Missing

"Have you seen Daniel?"

It was a day like no other. My friends, Brianna, Chloe, Alex, and I were in our last class. Brianna, who was shorter than me, had straight brunette hair, and was a dog lover; but what can you expect when your father is a dog trainer? Chloe was Brianna's best friend, and vise versa. She usually carried around a light blue and pink purse, and kept her Alice blue hair in a bun. Alex was a rather relaxed person. He was the type of guy who, when in a group, would be the one leaning against a chair or wall; yet, he was surprisingly smart, and I don't mean your average classroom always getting good grades smart. I mean he could think of and do things that people normally can't do. At the very least he was smarter than me, an average "jock" at the school, except I can't even call myself that, considering I only play soccer and don't even have the body of one.

 Anyway, we were all gathered in the back of the classroom, where we usually sat. However, I noticed that something was off about today. Upon inspecting the room, it occurred to me that someone else from our group was missing, Daniel. He was a straight A student who was slightly taller than me and had vantablack hair. He was also kind of a crybaby. In all honesty though, I was jealous of him. He got much better grades than me, had a girlfriend who loved him, and it seemed like his life was going somewhere.

Bzz! Bzz! I felt my phone vibrate. Quietly pulling it out of my pocket, I noticed it was a text from Brianna. The message read, "Hey, Nate. Have you seen Daniel?"

I wasn't surprised that she was the one who texted me; after all, she has the biggest, most obvious crush on Daniel, although she denies it. "You noticed too huh? Nope, I haven't see him."

"He's always in school though, he hasn't missed a single day. Do you think something happened to him?"

I could tell Brianna was getting nervous; and under normal under circumstances with anyone else I wouldn't really care, but this was Daniel. I may have envied the guy, but he was still a friend, and as much as I wanted to put the thought aside, I too felt like something wasn't right.

"True, but what if we're overreacting? I mean, we don't even have any proof that something's wrong," I texted her.

"Yeah, I suppose you're right. Just, please let me know if you hear from him or anything, alright?" she asked.

"Ok, I'll let you know."

"Thank you, N," and with that I noticed Brianna put her phone away.

"No problem," I responded, putting my own phone back into my pocket and continued on with class.

Although it seemed like it was taking forever, the clock reminded me that there were only a couple of minutes left of class. As I was putting my materials and the like away, I felt another vibration in my pocket. I retrieved my phone and noticed that in our group chat there was a new message. I opened it. The only thing the new message contained was an address. Upon further inspection, I noticed who it was from. Daniel.

This caught my attention, and I gently put my phone down on my desk screen first. Turning my head, I noticed all of my friends had already seen the strange text and were awe-struck. Another vibration.

I slowly flipped my phone around to view the, what I assumed was, another text message. All that covered my phone was a text saying, "New picture message!" It was by Daniel. As I unlocked my phone to view the image, my eyes widen and my jaw dropped slightly. It was Daniel, tied up in a chair, with a gag in his mouth. He was in shorts and a sleeveless shirt. There were several gashes and scrapes along his body, blood seeming to drip out from each one. His eyes were opened but they looked grey, as if his body was there but his mind wasn't. I heard a faint gasp behind me.