family, so she begins wandering the woods for long periods of time to escape the family. She finds this spot in the woods that seemingly calls her name. Visiting this spot whenever something brings her down. This spot becomes her safe haven from reality. Unfortunately, the location has a history that she is completely unaware of until it’s too late.

Body1. Our story starts with a car ride. This car contains our main character “Lacey Ashe”. She is on her way back from a year and a half long stay at Clean Views rehab. She developed a nasty drug addiction whenever her mother died. Her mother committed suicide because of her fathers infidelity (or so she thought). So even though her father remained in contact the entire stent, and paid for everything. She still has this unspoken hatred she has yet to express, which continues to grow as he continues to not shut up the entire car ride. She begins to wonder where he is going whenever he misses a turn she expected to take, so she ask. Her father then goes into detail about everything he failed to mention in the letters. Revealing that he has remarried, that he decided to relocate away from everything, and that the family is eagerly anticipating her arrival. He then also explains that her brother sort of developed a strong bond with his new stepbrother in her absence. This is all extremely overwhelming for her. Lacey doesn’t really know how to react to all of this information her father has ambushed her with. So she attempts to revert back to the training exercises in rehab, addressing the problem.

Unfortunately, all her previous training couldn’t have prepared her for her fathers reaction. Her father is completely appalled by her one sided observation. So he uses anger to express this, which instantly ignites Lacey’s feeling of hatred. So she goes off about everything and anything for the final five minutes of ride ending her rant right as they pull up to the house. Making for an awkward first encounter. She steps out of the car displaying an attitude as her father steps out displaying regret and confusion.

Body2. Lacey sit in her bed eventually falling asleep, but she suddenly regains consciousness. She is walking through a Forrest that seems to be fantasy like in nature. In disbelief that this is actually a dream. She hasn’t had one of those in years, and you can’t control dreams like this. Making every choice based off free will, not with the usual constraints of a blurred walkthrough. Slowly walking along this ridge and admiring the beautiful landscapes, she notices a nest like tree across the way. Overcome with curiosity, she immediately steps in the tree’s direction. Unknowingly walking right off of the ridge like cliff. Beginning to fall she realizes that she can’t control this aspect of the dream like reality. This results in sheer panic! Unable to see the ground below her, but somehow understanding the amount of time till impact. She starts to prepare for the gruesome smack. Closing her eyes right before contact, she is thrust back into the reality of her bedroom following the acceptance of death. Where life is now lacking in the comfort she possessed while in control of her dream.

Absence of breath was the only side effect of falling from a cliff in your dreams. So despite that, her dream was just a really weird dream...that’s it. Thought Lacey as she is stepping out of bed to get drink of water to combat the lack of breath. As soon as she places her feet upon the ground, she felt something weird. Her right foot which she kept planted on the ridge, as she foolishly placed the other, was slightly irritated with pain. Quickly she follows this realization up with an examination in the dark. Turning her foot over to find three deep cuts and several little scrapes. With disbelief she begins scurrying towards the bathroom to turn the light on. Finding the cuts and scrapes to no longer be there, on either foot!

Yet, she still feels the same shooting pain she did when she jumped out of bed. For historical purposes Lacey thens grab a glass of water and starts searching for a notebook. Finding one, she heads to the desk and cuts on her lamp. Scribing the events that just took place for future reference. To which the viewer looking at Lacey from the windows perspective, gets dragged out of the window and in an upwards direction towards the tops of trees surrounding her window. Revealing a crows departure from right above Lacey’s bedroom.

The next day Lacey is left in charge of her siblings. Which she doesn’t mind, because she sees the opportunity to get a lay of the land and get to know the new stepbrother. So as soon as the parents leave she begins questioning her brothers knowledge of the area. Posing questions based off the landscape of her dream. She strikes oil when her biological brother says that she is describing a quarry near by. Lacey insists they take her, bored to death, they comply with her demands. As all of them walk to the quarry, Lacey goes over everything she missed (birthdays, graduation, etc). Explaining her actions in the hope her brother won’t follow her path. She suddenly recognizes her surroundings, sort of taking the lead. Leaving her brothers in the dust so to speak, as she is caught up the memory of her dream again. Reality begins to fade out. She then begins to get entirely different feeling than the one felt in her dream. Like she’s being watched by a despicable evil. The feeling insatiably grows stronger as she attempts to find the source of this ubiquitous gaze. Making eye contact with the aforementioned crow, as he leaves a perch atop the trees. She follows the crow as his flight carries her attention to the same location which captured her curiosity in last night’s dream. Violent, were the cries of the now non existent crow. As they slowly changed into the cries of her little brothers, for she had foolishly taken the same step. Followed by the same exact feeling of panic previously felt. Within this instant, Lacey’s biological brother desperately throws himself in her direction. Using his motion to counteract hers, thus flinging her back towards safety...relentlessly propelling himself to danger though.

