Griggs, Zoey and I had been friends for years. We had started off on rocky beginnings, I was an absolute ass when I met Zoey, and Griggs and I had met after being sent to the principals office after fighting in primary school. When I introduced the two to each other, the conversation ended with Griggs telling Zoey two words, the latter being "off". None of us were quite sure how we had ended up as friends.
We were all very different people. I was a very freedom loving man, always had been. I outright refused to let someone attempt to control me, a thing which had caused great strife over the past few years. For example, I wore a religious necklace, always had done. One day after leaving an assembly at school, one of the school deans had seen me and told me to take it off. I outright refused, and spent the next half hour arguing with him. He told me he would research the subject, and would get back to me. I never heard from him again. Several months later, the assistant principal called me to her office regarding an unrelated absence. That was quickly cleared up, but she too questioned my necklace. I calmly explained my arguments, and she too said she would find out about it. I never heard from her again.
About a year after this saga, my school got a new principal, a foreign and very self important man who insisted on having students stand whenever he entered the room. Many students muttered mutinously behind his back, but none ever did anything. One morning, during history class, he entered the room. Naturally, everyone stood. I didn't. Noticing this, the man questioned me about it. We debated in front of the class then, and my argument was so powerful that the story spread all over the school within hours, and the principal no longer insisted on students standing when he entered the room.
Thus I was well known as a man who would fight for his freedom. This gained me a lot of respect, something which amused me to this day.
I was willing to fight for my freedom, I wanted a rebellion against the oppressive government. My bedroom wall was covered with inspirational quotes such as "Give me Liberty or Give me Death!", and "Live Free or Die", as well as Winston Churchill's famous "We shall fight on the beaches" speech.
Griggs was more passive than I. He was content with life as it was, relaxed and a tad eccentric. He cared more about his image, and over the years had become quite self conscious. He was hardly a popular guy, preferring to hang out with me and play computer games than go out and get drunk. Things hadn't always been like that; he used to be popular and extremely confident, but in our early days of high school something had happened. He never told me what; we had fallen out of contact around then, but I knew it concerned a girl.
Zoey was almost the polar opposite to Griggs and I. She was very popular, had dozens of friends, and very pretty, causing many of the guys at school to ask her out. This had been going on for years. It wasn't that I was resentful; Zoey and I were just friends. Just friends.
Zoey was also the daughter of the prestigious Dr Stanley Rosenberg. While this did not make much of a difference to her social life, it was very interesting to Griggs and I. Dr Rosenberg had been a top scientist at the mysterious Black Mesa Research Facility in New Mexico. Up until a few years ago, actually. There him and his scientists had created something that would change both us and the world. And not necessarily in a good way.
Over the past three years the three of us had drifted apart. We all went to different schools, and high school changes people. In high school, loyalties change. I had become a powerful guy, well known, respected, but not always liked. Griggs had become quiet, disconnected with school, self conscious. Zoey had become popular, attractive and had made friends with new people.
It was because we were drifting apart that I suggested this holiday. I didn't want our friendship to die. The holiday certainly stopped that.
