You're The Only Friend I Need

400 Lux

REED

"Bellview Police! Everyone get out your ID's and freeze!"

"SHIT! EVERYONE RUN!" I scream while hysterically laughing. This is not the first time I've been at a crashed party when it was crashed. As my classmates run for the obvious exits, I decide to change it up a bit. Instead of running out the front or back doors, I sprint towards a stairway I saw some people use earlier in the night.

The party may have been my first while in college, but it wasn't my first college party. I run with ease past various articles of clothing, beer cans, plates of half-eaten food, and even a sleeping person. (I didn't have time to wake them up. I mean, if they could sleep through the sirens, there's no way I could wake them up with ease.) I make it to the top of the stairs after dodging another pile of trash. Without thinking, I hurry down the steps.

I'm soon to realize I took the wrong staircase as I find myself running into darkness.

Shit.

Damn it, I'm lost. So this is what it feels like to be a freshman. Thank God no one is watching me. Unless that sleeping person woke up... Shit. Regardless of my surroundings, I have no choice but to keep going. Down the stairs I go.

I hear the voices of a few officers as I reach the bottom of the stairs. I'm in the basement. Perfect. At least the lights are off. No one can see me down here.

I grab my phone out of my pocket for a flash light and venture through the basement. I find furniture covered in dusty sheets, a bunch of empty beer kegs, and cardboard boxes full of clothes and various unimportant stuff before finding a huge wardrobe.

"Bingo," I whisper. "Take me to Narnia," I laugh to myself as I open up the wardrobe to find my wishes ignored. My minor laughter dies as I learn the inside of the wardrobe was not another world, but indeed, just another wardrobe.

Disappointing, right? Just like reality. Sometimes you just want to find an escape from everything, but instead find just a bunch of Bellview Bangels lettermen jackets hanging on a cold metal rod. Despite my disappointment, I know the wardrobe was my only possibility of escaping the cops, and my time was running out. I hear more movement upstairs and have no choice but to hide behind the bar the jackets were hanging from.

Ha, I'm hiding behind one bar to avoid being stuck behind several bars. Hopefully it works.

"You go search the basement, I'm going to get the ones hiding in the bushes outside. If you find anyone, you cuff them and bring them to me, got it?" I hear one cop, I'm assuming the sheriff, say to another as I shut the wardrobe's doors.

"Got it!" The other cop replies. I hear footsteps slowly grow more and more distant and assume they belong to the sheriff leaving to go look for the kids in the bushes.

As the footsteps fade, I remember the other cop is coming to look for me. I hear his feet shuffle, the noise louder due to how much closer he was. Here we go, here he comes.

Seconds pass before any more noise is created. Was the cop gone already? More time goes by with silence being the loudest noise, and I feel a smile of relief begin to form on my face. I move slightly to make sure the officer was gone, trying to not interrupt the convenient silence. However, my attempt at silence fails as a hanger scratches against the rusty bar above my head. I notice the sharp spotlight of the officer's flashlight respond to the noise, shining in the direction of the wardrobe. I try to remain as still as possible as my hope sinks.

"Anyone down here?" He asks as if anyone would answer. I hear him begin walk down the stairs.

Yeah! I'm right here officer!