The summer where I died

In honor of Tara

TW: SU!CIDE

Hi, my name is Nathan. If I recall, Tara talked about me in the first chapter. I'm a detective in West Virginia and I was pretty close to her. You're probably wondering, why are you writing the journal and not Tara? Well, she always wanted to finish things she started, and since she can't finish this, I thought I could finish it for her. So, here's what happened:

Two weeks ago, Rose called me in panic after she woke up to a letter from Tara, which she found on her counter. She asked me if I could make a missing person report, but legally, I needed to wait 24 hours. But, I did my own research during those 24 hours. First, I found this journal. I read it in 12 hours, which is a new record for me. Tara left a lot of evidence in this, which helped me and my crew a lot to find her. For example, the Find My Phone app, helped us to track her. The only obstacle, was that Justin set her car on fire. Thankfully, using our higher technology back at the station, we we're able to track her. She wasn't 45 minutes away like she claimed in her last chapter, because Justin moved her. They went all the way to Pennsylvania for some reason. Pennsylvania is a pretty long route so, it took us 3 days to find Justin, Justin's house.

When we got in the house, we had to put masks on because there was mold, rotten food and some kind of chemical that made it hard to breath. He was smart cause he knew we were after him. When we entered the basement, that's when we knew Tara had been here. There was leftovers of food and we found something that she left us. She marked on the walls and address for us to find using her pocket knife.

When we arrived to that address, it was already too late. There was people in black gowns dancing around a fire and Tara attached to a pole in the middle. We could see trying to detach her self with her pocket knife. Our crew interrupted the ritual, but Justin grabbed Tara to not let her get away. Still holding her pocket knife in her hand, she yelled: "You'll never get me." Before she slit her throat. Everybody from the ritual stopped running away and started praying on the floor. We quickly grabbed all of them, including Justin and we brought him up to be questioned.

He explained to me mostly what Tara wrote in this journal but he added that when Tara came to see him, he locked her in his basement to prepare her for the sacrifice. He claimed that she was a gift from Satan and that she needed to be sacrificed to get immortality. He also said that since Tara killed herself, the ritual couldn't be completed. Of course, we locked all of them in prison for first degree murder, attempted murder, kidnapping and more.

Tara was a strong woman that everybody trusted in our town. She was loved by many and will be remembered. Thank god she wrote this journal, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to find her.

It's been two weeks since her death and our town is still mourning. Rose is devastated and nobody heard from Johnathan. Melissa came to town for her funeral, which surprised everyone. Now, I'm gonna give this to the West Virginia Library Commission as an archive.

Tara will be marked in history and we all deeply loved her. May she rest in peace

The end.

Author's note:

The story is finally finished and I can't be more happy of how it turned out. From the reviews I have been given, a lot of you seem to like it. I had so much fun writing about this, even tho sometimes I would get scared of my own story lol. This story is inspired by one of my favorite books from when I was younger, which is a hispanic trilogy. That book made me very curious about cults and certain religious beliefs, which still fascinates me a couple of years later. I know there is some grammar mistakes and sentences that don't really make sense, but I tried my best and I was more focused on the story line. Please keep in mind that english isn't my first language too, so some sentences are from Google Translate. Thank you to all the readers who have made it up to here. I appreciate all of you who take some of your time to read my story, it means so much to me. If you have any story recommendations, you can always private message me, I will respond! I hope everyone has a blessed day! ❤️