It was that time of the year. A regular time of the year when school is almost done. We were in our senior year of High School, almost to finish. Our last Prom will be this year too, and for Ashley, her last year of being Prom Queen straight for 3 years.

 

We were walking through the lunch lane, the utensil lane, and the toppings lane. Jodie got her favorite utensil: A spork. She says she likes the design on it. I kept checking the sporks, but I saw no design.

 We finally got out of the cramped lunch lane and sat down at our usual table. We knew all the tables, where everyone sat, and who their types are. We had the Art Table, the Nerd Table, the Technological Table, the Writing Table, the Stylish Table, and finally, the Popular Table, which is us.

“Hey guys, has anyone seen Ashley?” Jodie asked us. We all looked at Ashley’s empty seat.

“No, have you?”

She shook her head. “No.”

 “Then where could she be?” Mikey asked sitting down at the table. “Maybe she’s in the bathroom or-.” He was cut off when we heard a crowd approaching us. We spun around looking at the crowd. It was headed to the back of the school.

 “What’s happening?” Someone asked, but I didn’t look at who it was.

We started looking to see if we could stop anyone from the crowd to tell us what was happening.

  Mikey stood up. “Let’s follow it and see, let’s hope it’s nothing too severe.”

But little did any of us know...our future is changing forever at this exact, second.
We all stood up after him, throwing our food away and walking to the back of the school with the crowd. We got there just when the gasps and whispers started. Everyone started stepping aside to make a narrow aisle to what was there. When we saw what happened, our lives we lived before have sunk away into the darkness and new ones approached.

Ashley Hart was lying dead on the cement floor.

      We were all shocked, we all pinched ourselves to make sure it wasn’t a dream, but, she was still there. Mikey was affected the most of us. In fact, he IS affected most because Ashley and him were a thing since middle school. “WHO WOULD DO THIS!” He screamed into the crowd. “WHEN I FIND OUT WHO DID THIS, I WILL MURDER YOU AND CUT YOU INTO LITTLE PIECES!” He was pointing to everybody, except us...obviously.

Jodie put her hand on his shoulder, gently, she whispered into his ear. He nodded and they went inside. I guess he does need some time alone. I sighed and went inside to a few minutes after looking at what is now a dead body, of Ashley’s. Lots of people were staring at us and whispering. Probably about Ashley...and us.

I saw Jodie. I went over to her but she just walked away.

What’s her problem? I thought.

I get that she’s shocked of Ashley’s death, but she just walks away? We are all sad about Ashley’s parting with us but, she wouldn’t just walk away even if we try to help. She isn’t like that.

She just, isn’t.

I see Mikey. Maybe he won’t be liked Jodie, or else there is definitely something wrong here.

“Hey, Mikey!” I bursted out to him.

He didn't look at me as if he didn't hear me, and went inside the janitor's closet.

“These secrets have got to stop! I’m going to have to follow him.’’ I told myself. Looking around me, I follow him to the closet and stop at the door. I heard more than one voice...

"Shut up! You're being over dramatic and LOUD!" I heard a voice growl.

"Sh! Ashl-"

"Ashley. Has nothing to do with this."

"Yes it does! You need to stop lying to yourself and get into the real world! We both know what happened to Ashley and nobody else can." I recognized the voice to be Jodie.

That's why she was acting so divulged. I thought. They know who killed Ashley and what happened to her!

This HAS to STOP!

I open the door and I see something on the floor. My eyes widen. My muscles feel like they just disappeared. On the floor, lay the body of not Ashley Hart, but the body of Lindsey Meyers.

"What-" I began to say, but I had no words. I looked up at them and then they looked at each other.

"I'm sorry Julie." Jodie said closing her eyes.

"What do you me-" Then, there was a loud bang. That was it.

I lay there. Like. A dead. Person.

I woke up.

“Where am I?” I thought to myself, trying to adjust my eyes to the darkness that surrounds me.

The place I was in looked empty, and it felt cold like a winter night. I reached out to look for my phone in the dark room, but all I felt was water puddles and cold pieces of rocks lying around.

“What am I going to do?!” I panicked. “I guess all I do is wait…”  I tripped over something and hit my nose on the wall.

"Oomph!" I fell with a thud. My nose! It was bleeding. I could feel the blood trickling down my face. I reached out to grab the thing I tripped over. I grabbed the soft bag and opened it. It felt like the texture of a backpack or a workout bag. I ruffled through the bag and felt something. My phone! I turned it on and I had 17 Missed Calls from my mom and 10 from Kira. Text messages filled my screen from Kira and Mom. But there was one in particular. A message, from, Ashley Hart.

I stared in shock. But she's...dead!

I read the message more than a few times.

"Julie, be careful who you trust. DON’T IGNORE THIS." Is all it said.

I looked around trying to find any clues of where I am. Fortunately, I saw light peeking through the wall and slowly, walked over, trying not to trip over anything. I reached to the wall, feeling it and realized it was a door.
“An open door and there’s light there, my phone is out in the open with a bag. Is this some kind of joke?” I look around the area. “Maybe I should let the light take over the room..” That’s what I did. I opened the door wide open and looked around the room. Surely, there was some way out? But then, I saw that I was in somebody’s house. A fireplace, a kitchen...I wasn’t drugged, right? I heard a light and soft voice, like an elderly woman speaking.

