The Seven

The Seven: Prologue

It was a beautiful Spring morning. The sun burned in the blue sky and accompanied an easy breeze that weaved around town. The air smelled sweeter in this season, the water seemed clearer, the mood was happier.

Seven teenage friends drove up to Blackwood Mountain. The oldest, Cam, was blasting rap music as loud as he could, singing along to every word. His friends begged him to turn it down, but he just pretended he couldn't hear them.

A dark-haired boy and artist Rick sat silently in the passenger seat, praying they were almost to their destination. Eventually Harley, the youngest, crawled up from the backseat and pressed the power button on the stereo.

"Alright, I get the idea!" Cam said, still laughing hysterically.

Finding the ringing in her ears not so funny, Sena, the second eldest and self-made mother friend of the group groaned. "Finally, you're music taste is trash!"

Cam mocked an offended face, before turning back to the road.

"Are we there yet?" Claire, Harley's proclaimed twin and usually the peace-resolver of the group and Harley said in unicent.

Cosmic kicked up her legs, blissfully unaware of that action almost decking Sena in the head.

"So it is true, twins can read each other's minds." She said, looking at the sisters suspiciously. Cosmic was a carefree optimist, her main focus on memes and sorting things out.

Harley and Claire laughed. Although they looked completely different in appearance, they were so close it was as if they came from the same womb.

Nathan, who had the unfortunate back seat of the car popped his head up, having been half-sleep, half-listening. "Pfft, no way. I bet they have a code for when they're gonna say stuff at the same time."

"I call mind-reading." Rick chimed in.

Sena shrugged, "Morse code"

"BLINK MORSE CODE." Nathan objected.

Cam yawned loudly. "I think I'm hungry."

They were all driving up to the mountain for a group vacation. It was finally Spring Break but the mountain they had driven to was still icy-cold and coated in snow. Everyone was excited to see snow for the first time in months. They had rented an Airbnb in the woods, quaintly hidden away at the top of the mountain. This had been the trip they had been planning after their exams had cleared up. For movie marathons, snowball fights, and overall group bonding. It had been so long since the seven of them had been altogether at once.

If only they had known the dangers atop this mountain, they would've never gotten in the car in the first place.

As they drove the stereo started getting fuzzier and fuzzier, and eventually stopped playing.

"Oh, what?" Cam groaned. "Unbelievable."

Cam picked up his phone to see what the problem was. "That's weird, my phone doesn't have a signal. What about you guys?"

There was collective agreement that no one's phone had a signal.

"Oh well, more bonding time, less screens. No one get injured." Cam said with a smile on his face, not willing to let one setback hold them back from having fun.

Claire unrolled the window, letting the cold air in as she held her phone out, squinting at the single bar that struggled to display itself on her screen. "Well what if we need to call someone? Or if someone tries to reach us?" Claire asked with a worried tone in her voice.

"Oh please, all our parents know where we are, there's nothing to worry about." Cam replied.

"This is serious Cam! What if we need to call 911 or something!" Claire exclaimed.