Chapter 2

Samantha

"Ahh, I'm so excited!" My close friend squeaked, as she was hanging up a banner that said in big, bold letters, "GRAND OPENING, WELCOME TO THE NEWEST, BIGGEST, BADDEST HAUNTED SHOP ON THE STREET! OPEN FROM THIS DAY ONWARD AS OF 8/25/2020!"

"Heh," I scoffed, "More like you should be worried about your banner then your shop." I spoke with a tiny bit of disappointment. "It'll drive the customers' away."

"No it won't!" She whined. "It's supposed to be a scary shop anyway! And what do you mean by, 'I should worry about the banner,' There's nothing wrong with it!" She whined, while stomping her feet like a little child having a temper tantrum from not getting their candy bar.

"The grammar." I said, rather blankly, as I unpacked more boxes of materials that I was pretty sure shouldn't be sold to the public… "I believe that the so-called word, "baddest" isn't even a word." I pointed out as I stared at the banner with disappointment.

"Oh, whatever, it's a word if I say so!" She huffed, while she grabbed a sharpie, as she attempted to make amends to my grammar correcting. She climbed the ladder once more and made a huge "x" shape across "baddest" and froze, as she didn't know what to write as a replacement word. I sighed as I saw my longtime friend troubled with such simple things that I felt sorry for her. So I made my resolution to help her out like usual.

"Give me the marker, girl, you're gonna' fall over your own tiny wits." I sighed exasperatedly, as I snagged the marker due to my tall height and helped her down as I took her place and wrote, "traumatizing" instead. "muuuch better…" I said relieved, as I slowly climbed back down, and hopped off the silver, shiny ladder.

"Traumatizing…eh?" She questioned, with amusement full in her tone. "Nice, nice. See? This is why I keep you around!" She joked playfully as she hit my back with a playful thud.

"Now now Samantha-"I began, which, I was soon stopped by her finger as she shushed me harshly.

"Alexandre, you do know… Not… To… Call… Me... That... Name..." She said coldly as she shot me a piercing glare.

"And you also know very well that one, I'm quite the kidder." I said quite stiffly. "And two, you yourself, know not to call me by that name either." I said sternly as I raised an eyebrow toward her.

"Well you thought you could call me Samantha, so I decided that I could call you Alexandre." Samantha said crossly, turning on her moody mode. Seeing her going into moody mode, I myself shut down the joker inside and realized what had to be done.

"Fine, fine, sorry for calling you Samantha, Sam." I muttered rather childishly.

"I forgive you, Alex!" Sam gleefully rejoiced. "Now as a way to celebrate the grand opening of my shop, and to know you're really sorry, how about you take me out for dinner?" She squealed with glee.

"Ugh… Do I have to…?" I whined, as I honestly didn't want to take her out for dinner due to her pickiness about food and always choosing the pricey things that make my wallet cry. Sam shot me a dirty look that spelled death so I quickly shielded myself as a means to save myself from her anguish that was building. "Fine! I'll take you out to dinner already!" I said with haste, as I saw impending doom coming from a certain aura around her.

"Muuuch better." Sam said rather calmly, as she quickly retreated, walking away for quite a while until suddenly swishing back around as if, she had forgotten something. "Oh yeah! And don't forget to tell me about that odd dream you had last night!" She said with her usual bright smile, and shiny, brown hair glistening in the setting sun, and dancing with the wind with beauty and grace.

"Uhm… I don't know about that…" I lied, not wanting to tell her the dream, as it was something I myself, was uncomfortable with. Guessing that she heard me, I heard the angry stampede of her feet crashing into the sidewalk as she was gaining in on me. She started to pull on my ear as she brought it close to her mouth. "Ow, Ow! That hurts! Let Go!" I screeched, without putting up a fight, as the pedestrians took a sudden interest in our little squabble. "You're attracting a lot of attention!"

"Oh good, then they might wanna come by later and see the shop when it's actually open later." Sam said with a dark tone. I decided to finally calm down and shut my trap as I could tell just how serious she was about this. "I know you remember that dream far too well, you're the only one in town that actually remembers all of their dreams. You're also the only one who can't remember your own past like a pathetic little baby. Now, will you tell me the dream, or no?" Sam growled as she applied more pressure on my ear.

"Y-yes ma'am. I will! Now please stop!" I plead, as the pain was making my ear go numb. Sam slowly released her grip and let out a huge sigh.

"Okay, good, you understand. I expect you to pick me up at eight o' clock, and bring me back home by ten, 'kay? Sam requested, as she twirled back around and skipped back home joyfully, turning back one last time to give me a wave of goodbye, me waving back rather weakly.

'Oh boy what have I gotten myself into…?' I sighed, as I ruffled my hair to relieve some stress. 'This is going to be a long~ day. I can't wait to get it over with.' I thought as I did some more finishing touches with the packages, and locked up the store before heading back to my apartment. 'Ya know, for only being eighteen, I can't believe I handle myself better than Sam with her being 20. Wait a minute, isn't she too young to even own a shop?! Oh well, guess I'll ask her later when I have to take her out.' Suddenly realizing that I had to take her out made me go into depression mode again as I realized I would have a very sad wallet walking around with me yet again after having to take her out last time. 'Better get home and get dressed a lil' I guess…' I decided as I took my bike and rode on home, due to the town I live in isn't even 25 miles in circumference, making it the smallest in our area, and is probably why there aren't many cars around here. 'I just hope I can maintain what peaceful life I have left.' I groaned, as I strolled through the town, arrived at home, and got into my apartment to get my clothes ready for dinner and then decided to take a nap as I plopped myself onto the bed face first and instantaneously fell asleep, due to helping Sam all day with the grand opening of her new shop.