• The strings I pulled on my guitar echoed through the empty choir room, filling it with my music and singing. I have to say my Music has been going pretty well lately, due to the poetry assignment we got in English.
    I packed up my guitar and locked the shiny black case and stuck the music sheets I had been working on to the side of it with a Teddy Bear Magnet. My phone vibrated against my leg; it was the alarm, telling me it was 5:00 and time to pack up because Mother was going to be here soon. I used my phone alarm every day because there was no clock in the choir room. There were no clocks in any of the classrooms, to think of it. There was in the gym, that had a crack on the front because of some basketball accident that probably occurred a million years ago.
    The cool autumn breeze brushed against my face as I stepped outside into the school courtyard, my guitar case held tightly in my hand. One of the papers that was stuck to the side of it with the adorable Magnet blew loose and started fluttering around the courtyard. I set my guitar case on the ground and chased after it, the bottom of the dress that was my school uniform blowing back and forth.
    I jumped behind a bush to grab the paper and hit the ground, scraping my chin against the pavement. I opened my eyes to be face-to-face with a shiny leather shoe.
    "Is this yours?" Someone asked. I looked up to see the Smiling face of Leila, a rather strange girl in a couple of my classes that I've gotten to know in the last few days. She was holding my music sheet out to me, her other hand pressing her notebook with the blue pen tucked into the spiral against her chest just as she had been doing a couple days before, when we had a rather unusual conversation after our Batty English teacher forgot to call on her to read the poem she had written for an assignment in front of the class. I had been avoiding her since.
    "Thanks," I said, brushing myself off and plucking the paper out of her hand.
    "It's very good," Leila said after a couple seconds of silence as I continued to brush myself off.
    "Eh?" I asked, feeling as if my eyes were bulging out of my head. "You read it?"
    Leila nodded and blushed a little bit, lowering her gaze to the ground near my shoes.
    I had never let anyone read my music sheets before, not ever. No one even knew I wrote any music or had musical talent all not even my parents. Now I felt so awkward that someone I had just really met read it; like all of my deepest secrets had flooded out.
    "It's very good." Leila repeated, poking at the blue pen stuck in the notebook spiral.
    "You have some talent."
    I gulped a little bit and rubbed my arms from the cold. I had forgotten to put my coat on when I ran outside, it was back with my guitar case.
    But Leila wasn't wearing anything to keep her from the cold; just the school uniform, a brown dress with black leggings under it. She was however, wearing a black beret with a white stripe around the rim over the top of her head with her long chocolate-colored hair falling down to her stomach. Leila made me feel inferior, her with her Long hair, dark eyes and elegant legs compared to me with my Greenish-eyes and shoulder-length dirty blond hair that was always pulled back in a ponytail.
    "Thanks," I said to Leila almost in a whisper.
    Leila wobbled back and forth on her legs, like she was drunk or dizzy. "Have you signed up for the school talent show?"
    I looked up at her. "No," I said, gulping again. "I haven't."
    Something about Leila scared me; she was so mysterious and scary, and never spoke much at all. There was an eerie presence that followed her, like she was carrying a ghost on her back or something.
    "Sam," she said, locking her eyes on the pavement she was standing on. "Thanks," she smiled a little bit. "Thanks a lot."
    I furrowed my brow in confusion. Again Leila was confusing me, the way she randomly blurted out things no one could understand.
    "Wha-" I began, stopping as my phone's ringtone echoed through the air. It was my mom calling to tell me she was out in the parking lot waiting for me. "Your welcome," I said, leaving at at that and running back onto the other side of the bust to my guitar case.
    My phone continued ringing its annoying tone, sticking the tune in my head replacing the tune of my own song I had been working on a little while ago before my second after-school meeting with Leila.
    "Yeah, yeah," I said to myself. "I'm coming."


    That night at home, while I was lying on my bed in my Pajamas with a cup of hot cocoa, it started to rain really hard. I was trying to study for a History test coming up in a couple days, but the rain was so freaking loud against the window, Ba-Tap-Tap-Taping my brain out.
    I shut my American History VII book and closed the curtains over the window, lifted up my hot chocolate and headed out into the hallway.
    It was surprisingly dark; I couldn't see a single thing in the house as I walked into the dark kitchen.
    "Huh?" I said to myself, (Talking to myself had been a habit since I was a child). "It's only 8:30."
    I set my empty Hot Chocolate cup in the sink and filled it with water, the sound running through the darkness. Out of the corner of my eye I swear I saw something move in the shadows, then decided it was a car passing by on the road making a shadow in the lamp outside.
    My thoughts were interrupted by the ticking of the cat clock in the kitchen, Me-owing to indicate the new hour.
    I filled a glass on the counter with water (As If I hadn't had enough to drink,) and glanced up at the annoying clock my parents had bought a couple years ago.
    2:15.
    I swallowed my sip of water as I looked at the clock, obviously wrong and grabbed a chair to reset it.
    "Jesus," someone said, surprising me and I almost fell out of my hair. "Sam, what are you doing up this late?"
    I pressed the Arrow on the back of the Me-owing clock to make a minute less.
    "It's only 8:30," I said to my mom. "The clock is wrong."
    I turned around and stepped off of the chair I was standing on to adjust the clock.
    "There, all fix-"
    I was alone in the kitchen; there was no one there. Mom must have left back upstairs to go to bed, because she thought it was late.
    I grabbed an apple out of the fruit bowl on the counter, then noticed a note shoved under the bottom of it.
    I turned it around to read it as I took a bite out of the apple.
    Sam,
    Aunt Linda had to go to the hospital; she had a stroke.
    Dad and I drove up to the hospital about an hour ago while you were asleep.
    We'll be back by the time you get home from school tomorrow, honey.
    I'm so sorry, we love you.

    -Mom and Dad.


    I laughed to myself. What were they talking about?
    I wasn't asleep an hour ago, I was studying, and mom was just in the Kitchen talking to me.
    Walking up the stairs, I swear I saw a shadow move again downstairs, but ignored at and opened the door to my Parents' bedroom.
    "Hey Mom," I laughed. "You won't believe this, Dad wrote a prank n-" but my mom or dad weren't in their room. It was empty, and the bed was made.
    Then I traced back my memories inside of my head.
    The voice in the kitchen wasn't moms; it was too high-pitched.
    I held onto my head, trying to figure out what was going on.
    Everything had been so Weird since Tuesday, the day Leila had forgotten to read the poem.
    But little did I know things were about to get a lot weirder.