Five Nights

Night 1 (Beta)

(August 27th, 2139)

With one final page turner, I finish reading The Last House on Needless Street. A good book overall. I lean back and stretch after the hour or so of disuse. After that, I decide to stand up and go say hello to my fellow travelers.

My name is Shelly Gardner. I won a trip to Heartspeak Island, a deserted island locale, a former summer camp turned land of luxury! Totally exciting, right? I’m not the only one who won the trip, however. My twin brother and my old childhood friends won the trip too. I haven’t seen my friends since I moved out of Brinkcliff, and my brother since our parents got divorced. This could be the chance I’ve been looking for to reconnect with them all.

I walk out of the cabin and onto the main deck. Who should I talk to first?

Cameron
Elizabeth
> Parker
Susanna

I think I’ll talk to Parker first. I run over to Parker, waving hello. “Parker! Hey!”

Parker turns to look at me. Parker’s my twin brother, though you wouldn’t know it just by looking at us. He’s got long black hair covering up his eyes, a black leather jacket with spikes, and black high heeled boots. Meanwhile I cut my hair short and dyed it blue, and I prefer turtlenecks and long skirts.

‘Hey there, Shelly.’ Parker signs at me. Parker’s mute, so he prefers to talk in ASL. ‘What did you want to talk about?’

> How have you been?
Are you excited for this?
See ya.

“How have you been?” I ask. We haven’t been able to talk much outside of school, so I wanna check in on him. ‘I’ve been fine, good enough. Maintaining the garden, dealing with Dad. Business as usual, you know?’

How have you been?
> Are you excited for this?
See ya.

“Are you excited for this whole thing I ask. ‘Kind of, I guess. Not really excited about the whole ‘gonna be stuck on an island’ thing. Thought you would have been more cautious about all that, considering, you know…’

He trails off. We both know what he’s getting at…but what’s the point of getting into all of that? We’re supposed to have fun.

“Let’s not think about all of that. There’s plenty of stuff we can do on an island while staying away from the water. We’re gonna have fun, I promise, Parker.” I promise.

He gives a blank face. ‘Whatever you say, Shel.’

I hear a blare from the boat coming from behind us. I guess we’re finally here. I look out from the deck and see Heartspeak in front of us. The fog partially covers it, so all I can see is a faint outline of the forest on the island. Ok, not the most promising vacation locale, but I can make this work.

The boat docks and we all get off the ship, dragging our bags behind us. Me and Parker decide to set our bags down immediately so we can explore the forest. Which surprised me, considering Parker’s not usually the one to make the call like that. Then again, Susanna was glaring at him, so it doesn’t surprise me.

“Isn’t this awesome, Parker? There’s so many plants you can examine.” I say, trying to get him into this. “Like look at this, doesn’t this look cool?” I point at this small plant at the ground, green and leafy. ‘That’s poison ivy, don’t touch that.’ I quickly pull my hand away. “Ok, bad example. But look at this thing!” I point to a different plant. It kinda looks like a baby pine tree, but shaped like a traffic cone. ‘Don’t touch that either, that’s wild cannabis.’

What the hell was the island originally being used for?!

“Ok on second thought, stay away from the plants.” I tell him, although that was probably obvious to a plant expert like him. That does manage to get a chuckle out of him, so it was worth it.