"We're here." Alexis says, the brake of the car caught their attention. "Thank you for driving." Nancy thanks the driver. She grabs her stuff and checks herself out in the mirror. Nancy was doing the same thing, reapplying her lipstick that had faded a little and retouching her makeup. Amber was busy opening her bag and strapping in her tracker on her belt hooks, putting the bags she was supposed to use for training below the seats, finally then she uses her phone camera to fix her flyaway hairs and immediately check in on her makeup.
"Is everyone done? Let's go party then." Nancy declares with a smile as she was the first to get out of the car, the duo follow in pursuit along with the girl. All of them walked by each other to the school halls and when they entered, the bright neon lights and dimly lit school auditorium made the atmosphere of the party come alive. "Now this is a party." Alexis smirks lightly, her head looking around the place in awe of the student body and students to make this year's dance be more lively than their last.
Amber doesn't say much but she looks at the place with such bored expressions. "I'm gonna go get some drinks by the booth. Do you want anything there?" Amber came up with an excuse to move away from the crowded area they were standing in. "Later, we gotta meet up with someone first. See you later~" Nancy gave a reply, Alexis who was standing next to Nancy agreed to her, nodding her head a little eagerly before smiling and walking away with her, not before giving Amber a wave.
"Alright, see ya." She nods before waving, the latter waves back in return and the trio of friends go their separate paths. Amber, who tried really hard to go around the crowd, finding a way so she doesn't have to bump into a lot of people who were enjoying themselves, she managed to find a path that wasn't too crowded or less than enough for students who were either standing around or maybe with a partner, flirting for the most part, she passes by them alongside passing by a group of guys who seemed to be threatening or something but the loud speakers muddled her hearing over the conversation and she turned a blind eye too as she continued walking. A few more walking moments later, she arrives at the booth.
Scanning around the booth, she takes a good look at the variety of choices on the table. Some cupcakes are placed in plates, gummy worms in a bowl, a variety of snacks in bowls and plates, somehow there's also cheese sticks sticking around in a little cup holder. The drinks were in big bowls, jugs and more. She takes a look over the drinks section and chooses to mix fruit punch and strawberry flavored drink into her cup. Once she takes a small sip, her expression cringes in a few seconds before tasting a little more and frowning before nodding slightly, liking the aftertaste of the mixed drinks she slightly experimented on tonight.
As she sips her drink bit by bit, her mind wanders a little, her eyes were blankly staring and looking around the room, feeling a little awkward to stand around the booth so she walks to where the gummy worms were located and takes a few handful of them before setting off to find her friends.
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"Oh c'mon, that man is way too fine! Love him right will ya?" Alexis was nudging on a blonde girl, she was smiling sheepishly, shy over the compliment given by the girl. "Exactly! She's not wrong. He's totally head over heels for you." Nancy chimes, joins in on the teasing. The three were having a good time, mingling around and the aura of the conversation being filled with happiness. Just as the conversation was getting very intimate, Alexis noticed Amber who looked like a deer in headlights, looking quite lost amongst the sea of students. "Ams!" Alexis waves her arms like crazy, getting her attention. Amber luckily was whipping her head around to look for her friends when she noticed an arm waving and flailing about, she craned her head and saw Alexis by a few centimetres away from her. She smiles giddily, waving back at her before taking her fast steps towards where she was, unaware there was someone else talking to her own friend circle.
Once Amber arrives at where her friends are located, she smiles at the both of them before frowning to look at the girl that was next to Nancy. Her minds gets a little suspicious of the person beside her but she says nothing as she notes on the blonde girl who was going into a deep conversation about lord knows what. She observes the girl, her eyes travel from head to toe, examining on her in her head while her expressions and eyes slowly zoned out focusing on the girl, making the latter find it quite questionable and uncomfortable in a sense. "Um.... Is your friend okay?" She slowly ask them, Nancy who looked confused then looked at where the girl pointed and saw Amber. "O-oh! Her! She's fine!" Nancy then goes to comfort them, making her relax slightly.
Alexis, who slowly noticed how both Nancy and the girl were looking Amber's way, she takes a good look at her before realising what she's been doing the past few minutes. "Ams! You're doing that thing again." She whispers slowly into her ears, which causes her to snap out of it and look at Alexis. "What?" The puzzled look on her face makes her confused. "Why are you staring at her?" She asked in her quiet voice, Amber answers, "She felt different."
"Well.... It's creepy, don't do it again will you?" Alexis tries to make her stop before the girl hears their conversation. "Fine, I won't." She shakes her head lightly and glances back at the girl before talking to Alexis, making it look like they were having some normal conversation. Nancy, thinking that it was a good chance, she took the opportunity to bring the stranger, in Amber's opinion, to the other two and made a move then and there. "Hey Ams, meet Lauren. Lauren, meet Amber." Nancy introduces the blonde girl, as she then starts to finally look her way and smiles brightly. "Oh hello!" She greets, her tone friendly and inviting.
"Hello Lauren." Amber replies, she was shocked but covers it up well with gentle friendliness. "This is your friend?" Lauren asked the two, both of them nodded eagerly. She still held a smile, a slow nod filled with interest. "Interesting. Whenever I end up meeting them, they always talk about you mostly. It's a lot of things actually but don't worry, they talk a lot of good things about you too." Lauren talks, pointing out a fact that her two best friends were very open to talk about Amber even without her being present around this stranger she met for tonight.
