This stuff was all written at home, not the dorm, :O

I know, this is a lot.  And just think – I’m not done for today yet!  But, yeah.  I kept falling asleep when I was writing most of the Samantha bit and the beginning of when they all meet to go ghost hunting.  So….I do not claim any responsibility for what is there, as I honestly don’t remember what happened.  There is no time to reread – I must continue writing!

Samantha was curled up in a maroon armchair in front of her television.  She supposed that she was lucky to be attending a school that could afford to furnish each student’s room with a recliner.  She was lucky to be intelligent enough to get in this school.  She was lucky to have studied hard when she took the practice ACTs in middle school, because her scores were what attracted High Glen’s attention toward her.  She was lucky to be a part of a family that loved her.  She was exceptionally lucky that her parents could afford to send her to this school.  She was lucky to have the work ethic necessary earn good grades at this school.  She was so lucky to be who she was, to be provided for, and to have the opportunity to work to secure her own future.
But despite her good fortune, Samantha could not force herself to feel lucky, nor to feel happy, nor to feel fortunate.  It did not matter how much money she had or how nice her clothing was.  Because deep in their cores, every human being is the same.  Every human being is similarly naked and alone.  At their core, every human being is nothing more than their desire for a companion in whom they can place their trust to find comfort.  With wealth, the only advantage a person had was to cover up their pain.
It was not like she never tried to make friends.  She smiled at the girls who lived on her floor.  She was nice to all of the students in her classes.  Sometimes, she joined makeshift study groups before exams, or to peer edit papers.  The problems usually started when it came to unstructured conversation.  When questions required opinions for answers, she always fumbled.  Just about every answer she ever thought of was always coupled with the realizations that her opinions were weak and generally lame.  She obviously had her own personality, but when it came to articulating it, she had the tendency to fail miserably.  It seemed like somewhere in grade school, everyone else had gained the ability to bare themselves to others, whereas she had gained only fear of it.  She saw no way out of her fear, no matter how much thought she gave to the matter.  All she could do was continue to devote her life to her schoolwork.  
And now, for the last week, she had been able to allow herself the smallest glimmer of hope: that she would be able to be nothing more than to be herself when with them.  And, in doing so, she could finally stop being alone.
A sharp, piercing beeping suddenly began sounding.  Clenching her eyes shut for a fraction of a second and shaking her head, Samantha pulled herself out of the chair and shut off her alarm clock.  It was 9:30 on Friday, the 20th, and it was time for her to get ready to meet the rest of the Paranormal Research Team for their first ghost hunt.  Deciding that her pale green t-shirt probably would not cut it alone, she pulled a black hooded sweatshirt on over it.  She figured her jeans would be fine, but swapped her flip-flop sandals for a pair of tennis shoes.  She made sure that her camera was not storing any pictures, so as to have maximum available memory space, just in case.  She decided that bringing the camera case was not really necessary, as she could store the camera in the pocket of her sweatshirt when she wasn’t using it.
And now for the other part of getting ready.  Samantha stood in front of her mirror and frowned.  She didn’t know either of the boys well enough to be even remotely interested, but… well, she could not deny the fact that she was appreciative of their appearance.  She pulled her hair off of her neck and bound it at the back of her head in a high, loose ponytail.  She touched up her eye makeup, and then applied some colorless lip gloss.  Satisfied, she picked up her keys from her desk and put money in her pocket.  Normally, she would have carried a purse, but she didn’t really own any that would fit in with proper ghost hunting attire.  Samantha left her room and made her way to the rendezvous point, convincing herself the entire way that the only way she was going to enjoy herself was by not thinking about enjoying herself or making friends.

