3 [Edited] Chapter 1

​reminder not to write anything disturbing

Our tragic tale begins with Sydney..

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A noise rings across the room, making the room quickly unbearable. A hand slams on the object causing the noise, cutting it off sharply as the person sits up. Her hand slips up, ruffling her hair as she yawned and climbed out of bed. She stretched, her spine popping loudly, then slumped down into a comfortable standing position as she tried to find her uniform. She found it after a moment of searching, gripping the cloth in her hands as she took slow, sleepy steps toward the bathroom. A soft flash shot through the room, startling her for a moment and causing her to walk to the window to see the cause of the flash. Upon seeing nothing, she shrugged and walked over to the bathroom.

She took a quick shower, changing into her uniform then blow drying her hair. As she finished her routine, she glanced at the clock, seeing that if she didn't hurry up she'd be late, with that realization she grabbed her schoolbag and darted out the door. Stopping for just a moment to pet a small black kitten and feed her. She got down the street and continued running, stopping for a moment at a corner and spotting someone she knew, beginning to run again.

"Hey! Hey! Wait up Nikki!" The woman she called out to paused, waiting for her to catch up to her "Thanks" Sydney panted out, smiling weakly at her then continuing to walking with Nikki. "No problem, you seem off today, are you alright?" She hums, thinking for a moment before responding, "I saw a weird flash today, like lightning striking, but the weird part is that there aren't even any storms that have been spotted for, like, the next week." Nikki tilts her head a bit, fear slowly crawling on her back as she steadied her voice, "Like someone taking a photo? On a flash camera?" "Yeah! That seems like it would fit." Sydney continued to think and theorize on the walk, occasionally giving an idea out into the air for Nikki to hear. They continue to walk, finally reaching the school, they enter and split apart to find lockers, then meeting back up to walk to their classes. "We can talk more about this later, okay?" Nikki asked, straightening her uniform jacket as Sydney nodded, still lost in her head. 

~Time Skip~

The two girls walked up to the roof, Nikki talking to Sydney as she quietly listened, her mind still on the earlier topic. As Sydney thought more and more, she began to form her conclusions, going by process of elimination. "I'm down to two conclusions now Nik, maybe three but the third one is kind of out there." Nikki stopped, looking at Sydney with curiosity as she nodded for Sydney to continue. "The first one is that the flash was just a trick of the light, a random thing that my eyes pulled and messed with me. The second one, is that I didn't see anything and just hallucinated that from a lack of sleep,-" saying that earned Sydney a disapproving glare from Nikki, "-and finally the last one, and the least likely in my opinion, is that someone has decided to start taking photos of me." Nikki raised her eyebrows in surprise, Sydney barking out a laugh at her reaction, "Absolutely nuts, I know." Nikki shook her head, laughing softly as they finally reached their bench.

They both sat down. Lunch bags in hand as they continued to murmur about the absurdity of what had happened to Sydney, who now just thought of it as a trick of the light. They heard someone approach, both of the girls' heads lifting to see who was walking over, two different expressions appeared on their faces, Sydney grinned upon seeing her friend, waving hello, and Nikki grimaced for a moment before blending her face into a fake smile, waving as well. Aika sat down beside them, squishing herself against Sydney as her smile quickly got uncomfortable. "Hello Aika, how has your day been going?" Sydney questioned her, while slowly scooting toward Nikki more, Aika took note of this, but didn't mention it. "My day has been splendid, but it's gotten better now that I get to speak to you!" 

Sydney leans against Nikki, keeping a small amount of distance from Aika, and Nikki wraps an arm around her protectively. Aika rolled her eyes at Nikki's antics, "Hey, do you want to ditch and catch dinner together?" Sydney mentally grimaced, wincing at the thought of having to deal with Aika's terrible flirting "Sorry Aika, I have stuff to do today." Aika huffed slightly, "Well, I suppose we could go out sometime this weekend?" Sydney shook her head no, rejecting Aika's idea, and opened her lunch bag.

Aika made an annoyed noise, but moved from their bench, tossing a wave over her shoulder as she walked. Nikki chuckled under her breath at Sydney's reaction, causing her head to snap in Nikki's direction, "What? You would've done the same thing Nik, we both know that." Sydney rolled her eyes, and snapped a carrot between her teeth as if to prove her point. Nikki opened her own bag and began eating her own lunch, occasionally stopping to joke with Sydney about something dumb. The lunch bell soon rang, and they packed up their things, standing up to walk over to the stairs for their next classes.

A light flashed across the stairwell, Sydney almost instantly recognizing the light as the same one she saw this morning in her room. She quickly spun around, looking for the source of the light, and soon enough her eyes landed on it. "So it was you!" She shouted, an accusatory finger pointed over at the student, who just smiled at her, "Oh really? What did I do?" He asked her, a self-righteous smile on his face, "You just took another photo of me!" He snorted, almost finding the situation incredulous as he rolled his eyes at her, "Yeah, I did, do you have a problem with that?" His smile got wider, as Sydney let out an annoyed huff and continued down the stairs, Nikki staying behind without her notice. 

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Thank you so much for reading the first chapter! Please remember to vote!

Words this chapter- 1074

Edit from 9/10/21, rewrote pretty much the whole chapter :)