Chapter 3.4 – Into the trees

(PS: This is the heaviest song yet. It starts out with clean vocals, but there are a couple of sections in the song with death metal vocals. It comes in first after the 2:30 mark.)
 

Opeth – Harlequin Forest

Into the trees
Past meadow grounds
And further away
From my home

Baying behind me
I hear the hounds
Flock's chasing to find
Me alone

A trail of sickness
Leading to me
If I am haunted
Then you will see

Searching the darkness
And emptiness
I'm hiding away from the sun
Will never rest
Never be at ease
All my matter's expired
So I run...

Rainy season was getting close to its end, and soon Isaac would have his 6th birthday. During the season, with the ghost hunting and all, Natalie had seen her work results dropping to an all time low and people at the office had begun to talk whether she was fit for the job or not, and in the case she got demoted, who would be the best candidate for her replacement.

And that is just what happened. Unlucky Natalie went down from rank 3 of the political career to rank 2. Now she had to make do with counting votes again, and  seeing her paycheck being cut almost in half. On the way home in the taxi, she was thinking that maybe it was time to switch careers. A change might do her good, anything would do, but what did she have a talent for? Her strongest skill was actually fishing, but at the same time, she hated the outdoors... Her second strongest skills were in cooking and guitar playing.

 She gave it some more thought, and the next morning she decided to try for a job at The Zombie Restaurant (named after its first owner, Bob Zombie). Specializing in brainy food of course. This gave her the rest of the day off, perfect to pay a visit to the nearby graveyard. She was hoping to locate the gravestone of whoever that ghostly figure was...

She didn't have many clues to go by, really, except that the it was the ghost of a human.
There were only two human graves at the graveyard, the graves of Simon Khan-Bolme and Joel Johansson. She didn't sense that it was any of them, so she didn't really get any wiser.

But there was another graveyard a little further away. Maybe that one held the answer. There were only two human graves there as well,. It was the graves of Nicolay Gulkishar-Eng, her grandfather, and Kristian Hagelund-Asheim. It wasn't her grandfather, and her senses told her, it couldn't have been Kristian Hagelund-Asheim either. She probably wouldn't figure it out today, so she headed back home. She pondered if it could be that the ghostly figure doesn't have a grave, and that's why he can roam around like that... or maybe his grave was one of the unnamed ones.

Next thing on her mind was to finally get rid of that teddy bear over there. He hadn't moved around or done anything for quite a while, but he was still creeping her out by just sitting there.

Natalie: I'm going to get rid of you now, little bear.. your time in my house is up.

She hiched a taxi ride as far as the taxi would drive, and took him as far away from the town as she could possibly get, up the hills and deep into the forest, hoping this should keep him away and that no one would ever find him.

And further still, into the woods.

"This, in the middle of nowhere, should be a good spot to put him down...  now I am hoping to never see him or that ghostly figure again, ever..."

Natalie: ..goodbye, teddy bear... may our paths never cross again...

...

The day after was Isaac's birthday, and Natalie slept well in to the day, exhausted from the long trip in to the woods late last night..

Later in the day, she threw a party for Isaac. And it started of well, by Natalie yelling at and slapping Bård, her former boss...
 

Natalie: How DARE you see that other woman when you are in a relationship with ME!

Natalie: You cheating bastard!

With the drama out of the way, it was time for some celebration.

Natalie: Wee, happy birthday Isaac! Blow out the lights and make a wish!

 

Isaac Goth-Pammy as a child. He inherited the heavy sleeper trait from his father, Ragnar Pammy-Vasquez, which did not attend the birthday party. Well, not that he was invited. She hadn't spoken to him at all since she left.

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Response to forum comments/questions to first post.

Copied and pasted from the story thread in the official Sims forum (who by July of this year (2024) will no longer exist.)

About:

(Originally posted July 2021).

I started this save in mid-february (or somewhere around there..) so I already have written out a good chunk of the story. I had an idea for where I wanted it to go, but at one point it started to live its own life, sort of.. so it hasn't excactly followed my plot... It ended up going into some.. more disturbing or uneasy territory..

And that's why feedback and reactions will be important, if I can get a sense of "ok, this is perhaps to far..", but the story is already written, so I don't think there is to much I can do to make it "less dark", maybe. But I will evaluate this chapter by chapter before posting (based on feedback)... Hopefully it will be ok by most readers.

--

As for the wing colors.. the system is perhaps a little complicated. It's a colormap, with the scale going from white to black cut out. Angels with white wings are called "pure angels". They are just angels. On the other end of that, you have the angels with black wings.. and they are pure... something else...

Angels with red wings are half-breeds between angels and humans. And they can have more colours than just red, black or white, but anyone that has a colour that is not on the scale from white to black is a half-breed of some sort. There is a rank system too.

1) Angels with white wings.
2) Angel/magician = yellow
3) Angel/human = red
4) Angel/vampire = purple
5) Angel/werewolf = blue.
6) Angels with grey wings, or any combination of black/other color.
7) "Angels" with black wings.


Apart from the use of the word angel etc. this is not necessarily related to something religious or bibilical... I have completely made my own world and universe, just stealing these words and using them here.

---

As for the town itself, I wanted to give it a kind of.. warm, mediterranean-ish look. It is an old historical town and civilization that has been there for ages and ages and somehow never got wiped out..

It is a little bit inspired by ancient Middle-Eastern civilizations, The Roman Empire and Ancient Greece.. all thrown into a blender and mixed with pieces from my own head (not directly! :P) and sprinkled with a little bit of magic and Dark Medieval Times on top and brought forward a few thousand years to a more modern day area.... Since they have things like cars, tv's and cellphones...

