Murder In The House

Part 1

Was I hallucinating? No. I must not be. I should not be. Why would I be? I did not take drugs. As far as my concerns, I did not do anything that was considered to be bad or unhealthy, asides from my occasional blows of laziness. But there was no doubt that that sleepover will forever haunt me and linger in my thoughts for as long as my mind continued to function.
"Great value rice!" Adriana exclaimed as she points to a boy standing in the distance. Wicked laughter filled the air. Now, we were all a decent nice group of friends that teased each other as a daily part of our friendship routine and maybe even sometimes we would take a  valiant step further and tease a friend about their "future lover." I am just a girl that was laughing with my lively friend group that consisted of five members in total; Elizabeth Oakes-a talented artist, Melissa Mendele- a literature heroine , Adriana Borne- the animated life of the party, Nancy Louis- the follower, and of course, me, Carmen Kilos, the one whose place in this group were to be left unknown. We were all sitting in our usual spot in the cafeteria, it was eighth grade, our last year of Beachside Middle School, and we were seated, waiting for our turn to get up and receive our food. We watched Great Value Rice, or the boy we teased as Adriana's hated lover. We all knew Adriana loathed the idea of Great Value Rice, formally known as Isamu, to be in a romantic relationship with her, but that's what greatly contributed to it's bittersweet excitement.
     "Aye yo, Isamu!" Elizabeth said in her manliest voice. We all laughed once more. Isamu sat way across from us, at the opposite side of the cafeteria. He sat alone, mainly because he was forced to since he and his rowdy friends would always cause some sort of riot. None of my friends presently liked Isamu. Our little teasings evolved into nicknaming him several times; asian rat(because he was asian of course and he acted like a rat) great value rice, and some others, but Great Value Rice seemed to fit perfectly because of of its accuracy of symbolizing our disgusts towards him. Elizabeth was head over heels for him in sixth grade, but that was before we knew his true colors as the rude and ignorant soul he were to be as those two years gradually passed by. I was not fond of Isamu either. I've had some personal experiences with him in seventh grade. My school would serve breakfast everyday, not the best kind but it was still edible. I went alone and every morning I would encounter Isamu and his crew with mischievous looks on their faces. The only words to be greeted by Isamu were "herro", which was said in the most racist and playful manner Isamu could manipulate. I could hear the giggles from his low class friends, their smiles were something to be seen from actors that starred in a low budget movie which was critiqued with the harshest rates, a negative ten out of ten. I would play along with their games. I would reply hello in it's correct pronunciation. I honestly never understood why Isamu would do such a thing. We were after all birds from the same feather, why would he surround himself with people that were against his own ethnic group? l didn't know the answer to those questions, and I probably never would. That was the last time I would go to breakfast that year. Finally, it was our turn to grab our lunches. We took our tray of food and headed back to our table.
"So....." Melissa teased, "How's Isamu?" Adriana stared straight at Isamu, eating his strawberry ice cream bar from across the cafeteria.
"I'm gonna murder him," Adriana said with determination, eyes glued on Great Value Rice. Adriana has been going off with that for days. We all croaked with laughter.
"Sure," Nancy managed to say, mouth stuffed with food, "sure you will." I could not help but just think of the sleepover at that very moment. The word "murder" was prone to trigger my thoughts at that very night. I prayed to God that I was still sane. At the same time, I didn't know which was worse; the event actually happening, or me being delusional.
    "What's wrong, Carmen?" Elizabeth asked. I had not realized I haven't touched my food at all this evening. Should I tell her? No. She'd probably think I was insane. Or maybe I was. Maybe it's best to not know.
"Umm...nothing. My mind is just somewhere else, you know? It's just that ever since that sleepover we had, I'm just not really thinking the same..." I said. Elizabeth raised an eyebrow and spoke with a distant tone.
"What sleepover?" she inquired.
My heart skipped a beat. Please tell me that she was just forgetful.
      "You know, that sleepover we all had last Saturday.." I answered.
"We never had a sleepover last Saturday," she said. "I don't know what you're talking about."
       "Same here, I don't remember us having a sleepover," Melissa said.
        "Nancy?" I asked. I hope she knew what I was talking about. She shook her head. I looked at Adrianna, who also denied my beliefs on what happened regarding Saturday. At that point, I saw no reason to defend myself. I was so stupid for saying that! How can I forgive myself? I  wasn't thinking through. But could I even execute that? There was this terrible feeling inside of me. Thoughts of uncertainty creeped up against my shoulders and crawled into the tiniest crack there was and entered my small brain and vast mind. Was I thinking straight? The answer was so clear to me. I am insane. A thousand years passed by and it was finally time to dump our lunches, which I not at all even dared to eat during such a crisis, into the trashcan and exit the cafeteria, which I exited with monumental amounts of internally growing fear. I walked down the hallway with Elizabeth, Adrianna, Nancy, and Melissa, or what we liked to call ourselves as "The Potato Nuggets." Now It was civics class with Mr.Beanoot. We were halfway into the lesson when Adrianna had asked to use the restroom, which she claimed to be "not feeling well." I had noticed that the rest of my classmates seemed to be outlandish as well.
     "Carmen, so what are the qualities of a good student?" Mr.Beanoot asked as an attempt to catch me off guard and inattentive.
        "A good student always pays attention," I replied sheepishly.
"Glad we're on the same page," he said. My peers kept coughing. One by one, every student coughed, as it was some sort of disease. "Very funny," Mr.Beanoot said. I examined the classroom, my dear friends did not wear a happy expression on their faces. They looked sick. Everyone in the classroom did. Except me. Mr.Beanoot too. Suddenly, Winter, one of my female friends, fell from her seat. And one by one, everyone did. Their faces kissed the floor and hugged the ground as if they were it's sweet children. The classroom was a graveyard. I could not believe what was happening. I could not react. I could not move. I sat there, glued on my seat. The only thing my mind could process was the sight of Mr.Beanoot, his eyes pierced on the horrifying sight, and his mouth wide open, gaping as if he had something to say but the eeriness of the classroom held no need to explain. We did nothing. I was horrified. We were frozen in time. I courageously stood up from my desk and spoke.
       "What do we do now?" I asked intensively. Mr.Beanoot looked at me with cold eyes.
"Check to see if they're alive."