The Dead Forest

The Ban

Vira, Stormy, and Bailey were sitting on the school bleachers. They were called here for a school-wide announcement.

Stormy, wearing a light blue hoodie and some ripped skinny jeans, was talking about the school goth-kid, Kyle.

Bailey, who wore an oversized grey hoodie and cargo shorts, was listening with little interest, giving a couple of helpful words every now and then.

And then there was Vira. She was wearing a rock band hoodie and some dark grey jeans. She was listening very closely to what her friends had to say, trying to block out all of the idiots around them. Until a certain voice on the Mic interrupted the conversation.

"Good evening, students. Now, I want you all to listen carefully." The principal of Cloudclan High started. "Because of recent events, we have decided to ban the forest that is South of our beautiful town. We have had several seniors, students, and adults walk into those woods and they have not shown up. So we must take extreme precautions to ensure that....." He droned on. Vira stopped paying attention and went back to her music.

After the announcement, two of Vira's other best friends joined the conversation. These two were twins named Mabel and Sky.

"Talking about Kyle again, Storm?" Mabel asked.

At the sound of his name, Stormy smiled dreamily and replied with a "yeah......"

Sky looked up from her drawing pad. "Isn't she always?" Sky questioned rhetorically.

The group of girls nodded in unison and went to go sit at their lunch table.

Sky took out her lunchbox and shared to food in there with Mabel. Stormy went to get food from the cafeteria. Bailey and Vira didn't eat lunch. They just talked about the new video game coming out or a new plan to get away from P.E.

"So, Bail. Do you really think people will listen to what Principal Banana Hair said?" Vira asked. She called the principal Principal Banana Hair because of the way his hair looked.

"Probably. I don't think people will want to take that risk." Bailey replied.

"True, true."

"However..."

"Ooh, there's a however, there. Nice."

"Oh, be quiet. I was thinking. What did happen to all of those people."

"Who knows. Maybe a....." she paused for dramatic effect, "Vampire got to them."

"Very funny, Vira. But we all know that Vampires don't exist."

"If they did, we'd just be walking blood banks for them."

"These things are true. Let's just be glad that they don't exist."

"Got it." Finished Vira and turned to look back at the twins and Stormy, who was happily eating her applesauce.

Something that they didn't know was that they were out there. And they weren't leaving anytime soon.