Closer To Death

Chapter 1

Silence. That's all that there was in the court room as everyone waited for the Jury to declare the verdict. Sarah's heart beating thrice as fast, as she sat at her place, wondering about how her whole life depended on this one decision. She crossed her fingers of her left hand while holding Emma's hand tightly with the other.

Emma had been her best friend since the first grade and they always did everything together. She was an amazing friend who was, really, like her sister.
"For the crime of five murders, we declare the defendant guilty. Sarah Grace Parker shall be hanged on fifth August.", the Jury announced. Sarah's soul left her body. She was horrified. She never thought she would be hanged, that too at the age of sixteen. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she looked at Emma sadly. As Emma hugged her, Sarah couldn't hold back her tears and started crying bitterly. The thought of never seeing her friends, her parents and her little sister was just too much to bear. Her heart was sinking and she just wanted to run away and never return. As she was lost in her thoughts, she heard a faint, familiar voice calling her.

"Sarah! Sarah! Wake up! You're gonna be late for school." her mother called out. She opened her eyes and sighed in relief, "Thank God, that was only a dream. Oh God, I'm getting late. Coming down in a minute!" she replied to her mother. She got dressed and went down for breakfast. Her little sister, Sophie, was sitting at the table having a bowl of cereal. She took her breakfast from the kitchen, quickly gobbled it up and bid goodbye to her parents. Then she left for school.

She boarded the last bus to school and took a seat at the end of the bus. She expected to be alone in the bus and started singing softly to herself. "Hey! I'm Lucas Anderson. I heard you singing and I just wanted to say that you're really good." said a boy, who Sarah recognised from her class.
"Hi! Sorry, I thought that I was alone. But thanks anyways." Sarah said, feeling good about the compliment.
"Do you learn?"
"No, not really. I listen to lots of songs though. I guess I was just born with it."
"Well, I'm pretty much a good singer myself. At least that's what I think. I don't sing in public a lot." Lucas said
"Me neither. Maybe we could sing together sometime. Somewhere we'd be alone." she suggested
"Hey, you know what they say. If you wanna sing with a friend, then just duet"
Sarah found herself laughing at the terrible joke. "That was horrible."
"But I made you laugh" he said chuckling
"Wait a minute, did you say friend?"
"Well yeah, if you wanna be?"
"I'll need you to pass my friendship test, take a quiz and fill in the paperwork for that." Sarah replied
"Wha..."
"I'm just kidding." She said almost dying of laughter. "Of course, I'd love for us to be friends.
They laughed and talked their way to school.

As they entered the class, Emma jumped on Sarah like a mad person. "Where were you? Mrs Sterling will be here any minute."
"Sorry, I was having a really bad dream and I woke up late. By the way, did you know that Lucas and I were so similar?"
"Wait a minute, Lucas Anderson from our class? The guy who you just walked in with? The guy you never talked to before today, apparently?"
"Yeah. I was wondering why I didn't. He's great and we have a lot in common as well."
As they were talking, their history teacher, Mrs Sterling entered the classroom.

"Good morning, everyone! Please sit down. I hope you all had a great weekend. As you might recall, we were discussing about a history project on 'The English Civil War'. So, I will be putting you all into groups of four and you can all start with your projects today. You all have to submit it by next Friday for your internal assessment points."
"I really hope we're in the same group. I already have a few ideas about it." said Emma excitedly
"Yeah, me too. This will probably be one of the only interesting things in history class. To be honest, it is the most boring subject ever." Sarah replied
When the teacher announced the groups, they were really happy to be in the same group. Lucas was also in their group along with another one of their friends, Eric Blaze.

The bell rang and as soon as Mrs Sterling stepped out of the class, Lucas came to Sarah and said, "Are you excited about the project? I know I am. Can you believe we're in the same group? This is gonna be so great."
"Yeah, I'm excited too." she replied, a little stunned.

After classes were over, Sarah and Emma headed over to their friend group as usual. Eric was there along with Nathaniel, Chris and Bella. Chris was super talktive while Nathaniel was just the opposite. Eric was, what we call, the savage one, usually.
"Guys, guess what? My parents are letting me throw a grand party for my seventeenth birthday and I am gonna invite our whole class. You will all receive your invites tomorrow." Chris said excitedly
"Wow Chris, that's great!" Bella said
"You always have so many 'grand parties', that I wonder what's gonna happen on your eighteenth birthday." Eric said
Chris just grinned as everyone chuckled.
"Guys, I gotta go home early today. I'm helping mom bake cookies. And Emma and Bella are coming as well. So, bye!" Sarah intervened

As they three of them were walking to her house, Sarah told them about how Lucas had been trying to talk to her nonstop all day. He was literally approaching her every chance he got.
"Well, maybe he has a crush on you." Bella said
"Shut up. We literally just became friends."
"I have seen him looking at you during classes for a few months now. You could ask him out." Emma added
"Ew, why do you say such things. You know I don't date people, right? Besides, we've got that big Maths test coming up, remember? I really have to focus on school." Sarah said feeling disgusted
"When are you not focused in school? You should take a little break sometimes you know." Emma said
"We could have a girl's night this Friday. We haven't had one of those for a long time. Come on, it'll be fun" Bella suggested
"Fine, but no dating please."
"Deal"
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