Anthony was leaning with his back against the brick wall of one of the campus’s classroom buildings.  His hands were clenched in the pocket of his sweatshirt, and his head was tilted backward, looking up at the sky.  Gali was greeting Samantha, who had just showed up, and Mr. Rhodes was standing off to the side, sipping coffee out of a stainless steel tall mug.  The only person they were waiting for was Perry, who was currently three minutes late.
He was looking at the clouds as they billowed slowly across the sky.  It almost felt like it was going to rain, but the cold weather all but insured that that was highly unlikely.  
“Hey guys,” said Perry, finally arriving.
“Good, you’re here,” said Gali.  “I think we’re ready to walk over to the cemetery now.  Does everyone have flashlights?”  Perry and Anthony brandished theirs, and Mr. Rhodes pulled one out of his pocket.
“Oh no, I forgot!” said Samantha.
“It’s okay, you can just share with somebody,” said Gali, testing her flashlight’s beam length.
“Hey, why does your flashlight glow red?” asked Perry.
“’Cause I put a red lens over it,” answered Gali.  “Having a red light instead of the regular white light helps make sure that you don’t ruin your night vision – it’s easier to see ghosts if your eyes remain accustomed to the dark.”
“Well, good to know,” said Perry as Gali clipped her flashlight back on to the belt.  She wouldn’t need it until they got to the cemetery, as the streets were fairly well lit, and they were traveling in a group of five.  “So,” said Perry, pointing his flashlight upwards to illuminate the dark tree branches that appeared to be frozen as they reached upwards towards the sky.  “Do you think maybe the rest of us should acquire some red lenses for the next time that we decide to do this?”
“Sure,” said Gali, “we could make a trip to a hardware store.  I should mention, though, that our club does not have any funds.  I guess that that is fairly obvious, but apparently at this school, your club only gets funding if you somehow bring revenue into the school.  So sports teams can get funding, and so can drama clubs that put on plays in the auditorium.  But unless we find a chest full of treasure somewhere, we won’t get any.  And, you know,” she said with a grin, “If we did find a chest full of gold or something somewhere, I am not quite sure that I would be inclined to give it to the school anyway.”
“Yeah,” said Anthony.  “Those bastards have enough money anyway.  It is sickening how much money it costs to go here to this school.  I am just lucky that the government helps pay with scholarships that I do not have to pay back, or else I would never be able to go here.”
Samantha frowned awkwardly at this revelation.  She knew that it was expensive to go here, but she had never really given much thought to how many more students would be able to attend her school if it did not cost so much money.  She was also willing to bet that Anthony must be at the bottom of the economic spectrum, because the government usually had pretty high expectations of what working middle class families “should be able to afford to pay.”  She was fumbling to think of something to say – money was a pretty awkward topic.  Luckily, Perry smoothed the transition.
“Yeah, the tuition here is pretty ridiculous.  But hey, it is supposed to help us go to college, right?  Although, keep in mind that simply going to this school is not enough – to get in to college, you still need really good grades and tons of extra curricular activities that prove that you are a ‘well-rounded student.’  Heh…. I had better get into a damn good college after all of this crap, is all I have to say.”  
“Is that why you came to ghost hunting club, Perry?  For an extra curricular activity?” asked Samantha.
Perry looked a bit uncomfortable, as though he had not really wanted this tidbit of information to be known to everyone.  “Well…. Yeah.  I was looking at admissions webpages for all of these colleges on the Internet, and if you do not have any extra curricular activities, you are screwed.  So… well, you guys know how this school is.  You can’t join a club except for the point at which it starts, and just about everything else started at the beginning of the year.  So I kept my eye out for signs, and here I am.  And what about you, Miss Samantha?” he asked, pointing his flashlight beam at her face, making her squint, “You don’t really seem like the ghost hunting type.  What made you come?”
Although they were still walking, Samantha froze on the inside.  What was she supposed to say?  She really did not want to tell everybody that she joined because she had utterly failed, up until now, to make any friends at this school.  But she also did not know anything when it came to ghost hunting, so she could not really say that it was a hobby, either.  “Well, you know…” she started.  “It sounded like fun, right?  We get to run around and look for ghosts.  I don’t know…. I guess I just wanted something to do sometimes, aside from studying.”  She waited, hoping that she didn’t come off sounding completely lame to her peers.
