Author's Note:
Hello! This is the first story published on my account! I have a lot of stuff that I'm writing, but I'm only ever going to publish what's finished, which... Isn't that many, this is the only story I've been able to finish in a good few years. :') Anywho, my writing style may not be the best, but it's improved a lot from when I was younger, and I hope it continues to improve! I hope you enjoy this story; I've been working on it since 2017, and even though it isn't long and shouldn't have taken years to finish, it did due to intense writer's block!
Enjoy!
(this story is a horror story and will contain graphic content, don't read if you're uncomfortable with things like that.)
. . . . .
"Incoming!"
I looked up and gasped, tensing up as I suddenly collided with the ground, my best friend Asher right on top of me. "Dammit, Ash!" I snapped, shoving him off and sitting up, causing him to laugh. When I looked up, I saw Charlie running up to us, jumping to the side and wall riding the lockers a little, before dropping back down to the ground, right in front of us. Heidi was slowly following after her, twiddling her fingers shyly. "WOOO! I am ready! We are finished with school, and it's winter break! Time to party!" Charlie yelled, fist bumping the air. Ash sat up and did the same, laughing. "Hell yeah!"
I rolled my eyes and stood up, dusting myself off as I then noticed Taylor heading over to us with his sister, Cassidy.
We had just finished school today, and Taylor had invited us to the mountains to camp out at this huge cabin his parents owned. Christmas was only a week away, and we wanted to celebrate for doing well on our state tests. Getting drunk and partying with all our friends was a go to when it came down to this group.
There were ten of us, and we were all very different from each other. There was Asher Chambers, the boy I considered to be one of my best friends, despite our pretty different personalities. Asher is quite the party guy, and loves to fool around. He's very outgoing and wild, but... I care about him a lot. Despite our personalities being a bit different, he's there for me, and that's all I could ask for. I'm more quiet and reserved, but when you're in this group of friends, you can't help but come out of your shell and become a louder version of yourself. So even though we're all different from one another, we still have a great connection and a lot in common. We help balance the other out.
Asher plays basketball and is really good at it, and sometimes he occasionally lifts weights. He had fluffy brown hair, opposite of my straight, jet black hair. He was also quite a bit taller than me, standing at a maximum of six feet, so I looked very small compared to him with my whopping height of 5'9. He was a pretty overly affectionate guy with all of us, but... Honestly, we all were with each other. Way too touchy.
Next there was Charlie Lynch. Charlie, just like Ash, was also a party animal. But she was more of a rocker than he was. He also enjoyed the occasional heavy metal, but she was really into it. Like... Super into it. She was someone you'd see in the mosh pit, flailing all around and knocking people in the jaw. She even dressed the part of a rocker, always wearing some cool ass punk clothes; her hair was shaved all around, only leaving the top, blonde fluffiness that she always had combed back, as well as sometimes pulled back in what people call a "man bun" or whatever. Charlie was a cool girl though, and people throughout school definitely knew her as the hardcore lesbian in our group. I think everyone should have a chick like Charlie in their group, she was always the life of the party. Because of her and Asher's crazy antics, our group was one that did not go unrecognized, that's for sure.
Of course, can't leave out our Latina beauty, Heidi Munoz. She was shy and kept to herself, but her smile could light up a whole room. Don't let her shy, quiet self fool you though, she's actually got a great sense of humor and can make all of us laugh with just saying something random. She was fun to hang out with, even if she doesn't think so. She always tended to wear a grey jacket over all her shirts, and her hair was straight and black, always having one part of it braided next to her bangs. She had a very soft spoken voice and sometimes sounded like a cute little mouse. Don't get me wrong though, if you did make her mad, she had the habit of cussing you out in Spanish, always rambling her words really fast together. We never knew what the hell she was saying, but we knew it wasn't something pretty.
Onto Taylor Dixon and his sister Cassidy. Taylor was the star quarterback for the football team, and he even has a football scholarship, but I think he's going to go to school to be a doctor. He's amazing, honestly. I would have never thought someone who has so much popularity in school would be friends with us. I mean, Asher was pretty popular as well, so was one of our other friends. Our high school is a bit stereotypical when it comes to groups and cliques, which I thought was stupid as hell, but Taylor, Asher, and one of our other friends definitely broke that stereotype by hanging out with the "outcasts" or whatever people saw us as. They all loved us like we were family; that's how we all were each other. Taylor has a bit of a temper at times, and sometimes gets uncomfortable around same sex affection, but it wasn't something he'd hate you for; he accepted everyone in this group for who they were. It was just stuff he wasn't that used to seeing; apparently him and Cassidy's parents used to be pretty conservative before meeting all of us, so it was just a bit of an adjustment for them. Taylor was also pretty well built too, just like Asher, and his hair was brown as well, but lighter and just a bit more tamed.
Cassidy, on the other hand, was a different story. She was a judgmental bitch, and even Taylor thought that. They fought a lot and argued about everything, but she was his sister and he loved her. She only hung around our group to annoy us. She also hung around us because of my little... Somewhat crush on Taylor. It was a slight one, but she picked on me constantly for it. Threatened to tell Taylor about it. I didn't really care if he knew or not, but I didn't want to tell him about it in fear of ruining things. I know I have no chance with him, and that's fine with me. I liked just having him as a friend, so it was something I could live with. Cassidy wore a lot of pink and sometimes revealing clothing. You could always catch her recoating her lips with another layer of lip gloss as well as brushing and playing with her long blonde hair that had dyed pink strips in it. She was a handful, that was for sure.
