Name: Coraline “Cora” Robin Weber
Age: 14
Birthday: 10/31
Gender: Female
Species: Ghost
Category: Student
Class: High School
Grade: Freshman
Appearance Description: Coraline’s grey eyes and pale skin often lead to people telling her that she looks like she’s seen a ghost. You can imagine the hilarity that ensues, but much like a tall person being endlessly told how tall they are, Coraline has long since grown tired of such conversations. Her shoulder-length, raven hair gives her a certain wild, untamable aura.
She dresses practically, much like the place where she’s from. In the summer, expect her to dress as would a typical tourist in the hot sun. Sandals, shorts, tank tops, t-shirts, and sweatshirts are her go-to. At night, in the fall, or when she’s on business with the dead, she usually comes more prepared for the cold. Jeans and her father’s brown leather jacket usually complement her ensemble, with an added pair of tennis shoes. In the winter, she might sport that same jacket, or a shiny, name-brand jacket, usually with her snowmobile helmet at her side.
Personality Description: Coraline is an adventurous, daring girl. She loves exploring the unknown and laughs in the face of danger. Her overbearing confidence hides a lingering sense of self-doubt, drawn from her lack of worldly experience, as well as the knowledge that she’ll never truly be normal again. This rarely manifests in Coraline, but when it shows, it shows. She is curious to a fault and loves to learn, especially about things she really shouldn’t be learning about.
Despite her overwhelming confidence, Coraline is quite calm and collected. She has very good self-control and is able to suppress or manage her feelings very effectively. Cool and in control, Coraline is very tough to crack under pressure, but as a result, tends to bottle up her emotions and not worry about them, resulting in even worse explosions when they finally resurface.
Plenty have described Coraline as catlike, for while she is usually the coolest kid in the room, and her calm demeanor sometimes makes her intimidating, she is, at her heart, quite childlike and playful. She’s curious, and loves to adventure. She craves a close circle of friends to share the world with, but the guilt of having let her best friends die sometimes makes her unwilling to place trust in those around her.
Unbound Ghost:
Coraline isn’t exactly alive. Unlike most of the unquiet dead, however, she is not bound to a single building, or cursed to haunt a person, or even to finish any business she has left on earth. Simply put, she is a ghost who can go where she likes.
Like many ghosts, Coraline can fly. Her emotions often have an effect on her flight, meaning that she’ll often take off without meaning to, floating into the air when excited and sinking through the floor when upset. On that note, Coraline’s body is semi-tangible. She can touch people and objects, and otherwise interact with the physical world as a normal human could, but should she, say, walk into a wall, or get punched in the gut, she will go intangible. In this state, she can pass through any physical object as if it were not even there. In her intangible state, her body becomes partially translucent. She is also capable of becoming completely invisible, in which case, her body is completely hidden from normal means of sight. Thanks to her status as a creature of the night, she can see clearly in the dark, as if the world was bathed in the pale moonlight
Naturally, Coraline is immortal. She doesn’t need to eat, though she often likes to, even though it often creates quite a mess. She does still require sleep, and dreams as would a normal person.
It isn’t all just hauntings and immortality, though. Being one of the unquiet dead has its fair share of downsides. Normal inhabitants of this earth, that is, those that are not among the unquiet dead, are greeted by a chill down their spine should she use either her flight, invisibility, or intangibility. For each aspect of her power used, the the effect extends by five meters from her body.
Although she is an unbound ghost, any magic that would be used to bind or otherwise effect a ghost would work just as well, leaving Coraline quite vulnerable to attacks by another practitioner of magic.
Coraline is unable to walk upon (or fly directly over) holy ground. Churches and cemeteries are off limits to her, and should she attempt to enter, it will appear as if an invisible wall was keeping her out. Holy objects and artifacts can repel her, forcing her away, though they do not cause overt pain. Likewise, salt burns her, and cannot be used by Coraline. A handful of salt hurled at her face can leave Coraline grievously injured, and heavy exposure can even result in permanent destruction. Likewise, Iron weakens Coraline. An iron crowbar to the face would leave her unconscious and sapped of her strength. Lightly touching either salt and iron, such as taking a pinch from a salt shaker, won’t feel too good for coraline, but won’t hurt her very badly either.