“Yeah,” said Anthony, “it’s pretty much the same deal with me.  I knew Gali from last year, and when she told me that she was starting a club, I figured I might as well see what it’s like.  All the guys who live on my floor are like, pretty hardcore when it comes to school.  After class, they just stay in their rooms all night long doing homework.  Which is fine – I obviously spend a lot of time doing homework, too – but most of them participate in sports, so it gets kind of weird.  Those sports guys… it’s like being a part of a cult or something.  They never want to talk about anything else, never want to do anything else.  So at least now we have something to do on Friday nights, right?”  Perry nodded in agreement, and the group lapsed into silence.  It was a dark, fall night.  It was not yet cold enough to require scarves or gloves, but it was cool enough that coats were appropriate.  Leaves blanketed the streets and most of the lawns, except for a few yards that obviously belonged to retired people who had nothing better to do than to make sure that there was not a single leaf in their yards.  Occasionally, there were large piles of leaves in the middle of yards that had probably once been tidy, but were now spread thinly, due to small children jumping and rolling in them.
Mr. Rhodes was walking behind the group, observing their conversation.  Only about half of his coffee remained, and he was trying to sip it as slowly and infrequently as possible, so as to make it last.  Despite the fact that it was not very chilly, he had stilled donned his red scarf before leaving his house.  His scarf had not been bought by his mother, but she had knitted it herself for him for Christmas last year.  He wondered how often they would go ghost hunting when it truly did get cold outside.  He didn’t look forward to his glasses getting steamed up from the cold.
He figured that he was the only member of the group to notice that Gali had lapsed into a silence that was accompanied with an expression that seemed to convey dejection.  Everyone had just revealed that they had no real interest in ghost hunting, and he felt that it was fairly obvious that he was not there because he wanted to find ghosts.  The other three kids were probably happy to realize that they were not the only ones who had ulterior motives, but this revelation had left Gali isolated as being the only member who expected to find ghosts, and indeed, who wanted to find ghosts.
And yet, all of them were still in some way drawn to the club.  Perry could have started his own club, and eventually, Samantha would have found other things with which she could occupy herself.  Anthony probably would have hung out with Gali anyway.  Even he himself probably would have found a way to befriend other faculty, despite being single and also younger than the vast majority of them.  Maybe, despite everyone except Gali thinking otherwise, everyone really did secretly want to find out whether or not ghosts were real.  And if they were real, then maybe everybody present really did have the desire to seek them out and, if possible, to see them.
By this time, the ghost hunters had walked about five blocks eastward from the school, mostly through residential areas.  They had not yet encountered any passing cars in the sleepy town.  Everyone who was planning to go anywhere that night was probably already seated up at the bars.  The houses were quiet and most of the windows were dark, with the exception of white flashes of light coming from television sets.  The town was quiet, but a feeling of apprehension hung in the air.  It may have only affected the group of five people in question, but even so, it hung quite thickly.
Gali stepped off of the street and started walking through a grass field.  The cemetery was just on the other side of the block.  They had left the lighted paths provided by street lights, and everyone except Samantha switched their flashlights on.  Everyone realized that Gali was right about the red light – looking at the grass illuminated by the white flashlights and then looking back to the darkness, a person was unable to see anything for a few seconds.  But they were able to look back and forth between the grass illuminated by the red light and the darkness without a delay time.
An iron fence soon became visible.  It appeared to be very old, and was mostly rusted.  Behind the fence, there were headstones  lying in straight rows, some of which had metal stars in the ground next to them.  Very few graves had flags or flowers on top of them.  Gali led the way to the gate, and stopped just outside of it.
“So, I’m thinking that we can split up into two groups, with me in one and Mr. Rhodes in the other.  Me, because I’ve done this before, and he because he is the only adult.  But before we go in, we should pray.”
“Wait, what?” said Perry.  “Why are we praying?  We’re hunting ghosts.  I never even go to church, why would I pray?”
“I never go to church either,” said Gali.  “But usually, it’s a good idea to pray before going hunting, just to help protect yourself.  It puts you in a positive state of mind, even if you don’t really believe in what you’re doing.”
“Um…..okay, whatever,” said Perry.
“Okay, so if everyone could just close their eyes for a couple of seconds, that’d be good,” she said.  Her eyes closed.  Perry looked at Anthony and mouthed what the hell? to him.  Mr. Rhodes surveyed the circle of faces and offered a half-smile to the boys and then closed his eyes.  Samantha looked worriedly at Gali and closed her eyes.


Music Used Whilst Writing This Post: Chrno Crusade OST for the first bit, but the majority was written to silence, except for the end, which was written to the music of screaming nieces/nephew


EDIT: Any suggestions would be much appreciated, guys. I'm not sure where this is going next, excepting some scenes that are going to happen way down the line. I think things are going to get crazy tonight, though. The plot's getting stagnant, and I might have to throw in some weird shit just to spice things up.