Lacey barely makes it on to the ridge, surely falling if not for her stepbrothers arm yanking her the rest of the way. In shock, Lacey effortlessly tunes out the Stepbrother’s screams for Lacey’s biological brother as she begins to notice the blood leaking from the bottom of her left foot...not her right one. After the stepbrother details Lacey’s actions leading to her biological brother’s death, the parents begin to blame Lacey’s use of drugs. To which she desperately pleads her case of sobriety and blames the crow. The stepbrother then ask her what the fuck she is talking about, that she had just pointlessly started walking in the direction of the cliff, that her focus didn’t break the whole time! That she was in this non responsive state. That they tried to get her attention 20 yards from the cliff, but she just didn’t respond. Proclaiming that she was possessed or on something. Now the parents begin bombarding Lacey with questions regarding her choice of drugs that lead to the episode. Lacey tired of defending her sobriety, and dwindling on belief in her own recollection of events. Explodes, pushing the parents out of her way and running out of the door as fast as she can.

Body3. Running away from everything that had taken place back there, she doesn’t plan on returning. She comes to a stop because she was not familiar with the trees and bushes that she was beginning to come across. Lost, looking for any signs of familiar landmarks. She finds one....she sees the ridge that her brother had fallen off of earlier. This would mean that she is on the same side as the nestlike tree. So she desperately begins to look for said tree, considering it had previously caught her gaze earlier that day resulting in the death of her biological brother. Frantically searching for this tree, she loses track of time. Night has become Lacey’s only companion. Unexpectedly, Lacey starts to feel extremely exhausted. Then the caw of a mysterious crow, followed by a boost of energy. Suddenly she feels the ever present gaze of evil casting its many eyes upon her with its many views. Like before, she looks atop the trees for the crow as his caws slowly grow close. This time, every time she glances towards the tree tops she fails to notice this ghastly figure behind every tree she happens to check. Ignorant to its presence, and still blindly searching for this crow who now lacks a caw.

Lacey, falls right into the base of the nest like tree. Simultaneously becoming void of consciousness. From behind this nest like tree, creeps a Lacey..that isn’t quite Lacey. Romantically staring down at Lacey, this thing circles her, slowly draining Lacey of that being which makes us human. Squeezing Lacey’s very essence from her soul, this thing uses its finger to trace Lacey’s figure from tip of toe to top of head. Lifting the hair on the side of Lacey’s head, it begins to whisper into her ear. Lacey then laughs, followed with a briefly acknowledged emotion of sadness, and then returns to the expression of laughter as the creature lets go of her hair. Now standing, the creature resembling Lacey acts as to hear something in the distance. Walking out of the Frame, it turns back to blow Lacey a goodbye kiss before completely retreating from the viewer’s focus. To which you hear Lacey’s family exclaim in joy, for they have finally found something carrying itself like Lacey. The viewer then begins to zoom in on Lacey in her unconscious state sort of entering her mind. There Lacey is found standing beside a lonely stretch of road. Not knowing why, she looks around for answers. She then hears a car approaching in the distance. Focused on the road, the car passes revealing her and her father arguing days before. Then Lacey notices a ghastly figure, which was hiding behind the trees in the previous scene, sitting adjacent to her on the other side of the road. As the ghastly figure acknowledges Lacey’s presence, she attempts to hide. Upon its acknowledgement of her, it seemingly begins rushing at Lacey just to sort of vanish as Lacey hides behind the shrubbery alongside the road. Waiting for its arrival Lacey trembles in fear, so much so that a bead of sweat begins to run down her forehead. No longer can she take this feeling of eerie anticipation, she jumps up and hastily runs in the direction her back was just facing. The very moment her head completes the one hundred and eighty degree turn. She becomes paralyzed with fear, for our ghastly figure was patiently awaiting her flight response to take control of her feeble mind. It now looks Lacey in the eye, but she feels as if thing is reaching into her soul. She begins to fight, in order to break loose of its ominous gaze. Right as she musters up the strength to break free, her neck snaps.

