HOURGLASS

CHAPTER ONE - My Best Fiend 36:00

 "Rooooooobin! Come. Here. NOW! You absolutely have to see what I got you!" a bubbly pink haired banshee screeched from the hallway to my left. I was walking into school, trying to avoid any sort of contact with other people, socially and physically. Nessa Adesso had decided otherwise.

Nessa had been my best friend since kindergarten, where we both discovered horror and the fact that we both loved to genre to bloody, scary bits. I never really figured out exactly why we had stayed friends for this long, considering my mouse-like nature and her flamboyant presence that yelled at all who met her that-

"Hey! I'm over heRE!" I rolled my eyes and slunk over to the electric ball of energy holding a crisp white envelope.

"What's that?" I asked. Usually everything that Nessa owned was either covered in doodles, glitter, or stray paint flecks. It was unusual to see her with anything even partially clean.

She looked at me with devilishly mischievous eyes, and quickly dragged me around the corner into our little alcove. Our school was over a century old, meaning that there were hidden secrets all around the slightly dilapidated building. It had been Nessa and my mission to explore the whole school entirely before we graduated. This was my favorite spot on the entire campus, a small library hidden behind a life-size portrait of the first principle.

We sat down on the couch we had refurbished last year and Nessa handed me the package. I held it cautiously, like one would hold a bomb or a bawling baby. Gingerly, with a hint of disgust. Just me? Okay.

"Open it already dude! I waited all of fall break to give you this. Oh, and happy birthday." She smiled, her tone and face fading. She had known my mom almost as well as I had, and missed her desperately. I scooted over to hug her and whispered, "Thanks, Nessa." She broke out of the embrace and tilted my head down to kiss the top of it. "You're welcome, Robin."

People had always assumed that Nessa and I were dating, but what they didn't know as that she was about as straight as a circle. I never had thought of her as anything more than a beloved sister. A chaotic, sometimes destructive little pyromaniac of a sister. Still, more normal than my actual family.

After my mom died my dad shut himself off from this world. He never abused me, drugs, or alcohol, but his wife's death caused the poor man to shatter into blue tinted glass shards. He withered away to the point where I had to start taking care of the house at age ten. The only reason we didn't go broke was because before my mom passed, she ran a multi-million dollar makeup company. We still get monthly checks worth $20,000, even a decade later. My father was a shell of his former self, even though he still had a loving son and other relatives. Some things are just impossible to move on from, I guess.

I took the envelope in my hands and slowly peeled open the flap. Two blue tickets with silver writing on them slide out onto the couch. I lifted one of the delicate slips of paper to my eyes and inspected the elegant writing. "'You are invited to the haunted house of your nightmares'... YOU DID IT! Oh my god, you got us tickets the Lexicon Haunted House! We've been waiting for years to do this! Oh, I love you so much!!" I hugged her until she wheezed "I can't b-breathe." I let her slim frame go and apologized for squishing her lungs.

The Lexicon Haunted House was the number one rated horror attraction in the entire world, and even though I'd lived ten minutes away from it my entire life, I'd never gone and experienced it myself. Nessa smiled smugly and said, "I almost got an extra ticket so that Olivia could go too."

Olivia was another friend of mine, one of my only friends, and I may or may not have had a crush on her for a long time. I rolled my eyes at her.

"Do you need to be sooo annoying?" I groaned. I sounded really bored, but in reality, I was still overly excited, thinking about the trip and predicting all the nasty creatures we'd encounter.

The tickets said that we had reservations for tonight at nine o'clock. Thankfully it was Friday, so

my godfather could come over and help my dad out for a few hours. Alexander Varadero had been a family friend for as long as I could recall, and he was my savior after my mom died.