“Ebony sighed and checked her watch for the tenth time. Her best friend Blair was late again. Today was not the day to be late. Their high school was holding a candlelit memorial for Paige. Paige had been Ebony and Blair’s best friend since year one. Paige had gone missing four months ago and there were still no clues or leads as to what happened to her.
Opening her locker, Ebony looked at the picture of the three of them at the pool last summer. Paige was beautiful, all that blonde hair, blue eyes and a smile that hinted at mischief. Ebony herself had long, brown hair with chocolate coloured eyes. Blair was a complete contrast of them both. With wild fiery red hair always surrounding her face almost covering her bright green eyes. She always looked like she held a secret while her eyes hinted at the devilment she was about to cause”.
“Looking at the three of them laughing and smiling caught Ebony off guard. She missed Paige. They had shared everything growing up, survived puberty and their first heart breaks together. Ebony shook her head sadly. Paige was gone. None of that mattered now because she wasn’t coming back”.
“There was still no sign of Blair. The service would be starting soon and she didn’t want to miss it. She closed her locker and sighed. She gave up waiting for Blair and started to make her way down the empty corridor towards the oval. Empty corridors at school had always creeped Ebony out, especially at school. It was because of the movie, A Nightmare On Elm street. Her mum refused to let Ebony watch it but Paige managed to get her hands on a copy and they’d all snuck out to watch it one night. Saying that it scared Ebony is an understatement. The part where Nancy ran from Freddy in the school, gave Ebony shivers just thinking about it. Since then she’s been terrified of empty hallways”.
“Today was no different, maybe even worse considering she was going to a memorial for Paige. For some reason it seemed dark in there today, shadows jumping out at her as she walked. A creek sounded to her left, she glanced back but nothing, it was completely empty. It must be her nerves she was dreading the day the school would hold a memorial for Paige. She carried on, her thoughts on Paige and their last day together. Ebony couldn’t say she regretted her decisions, but sometimes in the middle of the night when no one but the shadows kept her company, she was afraid. All she could do now was mourn her best friend and move on with her life”.
“Footsteps sounded behind her and she turned, frowning. Nothing but the empty hallway, darker now that the sun was setting. Her eyes swept over the empty corridor, the rows of lockers, the closed doors. There was no one in there other than her. There was no where to hide. Repeating this to herself, she picked up her pace, her thoughts creeping back to Nancy running down the hallway in the movie. She started walking backwards, her eyes moving back and forth. A metallic tapping sounded and her head swivelled to the left side of the lockers. She stopped and listened. It sounded like someone was tapping their fingernails against the locker not impatiently, but idly, like they were waiting for someone. Ebony swallowed and took a step towards the lockers, a cool breeze swept through the corridor wrapping around her. Had to be the air conditioning starting up. Had to be. The tapping grew a little louder, she started moving forward searching for the sound. She stopped at locker 54”.
“Paige’s old locker”.
“She shook her head. It couldn’t be coming from there. Someone had to be playing a trick on her. She reached out her hand to touch it, as she got an inch away the tapping stopped. Ebony stood still, her hand suspended in front of the locker. Silence surrounded her. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her imagination was playing tricks on her. She knew the combination by heart and quickly opened the door. Pictures of them all over the inside, her books still tucked away. A single tear slipped down Ebony’s face, but she quickly wiped it away. Things couldn’t be changed now even if she wanted them to and truthfully she didn’t”.
“As she walked away laugher, soft, almost a whisper sounded around her and she froze. It couldn’t be. It sounded almost identical to Paige’s. That wasn’t possible”.
“Footsteps and laughter echoed up and down the hallways. A hand came down on her shoulder, she screamed, falling to the floor, terrified”.
“What are you doing?”
“She looked up to see Blair staring down at her, her expression worried and confused”.
“Did you hear anything?” “she whispered, glancing back at Paige’s locker”.
“No” Blair said, “just you standing here looking like you’d seen a ghost”.
Ebony “picked herself up and looked around once again, but found nothing”. “I thought….”
“It’s okay Eb’s” she said. “You miss her. Its understandable. We’ve both had some moments since the night she disappeared. Come on, we can’t be late to Paige’s memorial. We’re supposed to speak”.
“A stage had been set up at one end and chairs lined the entire oval. Every chair was filled. They’d all turned out to support Paige and her parents. Her parents refused to give up hope that their daughter would come back safe and sound. She’d left one night, got into a car that had been caught on the apartment complex’s security camera, but it was too grainy to make out a licence plate or even describe the car. Everyone had been questioned, including Blair and Ebony, but no clues had been unearthed”.
Blair and Ebony “took their places on stage. They’d been asked to say a few words in memory of their friend. Their drama teacher was finishing up her speech. It was Ebony’s turn. She stood up and took her spot at the podium. She blinked a few times to let her eyes adjust to the bright lights. The people she could make out were the people who loved Paige the most, her parents, her uncle and auntie, Ebony and Blair’s parents and Paige’s boyfriend, Jack. She put on a brave front and even got a slight smile from Paige’s parents. As she staggered back and fell into her seat, wiping away the tears, Blair took the podium”.
Her phone chirped at her and she pulled it out of her pocket. A text message was waiting from anonymous. She opened it and stared in shock.
“I know what you did” it read.
Her heart began to speed up. What did they mean? They knew what she did?
Blair sat down also wiping tears away. She pulled out her phone and like Ebony stared in shock. The identical messaged from anonymous flashed at her.
The girls stared at each other, fear running through Ebony. She saw the same fear reflected in Blair’s eyes.
Their phones chirped again.
“You can’t hide what you did”.
Ebony looked up at the head detective of Paige’s case, he was staring right back.