Now Lacey finds herself in the woods immediately surrounding her home. Lacey can see her bedroom, suddenly the light in her room switches on. A minute later Lacey sees herself place the notebook down, pull out the chair, sit down and begin writing. Watching as the crow flys from atop his perch that is her window, she sees the ghastly figure again. It steps out of hiding, this time directly from the bush underneath her window walking in the direction that her brothers took in order to show Lacey the quarry she wanted to visit so badly. Shifting into the day of the incident involving her biological brother, she then sees that it eclipsed her entire background when placing her in that non responsive state to which she lost her loved one. Finally revealing to her its very presence behind every tree she was checking the crow for....Then it shows her through his eyes, what it is experiencing at that very moment. Lost is Lacey, as it looks at itself in a bathroom mirror. Trying to understand how she feels it’s presence so strongly, but sees her reflection in the mirror. It steps away from the mirror walking through the already opened front door onto the front porch. Stopping at the top of the steps it looks towards the heavens, making its body resemble that of one being crucified. Gripping a large, bloodied kitchen knife in its left hand. The knifes point is positioned down, allowing for the excess blood to easily drip off of the knife and onto the already bloody front porch. Still seeing things from its perspective, Lacey watches as her essence barely escapes from its loosely held lips and returns to her physical body that remains unconscious. Awaking from what she was hoping would be a really weird nightmare. She finds herself at the beginning of her driveway. Somewhat relieved not to be out in the woods but still worried about where she is, she begins to stand. Standing up, she runs to the back of the house first (which is the closest side to her). She slowly creeps around the front finding the dark entity still posed a top the steps. Approaching the bottom step, Lacey stops as the entities neck violently breaks resulting in this downward glare directly at her. Sharing with her all of its past atrocities, including its more recent atrocities involving her. To which she finds herself now in its crucified pose, and wielding the bloodied knife in her right hand. Freeing herself, she then studies the house.

Finding the terrible acts she had committed, and also finding a now realistic solution for her problem. There sat her desk chair, sitting all alone beside the window.

Swiftly kicked was the chair, whose absence resulted in a necks snap so distinct....it scares the crow from atop his perch above Lacey’s window. The viewer goes back over the gruesome carnage that lay amidst the house capturing everybody’s lifeless body. Backpedaling, the viewer heads out of the front door. Revealing that someone drug their bloody finger from the front door frame, down the side of the house ending at the corner. To which our viewer turns to the sunrise, now displaying porch railing and support beam. On both of which are bloodied handprints, as if somebody gripped the support beam and placed the other hand on the porch railing while awaiting the beautiful sunrise (or the perfect time to reflect on how perfectly it pulled this one off, equaling five fresh souls). Viewer is now beginning to pan out, triggering the crows hop onto the porch railing where he starts pecking the bloodied handprint. Now the viewer has panned out to the point you see the arrival of the homicide unit to investigate the biological brother’s death, and the departure of our friendly foreshadowing crow.

Closing: Lacey’s dependence on drugs made her a weak person, but the rehab she had underwent tried to rid Lacey of this weakness. Momentarily doing so, she was on the path to a perfect life. That is, until her father brought the anger out of her making her snap in the car ride home from the rehab. This brief weakness was all that it took to allow our ghastly entity to familiarize itself with Lacey’s past demons. She had unknowingly welcomed an archaic darkness into her life by simply giving into her rage. This thing fed off of this tiny bit of hatred, amassing it’s strength through the manipulation of her dreams by allowing her to think she was in control the entire time. When in reality, she lost control the moment she went off on her father in the car (as portrayed in the closing scene). Thus, diluting reality with delusion! It gifted her the ability, of what she thought was lucid dreaming, only as means of subtly pushing her in the direction of INSANITY.