I've been photoshoppin'! For all you non-Billy & Mandy fans out there, this is one of the characters: Grim. He's really cool. I'll be improving this later, but so far I like it...

Feel free to comment...

Chapter 1 of my story in progress (it's not that good at the moment)
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The silver Explorer drove elagantly along the road, cutting through the scenic cheer of a dentist office landscape, and Tessa was still angry. Sunnycove Bay spread out to the right in a smattering of late afternoon sunlight twinkling upon its surface. Dozens of people dotted the beach, combing, swimming, walking... It was moments like these that made up for every moment of gloom in the folly of man. Tessa wasn't impressed.
    She had endured most of the eight hundred mile trip with her head pressed against the glass and a well placed scowl on her face, and though her destination approached nearer and she was glad to abandon the SUV, she kept the battle alive. Her mom worked the wheel. Through each frown on Tessa's face, each scowl and every rolling of the eyes, she endured in her own way- with suffocating, loving happiness. Barbara looked across at her daughter.
    "You know, I think the sun will do you good." she prodded.
    Silence greeted her from the other seat.
    "You need this." Barbara insisted.
    "Minor skin damage?" Tessa inquired, barely moving her eyes. "Or this senseless barrage of motivational commentary?"
    "Neither... and both," Barbara said. "You know what I mean. You need this."
    "No, I don't. I want to be at home. I NEED to be at home- not wasting away in Maine while YOU go vacationing in Europe."
    "Then I need this." Barbara pleaded. "Look, I don't exactly love the idea of you being alone, what with Robert..."
    "Oh, you SO don't want to go there." Tessa said, surprised tears blurring her vision. "You really don't want to continue with that statement."
    "I- I'm sorry, honey, but..."
    The Explorer slowed to a stop at a crossway light. Tessa released the catch on her seat belt and jumped out of her seat.
    "Tess!" her mom shouted, cut off by the closing door.
    Apparantly deciding to go park somewhere close, the Explorer eased away and took a right down the next road. Tessa looked after her, the afternoon hazing away and together again through the shimmer of tears. She wiped them away with her sleeve and turned around. Off to her left, where she left the car, was a trail that went apparantly nowhere. To her right lay all the joy of a bayside town. She opted for nowhere.
    A few hundred feet down the trail, the tree tops met and the lazy late day light was gradually shut out.
Tree roots and other debris choked the path and were it not for the linear absence of trees, Tessa would not know where to go. Every footstep was intended to blur the mental picture of Robert, yet every pace sharpened the edges around his face. His smile had not been so alive to her in months, and his laugh haunted her from beyond the grave. Robert taking her hand and leading her up the library stairs, a knowing grin, leading her up...
    Tessa collapsed on the spot, crying. Why was it that time was rumoured to heal all wounds while it only made hers run deeper? Familiar tears coursed her cheeks, falling on the apathetic dirt of a forgotten trail. One tear splashed on her hand and ran down to grace her ring, her promise ring, and why did he promise? Why would he do that- promise her a life of happiness and then- then- It just wasn't fair. Tessa sobbed in a fetal curl, tortured by memories of Robert's loving arms and around her shoulders feeling... nothing.
    Time marched on, or at least took a few steps. The light bled a bit more from the sky, and comforting gloom rushed in to meet a bleeding heart. The tears stopped coming, and Tessa felt... dry. She rose to her feet, feeling jaded, and brushed the dirt from her slacks. She leaned over to fix her shoes, and a strong breeze wrapped around her, lifting her hair away from her forehead.
    "Heeeeeelllllp uuuuuussssss...."
    Tess looked around, a bit unnerved.
    "Maybe I do need a break" she said nervously. She circled around, trying to get her bearings, and waiting for more noise. None came. She ran her fingers across her temples, brushing her short hair back to its rightful place behind her ears. She took a deep breath and decided on a direction. Forward.
    Though Tessa only walked for about 2 minutes longer, the light had all but fled from around her. She went from nothing to more nothing, and right when she was about to turn around, she came upon a wrought iron fence. About 20 feet tall, it's twisted bars spread angrily across the darkness. She rested her hand upon the gate handle and lifted. An iron shriek filled the night, and Tessa pushed. The immense gate budged forward an inch before the rusty hinges complained and pushed back. She snaked her hand through and lifted an outreaching branch out of the way. Through the dark she thought she could make out a handful of buildings, a tent, and a ... ferris wheel?