Ebony fidgeted while she waited for the service to finish. She wanted to run and hide. Those messages were burned into her mind.
Ebony dragged Blair to her car. As soon as they closed the doors Ebony exploded.
“Chill Ebony. If you keep acting like this the police will think we have something to hide. You have to relax”.
Ebony nodded. “I guess your right. There’s no way anyone could know anything. We didn’t tell a soul what happened on that night. Only me, you and Paige know and she’s not telling”.
“No she’s not” Blair agreed, relived Ebony was calming down.
Blair dropped Ebony off home as her mum had to work late. Dragging herself upstairs, she plopped down on her bed and turned on her laptop. She needed to distract herself and looking through her Facebook feed always made her laugh. There were so many posts up about the service already. She liked and commented on a couple. She noticed that she had a notification, when she clicked it directed her to a post added to her timeline that read, “Once upon a time there were three girls, Blair, Paige and Ebony. They were like sisters until one day the three little girls became two. Two very selfish little girls who were the last to see Paige that night, while everyone was fast asleep”.
The post had only been up for three minutes and had already had hundreds of comments and shares. Her breath caught and she couldn’t breath. Someone knew. Someone knew. She looked for the original poster. It was an account that said anonymous. The same person they received text messages from earlier. Someone knew their secret. She rang and texted Blair but there was no answer.
She got a second notification. It was another post to her timeline by anonymous. It was footage of the three of them driving around the night Paige went missing. As she watched her stomach sank. The video didn’t line up with the story they gave the police. She sat waiting. Waiting for the bang on the door. As she sat she heard another ping this time the notification took her to Paige’s Facebook account. She was tagged in a post that read “@Blair @Ebony how could you have done this to me. They will find out”. As her body shook from the shock and terror there was a loud knock on the door.
“Shropshire police department, we have some questions to ask you”.
As she opened the door she received a message.
“Confess”.
Ebony sat in the interrogation room. The detective and lawyer walked in and immediately started the questioning.
“So tell me about the Facebook posts”.
“I don’t know who anonymous is” Ebony explained.
“The posts were from Paige’s account” the detective said slowly. “Maybe it’s Paige posting as anonymous. We saw the messages that were sent to both you and Blair”.
As Ebony looked up from the table a dark figure appeared in the corner of the room. It was hunched with it’s face hidden. It had the same clothes on that Paige went missing in. It began to rock and hum.
No, no, no. Her mind refused to believe what she was seeing. It wasn’t Paige. It wasn’t. Paige was gone. She couldn’t be here. She couldn’t.
“Ebonyyyyyyyyyy. Ebonyyyyyyyyyy”.
It was Paige’s voice, only it was raspy, more slurred, like it was hard for her to talk.
“Confessssssssssssss”.
“Stop it. Please stop” she whispered back.
“You didn’t stop. When I was lying there begging you to stop, you didn’t, you just laughed” Paige said stronger than before.
“I didn’t mean it. I’m so sorry” she cried.
“Confess or die Ebonyyyyyyyyyy”.
“Ebony, Ebony, is there something you need to tell us? What didn’t you mean? What are you sorry for?” questioned the detective.
“We stabbed her” she blurted out.
“We killed Paige”.
Rationale:
The short story ‘Best Friends Forever’ is written as a crime/horror story that depicts the problems in humanity and connects to true crime stories. The main idea of the story is about how crime touches society and also uses 20th century technology to illustrate what the girls really did.
The story ‘Best Friends Forever’ is based in the current time period. Where technology and social media is extremely advanced and has become one of the main solve of crimes. This is evident in the short story as because of the taunting messages and posts Ebony ended up confessing to killing therefore bring peace over Paige.
The first inspiration for ‘Best Friends Forever’ was the story of Skylar Neese. She was an American girl who went missing from her home on the 6th of July 2012. She was best friends with Shelia Eddy and Rachel Shoaf, the three of them were inseparable before her disappearance. Six months later Rachel confessed that she and Shelia had stabbed their best friend to death. This became a major part of my story as it was also just the three of them; Blair, Paige and Ebony. The way they killed Paige was also the same way that Skylar was killed. When I first read about the story of Skylar Neese I could not believe that people who was supposed to be her best friends would kill her. Hence because of the rarity of this case I found it extremely interesting and felt like I could adapt it and add specific details into my own story. I also wanted to create a realistic sense because I feel that stories that have a realistic touch are the most interesting and engaging.
‘Unfriended’ is a 2014 American movie that fits into the supernatural horror genre. The film is told through a high school students mac screen where they’re all in a skype call when someone named anonymous suddenly appears and begins to torment them. Anonymous turns out to be a girl called Laura Barns who was a student that went to the same school as the group. She was bullied and had horrible and embarrassing posts made amount her online which forced her to commit suicide. She kills them off one by one through the use of technology and questioning. I adapted this to my story by using technology and the use of social media for Paige to torment the girls and in the end get them to confess. By using the name anonymous and the girls receiving questions that the readers did not yet know the answers to added suspense and created speculation.
Through language techniques such as repetition and descriptive words I was able to show the reader how the girls were feeling and what was going through their heads. The way the girls reacted to the messages and posts caused their downfall and confession which I really wanted to give the reader insight to.
I wanted to write a story that was different but still intriguing. By using various techniques and adapting my research I was able to write a story that had various different elements and related back to the time period of today. Social media is a worldwide platform that so many of us take for granted. We log on, chat, share our memories through photos and videos but we can also share the darker side of ourselves and think that just because we hit delete, its gone, but its not. Ebony and Blair learnt that just one message, one post can change everything and not always for the good. A story like this can raise awareness of the underrated power that social media really holds on everyone’s life.