I desperately needed a friend.

Sure, I could have picked anybody I wanted. I mean, girls liked me, or so I hear. I was fairly rich. I was somewhat socialized. The odds were, surprisingly, in my favor.

But I was picky, I guess. I wanted a real friend. A good friend that wouldn't turn from me. Someone that wouldn't betray me. someone I could trust. Someone that I could pour out my everything, and I wouldn't be judged.

It turns out: good can hide bad inside. So deep that it's only a whisper. So small it's unnoticeable. So tiny that it's less than a secret.

Evil.

Sometimes all it takes to end I all, my friends...is a blade

"Welcome to your tape, Umber Mud"

~

"I feel like we need to talk."

Secretkeeper eyed Moon, pressing her lips together into a straight line. Her hair was on a tight bun, and her usually merry face was pale and tired after a long day of work.

Moon shifted uncomfortably. "What is it, Mom?" Please make it quick. Her fingers were itching to hear the next tapes. "I have homework to do..."

It wasn't exactly a lie; they probably did have homework, but Moon didn't pay attention in classes anymore. Or, more precisely,  couldn't. Not since she received the tapes.

"You have been acting extremely strange lately," her mother said quietly, sighing. Her eyebrows were furrowed. "Is it what I think it is, Moon? Please don't lie to me, sweetheart. But I do think I have an idea what's wrong, though."

Moon felt her eyes widen. She knows. She knows everything. She's going to take the tapes away. She's going to take away everything. She knows. Three moons, she knows. "What are you talking about, Mom?" She tried to sound curious and lighthearted.

Her mother, however, didn't seem reassured. "You know exactly what I'm talking about, Moonwatcher Everfrost. Tell me. What's going on?"

Moon felt her pulse quicken. What would she say when Moon told her? Maybe her mother would think she needed mental therapy. Maybe she would have to throw the tapes into the Dumpster. "Nothing," she said a bit quickly. Too quickly. She saw her mother's eyebrow raise.

Secretkeeper sighed, and, to Moon's great surprise, burst into tears. "I-I know you've been thinking about your dad," she sobbed until Moon's shoulder. She tugged Moon closer and closer like she couldn't get her daughter safe enough. "I'm so sorry the divorce happened. I know it's having a bad impact on you, sweetheart, but we can go through this, I p-promise."

"W-what?" Morrowseer, her father, and her mother had divorced some time now. It didn't bother Moon much. All Morrowseer did was sometimes hit her when she got bad grades, or beat her mother when she didn't have any money. He and his friends drank and smoked around their small apartment, and sometimes camped in her room, ruining her small quiet paradise. It made her angry, and to be honest she was a little relieved when they decided to split up and he didn't say any complains when Secretkeeper took Moon in without his permission.

"Isn't that why you're so quiet those days?" Secretkeeper said, stroking Moon's dark black hair. "But he was a bad man, Moon, and I didn't want him to hurt you—"

Too late. He already did.

Crash.

"Perhaps this will teach you something..." he slowly came to her, a broken piece of glass in his fingertips. His face was shadowed, and she closed her eyes tightly shut. She was trembling like crazy.

"I'll do better next time—" she managed to choke out before  his hands closed around her neck. She couldn't breathe. He was laughing like a lunatic, and she was afraid — oh, so afraid.

When was her mother going to come home?

That was when he let her go. He spread his arms, and he walked away from her. But her head was dizzy and the world was upside down. She staggered up, balancing herself while putting her weight on the living room wall.

That was when he gave her a smile. He was further away, into the depths of the kitchen. It seemed like a paradise, imagining a life without her abusive father in them.

"Come here, my daughter," a soft voice whispered, dripping with poison. Her brain resisted. yet her heart willed her to go forward. She was a puppet playing her part. Driven by one thing: love.

She wanted love— needed love.

Morrowseer was hiding something behind his back, but Moon didn't stop to think about it. All she could see was his black, black eyes, his dangerous smile, and his devious expression as she neared him.

His eyes sparkled with lust for blood.

"Come here, my daughter..."

The voice seemed so sweet...

....so real...

They were then face to face, and Moon gave her father a dreamy smile, and fell into his arms, her mind numb. Love. Finally something she needed.

She felt safe. Good. Loved.

Then he stabbed her, and all she could hear was her own terrified screams.

"Well, it's fine. He was a jerk anyways. Doing apologize when you're right." She gulped and stuffed the horrible memory into the deepest depths of her mind. Trying to forget. Trying to look over the scars.

