It was Thursday and so far this week had been just as boring as every other week at school. Classes were getting tougher and I found myself groaning inwardly at the prospect of the weekend looming ahead since it meant more homework. I had already gotten three assignments that were all due on Monday, and I was desperately hoping that I wouldn't get any more work today.

Dylan still hadn't returned from wherever he had gone to and I couldn't help but feel uncomfortable: it was as if I had a feeling in my gut that something was about to happen: something really, really horrible. Mom had told me that Dylan's mom had no clue where he had gone. His dad had woken her up in the morning on Saturday and told her that Dylan had gone to Glasserville to meet some friends and that he'd be back soon. But he hadn't come back. It had almost been two weeks and she was worried sick. He had not called anyone. I had tried calling him myself, but to no avail. His phone was either dead or lost.

My mom was holding a charity bake sale at the park the next day with Dylan's mother and she expected me to help her there. I had agreed to this weeks ago. The money they managed to raise would go to the local orphanage so I had been eager to help. But now, I found myself hoping that somehow, I could get out of it. I really did not want to stand at the booth for three hours straight.

I was already under a lot of stress. I was worried about Dylan. Normally, when he went somewhere he kept in touch with us by calling me or Alyssa. He hadn't called me once after last Sunday. If something happened to him, I did not even want to think about how I would feel.

This thought just caused me to feel even more scared and nervous, and Alyssa wasn't giving anything away either. We talked normally, but I think we both knew deep down that something was going to happen and that we'd have to face it.

She would always try keep her bubbly exterior intact but I could tell just by looking into her eyes that something was wrong. Over the last few days, dark circles had formed under her eyes and she did not care how she looked anymore. Her hair was always in a ponytail instead of the elaborate hairstyles she normally had. Her attention would never be on classes. It seemed like she was thinking about something else. She would always wear a blank expression and nowadays her voice had even lost its pitch: it was like I was talking to a robot all the time.

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I was making my usual journey to school and enjoying the feel of the cool morning air on my face. It was getting colder now and I had to wear a cardigan over my green top. The sun was warm and bright and it bathed everything in a soft golden glow, but it wasn't enough to block out the cold winds that were sure to come. The leaves had turned golden on the branches and there were a few scattered on the sidewalks.

It was then that I realised just how much this town actually meant to me. I had been here since I was three years old and I couldn't remember what it had been like when we were not living in Crescent. My memories were of long walks with my parents in the spring along 3rd Avenue, licking ice creams. In the winter, Elizabeth and I would go snowboarding together and have snowball fights in our backyard.

Crescent didn't exactly have a rich history behind it. It had just.........emerged. It was supposed to attract settlers from all over the country. It wasn't like one of those big modern towns but it had everything anyone could ever want : Blue Moon, the town's mall was located at the very centre of the city. It had almost every shop a person could want and there was always the mall at Glasserville if anyone wanted to buy something that was not available. There was also the hospital that had moved to the centre of town. The town was bordered with tall evergreen trees and the parks here were beautiful and comfortable.. The local library had closed down three years ago but it had reopened this year and I had heard that they had added a whole new floor to it. The local bank was a place where most people's parents worked and personally I had always loved the building. It was a towering glass structure, rising into the air like a castle. In the daytime, the yellow sunlight could be seen reflected on its windows.

Then there was the "other" side of the town. It was a stretch of land with lots of trees, almost like a forest really, but it had the peace and quite that some people crave for. They had started a housing unit there after the Braxton's moved in and practically made a mansion there. It was going to be an area for the really rich people who could afford to live in a mansion. That "other" side also had the cemetery there, a reason most people avoided it. There was a story going on about that cemetery. I didn't know the story that well, but I knew that it had something to do with three ghosts of three teenage girls who to this day wander the streets and the girls themselves were buried there.

Miss Brady claimed she had once spotted a pale ashen faced young girl with homey-coloured hair walking along the side of the graveyard, with a pair of pale blue flats in her hand. She claimed that she had been walking barefoot on the cool dirt road. Of course, she did not realise that the girl could have just been another homeless girl walking alone, but had jumped to the unlikely conclusion that she had spotted the ghost of one of the three girls who were buried in that cemetery.

There was a really calm and peaceful beach in that part of town too. The sand was soft and inviting and the water was always glittering under the sun. There were palm trees growing there and seagulls could always be seen from a distance. I loved going there with Elizabeth and Alyssa but other then us, I don't really think many people were attracted to it even though it was just beautiful. The cemetery and the old story were enough to drive people away from this part of town.

