#last night's feature involved me going through boxes in a closet inside a house that wasn't mine

[non-un-topo]

If I keep having nightmares I’m gonna have to start writing another horror thing, right? Like I can’t let these plots go to waste

#hi yeah i have nightmares almost every night. been like this since childhood. maybe i have a sleep disorder...? #last night's feature involved me going through boxes in a closet inside a house that wasn't mine #and a bunch of women sitting in the room and chatting. i was apparently opening some haunted shit but none of them warned me. #some girl approached my pile of closet things and picked up a bowling ball and started playing w it like she'd never seen one before #and she sort of threatened to bash my head in with it. ofc i got freaked out and angry and tried to send her away. #i started to realize that things were moving. like objects and lights in really subtle ways. then realized all the women were looking at me #and they were completely silent. i realized i'd disturbed some spirit and it was angry. i started crying etc #i think the women were witches?? and for some reason i was looking for my mom for years? #anyway yeah don't touch a dead girl's dolly. #it was one of those dreams that just felt like dread. like there was nothing i could do to escape the situation i was in. like predestined. #i've been to therapy ik all the reasons i still dream like this it's v obvious #i only woke up because things were getting really intense and my partner ran out of toilet paper so they were texting me hgfdghj #maybe i should stop rambling and just actually write another horror fic because i really miss it and there's a lack of scary shit on ao3. #oh how can i damage nicky and booker this time

[prettylittleliarsxxxx]

Pretty Little Liars may have ended earlier this summer, but that doesn't mean that fans' adventures in Rosewood need to come to a complete stop anytime soon. After all, there's a PLLspinoff television series in the works, featuring Sasha Pieterse and Janel Parrish, and author Sara Shepard is reportedly hard at work on penning new stories about our favorite Liars — including three e-books completely focused on Alison DiLaurentis.

And that's not the only PLL-related tale that Sara has been working on. She has also created a short story titled It's Not Easy Being "A" — which is exactly what it sounds like: a look inside the mind of the OG villain in the black hoodie, Mona Vanderwaal. The story will be available inside the paperback release of her novel The Amateurs, which is on sale as of today (Tuesday, October 3), along with the second book in The Amateurs series, Follow Me. And if you can't wait to read all about what Mona has to say, you're in luck, because Teen Vogue has an exclusive excerpt right here.

In the short story, Mona takes the reader on a journey down her path to becoming "A," going back as far as the day that Ali disappeared. She explains that once Ali was gone and out of Rosewood, she tried to befriend the other Liars, but was only able to secure Hanna's companionship. Still, she couldn't let go of the way Ali had bullied her all throughout middle school, and she slowly decided to get revenge. "I started to think about Ali's whole posse," Mona explains in the story, adding: "They didn't have a clue what it felt like to be teased the way they'd teased me — and they probably never would. I wanted to give them a little education."

From there, Mona describes the very moment she decided to become "A" — and it's a chilling scene involving Ali's old room, lost memories, and a secret diary. The story itself is the perfect dose of nostalgia for fans who are missing the series, especially the early seasons leading up to Mona's huge reveal. Ahead, check out the excerpt of the short story, and be sure to read the entire thing once you get your hands on a copy of Sara Shepard's The Amateurs.

Excerpt from It's Not Easy Being "A", by Sara Shepard:

I wish I could say I’m humble. The sort of girl who fades into the shadows after pulling off something amazing and says, Oh, you know. We all worked hard. But forget that, people. You don’t get far in life by sharing the spotlight. I’ve been kicked around too much already—life owes me. Nope, I want all the credit. I want to go down in freaking history. And you know what? I think it might just happen.

It’s Friday night, and I’m at the Rosewood Country Club, where the welcome-back masquerade party I’m throwing for my longtime bestie, Hanna Marin, is about to start. It’s a typical Mona Vanderwaal party. You know, where a huge party tent is transformed into a casino swanky enough that supermodels and high rollers would beg to play here. There are faux-marble walls and velvet banquettes. I called in professional card dealers from Atlantic City. A fleet of hot waiters roams about with canapés. I even rigged a Cleopatra-style platform for Hanna to ride in on for her big entrance. Basically, Vanity Fair and Us Weekly should be photographing this thing instead of the lame-ass Main Line society blog . . . and I’m the mastermind behind all of it.

I hear a crackle on my headset. “Okay, Hanna’s in position.” It’s a sophomore loser whose name I can’t remember; I chose her from a list of minions who begged to help out with the party. Little do these girls know they’ll be helping out with a few other details tonight, too. Namely, spying.

“Great,” I say into the microphone. “DJ, let’s get some entrance music for my girl.”