Powers:
Spiritual Invocation
In life, Coraline loved to play games with spirits. In death, she became more attuned to their nature, and actually gained useful insight into how to summon them. Because of this, Coraline has the ability to summon ghostly spirits. This typically requires a complex ritual and sometimes expensive or hard-to-get materials, but for weaker or partial summonings, much less is usually required. Most rituals incorporate mirrors, candles, and darkness. These preparations usually take a few hours at the least, and at the most can take a day or more. Additionally, in order to summon a spirit, Coraline must know the proper name of the one she is summoning. Beings that go by nicknames of monikers can be summoned, but are not bound to answer questions, obey her, or even appear at all.
Of course, Coraline is a rather weak spirit, and when summoning other beings, runs the risk of being overpowered by them, or losing their games. While she might not have a physical body, she still has a soul, and a soul is just what these sorts of spirits want. A being less interested in the long-term might simply make her a thrall or put her into a coma. She risks her life, or lack thereof, with each game she plays with these summoned beings, but even in death, Coraline is ever the thrill seeker.
When summoning these beings, Coraline is able to pose questions to these beings and receive reliable answers. An ordinary ghost must answer the questions to the best of their abilities. More powerful beings that have more knowledge of the world, and therefore, more power, are less easily swayed. They usually pose a price. That might be a few drops of blood, or a game. Coraline loves games, however steep the price of losing might be.
She can send spirits to complete tasks for her, and as with questions, they will carry them out to the best of their abilities. The ordinary spirits Coraline summons possess the same racial powers as her. More powerful spirits are even harder to control this way, and usually, the price of a favor has a rather… steep cost. Perhaps a sacrifice, perhaps a wager for her very soul, perhaps a crucial piece of information, a closely guarded secret.
Coraline must be very careful with giving spirits her name. Your name is a source of power, and, much in the way that she can summon spirits by knowing their name, so too can they call upon her if they learn hers. Names are a dangerous business with the members of the unqiuet dead.
Deals with the Devil
Coraline has impeccable luck. Even when her wits failed her and she was sent to the afterlife, she managed to swindle the being that was her caretaker by challenging him to a game of hide and seek. Even when the odds are stacked against her, Coraline always seems to find a way to prevail. Her luck is uncanny, and that is precisely because she won her very luck from a gamble with a powerful spirit. The pact between them is such that Coraline will succeed in any wager she undertakes, no matter the odds, so long as her confidence does not wane. Should she fail even an ounce of fear or doubt, her powers will fail her.
Biography: If you’ve read this far, you probably know that Coraline Weber is dead. That, however, is no way to begin a story. Coraline’s story actually begins with her childhood home on Mackinaw Island, Michigan. One of the few inhabitants of the island who live there year-round, Coraline’s mother worked at the bookstore on the island. Often, she would send her on courier jobs to get Coraline out and about, rewarding her with a small allowance for her troubles.
Her father, on the other hand, was a popular writer of the paranormal genre, and his income alone meant that the family could afford a rather expensive house on the island, and while her mother worked in the summer season, in the winter she often would simply resign to their home and enjoy her long vacation. Coraline attended school the same way every other student on Mackinaw did, by riding a snowmobile to Mackinaw public schools. With a combined student count of 79, she grew quite close to her classmates, and spent a lot of time with them.
Coraline rarely left the island. With school during the harsh winters that left them stuck on the island and tourist season dominating her and her mother’s time in the summer, she had little time to spend off the island. That was, until her father went on his Ghost Tour. Coraline’s dad was spending one summer on a cross-country trip to visit the most haunted places in every state of the USA, and to save her mother some time that might have been spent babysitting. It was also an unspoken benefit that Coraline get to actually see the world for once.
And like that, they were off. Coraline visited all manner of haunted locale, from the Belle Mont in Alabama, to the Stanley Hotel in Colorado, to the USS Hornet Museum in California. She traveled across the country and, for the first time, got a sense of how big and grand the world was, but also got her first taste for the paranormal.
