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Secrets Revealed

Autumn_Bx

Sandy Quinn was one of my best friends, and I'm heartbroken she's gone. I've seen a million people talk about her and who she was without even knowing her so I'll tell you the truth; Sandy was brash, sarcastic, and funny, she could also be mean, and I know she hurt people, but she also helped me during the darkest time in my life and more than anyone will ever know and I'm sorry I'll never get to see the person you would grow into

Autumn lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling. An episode of Friends playing on her laptop and her bones aching with tiredness that had nothing to do with physical activity. The room grew dark around her as night poured through the window she couldn't be bothered to close, and her phone lay at her side lighting up every so often with a new message.

She couldn't do it; she couldn't deal with the comments good or bad even if Carl thought it would be healing for her. Something about all the conspiracy theories was draining her; they were treating their friend's murder like it was some sort of TV show.

Instead, she just wanted to disappear into something familiar, an actual TV show, and watch Ross and Rachel get together for the 100th time.

"Autumn?" The door creaked open, and a flash of warm yellow light crept into the room, quickly followed by her father. Still dressed in the crumpled suit he wore to work that morning, his gold-rimmed glasses sat on the edge of the ski slope nose they shared.

"Hi, Dad." She got up slightly rising her body weight on her arms. Immediately she was hit with a smack of guilt at his worried expression, so she transformed her features into a reassuring smile.

He walked further into the room and flicked on the light. Wordlessly he shut the window and drew the curtains, he picked up the coat thrown on the floor and hung it up. It's what he'd done; they were never really the best at talking through their feelings.

"I'm going to make garlic noodles for dinner, should I make you a plate?" He offered.

She hesitated and chewed her lip. He tried to learn how to cook since her mom died; they both had. A million cookbooks were littering the kitchen and even when they followed them to the exact measurement, they didn't taste as good as what mom used to make.

"Or I could just order takeout, pizza?" He offered, and she nodded enthusiastically.

"Ok but we're ordering four cheese." He declared before closing the door behind him.

Autumn got up from her bed, moving her stiff neck.

Desperate to avoid her phone even further she took the pile of homework she'd been ignoring and decided to fight it.

Last year academics had come easy to her; she aced tests and did homework in her free periods. Now things were just...difficult she couldn't concentrate on her lessons, words moved when she tried to study, and homework was a distant memory.

But she needed a distraction, she read through the chapters Mr Simmons had set them for history, ran through the equations for math and even started her English assignment. The pizza arrived, and she ate it while looking over the biology work and she was tired but happy, ready to go to sleep.

And then her phone began to ring.

She couldn't think of the last time someone had phoned her cell. It was 2019 even her grandmother facetimed.

"Hello?" She picked up the phone, bored and procrastinating from getting ready for bed. What she expected was someone trying to sell her insurance what she got was an ear-piercing screech followed by a smooth robotic voice.

"Hello, Autumn." The voice was smooth, lifeless as if she heard it through a TV. She didn't answer, waiting to listen to the sales pitch or the voice trying to scam her out of her savings.

"I've wanted to call you for a while."

"Ooh, that's exciting!" She gave a fake mock squeal, and then the voice laughed, and the robotic voice on the other end let out a long laugh. Chillingly emotionless it rattled off for half a minute, she didn't understand why it worried her so much.

"I thought since I've already met your friend I should introduce myself to you too."

"Who do I know that still rings people?" A snort of laughter left her as she toyed with the idea of keeping him on the phone. It was a good distraction.

"Sandy liked to ring people."

Her blood ran cold as a lousy feeling bloomed in her chest, she found herself closing the laptop still playing Friends. A logical part of her said it was just someone fucking with her, maybe one of the guys or Cassie. Yes, Cassie! She'd been acting strange this last week, this was probably her way of dealing with it, trying to freak everyone else out.

"What do you want?" She managed to force out the question in a cool unbothered manner as if there wasn't a white-hot sensation creeping up her spine.

"Autumn, Autumn, Autumn," If there was a person on the other, she was sure they were singing her name. "It's not what I want; it's what I can do for you." Cassie could barely keep up with a prank for more than thirty seconds without revealing herself and tweeting about it.

"Are you going to sell me something or not?" Autumn commanded through gritted teeth, confused with herself as to why she was still letting this person talk.

"I want to play a game" The robot voice laughed again, this time it was a short bark of a laugh, even without hearing the tone, it sounded nasty. But it also seemed like something out of a horror movie, and it emboldened Autumn a little. Whoever it was on the other end of the phone was just playing out their little fantasy.

"I'm not interested in playing games." She sighed she was about to hang up when the words spat out of the caller.

"Sandy didn't play my game and look where she ended up."

Autumn didn't respond; every fibre of her mind screamed to hang up. A sickness rose in the back of her throat.

"Who is this," She responded slowly begging Cassie or Jason- that sick bastard from Ryan's baseball team- whoever it was too switch the app off their phone and start laughing. It had to be some kind of sick joke. It just had to be because the alternative was too terrifying even to consider.

"Let me show you what you'll win." The caller ignored the question; her phone buzzed again she looked down in horror to see a blocked number had sent her a message.

It was an image of herself from the week before, down the side of the K-Mart with Felix Beacon, a former Doves End student and current cashier and part-time drug dealer. There were pictures of them chatting, of her handing over money and him handing back oxycontin.

It'd started after the car crash when she'd got a prescription from the hospital to help manage some of the pain. But very quickly she became dependent on it so when they took her off it, Felix came to the rescue. She didn't take a lot, just enough to stop the throbbing in her head at least that's what she told herself. But she knew how it looked. Her dad would be crushed by it; no one in the school would look at her the same way.

"You pretend to have this perfect life online, but you're hollow." The voice on the other end sneered as the pieces of its plan began to fall into place.

Numbness took over her whole body, but her hand clasped at the phone terrified of the

"Are you the Ghost- the one that's been following everyone on social media?" The words stumbled out of her mouth, greeted with a sliver of manically laughter echoing down the phone.

"Are you ready to play now."

"The game is: Lie or Expose," It continued without waiting for her answer, "For every lie, you post online you're saved from having your truth exposed like the rest of your classmates, and we'll see who people believe."

"You said I already post lies online- why would you want me to post more?" She asked, it was absurd, everyone lied online- why was this person doing this to her? Everyone lied on social media, why would you post pictures of your bad hair days and your acne breakouts? You want to look back on your best moments; there wasn't any harm in that.

"Because you're going to be posting the lies I tell you to post."