“Why am I here? Where is your mother? WHAT IS GOING ON?” I heard her panic and yell, then something fell on the floor and I prayed it wasn’t the lady. I eyed a pile of bricks on the floor not too far from me and started towards it until I forgot. “The door!” I hissed to myself. But it was too late. Somebody stepped in and wasn’t happy. It was a female figure. Curved hips, long hair, tall...that’s Jodie!

I grabbed the brick fast and without thinking I threw it at her. She dodged it fast and started racing towards me. I tried to reach for another brick, but quickly realized I moved away from it when I threw the brick. I panicked. She was really close.

“Why the heck would you throw a brick at me!” She chided. “I can’t believe you would try and kill your best friend!” She bent down grabbing her shin, where the brick hit her.

“I can’t believe you kidnapped me and hit me with a gosh darn pan!” I snapped back at her.

“I had too! I didn’t have a choice!” She annoyingly said back.

“Whatever, why did you bring me here? This place is awfully cold!” I told her, shivering and rubbing the sides of my arms

“You saw Lynsey’s body? Well, that’s what happened to her after she found out what happened to Ashley.” She explained to me, looking at me like she was going to gobble me up.

I sighed and looked at her. “What really happened to Ashley?”. I looked up at her, looking for answers in her face.

She sighed and stared down. “It all started when we were waiting for you on the roof of the school. We were arguing with Ashley because of how close she was to the edge of the roof. We were thinking she was going to commit, you know? She was standing up, looking around the city, while she was on the edge. We grabbed her and started lecturing her, then she got mad at us for thinking she would commit. Then…” She stopped, turning around. “I pushed her. She fell off the roof.” She walked out of the room and closed the door. I sat down on the floor, bringing my knees up to my chest. I was breathing hard and my eyes were wide open, staring into the darkness. I remembered, the text. My soul finally received life and my eyes were sparkling in the night as I grabbed my phone from my pocket. Just as I unlocked it, I got a new message from Ashley. It said, “Get out. Get out and get me. Get me out. Now. NOW. They are here. Hurry. HURRY!”. I was in shock. I looked around, trying to find a way to get out. I grabbed a piece of cement lying near the brick pile, and tried to look around for windows, but there was no hope. I looked thoughtfully at the door, but wondered where she had gone. She could have somebody watching the door...I grabbed a piece of cement and ran out the door, waving my arms around like a physco. I stopped and saw the door, and ran out as fast as I could.I heard a scream and some yells behind me telling me to stop, but I didn’t. I had to keep running. For Ashley. My phone kept buzzing with texts. Buzz, buzz, buzz. I couldn’t look. But I had too. I grabbed my phone and opened up the text messages. From Ashley. I read it.

“Please hurry. They want to take me somewhere. You were discussed too. I heard them. I heard them talking about killing you. I thought they killed you until...I heard your voice.”

 I stared at the message. A million thoughts were in my head. I then realized, she heard my voice, which means we were in the same building! I ran to the house and noticed the door was open. Creeping in, I looked around as I made my way towards the stairs to the second floor. The stair creaked and I jumped, as I heard somebody coming. I raced back down and hid in the hallway closet. I heard voices talking, then a door shutting. I peeked out of the closet, listening for any noise, but I didn’t hear anything. I walked out of the closet and raced upstairs, to find 3 rooms with doors closed, probably locked. I grabbed the doorknobs on all of them and tried to open them, one by one, but none of them budged to open. I looked around, maybe a key was hidden somewhere, but no, I didn’t find anything.

   I felt around in my hair, maybe there was a bobby pin in there somewhere. I moved my hand around and felt metal. Yes! I grabbed it and sure enough, it was a bobby pin. I picked my door and put the bobby pin through the lock. There was nothing. Just a pile of clothes and luggage. “I think they are going to leave!” I thought. The luggage explains it all. I looked around, anywhere that Ashley could be at. Nothing. I went to the next room. I pressed my ear to the door and my fingertips brushed the rough surface of the wood door. Surely this could be the door? I picked the lock and went in. I saw, Ashley Hart. Ashley Hart was sitting with duct tape on her mouth and cuffs, cuffed to her wrists. There was pain in her eyes and I rushed to her. I ripped the Duct Tape off.
“Ouch! Be careful when you rip that thing off!” She whispered to me. I looked at her and started crying. She hugged me. Tightly.
“I’m so happy I found you.” I said between tears and gasps for air.
“I’m happy you found me too.” She rubbed my back and sobbed into my shoulder. “I know this is lovey dovey and all, but we should get out of here before they come back.”

We raced out the door, and ran to the police station.
 As we walked in, officers were staring at us. One of them was talking into the walkie talkie asking for the chief to come immediately. The chief walked in and stared at Ashley, as he was munching on a donut with his hand wrapped around a coffee mug.  He started asking us questions. Then we told him who was involved in this.

  The next day, we saw Julie get arrested, and Mikey was too. Ashley walked into the school, and the second she did, everybody stared and whispered. She walked in proudly, and said, “I’m Ashley Hart, and I’m back, again.”