When she returned home, eyes wide and mind full of new experiences, the first thing she did was take it to her friends. She told them all of her amazing ghost stories and encounters with the paranormal, and they in turn told her of the many ghost stories of Mackinaw Island. As it turned out, the island had just as many horror stories. An excited Coraline got a job at the Grand Hotel and searched for spirits as she cleaned the rooms. Twice, she met with spirits that made a mess of the room, then promptly apologized and left. It thrilled Coraline.
As she got good at searching for the unquiet dead, Coraline became quite good knowledgeable about how spirits behaved, what they reacted to, what was more likely to net her a successful summon. Soon, she discovered the many rituals for summoning powerful spirits, and among them, Coraline found the greatest love of her life: Games. Not just any game, though, games with spirits themselves. Wagers where the reward was great, be they only thrills, or something more substantial, but the price was horrible.
Her first major summon was attempted with a few of her closest friends, and it went quite swimmingly. It was a simple game that they had found on the internet, summoning a spirit to hunt through the house for them. While it was admittedly quite terrifying, the reward was great: They would be granted one wish. This wish could be anything that they so chose. Three friends, alone in the house, summoned the being and hid from him, the crackling of bones signaling his arrival. None of them knew the price of failure, for none remained to tell it, but the reward? Too tantalizing to resist. Coraline hid herself away in her hiding place, a trapdoor on the wall of a bookshelf that her father used as a fancy wind cupboard. She arranged the books so that the opening wouldn’t be spotted, huddled up, and closed the doors. And then, she waited for morning.
Twice, she heard ear-shattering screams as her friends were found. Still, she remained hidden, no longer out of determination or confidence, but of fear. She was terrified. She heard his bones go click-clack through the house as he searched for her, and she tried her damnedest to keep her breathing to a minimum. Then, as dawn approached, Coraline crept from the cupboard, and to the center of the house.
“The game is over. I dismiss you!” came her shaky voice. A gust of wind blew through the house as the being conceded defeat, and Coraline felt a strange, tingly sensation as she was granted her wish: The luck to win any wager. She felt victory at once, and pride coursed through her as she jumped for joy… But her joy was short-lived, for Coraline discovered that the spirit had claimed her friends.
That night, Coraline summoned a spirit known as The Wise One, who would impart knowledge in exchange for a meal, on the condition that she maintain eye contact throughout the encounter. Strong-willed indeed, Coraline managed to convince The Wise One to tell her how she could free her friends: She needed to summon the spirit once more, and make another wager. He would not be as forgiving this time, and indeed, would not be as sporting about giving her a place to hide first. When she asked for a way to defeat him, the wise man only shook his head. She had already used her one request.
Coraline was alone now, and slept on it that night. She awoke during the day and did what preparations she could, stockpiling plenty of salt and iron, and setting traps throughout the house. The spirit appeared when she summoned him almost immediately, intent on claiming her life. Coraline made him a simple offer: One last game. If she won, he would resurrect both of her friends. If she lost? She’d give him her very soul. The spirit accepted. Coraline hid inside her new hiding place, constructed in the previous day, under the floorboards. She sat there, a handful of salt gripped tightly in her right hand, a mass of iron fillings in her left. She knew he would not find this place. She was safe. She could relax. She… Started to doze off.
That was when the floorboards were ripped from above her, revealing the skull of the spirit who hunted her. Panicking, Coraline hurled the salt and iron into his face, stunning him as she stumbled to her feet, fleeing the room. She heard bony feet pounding along after her as she created a barrier of salt, barring him from the doorway and continuing down the hallway. She rounded a corner and spilled iron filings onto the ground, hopping into the dumbwaiter and lowering herself down to the ground floor. She sent it back up and hid in her bookcase. He searched the house for her, but it seemed he could not locate this spot. Later, Coraline would realize that he had never left the house, and that he had watched her make that very hiding spot. This one, however, was unknown to him still, and it infuriated him.
