Introducing "You're Next" - Prologue
A Thriller of a Teenage Girl trying to discover who has kidnapped her friends, only to find that she's next on the list.
So, we’re going to bring you a new story we’ve been working on. It definitely falls into the thriller/mystery category. It’s about a girl named Emily who attends a high school where several girls have mysteriously disappeared over the course of the semester, and the police have no leads as to where they went or what is happening to them. But when Emily opens her locker one day to find the the message “You’re Next” painted inside, she knows that it’s not long before she disappears too. But who is going to take her, and who can she trust?
We’re going to release this story over the next month or so, with a couple of new chapters each Friday. The story is going to be completely free to read for all our subscribers, so enjoy!
That being said, check it out below. We are giving you just a taste today with the prologue of You’re Next!
Enjoy!
Prologue
Jordan opened her eyes. It was as though events of the previous evening had been put on hold—like a paused movie—while she slept, and now everything came flooding back.
Voices.
Voices?
The ground rushing towards her. The sounds of her heart trying to thump its way out of her chest, her blood gushing in her ears. Her thoughts spiraled, the way they did that time she sent the message about Matty Johnson asking her on a date, to Matty Johnson, in a how-am-I-going-to-get-out-of-this-one kinda way.
She squeezed her eyes shut, scrunching up her face. Breathe, she told herself like she needed reminding. In through her nose … one … two … three … and out … her eyes flew open to solid, dense darkness, her breath sticking in her throat as she released it.
Where was she?
Turning her head, her cheek brushed against a thin, damp mattress. Jordan sat upright, brain cells lurching sickeningly, the back of her head colliding with a wall. She groaned aloud, hunching forwards so that she was bent double, hands clutching the back of her head trying to still the throbbing in her skull.
Jordan stayed in that position, cross-legged, curled up like a ball, while she ran through what she could remember. She felt safer this way, all her extremities close to her body. Isn’t that what hedgehogs did when they faced danger—curl into a ball, prickles facing outwards? Except, she had no prickles. She had acrylics, but they were coffin-shaped—not exactly lethal weapons.
Okay, think. Think. It was difficult with her heartbeat pulsing behind her eyes, but she tried forcing her thoughts to cooperate.
Surroundings.
She needed to work out where she was. She swallowed. Her mouth was dry, her tongue sticking to the back of her teeth. Her head ached; it wasn’t only because she’d bashed it against the wall, it was a dull ache, right on top, as though someone had been tapping away at it with a hammer while she slept. Jordan shivered. She realized with a jolt that she was cold, her fingertips tingling, elbows knocking against her ribs as she tried to keep the heat in.
She hated the cold. In winter she slept in a hoodie and joggers, hood pulled up, cocooned in the duvet like a caterpillar in a chrysalis. She was one of those SAD people—it was a thing; she’d researched it when her mom had joked about her hibernating one winter. It was lack of vitamin D; lack of daylight; lack of fun when the world was washed-out grey, and Christmas was behind them.
A wave of nausea crashed through her, and she leaned forwards, vomiting onto the floor. Her knees felt wet. Had she puked on her legs? Tears squeezed from her eyes as she sat back, her whole body trembling, and gingerly rested her head against the wall. It was so damp it felt icy. Why couldn’t she see anything? She stared into the blackness all around her waiting for something to come into focus, but the dark floated away from her as though it had nowhere particular to go.
Wiping her lips with the back of her hand, Jordan drew her knees to her chest, and tried to retrace her steps. She had assumed that it was nighttime as it was so dark in here, and because she was certain that she had been asleep, but that wasn’t necessarily the case. It was the room that was dark, not even a glimmer of faint light from a window. So, what did that mean? Was she underground?
Encouraged that her brain was finally functioning again, she took a deep breath, fighting off another wave of nausea, and concentrated. What was the last thing she remembered?
Dance club. She was there with Emily. It had been a good evening, quiet, so they’d left early, laughing about something … the shoestring strap had snapped on Emily’s top and they’d tried to fix it in the bathroom with a safety pin. It hadn’t worked. Emily was worried it wouldn’t hold, so she’d taken it off and dumped it in the trashcan, and Roger, the owner of the club, had loaned her a T-shirt that belonged to one of the girls who worked there. The T-shirt was too tight. Emily said the girl must’ve bought it from the kids’ department.
Then what …?
Jordan felt her clothes, her hands moving lightly across her body, down her arms—she was still wearing the same outfit she wore to the club.
They were outside, she recalled now, only Jordan had forgotten her jacket. She went back inside for it, and Roger was standing there, grinning, her jacket in his hand. “You girls would forget your heads if they weren’t screwed on,” he said—such a dad comment. She’d rolled her eyes and laughed at him. “You could hang our heads from the ceiling like glitter balls.”
Emily was waiting outside for her. They started walking and … someone was following them. Her heart started racing again as the memory spun a little trying to come into focus. They’d stopped and turned around. She blinked with her eyes still closed, waiting for the vision to clear. Derek. That boy was such a loser. He always hung around the lockers in their hall, gripping the straps of his backpack like he thought someone might steal it, just watching, his glasses slipping down his nose.