Anyway, moving on to the others in our group. We were currently heading outside the school and meeting up with the rest of our friends, my little sister heading over to us from next door where the middle school was. Our bags were packed and in both the jeeps parked in the school parking lot. Here's the rest of the introductions:
My little sister Patience Pearson and I were adopted a long time ago by a lovely couple. I suffered from abusive parents, so growing up was tough. I was adopted when I was seven by two amazing people, and then when I was nine years old, we adopted Patience. She was a cute little Asian baby who was dropped off on the porch of an orphanage, when she wasn't even a year old. They could never find her parents, and didn't even know her name. They named her Patience and she was nothing but a huge sweetheart. When we adopted her, she was five years old. We grew up really close, but then... Our mother died in a car crash. It was just me, her, and... My dad. My dad always worked late, so she was all I really had and we took care of each other while also trying to support my dad who was still struggling with this whole single parent thing. I took care of Patience and cherished her, even now that she's fourteen. She was joining us on our little cabin trip, and I just knew she was going to have a good time, especially when she sees all the little woodland animals lurking about.
Patience hugged me while the others started piling up in the jeep. Five in one jeep, and five in the other. I stroked Patience's black hair, which she always kept cut above her shoulders, having cute half pigtails constantly pulled up on each side of her head. I let go of her and smiled, getting in the jeep with Taylor and Cassidy in the front, and me, Asher, and Patience in the back seat. In the other jeep, Charlie and Heidi sat in the front, and Mason, Leo, and Mollie sat in the back.
Mason and Leo were an item. Leo was also like my best friend. I mean... The whole group were basically my best friends, but I knew Asher and Leo first so I had a bit more history with them than the others. I do love them all equally, though.
Anyway, Leo was like a brother to me. He's always been there for me, and his personality is really... Out there. He's kind of an odd ball. Very flamboyant, bit of a femboy; long brown hair that passed just a bit below his shoulders, and sometimes he would pull his bangs back into a half ponytail. He was like a child in a young adult's body. He was playful, silly, and really talkative. Sometimes he was a bit too much to handle, and half the time he acted like he was running off of nothing but caffeine. Still, when I was going through a rough time, struggling with my past trauma, he never left my side. And even though I didn't start fully healing until I met Asher and then later the others, I was just happy that Leo stuck by me no matter what and tried everything he could to make me feel wanted.
Then there was Mason, his boyfriend. He's actually a teacher at the high school, and they've had this sort of teacher-student relationship for almost a year now. They grew really close and Mason genuinely fell in love with Leo... He wasn't some two-timing asshole who just wanted Leo for sex. It first began when Mason started tutoring Leo after school to help with his math. They grew closer that way, and we all kind of grew closer to Mason as well. He was like the cool teacher that let us get away with anything, but still had that strict nature about him. Mason and Leo didn't even start dating until about five months after Leo was eighteen, their feelings slowly becoming more. They kept it a secret from the whole school, but let us know about it. We accepted them, already thinking that Mason was a cool teacher to begin with. Their relationship just helped us all get closer as friends. Weird to have your teacher as a friend, I know, but Mason was a good guy and he cared about each one of us.
There never was a cause of concern when it came to the age difference between Leo and Mason; after all, Mason wasn't that much older from the rest of us, only being twenty-five. All of us were eighteen, besides Asher and Leo who were nineteen, and my little sister Patience, only fourteen, and then Mollie, who was seventeen. Around the time Mason and Leo started getting lovey dovey with one another, the guy was already eighteen; had been for months before things escalated. Asher and Leo were always a grade above us, but Asher got held back in seventh grade, while Leo failed the tenth, making it so that all of us were finally in the same grade. We were all young adults now, besides Mollie who was only a few months away from becoming eighteen, so we were all now getting ready to complete our senior year.
But even getting in the jeep with a group of teenagers now, he had to kind of keep it on the downlow, hiding his face with his briefcase and everything. Despite it being Christmas break. Mason was a really good guy though, and he treated Leo right. That's all any of us could ask for for our best friend.
Moving on to the last girl in our group, Mollie. Mollie was a sweetheart; so sweet it gave me cavities. She was very peppy and was a cheerleader at school, doing everything she could to make people happy and give them a little pep. She was a proud mixed girl with very curly, black hair that she always got frustrated with, since it never cooperated with her. But she always did something different with it, never failing to spice it up with cute little hair clips and headbands. She had a really good sense of humor, and her personality was a bit like Leo's, though probably a bit more tamed. Although, despite her whole happy and peppy demeanor, she actually struggled with quite of bit of self hatred and doubt in herself-- Yet she always put on a happy face and made everyone feel good about themselves. Of course, as her best friends, it was our job to make her feel the same. To make her feel beautiful like she really is, despite her sometimes not thinking it. But Mollie was always down to do whatever. She had no secrets or no shame in what she did and just focused on having fun.
That is my group of friends. We're all kind of different from each other, but we get along great... Aside from Cassidy. We love and care about each other, and despite our differences, we do share a lot of similarities and stuff in common... Aside from Cassidy, once again. These were the people I honestly wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I feel complete when I'm with them.
I just know Dreader's Escape is going to be something we'll always remember.