A Dangerous Infliction

Chapter 1: Free Offense

 A Dangerous Infliction 

Chapter 1: Free Offense 

“There is nothing either 

good or bad, but thinking 

makes it so.” 

-William Shakespeare 

An oak door creeks open breaking the dimness in the room and filling it with beams of light. The door hits a bell before it quickly closes again leaving the room with the strong smell of coffee and a hint of sweat. Emma Jones approaches her friends Victoria Matthews and Elena Brown at their usual spot in the back of Happy’s Café. The small but homey coffee shop has a rustic appeal and the girls always met there every Friday after school. The girls, along with most others their age in the small town of Moon Lake, attend Moon Lake High school. 

“Hey!” she greets her friends cheerfully as she sits down in the familiar wooden chair. All the chairs and tables are painted a dark brown and probably, sandpapered to look like they were worn and once expensive mahogany sets. Each chair has a worn out, flat, red cushion on it as well as the two couches, which contain other colorful pillows of dark blue, orange, and green, near the many windows onlooking the cracked sidewalks of their small town in Wisconsin. 

Her friends greet Emma with a smile and Elena shoves a white mug towards her filled with a warm latte. The girls routinely trade of who treats the coffee and all of them are familiar with each other’s coffee tastes. Today's Elena’s turn, and she normally likes her coffee on the sweeter side, like Emma. Victoria normally orders hot chocolate or tea; she’s not a big coffee fan. Emma takes a good long whiff of the familiar smell and took a sip of her coffee and then turns her attention to the stage. Today, the 'Party Players’ are performing and frankly, royally suck at it. The band consists of two acoustic guitar players, one drummer, and a singer who sounds like a dying banshee. They're trying to attempt All of Me by John Legend.

“You know, Elena, one day you should go up there. You're by far the best singer I’ve ever heard and it might even intimidate everyone else so much, that they won’t ever come back to try and shrivel up our poor suffering ears.” Victoria comments. Elena almost choked on her coffee. 

“Hell no, I’d rather stick pins in my eyes.” Elena responds. She has terrible stage fright and only had ever played for me, Victoria, and her family. 

“Just a suggestion.” Victoria shrugs it off. Victoria is the smart one out of all of us. She's in all AP classes and works her butt off in order to be there. Elena is obviously the singer and is most favorable to Country. Finally, Emma's the artist, but is certainly nothing THAT special, she just likes to draw. 

The crowd clapped as the ‘Party Players’ step off the stage smiling and thanking the crowd. Emma was always amazed at how even though they did terribly, bands still somehow pride themselves on having a crowd clap for them, even if it is out of sympathy. 

After a few minutes Emma notices that the next band playing, was one she hasn't seen before. 

“Hey guys, do you know who they are?” Emma pointed to the group of guys around their age walking on stage to set up.