If this was some kind of stupid prank, she would make sure everyone knew it was him. She’d make him so sorry, he would never come back to school. Emily always said she felt a bit sorry for him. She was like that, Em, always looking for the good in people rather than accepting that not everyone had a heart of gold. Some people’s hearts were made of stone, or dollar signs. One time, Emily even paired up with Derek in chemistry because she couldn’t bear another lesson of watching him work alone.
Realization crept into Jordan’s head, causing her to shiver even more violently. Derek must have been following Emily. The freak! So, what had happened? Where was Emily? “Okay, prank’s over!” she called out. “You’ve had your stupid little game.” Her voice rasped in her burning throat.
She heard a sound then. Her head snapped forward, legs sliding away from her, ears keening for another sound. She turned her head slowly, blinking, hoping something would materialize in the darkness, but there was nothing. Maybe she imagined it. Or worse—maybe it was a mouse, or a rat. Instinctively, she clasped her hands in front of her, afraid she might feel the flicker of a tail, or tiny, scampering paws. Did they have paws? Feet, whatever. She couldn’t deal with a mouse. Or spiders. Cringing now, she hunched her shoulders ignoring the itch between her shoulder blades, telling herself it was just her imagination.
Another sound.
She definitely heard it this time. “Em?” she whispered. “Emily?”
“Not Emily.” It was a girl’s voice. Someone else was in here with her.
Scrambling onto her knees, Jordan called, louder now, “Hello? Who is this?”
“Megan.”
Jordan froze. “Megan?” The name buzzed around inside her brain like a fly trapped inside a glass. One of the missing girls was called Megan. “Megan Curtis? Is that you?”
“Who is this? You know my name? Were you looking for me?” The girl was crying now.
Jordan crawled off the mattress, her fingers flinching away from the icy, dank floor, and followed the sound of Megan’s tears. “Megan,” she mumbled. “Where are you? I can’t see anything.” She fumbled around, patting the floor in front of her with her hands, afraid of hitting a wall or trampling a dead rat.
“Over here.”
Jordan hesitated. It was like being on the Rock ‘n’ Roller coaster at Disney’s Hollywood Studios only without the neon signs to guide the way—she had no idea which way was left or right, the world was so distorted by blackness. She turned towards the voice. “Keep talking,” she said. “I’m coming to find you, Megan.”
Four teenaged girls had gone missing recently, Megan one of them. Jordan couldn’t believe she’d found her. Her pulse quickened—together they should be able to find a way out of this place, wherever it was. Two heads were better than one, right?
“This way,” Megan said. “I can hear you.”
Jordan moved faster, ignoring the wet patches on her knees, the clammy cold beneath her hands. She touched something soft and squealed, sitting back on her heels, shaking her hands as if she might fling whatever it was that she’d touched off her skin. Why was it so freaking dark?
“What?” Megan whispered. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. I touched something.”
“Wait …”
There was movement close to Jordan now, rustling, a shushing sound, and then something touched her hand, and it was real. It was Megan. They clung to each other in the dark, shoulders shuddering as they cried, leaning heavily against each other.
When Jordan finally pulled away, she said, “How did you get here? Where even are we?”
“I don’t know.” Megan’s voice was low. “How long have I been here?”
Jordan hesitated. “You don’t know?”
It was several moments before Megan replied, “No. The dark … it’s disorienting. There’s no way of knowing.”
“Can’t you check the time on your phone?” The thought was like a slap in the face. Why hadn’t she checked her phone; she could use it to call the police. Fumbling her way around her jeans, Jordan knew before she even touched the back pocket that her phone was gone, and the soaring hope sunk like a rock in her stomach.
“Is anyone looking for us?” Megan asked.
Jordan didn’t know where to start. From what the principal had told the student body, the police still had no leads. There’d been a public appeal, the parents of the missing teenagers appealing for anyone with any information to come forward, and even their friends had all been questioned about the girls’ last movements. But nothing had moved the case forward.
“Yes,” she said simply.
“Bella’s sick,” Megan said. “We need to get help. We’ve asked—”
“Bella?” Jordan interrupted, peering around futilely. “Bella’s here too?”
The glimmer of relief that she’d felt when she heard Megan’s voice, snuffed out like a candle. She hadn’t found Megan. She’d been taken too, another name added to the list of missing girls.
The image of her mom on national TV, begging witnesses to tell the police what they knew, flashed behind her eyes, and sucked the breath from her lungs. She couldn’t breathe.
Jordan heard footsteps then, from somewhere outside the room. “What’s that?” She froze, desperate for them not to stop.
“Quick!” Megan’s whisper was urgent. “Come here.”
“Why? What—”
Before she could finish, there was the sound of a key turning in a lock, a bolt being shifted, a door budging as though the frame had swollen making it difficult to open. The room wasn’t suddenly flooded with bright light, but there was enough for Jordan to see grey shadowy shapes as her eyes adjusted to the new gloom. Someone stepped inside.
She stared at their face, blinking, brain cells trying frantically to tag a name to the features and then she got it.
“Oh my God!” She rose heavily to her feet, knees trembling. “You found us. You need to get us out of here. Bella needs to see a doctor. Thank God you—”
Her head exploded with flashing lights and everything went black.
We hope you enjoyed that. Come back next Friday for the next couple of chapters of this exciting story.
Thanks all!
STAY AWESOME!!!