The moon shines above for all to see its beauty, up in the night skies where the stars lie. A girl, wearing her cat T-shirt and a pair of black shorts, is using a pen on her journal while sitting on the ground in front of a lake. Fireflies were in the air. And yes, the girl is Sofia. Writing down an entry of a good day she had today, her lips were curved into a small smile of genuine joy. Nothing bad happened, both tonight and today.

  She wrote something along the lines of: “Dear Journal, I’m so happy that I finally made a friend! Actually, two friends. Rachel and Joel. Rachel is bubbly, which made me enjoy her presence. Not sure about Joel though, but he seems nice. Although I’ve heard that he’s a bit of an oddball.”

  Sofia is obviously glad that she made two new friends who seem worthy of her time, Rachel and Joel. They were such nice people, but… Something feels off about Joel. She can’t quite comprehend why she feels off about him. It’s nothing romantic or anything like that at all, it was more similar suspicion.

SNAP!

  The girl quickly turned her head to look over her shoulder at the sound of a twig snapping in half. There was nobody, or rather something, there. Just darkness looming. A sigh of relief escaped her, and she went back to writing more words into her journal.

  Footsteps behind her were soundly low, a knife held by a black gloved hand, a hood over the guy’s head, and Sofia is in bliss of writing in her journal. But not for long because someone is literally right behind her, approaching her. Until…

  The blade of a knife immediately slit her throat, crimson pouring down to her cat T-shirt. The light left her eyes, her hands letting go of the pen and journal that was left open, and her entire body became lifeless. The guy in a black hoodie dragged her corpse close to the wooden bridge, to the lake at the end of the wooden bridge, and rolled her over to the under water for a nap. 

~ The Next Eight Days ~

   “Huh, how and where did… No.. That can’t be it.” Rachel muttered to herself as she looked through her old toy box that is in the top right corner of her bedroom. For Joel, he’s looking under her bed for what they’re both looking for.

Then finally…

  “I found it!” Joel chirped as he took out an action figure who resembles He Man, straight from under Rachel’s bed.

  “Yes! Thank you, Joel! I knew I could count on ya!” She beamed and took the He Man action figure, then threw it straight into the toy box that is clustered with a collection of others. Others as in other action figures, both female and male with a fabulous sense of style for the eyes.

  Saturday is sunny, a perfect day for the two’s good moods. Rachel and Joel laid down on the carpet floor next to each other, wondering what else their imaginations could come up with for another adventure of “Prince Darkness and Bright Bunny.”

  Minutes felt like hours for some reason…

“Hey Rachel..?”

“Yeah?”

“Notice how Sofia didn’t spend time with us for the past eight days? Gosh, she’s such a bad friend…”

“Bad friend? But what if she has a lot going on?”

“I doubt that she has a lot going on, but she’s such a bad friend. She has been mean to me and just stopped being friends with me! Don’t you get it? Don’t you get me?”

He knows that Rachel will believe anything he says.

“... I guess she really is a bad friend.” Rachel agreed.

  Joel chuckled, “glad to have my best friend believe me.”

  Their backs remain on the carpet floor, staring up at the ceiling. Joel turns his head to the left for a quick glance at her, his heart beat echoing in his head.