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I reached school just as the bell rang and dashed over to my first class for the day: World History. I barely payed any attention during the lecture because Ashley Brenton, who was sitting next to me kept pestering me with questions which mainly involved Alyssa. Ashley was nice I guess. Lisa was the one I had problems with. Ashley had given me no reason to hate her until then so I was on pretty good terms with her. She did take her rep very seriously and lived up to it though.

However, she could be really mean at times. Cassie had told me that once she had seen Ashley in the hallway filling Kelsey Sheen's locker up with what had looked like a mixture of dirt and paper balls.Kelsey was a slightly over-weight girl with braces. She had done something to get on Ashley's bad side and Ashley had apparently been humiliated and seen red.

I had not heard any other story that supported the fact that she was cruel and mean, but she was really annoying me at that particular moment. Why did she care that much about Alyssa anyway? I mean they weren't even friends and scarcely ever talked to each other.

"So, do you know where Alyssa lives? she asked. That was it! She was such a stalker. And how could she dare to just randomly ask me where my best friend: a girl who barely knew her, lived? I thought, as I narrowed my eyes at her.

"Why do you care where she lives ?" I asked, sharply. Her eyebrows furrowed together for a minute and her mouth hung open, but then she quickly recomposed herself and said, smiling as if nothing had happened.

"Oh, no reason really. It's just that us cheerleaders have to practice three times a week so I had to check if she can come to all the practices. You know, if she won't have any problem...." She trailed off.

"Ookayy," I said as Mr Laster droned on about the French Revolution. Ashley turned away from me and I sighed in relief. At the end of the lesson, I couldn't help but moan: Mr Laster had given us a five page assignment on the French Revolution and it was due on Monday! Ugh, I felt sick to my stomach just thinking about it.

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The rest of the day went by quickly and soon I was sitting in my last class of the day which happened to be English. English is my favourite subject so I didn't feel bad about sitting in class, listening to Miss Cartwright talk about The Great Gatsby. I listened closely and tried to take as many notes as possible. Ashley was in this class too, but luckily she was sitting five seats behind me so she could not really talk to me.

My attention was caught by a slight rustling sound under my chair. When I glanced down, I saw a small slip of paper fluttering slowly on the ground. Furrowing my brows in confusion, I picked it up and saw four words written in neat slanting hand writing.

*KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT*

I was so shocked that I nearly choked. My mouth fell open in surprise and I'm pretty sure my eyes grew wide. I had no idea what that meant or who could've put that note there. Heck, I didn't even know what I was supposed to keep my mouth shut about! It was not like I had somehow gained access to any gossip over the past few days. Sure, in the past when something happened, I was the first to know about it, but ever since last week I simply had not bothered to hunt for any juicy news. Even if I had, no one could just slip me a note forbidding me to talk about it. They would have had to think twice about it.

My mind wondered back to sophomore year when Lisa Thompson had been talking on the phone with her older cousin one day and I had kind of overheard her side of the conversation. It had seemed to me as if she was on the phone with some drug dealer. I laughed at how stupid I had been. I had told Alyssa about what I heard and she had told Cassie. Cassie was known to be quite the blabbermouth and she had told Michele Peterson. It had all gone downhill from there. By the end of the week after that, the whole school had found out. More rumours started sprouting and Lisa was the "girl who sold illegal drugs to kids and helped a gang of kidnappers."

Of course, it had all been put right in the end when the rumours got as far as the Vice Principle. Turned out that Lisa had been helping her cousin throw a surprise birthday party for her sister.

She had hated me even more after that. But I was pretty sure this note had nothing to do with Lisa. She did not even take this class with me. It had to be someone else.

I turned around in my seat to look at Cassie who sat behind me.

"Did you notice someone put a note under my chair?" I whispered. She was bent over her notebook, furiously writing.

"Note?" she questioned, glancing up at me."Can't you tell by the writing?"

"No, the writing does not look like that of someone I know."

"What does it say?" she knitted her eyebrows together and pushed a lock of her fiery red hair away from her face.

I opened up the piece of paper again and said, "It says keep...." But I was interrupted by Miss Cartwright's voice as she stared in my direction, over her green-rimmed spectacles.

"Miss Sanders?" she questioned. "Is there anything you would like to share with the whole class?"

I shook my head sheepishly and mumbled,"No Miss Cartwright, I was just asking Cassie if she had a spare pen I could borrow."