Amber bashfully smiles, she wasn't expecting a whole bibliography of her life being explained. "Unexpected but thank you for the reassurance. I wasn't expecting these two to be so open to talk about me usually." Amber says, she looks at the ground, not sure on how to continue the conversation. "You know, you remind me of my brother." Lauren continues on. "How so?" She then looks up to the blonde. "Very anti-social." Lauren then says in reply, giving a small lopsided smile.
Amber hums, nodding slightly before turning to the other two. "So, how did you guys meet her?" She asked, wondering how her two friends are very friendly with the person that she got introduced to. "Oh, we saw her at the coffee shop with her boyfriend. I mentioned to Lauren somehow about her being really cute and especially how both of them were playing matching clothes during their date as well." Alexis explains, she gets an octave higher when talking about how they met, excitement in her body language.
"That's nice to know." Amber could only compliment as there is not much she could say, although deep in her heart, she does feel quite apologetic over the last few years, her time was always spent on training that she has completely disregarded in giving her time for her friends over the few years, even then, even if she wanted to, life just got in the way for the things she wanted to always make time often in her daily life and some of aspirations she wanted to pursue.
"Don't worry, I'm sure both of you guys will bond sooner right?" Nancy convinces, her smile warm and inviting, she tries to ease the awkwardness that was radiating from Amber and Lauren. "Yeah, no worries. It's not a problem." Lauren then nods, agreeing as well without much say.
"Hey, I should get back to my boyfriend. I'll see you guys around. Thank you to the both of you for introducing me to your friend. It was nice meeting you Amber." Lauren then checks on her phone, looking at the time and now on her way to look for her boyfriend. Nancy, Alexis and Amber, nodded and greeted back a goodbye to her, letting the girl walk away from the friend group.
Once Amber knew Lauren was far enough from the group's hearing, she looked at the two with a frown. "I wasn't expecting you guys to talk to the popular girl in school?!" She exclaims, caught off guard from the unexpected meeting done by the other two without much warning. "You weren't gonna say anything! At least try to be friendly." Alexis retorts, giving the girl a little nudge. "I thought you couldn't care about first impressions?" Amber looks at Alexis dead in the eyes, reading through this girl's lies.
"O- Okayyyy, maybe I am caring about it a little but seriously! Be nice will you?" Alexis then quickly admits, her voice squeaking a bit into a timid one before changing quickly into scolding Amber. "What is there to be nice about? It's not like she wants to befriend a person like me." Amber replies a little defensively. "Whatever." Alexis rolls her eyes slightly.
Nancy could only look at the two girls whilst shaking her head in confusion. "I am not gonna be here playing judge Judy." Nancy comments sarcastically. "Whatever, I'm gonna get more fruit punch." Amber gives in before walking away from the two, trying to cool down from Alexis, who was unaware she struck a nerve with the girl. Alexis was only looking at the figure walking away, frowning yet her ego was a little too high to care. As she turned her head to look at Nancy, she was shaking her head slowly and disapprovingly. "What?"
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The trio of friends were separated in the auditorium, the redhead and silver haired girls were talking to each other, one consoling and convincing the other to apologize while the other was still unapologetic and her ego was striking too high for that night. The brown haired girl who sat alone by the bleachers, scrolling through her social medias boredly in one hand and the other was her drink, fruit punch to be exact. She sighs, bored and tired of the party-like atmosphere and she felt compelled to leave but she couldn't be selfish enough to do so.
The night of fun and excitement only suddenly became dark in an instant. The power outage started small, it was just a flicker and she looked up, frowning at first, thinking it was normal electricity stuff going on. Then, the rumbles start. It shook the ground of the school ever so slightly until the magnitude of it became stronger and stronger with each pulse. The electricity was turned off immediately and the emergency red lights were turned on around the auditorium exits.
People around the girl were screaming, panic was setting in. The dust debris rain down the hall like it was like a rainy weather and with each shake, the school's building couldn't hold on for much longer that students were running to escape, everyone was fighting their way out and the brown haired girl was stuck on her feet, feeling as if she couldn't move but she somehow was pulled by a passerby who saw her standing by the bleachers and dragged her on her feet to hurry up. Snapping out of it, her head then whips around, her eyes wide and alert, looking for the two people she cared for. 'Where are they?' she thought to herself. She only got a grip on herself when someone started pushing her quickly. "Hurry up will you! The school's falling down!" One of the boys from behind her says as he was panicking and the look on his face was a mixture of horror at the events and scared of not being able to live through it.
She blinked quickly before going out of the school and she ran to where all the students were either huddling with their own friends or sitting by the grass fields. Some were injured, scrapes, shocked and some were just watching the school burn down slowly like it was just an average fireplace, except the scale was bigger and more horrific with each part of the building collapsing.
Amber, who was nearly almost getting crushed by the school building if it wasn't for one of the students, she was shocked and as she slowly turned her back to look at her school, it was falling down, debris of the school building, or what was left of it, was crumbling in front of her. She was seemingly standing and zoning out but her hands were quick to feel for her tracker and pressed the button immediately. The one place she hated so much about, but cherishes so much of her memories because that's where she grew up with her friends, was crashing and burning in an instant.
The only memory that will stick out tonight is definitely what she is seeing today.
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IT IS AN UPDATE!!!
WOOO!!! AAAHHH Finally! I am so glad I got to update the story after a while so if anyone is wondering, I am doing quite alright.
Internship has been mad and I haven't been updating on the creative flipside in a while but I wanna make sure what I do makes it fun and exciting for readers.
I hope everyone's excited for the next journey on where Amber is gonna be because the next chapters will get truly intense and very grilling, which will make some of her relationships get either good or bad then 👀
See you on the flipside!