She shivered in her mother's arms, feeling afraid. Looking into her mother's eyes, though...She knew they would go through it. No money, no friends, no father, no family...if they had each other, it would be okay.

Always.

"Tell me, Moon. What is it?" Secretkeeper whispered softly in her ear, parting her back. "Please tell me. You know how worried I get when you don't eat and such."

Secretkeeper was staring at her so intently that she almost blurted out her real reason, the tapes. Luckily, Secretkeeper got a call right there, and Moon sighed in relief.

"Hello?" Her eyes got wide and excited, and she ruffled Moon's hair and skipped out of the room, her worries suddenly flying out of the window. Along with their mother and daughter time. "Hello, Mr. Ota!y," Secretkeeper's voice echoed around the apartment, making Moon grimace. "How are you? Good. Yes, the PowerPoint is done, and..."

Moon sighed as she walked up and shut the door. She was alone. Again. No mother, no father, no Winter.

Sigh.

Only one thing left to do, then:

Press play, and listen.

~

It's quite simple to listen, don't you think?

I die, you listen. Funny creatures we are, we humans. If something bad happens to someone, we feel sorry for them. We would do anything to help that person. But a small part of us...it's relief. Relief that it's not happening to us.

That was what I felt like for Umber.

You were quiet, and liked to read. I guess you got bullied and pushed around a lot. Embarrassed. But I didn't mind. I thought that time...that's exactly what I need. A friend that needed a friend.

I saw you were sitting alone. Moonwatcher Everfrost, someone that just moved to Jade recently, was talking to Qibli, one of my annoying best friends. Kinkajou was with Turtle.

I guess I was kind of lonely. Not in a romantic way, obviously. But in a friend way. I wanted a friend. A friend that wouldn't betray my trust. A friend, a best friend, that I could do anything with. Someone I was comfortable with, if that makes any sense.

And, or all the hundreds I could have picked...I picked you.

I noticed you were sitting alone in lunch. Watching YouTube videos and such. So I invited you, and nobody in my lunch table vetoed.

You seemed a little scared, but you sat down with me anyway. "Thanks for inviting me," you said in a shushed whisper. Your eyes were glued to the table and you seemed extremely uncomfortable. "It's really nice of you."

I shrugged. "I guess?" Qibli and I shared a look. Was this someone right to be our friend, or not? We both shrugged at each other. Accepted.

"Well, I have your sister in one of my classes," Kinkajou said, ruffling her boyfriend's hair. "Sora?"

You nodded, your eyes firmly on the table. You seemed scared. Afraid, even. "Twin," you whispered. "We're twins. I'm older, though."

Moon seemed a little interested. And maybe a little sorry? Because that was what kind of person she was. She saw the best in people. Always. "By how much?"

You bit your lip and blushed, embarrassed from all the attention. "A-a few m-minutes."

Kinkajou ooohed and aahed, scribbling it down. She wrote everything down, since she and her boyfriend Turtle ran the school newspaper. He wrote it, and she gathered gossip. It was just how I was run.

Most people was thrilled to be on the newspaper, because, heck, Jujitsu Kinkajou and Turtle never wrote anything bad about people, but you seemed just...embarrassed. Embarrassed out of your mind. You seemed a bit ticked off.

"You have a cool name, bro," Qibli commented abruptly. I was about to turn and roll my eyes at him when you actually looked up and smiled.

You were looking at Qibli directly in the eye when you replied: "Not as cool as yours."

Qibli shrugged, and punched me in the arm. "I like Winter's better. I mean, look at him. He's, I don't know, ICY COLD. With hair white as SNOW. And eyes as blue as...the season WINTER. HahahaHAHAHAHA!"

I rolled my eyes, but you eyed me with something. J didn't know what it was then, but I now know what it was. But it's not my secret to tell: it is yours. Unlike you, Umber, I won't reveal your secrets here.

You did something to me, though. Something unbelievably bad. Something that just seems like a dream, now that I look back.

You did something, something so big, that I still can't believe it even now. Innocent. Good. At least, that was what I thought. Your tape ends here, Umber Mud. But your story doesn't.

The next tape includes you, Umber. What you did. Or, more precisely...what you did to someone else.

But that hurt me.

I liked you. You were that shy, small friend everyone wanted to protect. I did, too. I thought you were as innocent as snow.

Until you, and someone else, tried to kill my sister.

Part 2 coming up! :)