Dawn arose once more, and Coraline crept to the center of the house, but he knew her game now. If she did not reach the center, she could not dismiss him, so there he waited. Coraline had prepared for this, however. From the chandelier hung a crucifix. When she lowered the chandelier with a lever in an adjacent room, the spirit was forced out as Coraline reached the center.
“The game is over! I dismiss you!” She cried. The spirit wailed in anger, before gradually subsiding. He was gone. Her wish would be granted.
Coraline waited there for an hour. Two hours. Three. No sight of her friends. Wary of giving up just yet, she called them with her cell phone. Their mothers both answered and responded that they were at home, fast asleep, and Coraline breathed a sigh of relief. She stepped out of the circle of protection, towards the door. That was when a ghostly hand materialized around her throat. Coraline grasped for the salt in her pocket, shoving it into his face as the spirit choked the life from her. The two grappled there, but she was no match for him. Vengeful as he was, he decided to take her life anyways.
Coraline’s eyes opened in another place. She didn’t know where she was. Everything was dark, and cold, and she got the feeling that someone was watching her. Looking around, she spotted a hooded figure, staring at her. This was to be her ferryman. She had heard about these. He would take her to the afterlife. Coraline looked at her own lifeless form.
“Wait!” She cried “I need to go back! This isn’t right! I was cheated!” she begged to the being. It held out its hand. Coraline understood. She needed to pay the ferryman. “I… I have nothing.” Coraline shrugged, reaching into her pockets and finding, to her surprise, a golden coin. “Wait.” She muttered, looking at the coin?
“...How about a game?”
Coraline won her life back. Well, sort of. She was still technically dead, but you could hardly tell. She was able to live quite a happy life, for some time, until a handful of tourists started claiming that her house was haunted, attracting the attention of Starlight Academy. Coraline was allowed to live somewhere new, where she would be “Normal,” and both of her parents encouraged it, not understanding the gravity of the situation. Her father was positively thrilled with her story, and while her mother was horrified, it seemed she was rather more angry at Coraline for even attempting the wager to begin with.
She left her secluded home, forever, moving from one island to another, to find a home at Manta Carlos.
Age: 14
Birthday: 10/31
Gender: Female
Species: Ghost
Category: Student
Class: High School
Grade: Freshman
Appearance Description: Coraline’s grey eyes and pale skin often lead to people telling her that she looks like she’s seen a ghost. You can imagine the hilarity that ensues, but much like a tall person being endlessly told how tall they are, Coraline has long since grown tired of such conversations. Her shoulder-length, raven hair gives her a certain wild, untamable aura.
She dresses practically, much like the place where she’s from. In the summer, expect her to dress as would a typical tourist in the hot sun. Sandals, shorts, tank tops, t-shirts, and sweatshirts are her go-to. At night, in the fall, or when she’s on business with the dead, she usually comes more prepared for the cold. Jeans and her father’s brown leather jacket usually complement her ensemble, with an added pair of tennis shoes. In the winter, she might sport that same jacket, or a shiny, name-brand jacket, usually with her snowmobile helmet at her side.
Personality Description: Coraline is an adventurous, daring girl. She loves exploring the unknown and laughs in the face of danger. Her overbearing confidence hides a lingering sense of self-doubt, drawn from her lack of worldly experience, as well as the knowledge that she’ll never truly be normal again. This rarely manifests in Coraline, but when it shows, it shows. She is curious to a fault and loves to learn, especially about things she really shouldn’t be learning about.
Despite her overwhelming confidence, Coraline is quite calm and collected. She has very good self-control and is able to suppress or manage her feelings very effectively. Cool and in control, Coraline is very tough to crack under pressure, but as a result, tends to bottle up her emotions and not worry about them, resulting in even worse explosions when they finally resurface.
Plenty have described Coraline as catlike, for while she is usually the coolest kid in the room, and her calm demeanor sometimes makes her intimidating, she is, at her heart, quite childlike and playful. She’s curious, and loves to adventure. She craves a close circle of friends to share the world with, but the guilt of having let her best friends die sometimes makes her unwilling to place trust in those around her.
