Postmortem

The Night Of

    "I don't think this is a good idea." I said, glancing back anxiously. "My mom will be pissed if she finds out I snuck out." Bruno groaned and shared a meaningful glance with everyone else.
"For once can you not be an effing buzzkill, Al? So what if your mom gets mad, she always is." I stared at him, in disbelief he would really say something so casually cruel. They all knew I had a bad relationship with my parents. He glanced back at me and rolled his eyes. "What? We were all thinking it."
"Whatever. Where are we going?" I asked, getting more frustrated by the second. Luna laughed and Nicki shushed her behind me. Danni was the only one who stayed quiet beside me. "What's up with you, Danni?" I asked. His eyes went wide and he stared at me for a few moments before shaking his head and looking at the ground.
"Nothing." He muttered. I snorted, unbelieving. "Yeah, well you're acting weird. Do you know where we're going?" He wouldn't look at me anymore, just shook his head and kept his eyes to the ground. I would have kept asking questions if he hadn't sped up to walk beside Bruno instead. Everyone was acting so weird.
We had been walking through the woods on the edge of town for at least a mile so far. They had knocked on my window at midnight and told me to come along. I asked what was going on and they just said we were going to hang out, and that it would be fun. I agreed and we started off, but once we got into the woods they all became cagier.
    I looked around at my friends, taking in their appearances in the silence. Danny's dark skin and darker hair, Luna's dyed blue hair covering her sun tanned cheeks. Bruno was wearing a black shirt that showed of his muscular form and a dark beanie over his shaved head.
He used to have hair down to his shoulders last year, but last summer he decided to switch things up and get a buzz cut. Nicki's chocolate colored hair was up in a bun, showing off her pale neck and shoulders.
"If you guys aren't even going to talk to me I think I'll go home." I said after a few minutes of oddly tense silence.
"We're almost there, it'll be fun." Nicki promised and looped her arm through mine, dragging me along. I sighed but went with her.
"But what is it? You guys aren't telling me a thing!" I exclaimed.
"We're here!" Bruno said happily, gesturing to the old shack now in front of us.
"Yay, a decrepit old house. That was so worth waking me up in the middle of the night on a school week. Can we go now?" I asked, getting annoyed.
"We came all this way and you don't even want to see inside?" Luna pouted, "we even put lanterns up." I grimaced, guilt twisting my stomach. They worked so hard to surprise me and I was being an ass about it. I glanced around at their waiting faces.
"Okay, fine, but only for a little while. I really am tired." I relented and we went into the old building. I went in first, followed by everyone else. The inside was just as unimpressive as the outside. There were a few cheap paper lights hung up throughout, providing an eerily soft lighting. A single chair stood in the center of the room. "The lanterns are pretty cool. So is this what we came here to do? Hang out in a decrepit old shed? Cause I don't mean to be a downer, but-"
I didn't finish my sentence. Pain, sharp and blinding exploded across my skull. I hit the ground hard, my hands scraping the dirty floor. My eyes were filled with stars, red at the edges of my vision. The metallic scent of fresh blood filled the small room, and ringing filled my ears. Everything happened quickly after that. I heard my friends voices, urgent and slightly distorted. I worried someone had gotten into the cabin to hurt us. Then I heard what they were frantically saying to each other.
"Let's just get it over with before someone comes looking for us!"
"I thought we were going to have some fun with it, what's the fun of just smashing her head in?"
"It's better than jail!"
"I never should have listened to you guys, this is effing insane!" A crazed laugh.
"It's too late now! We have to finish the job!"
"Maybe we should just leave her and go home. No one would know we were even here!"
"I want to go home. I want to-"
"It doesn't matter what you want anymore, Danni! You're in on this. It's too late to- wait. Shit, she's moving! Get the rope Luna!" I had started crawling across the ground slowly and Bruno took immediate notice. His heel came down hard on my back. The burst of pain through my spine halted my movements. Rough hands grabbed my forearms, tightly tying a thick, scratchy rope around my wrists. I twisted and pulled but only succeeded in burning my wrists.
The same hands dragged me off of the ground and threw me into the chair I had seen earlier. I grunted, pain splitting me apart like an ax through my body. Some laughter sounded again, laughing at my pain. Laughter I had heard a thousand times over stupid jokes and late night sleepovers. My friend's laughter.
"Well what do we do now, Bruno?" My head was ringing but not so bad that I couldn't recognize Nicki's voice.
"We've gotta finish the job!" Cried Danni, frantic, his heavy boots pacing back and forth somewhere in front of me. This time it was Bruno that laughed. Maybe it had been him the whole time.
"I thought we came to have fun. Not much fun just hitting her in the head with a shovel." He said.
"None of this is fun, you psychotic mother fuc-" Danni began, but Bruno was quick to cut him off.
"You're going to call me psychotic? You, all of you, all of us, made this plan together! None of us have clean hands here, jackass!" A deep breath, a regaining of composure. "Now, I'm going to have my fun. You can stay or leave, but before breathing a word of my bloody hands to anyone else, take a look at your own. And don't preach your bullshit morals to me again, Danni."
I heard the door of the cabin open and slam shut, and I didn't hear Danni pacing anymore.
"Now, are you guys going to participate or follow him?" Bruno again.
"I'm staying, I've always wanted to make someone bleed." That was Luna. Luna who had braided my hair before school more times than I could count. She wanted to make me bleed. Cause me pain.
"I'll stay too, but I'll only help bury her. I don't want her blood on my hands." Nicki said. Bruno heaved a sigh but didn't argue much.
"Her blood was on your hands the moment we stepped into the cabin. But, you can do as you like. All the more entertainment for me and Lu. Wait outside." The door opened and closed again. I looked up, two sets of bloodthirsty eyes were on me. "Let's get started."

I won't detail what they did to me, the sadistic screwups I had once considered friends. But once they had mangled my body past recognition they threw it into a deep hole behind the cabin where they killed me. Then they buried me, covered my bloody and broken body in dirt. I know, because that's where I dug myself up from a few hours later. I was whole, revived with a fresh, unmarred body and a new purpose. Revenge.