Chapter 4

2 deaths in 3 days. Will one person die each day? Or worse, even more? Myra had cried buckets when she found out. Her nose wasn't properly healed yet, so for a while she actually couldn't breathe. Eliza was even worse. She wne totally crazy, she was in hysterics. All Kay and I could do was offer her some words of comfort that I don't think she even heard, but at least we tried to do something. After all, Amanda was her best friend. What else could you do when you found out that your best friend was dead? Worse of all, Eliza was probably looking at the person who had killed her. Me.

Amanda was covered in blood when we found it safe enough to run to the middle of the road to get her. Her grey eyes, which appeared to be silver when she was alive, were just an ordinary dull grey. They was no life left in them, totally devoid of sparkle. Her mouth was frozen in that last scream, and blood trickled from it. There was lots of blood. By then I'd goten so used to it I didn't care. I cuddled Amanda's lifeless body to close while we waited for the ambulance to arrive. In 5 minutes even I was covered in blood and I couldn't speak. There was a humunguos lump in my throat that wouldn't go away no matter how many times I swallowed.

Kay and I went into the ambulance with Amanda's body, even though we knew that there was nothing that could be done to save her. Kay had her arm around me, and the paramedics gave us blankets, but I was still shaking uncontrollably with the thought that I was the one who had actually killed Amanda. When we finally got to the hospital and Amanda was wheeled away, I couldn't contain it any longer and burst into tears. Kay eventually broke down too. Nurses comforted us (though they didn't have much effect on me) and sent us home.

School was subdued. We had a moment of silence for Lisa and Amanda, and for once everyone was silent, which would be pretty hard on a normal day. Eliza and what was left of her gang were inconsolable, and even the boys weren't their usual boisterous, annoying selves. 2 people were already dead. Would they be next? One of them, Ivan Lee, tried to cheer up Kay and I. On usual days it would just annoy us, but today we just couldn't bring ourselves to tell him to bugger off. Kay and I were doomed, and there was nothing to stop it. And I knew because when I read that book again yesterday, I found a chapter titled "Catastrophe Week".

I scanned the years in that chapter until I came to 2007. And there it was. The week after the first day of April. That was the week when all this started happening. I seriously want to know what kind of book was this. When did all this even begin? I started flipping through the pages, looking for the very first date in the book. I flipped backwards for about 20 pages before finally finding the beginning of it. 1239. 768 years ago. And that was when I knew.

It was book alright. A book of the dead.

Remembering back to our history class in the beginning of the year, the year 1239 sounded very, very familiar. But there was nothing that hit me so hard as the line burned in my head from my history textbook. Witchcraft, the most infamous form of heretics in America. Nobody knows when witchcraft first came about, but sources have pointed to the Institution being formed in 1239 to hunt down these supposed "witches."

It seemed that only Kay and I could see this book, because we had witnessed Lisa dying during the week. That was why Ms Stone couldn't see it. And in one of the chapters it said "Whoever reads this book suring the Catastrophe Week will be bestowed one of the gifts listed in this book."

I was given the gift of premonition. It wasn't a gift. It was a curse.