Unbound Ghost:
Coraline isn’t exactly alive. Unlike most of the unquiet dead, however, she is not bound to a single building, or cursed to haunt a person, or even to finish any business she has left on earth. Simply put, she is a ghost who can go where she likes.
Like many ghosts, Coraline can fly. Her emotions often have an effect on her flight, meaning that she’ll often take off without meaning to, floating into the air when excited and sinking through the floor when upset. On that note, Coraline’s body is semi-tangible. She can touch people and objects, and otherwise interact with the physical world as a normal human could, but should she, say, walk into a wall, or get punched in the gut, she will go intangible. In this state, she can pass through any physical object as if it were not even there. In her intangible state, her body becomes partially translucent. She is also capable of becoming completely invisible, in which case, her body is completely hidden from normal means of sight. Thanks to her status as a creature of the night, she can see clearly in the dark, as if the world was bathed in the pale moonlight
Naturally, Coraline is immortal. She doesn’t need to eat, though she often likes to, even though it often creates quite a mess. She does still require sleep, and dreams as would a normal person.
It isn’t all just hauntings and immortality, though. Being one of the unquiet dead has its fair share of downsides. Normal inhabitants of this earth, that is, those that are not among the unquiet dead, are greeted by a chill down their spine should she use either her flight, invisibility, or intangibility. For each aspect of her power used, the the effect extends by five meters from her body.
Although she is an unbound ghost, any magic that would be used to bind or otherwise effect a ghost would work just as well, leaving Coraline quite vulnerable to attacks by another practitioner of magic.
Coraline is unable to walk upon (or fly directly over) holy ground. Churches and cemeteries are off limits to her, and should she attempt to enter, it will appear as if an invisible wall was keeping her out. Holy objects and artifacts can repel her, forcing her away, though they do not cause overt pain. Likewise, salt burns her, and cannot be used by Coraline. A handful of salt hurled at her face can leave Coraline grievously injured, and heavy exposure can even result in permanent destruction. Likewise, Iron weakens Coraline. An iron crowbar to the face would leave her unconscious and sapped of her strength. Lightly touching either salt and iron, such as taking a pinch from a salt shaker, won’t feel too good for coraline, but won’t hurt her very badly either.
Powers:
Spiritual Invocation
In life, Coraline loved to play games with spirits. In death, she became more attuned to their nature, and actually gained useful insight into how to summon them. Because of this, Coraline has the ability to summon ghostly spirits. This typically requires a complex ritual and sometimes expensive or hard-to-get materials, but for weaker or partial summonings, much less is usually required. Most rituals incorporate mirrors, candles, and darkness. These preparations usually take a few hours at the least, and at the most can take a day or more. Additionally, in order to summon a spirit, Coraline must know the proper name of the one she is summoning. Beings that go by nicknames of monikers can be summoned, but are not bound to answer questions, obey her, or even appear at all.
Of course, Coraline is a rather weak spirit, and when summoning other beings, runs the risk of being overpowered by them, or losing their games. While she might not have a physical body, she still has a soul, and a soul is just what these sorts of spirits want. A being less interested in the long-term might simply make her a thrall or put her into a coma. She risks her life, or lack thereof, with each game she plays with these summoned beings, but even in death, Coraline is ever the thrill seeker.
When summoning these beings, Coraline is able to pose questions to these beings and receive reliable answers. An ordinary ghost must answer the questions to the best of their abilities. More powerful beings that have more knowledge of the world, and therefore, more power, are less easily swayed. They usually pose a price. That might be a few drops of blood, or a game. Coraline loves games, however steep the price of losing might be.
She can send spirits to complete tasks for her, and as with questions, they will carry them out to the best of their abilities. The ordinary spirits Coraline summons possess the same racial powers as her. More powerful spirits are even harder to control this way, and usually, the price of a favor has a rather… steep cost. Perhaps a sacrifice, perhaps a wager for her very soul, perhaps a crucial piece of information, a closely guarded secret.
Coraline must be very careful with giving spirits her name. Your name is a source of power, and, much in the way that she can summon spirits by knowing their name, so too can they call upon her if they learn hers. Names are a dangerous business with the members of the unqiuet dead.
