Chapter 1,where the reader is introduced to the characters

A Chapter by young padavan

A usuall day. A usuall talks. Your school decides to make a new staging. What can possibly go wrong...?

A note from author:

Hi! This is my first book and english isn't my first language, so I'm sorry for some grammar mistakes. Also check out my wattpad profile - youngpadavan. I plan to publish my new story there. Hope u have great time reading and thanks for coming :)

I entered the school theater right in the middle of a violent discussion. I quietly stood in the corner, hoping that no one will notice that I was late for fithteen minutes.

- "I'm telling you this is the worst idea you ever had, and this says a lot!" - Ann screamed.

- "Oh, seriously? Or, maybe, you're just a superstitious grandma or something?" - Kate's tone was, as always, calm, but right now it was filled with anger. Fights between those two were more than common, so it didn't surprise me.

- "What are you arguing about ... again?" - I asked, falling into the sofa and silently praying so I won't be sandwiched between my classmates, as that usually happened.

- "Oh, hi Abi," - Kate said, with her usual benevolent-neutral tone. - " You know,you are really la-"

However, she did not have time to say anything else.

- "What happened?! I told 'em not to choose this scenario for the staging and guess what?" - She made a dramatic pause and then said with incredible pathos, what brought her to our group, - "they did!"

I heard giggles behind Ann.

- "Yeah, laugh if you want to, we'll see who will laugh later." - Ann said with the same dramatic voice that she always played on stage and sometimes didn't drop it even in real life.

- "Okay Ann, can you please stop this comedy and seriously tell me what is going on in your mind?" - Ann made a deep breath and told me in a normal voice -
"We can't do this staging because it is cursed."

For a moment the dead silence filled the room. Someone started laughing at her words, but they fell silent as soon as they realized that wasn't a joke. I broke the silence first.

- "I'm sorry, but ... what?!" - Kate glanced at me and said - "That's the same words, what I said after hearing this too."

- "Stop making fun of me." - Said Ann with an unusual for her coldness. - "My Mum told me stories about this play."

I waited for an continuation. - "U-m-m... okay. It's always sweet when your parents tells fairytails and-"

- "She told me stories about how the boy, who partisipated in the staging" - continued Ann, not listening to me, - "Walked to the woods and..."

"But before she could finish the story, Evelin, our teacher, entered the theater.

- "Everyone is ready for the rehearsal ?" - She asked with never-ending optimism.

- "Yeah."

- "Yes."

-"Sure."

- We said in a discordant chorus.

- "Perfect!" - Evelin smiled and said - "So, as you already know, we are going to have a new performance.".

I heard, how Ann gritted her teeth.

- "It is called "quiet night in the forest". I think Kate already explained everything to you.".

Ann loudly snorted, making everyone turn heads to her. Evelin, however, seemed to either not notice Ann's strange behavior, or just didn't care about that.

- "But I'll repeat it to you anyway. It's a comedy. In a nutshell, it is about three friends. They get lost in the forest at midnight and they try to summon a demon, so he would help them get out of the forest.".

- "Summon a demon in a dark forest in the middle of the night?!" - someone asked, making everyone, except Ann, laugh.

- "Well, if in all stories heroes would be a little bit smarter, then there won't be any stories." - Evelin smiled. - "But Jack said the right thing. That was a bad idea. Since that was a demon, he didn't help them out of pure motives, he offered friends some conditions, which they agreed to."

- "But what conditions?"

Evelin threw up her hands - "I don't know. No one knows. The truth is, this play is based on the urban legend, which is very old, and because it passed by word of mouth, the original plot has hardly survived to this day. Before there were only two stagings of this play and in both of them, missing plot pieces were just replaced with what directors of the play consider fitting the plot. For example, in the last staging, the demon took their souls, because of what they quickly died."

- "And what conditions demon are gonna offer to the three poor friends this year?", - Asked Lily. Lily, or how everyone called her, just Lil, wasn't quite a talkative person. She was the complete opposite. Because of what she spoke little, and when she did, it was a quiet and indistinct voice, people often mistakenly thought, that Lil was a shy mouse. And oh boy, they were wrong. Lil always played the main roles in all of the performances not without a reason. She did not talk much, but when she did say something, she said that so timidly and shyly, that you sometimes could not notice venomous sarcasm in her words. So when she spoke, a tense silence always appeared after her words, as our group tried to understand, were that honest words, teasing, or sarcasm. The only one who seemed to just not care about her true motives was Evelin.

- "Good question, Lily. Well, this year I decided to let you choose our heroes fates.". - She looked us all over and added - "What simply means, that you need to write your own scenario for the story. The lucky owner of the best work will decide how the story will go."

For a moment we all stood quietly. Then the theater filled up with excited talks and giggles. Evelin looked at our reaction with a light smile. Then she clapped her hands.

- "You will need to hand over the work in three days. Good luck and let's begin our today's lesson. Now repeat after me..."

- "Hey Abi."

I looked back, surprised. That was Lil.

- "Hey!" - I smiled at her, thinking for what did she call me. We never were friends, and this was one of the very few times she talked to me outside the school.

She maid her way up the stairs to me.

- "Hey. You usually go home through the forest ... right?"

An another note from author:

Hi! it's me again. Just wanted to say, that I'm really glad you read this chapter. The next chapter will come in around three days. See ya there :)