The Eternals

Chapter One

They hung side by side, young and innocent faces staring back at me. The missing person posters floated in the wind. Daunting to anyone who looked at the crisp white paper. Daniel Miller and Casey Samuels. Both had gone missing this summer, Daniel was the first to disappear nearly two months ago. He was last seen walking by Edenfield bridge on his way home after a day spent at a friends house. Then out of nowhere, he was gone. Casey was the next to go, two weeks ago. She was last seen with a dark-haired man in an old blue pick up truck driving down the main road. Then just like Daniel, She was gone.

Things like this just don't happen in Edenfield.

A few miles from Covington, Georgia our small town of Edenfield exists. A picturesque town with green tree-lined streets, where children rode their bikes and played on the street well past sundown, or at least they did. It was in this town, with its non-existent crime rate that the disappearance of two teenagers rocked the town to the core. People began to lock their doors at night, and make sure their children were locked away inside before the sun went down. This was the new Edenfield.

"Evangelene," I blinked myself out of my daze, taking a final look at the familiar faces that hung on the light post outside my house. "Baby." I turned away from the faces of Casey Samuels and Daniel Miller and faced my mother.

Susan Cain. She had a fuller figure, one which made her hugs to be comforting and soothing. A hug that made your troubles disappear. Her complexion like my own was pale, if it wasn't for the freckles that dotted her skin you would think she'd never stepped foot in the sun in her life. A pair of arched eyebrows looked down on sweeping eyelashes which covered hazel eyes. Her hair, like my own, was a dark blood-red and it tumbled over her shoulders, stopping just below her shoulders. Every year it got shorter as mine got longer.

"Baby. Are you okay?" I nodded my head. Picking one of the grocery bags out of the boot of the car closing it behind me as I walked towards our house. "They're going to find them."

"I know they will" I tried to tell myself as I walked into our house. I felt bad lying to her, we'd always been so close. A team, One cohesive unit. Susan and Evangelene, but these days something was wedging itself between us pushing us apart. "Can I got to Gabriels?" I put the groceries on the bench and leaned against the counter. "I haven't seen him in a while."

"It's been one day." I bit my lip shrugging my shoulders at her response. "Tell Gabe I said hi," She threw the keys at me, I just caught them before they dropped to the ground. Hand-eye coordination is not my strong point. "And be home before dinner."

"I will, and I will."

"I'll see you soon," I nodded my head again, trying to soothe the worries that painted her tone.

"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine,"

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To get to Gabriel's house it's a fifteen-minute drive, then another fourteen steps from the curb to his front door. Then it's always another three minutes before he ever comes to open the door. Gabriel and I had always been best friends, through everything. Heartbreaks, third grade when our teacher separated us for talking too much during private study time but not even that worked and by the sixth grade they'd just stopped trying, nothing could break us apart, or so I thought. Lately, things had been tense between us. Neither of us liked to like to one and other, and pretend we're fine but whenever the other asked if we were okay if we were worried there was always an uncomfortable silence that followed.

On the drive to Gabriel's house, it had started to rain, I didn't see it as anything other than rain. If I were smarter I would have seen it as an omen - An omen that something bad had made it's way to Edenfield.