The Zodiac World (On Hold)

Chapter 1 - The Party

DECEMBER 31, 2025
NEW YEARS EVE
5:37PM

The frost nips at me as I trudge home from work. I can barely pick my feet up and over the two feet of snow piled on the sidewalk. Squinting through the wind that's blowing more of the falling snow in my face, I can barely make out my brown house perched on the corner of 1st Avenue and Prince Lane.

Hopeful, I bound the last block to my house and climb up the four snow filled stairs onto the front porch. Gratefully, there's a roof, so the snow slowly disappears as I step up to the door. Stomping my feet a few times, I shake the snow off my boots. As I pull out my keys, I hear the phone ring inside. I fumble to find the right key and stick it in the lock. When I get it unlocked, I push it open and bolt into the kitchen.

On the last ring, I scoop up the phone and answer with a cheerful, "Hello."

"Yo, man," my best friend, Antoine, greets.

"Wassup?" my other friend, Jon, chimes in.

"Just got home for work. Ready to take a warm shower. I can't feel anything," I reply.

"Anything?" Jon asks.

"Almost anything," I inform when I get what he's getting at.

I hear him snicker before Antoine speaks up, "So I..."

"We!" Jon interrupts as he yells from a different room.

"We," Antoine corrects, "were wondering if you wanted to go to Sara's party tonight."

I gape dumbfounded for a moment before responding, "Wait, like, the most popular girl in school, Sara?"

"Yeah, what other Sara is there?"

"So, you coming?" Jon asks eagerly.

"Of course!" I answer excitedly.

"Good," Antoine says. "Jon and I will be there at 6:30. Party starts at 7:00."

"Okie doke, I'll see you in a bit."

"Yup, bye."

Before I could respond, the line goes dead. I shrug and replace the phone and told her deciding I better get ready.

7:26PM
SARA'S MANSION

I bum around the house, walking in circles, cup of water in my hand. Antoine and Jon disappeared as soon as we arrived. Sara and her two henchmen, Samantha and Vanessa, are nowhere to be seen. I assumed they would've made an entrance by now.

"Gemini, whereyabeen?" Antoine stumbles up to me drunkenly, his words all slurring together. "Here," he mumbles as he thrusts a cup at me. A little beer sloshes over the edge of the cup. "Have a driinnk."

"I don't drink, Tony. You know this."

"Just tis oneplease. Geminini, loseup. Have alittfun."

"No, Anto..." I stop talking when the music pauses. Cautiously, I move around my drunken friend, careful not to knock him over and stand in the doorway of the living room. My eyes focus at the top of the stairs. Sara, Samantha, and Vanessa are showing off at the top.