---
And uh, no, the father did not show up at the hospital with the mother. Their relationship went south just before I started playing with them, and this point in the story line, I did not know why or what happened.

I did not directly create Natalie or Isaac. I put some sims in town, and let them breed as they wanted for three generations, and then I chose to play with one of them. Of course, Natalie wasn't selected randomly. Why I chose them has something to do with her last name and the last name of what is now her ex-partner.

In the beginning Natalie is pretty much 100 % autonomous left to do as she wants, and as you see, she turned out to be a really poor mother....

I am happy you think it is a good start for the story, though!

Chapter 3.3 - Atonement

"Here you go, Billy... here is your milk..."

Opeth – Atonement

Rainy season made its return, and honestly, it can sometimes look a bit gloomy.
Now at this time, a certain rumor circulated the town that Natalie's grandparents, Friederich and Eva Goth-Asli, had finally divorced after years of going back and forth with each other. They had been fighting on and off like this ever since Natalie's parents were kids, so it wasn't very surprising to the towns people...

With the new season and after the incident in the bathroom, the teddy bear stopped following Natalie around. Now it was as lifeless as a teddy bear should be, seemingly staring blankly at the doll house. And finally the tv-repairman had arrived, after she had called him twice to come over to fix their cheap broken tv-set.


Natalie:So, so, Aaron... I don't trust that teddy bear thing.. so I'll put you down on the floor here to eat right next to him.. so he can see I'm doing my job..



Then the ghostly figure appeared again. He drifted out of the bathroom and faced Natalie for a split second..

Natalie: Who are you? What do you want? I just fed him!



But he didn't answer. He did a sharp left turn, before disappearing through the wall to the right of the door..



At 3:30 in the night, Natalie is awakened by a howling sound from the living room and the sight of a pair of hands coming out of her bedroom wall...
Natalie: Why are you here? Where do you come from!?



No answer. The ghostly figure turned and drifted away with a complacent smile on his face.

"This is just getting all to strange.... Where does he come from? There is no gravestone on our lot, and no one has died here. Is it because of the... graveyard nearby?"

Natalie went back to bed, but all these questions made it difficult to fall asleep.



He returned again at 6:30 in the morning, standing in almost the same spot, staring directly at Natalie's location as if he could see through walls.



Natalie had another 30 minutes left to sleep before she had to get up and get ready for work, but this immediately woke her, as she could sense his presence.



And when the ghostly figure had made sure she got out of bed, he went over to the stove and lifted it about in the air and shook it violently between the kitchen benches making as much noise as possible. Was he trying to prove a point, or just being a jerk?



When he was done with the noise making, he went to the bookshelf and picked up a book to leave on the living room table, before disappearing in a puff of green smoke.

Natalie skipped breakfast that morning. She ran out the door and called for a taxi.



"This can't be happening. This isn't real. I never had a teddy bear. Teddy bears can't talk. This isn't real. Ghosts aren't real. This is all in my head. It has to be. There is no other way. This is all in my head. Repeat after me. This is all in my head. Why is this happening? All in my head. This isn't real. This isn't real. I never had one. I never had one. Alright. Alright. Alright."

Taxi driver: You okay back there?

Natalie: What? Oh. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine.

Taxi driver: Ok, ma'am. Just checking. Governments building, right?

Natalie: Governments building. But its on the left. It's.. It's on the left.

Taxi driver: I know, ma'am.. just checking...



It wasn't long after she came home from work that the ghost made his appearance again, by waving his fingers through the bathroom wall and interrupting Natalies playtime with the dollhouse....

...before slowly drifting through the kitchen and out through the living room on the opposite end of the house.



Natalie: What do you want? Why can't you leave me alone?

But he wasn't leaving just yet, he did a turn around outside the house and headed up the stairs to the toddlers bedroom where Aaron was sleeping.



He stood there for a good while, staring at the crib. Natalie could hear a soft, almost inaudible whisper coming from upstairs.

"Sleep tight..." Then he went downstairs to vanish into a puff of green smoke once more.



"I don't know what's going on. If I do dishes, maybe he stays away. Did I feed Isaac? I have fed Isaac. Aaron is upstairs. He's asleep. Everything is good. Everything is good. This is ridiculous. Ghosts aren't real. Ghosts aren't real."



Then the kitchen sink broke with a thud.

Natalie: Oh, God! What was that?



Exhausted, Natalie went to bed. But the ghost came back again and violently shook the bed around and kept Natalie in a state of paralysis.



Then he finally started talking.



Ghostly figure: Well, I have seen that you are doing better with the children.. but you still need to learn how to clean up the house a little better, because this place stinks!



Ghostly figure: Goodbye for now, Natalie.

But by morning, he was there again.



Natalie: You're not real! Leave me alone!

Ghostly Figure: There is still some rotten food in your refridgerator. Take that out, and I will go.



"Ignore him. He's not real. He's not real."

Ghostly Figure: Empty your refridgerator, Natalie, and I will go.



Natalie: Ughh...



"I don't believe this. He's not real. He's not real."



Ghostly figure: Well done, Aaron! You almost got it now!

Natalie: You're not real! Leave my kid alone!



Ghostly Figure: I just want to make sure he has mastered the xylophone, Natalie. Don't disturb us...

And after that he finally disappeared .. and that was the last she saw of the ghost for a long while. And from now on Natalie made sure to take good care of her children, as she did not want him to come back, or for that teddy bear to come alive again.

Well, for the most part.



Natalie: Hahaha, you screaming little #*@£! Mommy will give you some food, but only to keep you alive so I can hear your screams again at a later time!

"Just like mommy has always done..."

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