Deals with the Devil
Coraline has impeccable luck. Even when her wits failed her and she was sent to the afterlife, she managed to swindle the being that was her caretaker by challenging him to a game of hide and seek. Even when the odds are stacked against her, Coraline always seems to find a way to prevail. Her luck is uncanny, and that is precisely because she won her very luck from a gamble with a powerful spirit. The pact between them is such that Coraline will succeed in any wager she undertakes, no matter the odds, so long as her confidence does not wane. Should she fail even an ounce of fear or doubt, her powers will fail her.
Biography: If you’ve read this far, you probably know that Coraline Weber is dead. That, however, is no way to begin a story. Coraline’s story actually begins with her childhood home on Mackinaw Island, Michigan. One of the few inhabitants of the island who live there year-round, Coraline’s mother worked at the bookstore on the island. Often, she would send her on courier jobs to get Coraline out and about, rewarding her with a small allowance for her troubles.
Her father, on the other hand, was a popular writer of the paranormal genre, and his income alone meant that the family could afford a rather expensive house on the island, and while her mother worked in the summer season, in the winter she often would simply resign to their home and enjoy her long vacation. Coraline attended school the same way every other student on Mackinaw did, by riding a snowmobile to Mackinaw public schools. With a combined student count of 79, she grew quite close to her classmates, and spent a lot of time with them.
Coraline rarely left the island. With school during the harsh winters that left them stuck on the island and tourist season dominating her and her mother’s time in the summer, she had little time to spend off the island. That was, until her father went on his Ghost Tour. Coraline’s dad was spending one summer on a cross-country trip to visit the most haunted places in every state of the USA, and to save her mother some time that might have been spent babysitting. It was also an unspoken benefit that Coraline get to actually see the world for once.
And like that, they were off. Coraline visited all manner of haunted locale, from the Belle Mont in Alabama, to the Stanley Hotel in Colorado, to the USS Hornet Museum in California. She traveled across the country and, for the first time, got a sense of how big and grand the world was, but also got her first taste for the paranormal.
When she returned home, eyes wide and mind full of new experiences, the first thing she did was take it to her friends. She told them all of her amazing ghost stories and encounters with the paranormal, and they in turn told her of the many ghost stories of Mackinaw Island. As it turned out, the island had just as many horror stories. An excited Coraline got a job at the Grand Hotel and searched for spirits as she cleaned the rooms. Twice, she met with spirits that made a mess of the room, then promptly apologized and left. It thrilled Coraline.
As she got good at searching for the unquiet dead, Coraline became quite good knowledgeable about how spirits behaved, what they reacted to, what was more likely to net her a successful summon. Soon, she discovered the many rituals for summoning powerful spirits, and among them, Coraline found the greatest love of her life: Games. Not just any game, though, games with spirits themselves. Wagers where the reward was great, be they only thrills, or something more substantial, but the price was horrible.
Her first major summon was attempted with a few of her closest friends, and it went quite swimmingly. It was a simple game that they had found on the internet, summoning a spirit to hunt through the house for them. While it was admittedly quite terrifying, the reward was great: They would be granted one wish. This wish could be anything that they so chose. Three friends, alone in the house, summoned the being and hid from him, the crackling of bones signaling his arrival. None of them knew the price of failure, for none remained to tell it, but the reward? Too tantalizing to resist. Coraline hid herself away in her hiding place, a trapdoor on the wall of a bookshelf that her father used as a fancy wind cupboard. She arranged the books so that the opening wouldn’t be spotted, huddled up, and closed the doors. And then, she waited for morning.
Twice, she heard ear-shattering screams as her friends were found. Still, she remained hidden, no longer out of determination or confidence, but of fear. She was terrified. She heard his bones go click-clack through the house as he searched for her, and she tried her damnedest to keep her breathing to a minimum. Then, as dawn approached, Coraline crept from the cupboard, and to the center of the house.