The opening notes of classic hip-hop swell from the DJ booth. The tasseled platform, held aloft by a team of muscled models, parades into the tent. Hanna, her banged-up face concealed with a satin mask, sits atop the thing, waving like a queen. Welcome back, Hanna! reads a banner over the entrance. Before I hung it up, I had everyone at school add personalized messages, cheesy things like We were so worried about you! and So happy you’re okay! Girls Hanna never even spoke to signed that thing like they were her soul sisters—but, hey, when a girl is mowed down by a car in a dark parking lot, everyone’s going to rally around her. Naturally, I added my own message, a long note about how I was so thankful that all that had happened to my bestie in the hit-and-run was a mild case of amnesia. It felt a little disingenuous writing it—because, well, yours truly was the one who was driving the car that fateful night. I had to do it, though. She’d figured out I was A. She knew too much.

Not that Hanna remembers that.

“Woot!” Hanna cries under the mask. Everyone from Rosewood Day cheers. I plaster a fake smile on my face until my cheeks hurt. Enjoy it for now, bitch, I think as the guys bobble Hanna’s platform even higher. Because it’s all going to be over soon. And this time, I’m going to leave you with a lot more than just bruises. Let the party begin!

I'm really not one for sob stories. I don’t want you to pity me. Yes, I, Mona Vanderwaal, used to be a girl I don’t like thinking about anymore, a girl with qualities I’m so far removed from I’m not going to bore you by talking about them. And I just happened to live on the same street as Alison DiLaurentis, one of the cruelest girls I’ve ever met, a girl who took great pleasure in making my life miserable. But whatevs, right?

Others might wallow in this sad past. They might make anti- bullying proclamations on their Facebook pages or start a charity, and they’d definitely slouch through high school as a weird, nichey nerd. But I never wanted to be that girl. When Ali and her little crew—Spencer Hastings, Hanna Marin, Emily Fields, and Aria Montgomery—teased, taunted, laughed, and humiliated me, I might have run away with my tail between my legs, but I was pissed.

I didn’t have anything to do with Ali’s disappearance the very last day of seventh grade. Still, the day the news broke, I shut myself inside my bedroom and stared at myself in the mirror. There was a wide, freaked-out smile on my face. I laughed silently for what felt like hours. The universe had finally listened to me. It was a miracle.

My parents were glued to the TV that whole weekend, horrified that the most magnetic, beautiful girl in all of Rosewood had disappeared from our street. They joined the search parties. They went to charity events in Ali’s honor. But can you guess what I was doing? Crossing my fingers and toes. Throwing coins into fountains. Coming up with every superstitious way to wish for that bitch to be gone for good.

Once eighth grade began, a light switch came on, and all of a sudden, my social life improved. With Ali still missing, I realized I could scoop up one of her adrift friends and start a new clique. That’s right: My first instinct was to befriend those bitches, not to ruin them. What can I say? I idolized them. I wanted to be them. Fun fact: My first choice was Spencer Hastings. We were in the same honors classes together—not that she ever noticed me—and our houses were across from each other. I spent every day staring at the large, stately gates that surrounded the Hastings property. Spencer, in all her preppy, purebred Rosewood-ness, felt right.

But Spencer ignored me same as ever. Guess we don’t always get what we want.

Hanna, the group’s weakest and most insecure, ended up a great second choice, though. Together, she and I got hot. Straightened our hair. Discovered self-tanning. Basically, we became swans. Kids I’d known since kindergarten thought I was a new girl, I looked so different, and with Hanna at my side, I had instant entrée into popularity. You’d think I’d be satisfied with that.

Oh, people. All that glitters . . . well, sometimes it turns green the moment you put it on your finger.

The thing is, even after Hanna and I started sharing sushi bento boxes for lunch and shopping out of each other’s closets, there were still these moments when I’d look over at her and think, I can’t believe you. Let’s face it: Hanna might not have been the one dishing out the insults, but she’d stood there like a tree stump and let Ali tease me again and again and again. She never stuck up for me. She never looked conflicted about what Ali was doing. And you know what? After we became close, Hanna never apologized about it. I kept waiting for this big mushy moment between us...but it never came.

So after years of friendship, I started to get bitter. I started to think about Ali’s whole posse, actually, and what they were up to now that Ali was gone. They didn’t really seem damaged by any of it. They didn’t have a clue what it felt like to be teased the way they’d teased me—and they probably never would.

I wanted to give them a little education.

Cue the DiLaurentis family finally moving out of their house. Cue them dumping all sorts of shit on their curb for the garbagemen. Cue nosy me noticing their garbage, which included framed boy-band posters from Ali’s room, which her family had kept like a shrine for four long years. It might sound sort of perverse, but I really wanted those posters. I wanted something from the girl who made my life hell hanging in my bedroom. As a reminder, maybe. As a weird sort of vision board.

What I found beneath those boy-band posters, of course, was far more valuable: a diary full of dirt on Ali’s best friends. It turned me into a whole new person: A.

Yep. I want credit for that, too.

#pll #pretty little liars #mona vanderwaal #sara shepard #it's not easy being a