Prologue

A Chapter by aether

June 3rd

Last day of school

Summer was on the tip of all their tongues, and with the final bell the students of Willow High were released to that sweet summer feeling. That feeling would soon grow bitter.

Gloria pushed her way through the bustling hallways packed with students. Some were simply trying to open their lockers, and others were anxious to get out of the hell hole called Willow High.

Willow High sucked. Well, that’s how Gloria’s best friend Nate always described it. For Gloria it was a sanctuary, a place to get away. Away from home, away from her parents who were too busy arguing with each other to notice her misery. She found solitude in the constant routine when everything else in her life was filled with chaos.

Yet she understood why Nate could hate it so much, it was hard for them to be openly non-binary in their High School and always correcting people on pronouns was exhausting for them.

“Gloria! What took you so long?” And that was Nate, waiting outside for Gloria.

“Dude what are you talking about? Did you see that mob?” She said, stabbing her thumb to the students spilling out the doors behind her. “There’s no way you thought I would be able to get out in time.”

Nate held back a laugh, “Sorry, sorry I know. It’s just funny to see how you react.”

Gloria grinned back at them. “C’mon let’s go to the park,” she says. The park was another place to get away. Along a path near her house, was a small play set and a half basketball court, with a hoop that was falling apart. Gloria and Nate met there as kids, and it was a calm place for them to hang out away from the chaos. Nate always compared it to the garden from a book, The Secret Garden. Gloria always scoffed at this, since in the book it was a garden, and their special place was just a small play set buried in between trees.

For Nate, it was also along a path near their house. It was an in between for them. Sometimes they both even snuck out at night just to see each other.

They ran to the park hand in hand, plopping their backpacks down in the pavement of the basketball court.

“Come on,” Gloria said. “Give me a piggyback ride!”

“No way.”

“Yes way. Please Nathaniel? It’s the first day of summer!”

They groaned, “If you stop using my full name, which you know I hate, then yes.”

“Please Nate?” At this, they gave a small sigh in defeat and turned around for Gloria to jump onto their back. She did, and they ran her up the playset and to the entrance of the slide. “Wait... Nate are you going to-”

They grinned evilly and suddenly dumped her down the slide. Gloria slid down and almost fell headfirst off the end. “Nathaniel!” She yells with false shock. She was about to run up the slide to catch them, but a ding went off on both their phones, almost exactly, harmonically, at the same time. Nate pulled their phone out first to see the notification.

“Nate, what is it?” Gloria asked, seeing the look on their face. They took a deep breath and slid down to show Gloria.

She read the news article headline carefully.

“Last night Joanne Kelly... was found allegedly murdered in her home.”

June 4th

The Day After

The whole town was in shock. Joanne’s death was sudden, and after it was confirmed to be a murder, everyone was frighted. Locks were added to doors, stores closed earlier, even the mayor announced a curfew of 10 PM.

A murder in Willow Heights, a small town that you would only go to because you were passing through. Because Willow Heights is a small town, the police were not prepared. They tried looking for evidence, and the only thing they could discover was the murder weapon, a kitchen knife, with unidentified fingerprints, and Joanne’s blood covering the blade. They announced Joanne’s murder to have taken place around 10:30 PM.

The murder scene was horrific as well, most of the police force could not drive themselves to even go look at her body. All they did was quickly clean it up and try to solve the case as fast as they could.