A/N: A lot of the characters don't have canon last names, so I came up with some. See if you can spot the references!
"You know how Josh and I met?"
"No…?"
"Okay. Third grade. Josh sat in the back of the room, I sat in the front. We didn't even know each other existed."
Mr. Fessenden yammered on about proper grammar and punctuation to the metronome of the clock hanging on the wall. Josh watched the hands rhythmically tick forward, counting every second that he wished he didn't have to spend here.
The bell rang and the anxious elementary schooler was already packed to head to the lunchroom. He stood up quickly, but was abruptly pushed to the ground by the kid sitting next to him who stuck his tongue out as he passed by. Josh rushed to gather his fallen school supplies as childhood misery weighed on his shoulders, something he felt he should have been used to at that point.
He was surprised when a nearby girl with dark hair wearing a fluffy wool sweater knelt down to help him. He recognized her as one of the students who sat in the row of desks in front of him. She was pretty, and he had heard from the jerk who sat behind her - the same that had knocked him over - that she was an "early bloomer", whatever that meant.
"Are you okay?"
Josh nodded nervously, hoping she didn't notice his eyes misting up.
"I'm Jeanie. What's your name?"
"Josh." He muttered shyly.
When she picked up his notebook, she noticed a big clapboard sticker plastered on the cover.
"You like movies?" She asked, handing the book to him.
He nodded again and she grinned.
"Me too! I wanna be a movie star when I grow up. Which one's your favorite?"
Josh's face lit up and the weight from his shoulders fell almost instantly. They started to talk enthusiastically about their favorite VHS tapes as the last kid from the front of the class, a blonde haired boy with glasses, walked out of the room.
"...That's how we met! And became friends. To this day."
"A match made in heaven."
Sam stared out of the cable car's frost tinged window, observing the dark icy forest sprawling yards and yards below her. Heights were never an issue for her, but the thought of being lost among the trees gave her chills for some reason. Not to mention that she could swear she kept seeing some kind of animal darting through the underbrush….
"Sam? What's wrong?"
The tall black-haired girl seated to the right looked at her friend with concern. Sam shook herself out of her daze and rubbed her eyes tiredly. She must have just been seeing things.
"You say something Jeanie?"
"It's just that you've been really quiet since we got on."
Sam shrugged. "It's nothing, I just…." She peered out the window again. "I can't believe we're coming back here. It's crazy to think that just a year ago we were at the party...and they pulled that stupid prank, and I couldn't - "
"Hey, don't think about it like that. Remember what Josh said? Hannah and Beth would want us to have fun, not dwell on the past."
Sam contemplated and then smiled. "Y'know, you're right. Hannah would throw a fit if she saw me moping like this." Despite that, she bit her lip nervously. "I'm just worried that everyone's gonna be weird around each other. Feels like everyone's swapped significant others, and you know how things are with Jess and Emily nowadays."
"Yikes." Jeanie winced, "It's like a lousy soap opera. Still, we should make the best of it."
"Yeah...for Hannah and Beth's sakes at least."
"So you ready to party like we're porn stars?"
Sam laughed, "Alright, but if any snuff films are getting made, you better be the one in charge. There's no way I'm letting Josh film me topless!"
The rest of the ride to the lodge was spent chatting in higher spirits. Jeanie was right. Things would be awkward, but eventually everyone would adjust back to normal.
As Sam contentedly leaned her head back against the window, a twitching shadow hidden in the trees below jerked its head upwards and locked its eyes on her bright orange form.
"…I mean who knows? You could be riding this cable car alone. Right now. Or be talking to some other person entirely."
"Hey, why is everyone wearing black?"
Chris surveyed the hallway, watching many of his schoolmates pass through the halls wearing dark clothes and downcast expressions. A small somber group of jocks by the water fountain reminded him of the flags in front of the school that he had earlier noted were flying at half-staff.
His classmate Ella pulled her phone out of her purse and checked for new text messages before addressing him.
"Oh, did you not hear?"
He frowned. "Hear what? Did somebody die or something?"
"Well," She tapped her fingernails against her plastic phone case, searching for the right words, "You remember those girls that went missing last year on Blackwood Mountain? Hannah and Beth?"
"Yeah, the daughters of those movie moguls. Is it like the anniversary?"
"Yep, just this past weekend. But apparently a bunch of their friends went back up to the mountain last Friday and no one's seen them since."
"For real?"
"Yeah." She sighed, "One of them was Sam Panettiere."
Chris' jaw dropped. "You mean Sam from English class?"
"Yep. And Jeanie Simmonds. The one we went to elementary school with."
"Woah...who else?"
"Uhh, let's see." She took a moment to think, "Mike Dalton, Emily Bloom and her friend Jess, Matt from the football team, and that other girl they hang with, what's-her-face."
"Oh uh...Alice, right?"
"No." Then she snapped her fingers, "Ashley, that's it!"
"Do they know what happened?"
"They think it was Hannah and Beth's brother, Josh. There was all this crazy slasher movie crap lying around. Like...buzzsaws and shit." She shuddered. "From what I hear, he was always into that stuff, and they can't find him either. I guess losing his sisters really messed him up."
Chris didn't respond. Even after he parted ways with Ella and headed to Statistics class, he couldn't shake the thought that eight people, people he'd seen around since he was a kid, could just vanish like that.
He remembered passing Josh Washington once or twice in the hallway a few weeks after his sisters had gone missing. The poor guy's face had been devoid of emotion, like the world around him couldn't reach him if it tried. The idea had crossed Chris' mind to give him some support, tell him that everything would be okay and that "life goes on" or something. Maybe it could have changed things.
Chris shook his head. Lord knows what went on in that guy's head if he did something like this. What would he have even said? He hardly knew the guy.
In fact, up until a year prior when news spread of the first disappearances on Blackwood Mountain, Chris hadn't even known that Josh Washington existed.
"Boom. Butterfly effect."