"I'm sure you were," said the teacher, glaring daggers at me."I would request you to turn to the board now, please. Thank you."

I did not bother talking to Cassie till the class was over. She claimed she had not seen anyone come near my desk and tried to convince me that it was probably some kind of stupid prank, but I was not having any of that. I just had a feeling that the note was no ordinary note. It was important. But unfortunately, I could not come up with any explanation for it so I let the matter rest for a little while.

When the final bell rang, I spotted Alyssa by her locker. She was busy cramming books into her bag and face still held anxiety and grief.

"What are you in such a hurry for?" I asked, walking up behind her. She froze for a second before she saw me and visibly relaxed.

"Geez, Ellie, you almost gave me s heart attack!" she exclaimed."Don't ever sneak up on me like that again." I laughed and opened my own locker door as she continued, "They've put up the names of everyone who got on the cheerleading squad. I'm going to go check if my name's on it. Can you come with me, or do you have dance practice?" I still had a few minutes to go till the practice officially began so I agreed to go with her. Together we made our way to the huge bulletin board. Sure enough, there was a sheet of light purple paper taped up which read,

Crescent's New Cheerleading Squad.

1 Ashley Brenton
2 Lisa Thompson
3 Jessica Prescott
4 Madeline Williams
5 Grace Garcia
6 Alyssa Tremors
7 Alice Bracer
8 Dawn Cameron

"Congrats, Alyssa!" I said, grinning, and she smiled back. I could tell she was very happy to be part of the squad. She had wanted to be on it since freshman year.

I then proceeded towards the school gym where the dance team would be waiting. Sure enough, when I walked in, all the girls were doing stretches and were chatting animately amongst themselves. The dance team had only been formed the previous year so the morale was pretty high. Everyone was eager to prove themselves and were very enthusiastic. I had been given the job to make the team a success and since I loved singing and dancing, I had been pleased to get the job.

Tiffany and Cassie were talking to Gwen who was another good friend. They were all standing in a corner and talking in low voices, probably about how weird Kelsey's overalls had looked in class today. To be honest, I sometimes hated their gossiping so much. Don't get me wrong, my friends were nothing like Lisa or Ashley. They were not mean at all, but sometimes they just tended to talk about people behind their backs and that got on my nerves a lot. But I let it slide because I was sure they meant no harm, and they had all been my best friends since freshman year.

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After a very exhilarating practice session, I met Cassie in the girls' locker room. We had both chsnged back into our normal clothes now and were waiting for Tiffany and Gwen to be done. Cassie suddenly said,

"So did you find out who put that note under your chair in English?"

I sighed as my stomach did a somersault and shook my head.

"Can I see it?" asked Cassie, and I fished out the crumpled piece of paper and handed it over to her. She read over it with a scowl and looked up once she was done.

"It's pretty weird, isn't it? What are you supposed to keep your mouth shut about?" I shook my head in confusion.

After being joined by Tiffany and Gwen, we made our way to the parking lot and I hopped into my car, glad that it was a little warmer than yesterday. I reached my house and made straight for my room after a very quick lunch which consisted of a potato salad with some smoked salmon.

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The next few hours were uneventful. I did some homework and then started listening to music and spent the hours leading to dinner just curled up on my bed with my earbuds in, and let the music soothe me. When it was time for dinner, I bounded down the stairs because the smell of warm delicious food had already wafted inti my room and my stomach had been growling.

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We were having lasagne for dinner that night. My mom and dad were in a discussion about my dad's new project, and Elizabeth was blabbing about her winter dance. She was going with someone whose last name was Lysander. I didn't remember his first name though I knew Elizabeth had told me.

I hardly payed any attention to them because I was too busy thinking about that note. It could've been a joke but I still felt weird about it. Suddenly, I was brought out of my reverie by the sound of my phone ringing. It was Alyssa. I glanced at my parents and my mom raised her eyebrows but nodded.

"Hey Alyssa. What's up?" I said."Listen, unless it's an emergency, I'll call you back in twenty minutes okay? I'm kind of having dinner......" I couldn't even finish because Alyssa cut me off and said in a very raspy voice that was filled with sorrow,

"It is an emergency.Dylan's dead. Meet me by your locker tomorrow at nine no matter what happens."

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A/N
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IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THESE CHARACTERS LIKE AABOUT ELEANOR, DYLAN AND ALYSSA'S PAST, PLEASE READ FIGHTING FOR SURVIVAL :)) You won't regret reading it!