Investigation: Shunned

Chap. 1

I thrust my hand into the popcorn bowl to only find it's empty. Looks like I'm going to have to refill it, again.

So this is what I have been doing for the past week. Watching intense episodes of The Vampire Diaries whilst fattening myself up on popcorn. Now I probably sound like a loner who has no life. That's untrue. The whole school loves me and I have plenty of a life. Just that whilst I was away at Paris with my grandmother everything slightly shifted.

For the start of my holiday all my friends loved me, nothing unusual there. But then, for some unknown reason, I lost all contact with them. They still love me, who wouldn't, it's just that I can't shake this feeling that something has happened.

For the first week I just shook it off. I went off shopping, flirting with boy, the usual. Then the second week of ignorance I started to worry. What has happened?

So that's when I turned to this life. Eating deliciously buttered popcorn while trying to determine whether Delena will happen or not.

I let out a groan as I realized I had to refill my popcorn. I pressed pause on the remote and threw it back on the couch whilst grabbing my empty bowl. Feeling my way around the dark I tried to find the door knob. Finally finding the cold surface below my hand, I twisted the knob and pulled the door, trying not to drop the bowl in the process. As soon as the light hit my eyes I forgot about the whole 'not dropping the bowl' thing and dropped the bowl and put my hands over my eyes with a vampire like hiss. After not seeing light for a good 3 hours, light stung my eyes like a bitch.

After rubbing my eyes for a good minute I gradually parted my fingers to let the light slowly touch my eyes. After a little pain and a lot of squinting I finally had full eyesight again.

I looked around my hallway with a smug smile. After being away for a month it sure felt good to be back. Our mahogany floor boards perfectly complemented our white walls and although I have lived in this house my whole life everything looked new. And even though this house held a teenager and a 22 year old that acted 3, the picture frames were still hung as straight as ever.

I went to walk down the hallway but after two steps and realized I forgot something. My bowl! The whole reason left my cave and I almost forgot my bowl. With a small laugh I walked back to my bowl and pick it up.

"It's okay baby, I'll never forget you," I said in the most manly voice I could master.

"OH MY GOD ALICE, ARE YOU TALKING TO A BOWL!?" I hear my brother, Luke, yell at me.

I spun around as fast as I could and threw my bowl behind me, pretending nothing happened.

"Psh, me? Are you crazy? Do you even see a bowl around here? Maybe YOU'RE crazy," I rattled on, looking at my feet.

Suddenly I hear a booming laugh and I look up to see Luke laughing at me. That's my brother for you. A 22 year old stuck looking after his little sister. I almost feel sorry for him. Almost. I said almost because he is the biggest player I know. Luke has medium length brown hair that he spikes up. He always has a bit of stubble and whether it's because his lazy or he likes it, I don't know. His around 6 feet tall and somehow he always makes girls fall for him. As I said, his a player.

Luke looks at me with a smile plastered on his face. "Awh, don't look at me like that Ali-cow. You know I-"

He never got to finish because I had ditched the bowl at him and hit him right in the face. I gave his a smug smile and shrugged. "I guess the bowl likes your face."

"What was the for!?" He asked while rubbing his nose. It took me everything I had to not laugh at him. He's such a baby.

"As I said," I ran up to the bowl and grabbed it. "It likes your face."

Before I could get halfway down the hall I felt a hand wrap around my wrist. "Alice," I heard Luke say seriously. "Are you okay?"

"What do you mean?" I asked looking straight head. "Why wouldn't I be?" I could feel my eyes watering up but I wasn't sure why. Luke must have noticed because he wrapped me up in a hug.

"Do you want to talking about it?" He asked, pulling back to look in my eyes. I gave him a small smile and took a step out of his arm and picked up the bowl I dropped, again.

"There's nothing wrong. Now I better go make more popcorn." I gave him another smile and walked off. Why did my eyes tear up like that?

I got to the kitchen and threw the bowl on the marble counter. Poor bowls been beaten up today. I walked up to the bowl and gave it a stroke in a way to say sorry. I don't want Luke to catch me talking to a bowl again.

I went to the pantry and grabbed a packet of popcorn. I stood there for a while, thinking. Finally I grabbed a second packet, just to be safe. I want to last at least 4 hours. I chucked the first packet of popcorn in the microwave and leaned against the counter waiting.

Once the first packet of popcorn was done and in the bowl and the other was in the microwave, Luke walked in.

"Have you seen Alyssa lately? Apparently shes got a real bad sunburn and looks like a lobster." Luke said while grabbing a hand full of my popcorn.

Alyssa has been my best friend since kindergarten. Seriously, through all ups and downs shes been there for me. And not just because I'm popular but because she actually cares.

"Nope, haven't even talked to her for 2 weeks." I tried to say casually but came out strained. Luke must have noticed because any trace of a smile dropped.

"Really? How come?" He asked, staring at me intensively. I just gave him a shrug and turned around to the microwave that beeped on queue.

With both bags of popcorn in my bowl I shouldered Luke out the way and walked back to my room. Back to school tomorrow and everything's going to be normal. Alyssa and I are going to laugh together about her lobster sunburn and I'm going to see all my other friends and it's going to be good. Tomorrows going to be the best day of my life.