“The game is over. I dismiss you!” came her shaky voice. A gust of wind blew through the house as the being conceded defeat, and Coraline felt a strange, tingly sensation as she was granted her wish: The luck to win any wager. She felt victory at once, and pride coursed through her as she jumped for joy… But her joy was short-lived, for Coraline discovered that the spirit had claimed her friends.
That night, Coraline summoned a spirit known as The Wise One, who would impart knowledge in exchange for a meal, on the condition that she maintain eye contact throughout the encounter. Strong-willed indeed, Coraline managed to convince The Wise One to tell her how she could free her friends: She needed to summon the spirit once more, and make another wager. He would not be as forgiving this time, and indeed, would not be as sporting about giving her a place to hide first. When she asked for a way to defeat him, the wise man only shook his head. She had already used her one request.
Coraline was alone now, and slept on it that night. She awoke during the day and did what preparations she could, stockpiling plenty of salt and iron, and setting traps throughout the house. The spirit appeared when she summoned him almost immediately, intent on claiming her life. Coraline made him a simple offer: One last game. If she won, he would resurrect both of her friends. If she lost? She’d give him her very soul. The spirit accepted. Coraline hid inside her new hiding place, constructed in the previous day, under the floorboards. She sat there, a handful of salt gripped tightly in her right hand, a mass of iron fillings in her left. She knew he would not find this place. She was safe. She could relax. She… Started to doze off.
That was when the floorboards were ripped from above her, revealing the skull of the spirit who hunted her. Panicking, Coraline hurled the salt and iron into his face, stunning him as she stumbled to her feet, fleeing the room. She heard bony feet pounding along after her as she created a barrier of salt, barring him from the doorway and continuing down the hallway. She rounded a corner and spilled iron filings onto the ground, hopping into the dumbwaiter and lowering herself down to the ground floor. She sent it back up and hid in her bookcase. He searched the house for her, but it seemed he could not locate this spot. Later, Coraline would realize that he had never left the house, and that he had watched her make that very hiding spot. This one, however, was unknown to him still, and it infuriated him.
Dawn arose once more, and Coraline crept to the center of the house, but he knew her game now. If she did not reach the center, she could not dismiss him, so there he waited. Coraline had prepared for this, however. From the chandelier hung a crucifix. When she lowered the chandelier with a lever in an adjacent room, the spirit was forced out as Coraline reached the center.
“The game is over! I dismiss you!” She cried. The spirit wailed in anger, before gradually subsiding. He was gone. Her wish would be granted.
Coraline waited there for an hour. Two hours. Three. No sight of her friends. Wary of giving up just yet, she called them with her cell phone. Their mothers both answered and responded that they were at home, fast asleep, and Coraline breathed a sigh of relief. She stepped out of the circle of protection, towards the door. That was when a ghostly hand materialized around her throat. Coraline grasped for the salt in her pocket, shoving it into his face as the spirit choked the life from her. The two grappled there, but she was no match for him. Vengeful as he was, he decided to take her life anyways.
Coraline’s eyes opened in another place. She didn’t know where she was. Everything was dark, and cold, and she got the feeling that someone was watching her. Looking around, she spotted a hooded figure, staring at her. This was to be her ferryman. She had heard about these. He would take her to the afterlife. Coraline looked at her own lifeless form.
“Wait!” She cried “I need to go back! This isn’t right! I was cheated!” she begged to the being. It held out its hand. Coraline understood. She needed to pay the ferryman. “I… I have nothing.” Coraline shrugged, reaching into her pockets and finding, to her surprise, a golden coin. “Wait.” She muttered, looking at the coin?
“...How about a game?”
Coraline won her life back. Well, sort of. She was still technically dead, but you could hardly tell. She was able to live quite a happy life, for some time, until a handful of tourists started claiming that her house was haunted, attracting the attention of Starlight Academy. Coraline was allowed to live somewhere new, where she would be “Normal,” and both of her parents encouraged it, not understanding the gravity of the situation. Her father was positively thrilled with her story, and while her mother was horrified, it seemed she was rather more angry at Coraline for even attempting the wager to begin with.
She left her secluded home, forever, moving from one island to another, to find a home at Manta Carlos.
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