     "That's weird..." she whispered.
    Tessa wiped the rust flakes off her hands onto her slacks and turned to leave.
    "Help me!" came a voice, echoed and distorted through the iron bars.
    Tess whirled around and rushed back to the gate. She lifted up on the balls of her feet to get a better view. She pushed the branch out of the way and searched for movement.
    "Help!"
    Tessa put all of her weight on the gate and pushed. The old hinges groaned and the gate pushed slowly forward. Tess sprinted toward the voice.
    "Where are you?" she called.
    "Help..." fainter now.
    "Where?!?" she pleaded. She came upon a deserted foodstand and ticketbooth, pausing for breath. Movement to the right caught her eye. "Wait!"
    A tall, fast moving shape in the darkness. It appeared to carry something over its shoulder, moving twistedly under the burden. Tess ran to catch up, yet the shape seemed to manage to stay twenty feet ahead of her.        
    "Hey!" she shouted, a stitch in her side.
    The shadow stopped suddenly, halting Tess in her stride. For some reason she was afraid to go any closer. She gasped for breath.
    "Wait, I just- I just heard someone. I think they're in trouble." she said, waiting... The shape in the darkness didn't move. Time stepped a little further, in some bizarre waiting game. A few seconds, maybe a minute, maybe forever...
    "I said I think someone's in trouble!" she repeated. "Didn't you hear me?"
    Tess stepped forward. The shadow twisted around, a slick liquid movement in the dusk. An old man, like a disfigured, retired lumberjack. Scars spread across his face, running together with a sharp, upturned smear of lips under the cheekbone. In the wicked cheschire grin, dozens of razor sharp, yellow fangs ran the length of pale, crusted jawbone. On the left side, with the ripped mouth and jagged burn, no eye rested in the caving in eye socket. In its place were maggoty, runny bugs. They ventured across his face and a few fell to the ground.
    Tess stumbled backwards, lifting herself up from the ground in terror.
    "Oh, sh-"
    A rumbling tearing hollow roar lifted the wind around her, pushing her back and threatening her balance. Tess wanted to run, to just turn around and flee, but her legs held her cemented in place. The shadow didn't move. Time walked on. After a few seconds of eternity, the bundle over the shoulder of the immense shadow writhed in its grasp. Still it didn't move.
    "...help..." mumbled, weaker now... The bundle writhed some more. A musty, motheaten blanket. The corner slipped away from the bottom, and raven black hair slipped out. "Heeeeelp" It rasped... The blanket fell away some more, and the face of a small asian girl emerged, pale... bruised.
    An almond eye rolled in its socket and fixed on Tessa. She couldn't move- she was held in its glare, its pain. She was helpless. An arm slipped down from the bundled mass, and hung down from the shadows shoulder. It swung slowly in the pale moonlight, the elbow bent in the wrong way, the hand weakly grasping. Long, thin, black shapes writhed about under the surface of the dull eye.
    "...help...." the child said without moving its mouth. Tessa prayed for movement, she was cemented in place, she couldn't scream, she couldn't run. She felt no hope in the routine "help" and was wildly more frightened of the one terrible eye than of the twisted lumberjack. Hysterical darkness filled the edges of her vision, on the edge of fainting, and Tessa reached for it, welcoming it. It wouldn't come. The eye fixed upon her, dark shapes bubbling in the iris, it rolled away and regarded something around the corner of the ticket booth. The twisted, shadowed shape turned slowly towards whatever interested the venturing eye, and moved forward, around the corner.
    Whatever force held Tessa gave her up immediately and she fell over. She scrambled to her feet again, screaming. The darkness flooded her vision again, but this time she pushed it away. She stumbled forward, in the wrong direction. She looked at her stupid feet, her traitorous legs, and rushed to the corner of the ticket booth. Her curious, idiotic head craned around, searching for the dark shape and its charge. She found nothing. Terrified tears blurred her vision, and Tess whirled frantically, searching for movement. She turned to leave and ran through the darkness, vaulting through the gate, picking up speed.
    She blinked away more tears and ran into another dark, moving shape. She fell back and shrieked. The darkness rushed in.      
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More to come later after I work on rewriting this chapter...