BTW each chapter will start in present tense at the funeral, just to give you some hints at who's funeral it is! Oh, and I don't own anything!

Beth leaves the podium, her face streaked with tears. I'm pretty choked up, but I'm not ready to cry just yet. I guess I should wait until after I have to say something. Well, nobody has to say something, but most of the Total Drama cast is anyway. They had a lot of good friends...

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

My alarm clock buzzed in my ear. I groaned. Monday mornings are the worst. I felt as if I only slept ten minutes last night, which is kind of true since I woke up about a hundred times.

Lazily, I rolled out of bed and blindly made my way to the bathroom. Without turning the lights on yet, I half-assly washed my face and brushed my teeth. Stumbling a little, I got back to my room and put on clothes in the dark. Vaguely I hoped I was putting on something that matched, but then again, I didn't really care.

I slumped downstairs into the light and cringed a little. If I could make it through the whole day in the dark, I would.

After eating something and sitting around and contemplating going back to sleep, I got in my car and started driving to Noah's house. I have to drive him everywhere because, even though he has his license, he had to share a car with his eight older siblings, and he's still trying to save money for his own.

I pulled into his driveway. After a few minutes, he emerged from his house and got in the car. I could tell he was as tired as I was because his hair was rumpled and covering half of his face. Halfway to school, he asked, "Did you ever find your ball yesterday?"

"No."

"Oh, sorry."

I waved it off. The question I was dieing to ask was on the tip of my tongue, but he said, "Guess we can't play soccer today."

"Yeah." I opened my mouth again to ask the question, when he changed the subject.

"What did you get on the English test?"

We kept talking about academic stuff, and graduating in a few weeks until we got to school. Noah stepped out of the car, but I still sat in the driver's seat, my hands still positioned on the steering wheel. The question still bounced around in my head.

"Did you have the nightmares too?"

"So, Tyler told me about the knife," Gwen said as I took my seat in Spanish. Everyone else was smart and had taken it in middle school, so Gwen and I were the only seniors stuck in Spanish 3.

"Sí." (yes)

"Is Noah like, possessed now?"

"Haha, más o menos." (pretty much)

"Dude, speak English."

"Qué? No te entiendo!" (what? I don't understand you!)

"Inglés! Habla Inglés!" (English! Speak English!)

"Well, all you had to do was ask. Geez."

"God, you're so annoying! Stop trying to change the subject!" she yelled.

"Okay, so there's a murderer in the woods. Your point?"

"You're not freaked out? I thought you of all people would be scared," she commented.

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?"

"Last time I remember being in a forest with you, you peed your pants. Twice."

"That was three years ago!" I defended.

"Sure, whatever. So would you go back in there?"

"No!" My pitch embarrassingly rose.

"Told ya you were scared."

Okay, so maybe I was scared a little. Wouldn't you be? Maybe I'm just being paranoid. Wouldn't be the first time. Think of all of the things that Noah could've seen. Nothing dangerous is in the woods! Gwen smirked as she watched my internal conflict. I hate how I can't mask my emotions. I closed my eyes and tilted my head back so that she couldn't see my face. Plus, I was tired! I could feel my mind slipping away into unconsciousness...

"Boo."

I shrieked like a little girl and hit my knees on the bottom of my desk. Every pair of eyes turned to me, and my face burned.

"I, uh, saw a mouse," I blurted. Wow, nice save Codester, I thought as soon as I said it. Gwen was struggling not to laugh. Her face was turning red and her shoulders were shaking.

"Thanks a lot," I muttered and I shot her an angry look. That sent her over the edge, and she burst out laughing. I buried my face in my arms, trying to return my cheeks to a normal color. If only I wasn't such a scaredy cat.

I woke up. My heart was pounding and I was sweating a little. I don't remember why, or what I was dreaming about, and that bothered me. If I was going to have nightmares, I should at least remember what I was scared of, right? But really, this was getting annoying. I shouldn't be scared of a fake thing that I didn't even see.

Back to the reason I woke up. The phone! The phone was ringing! I yawned and rolled off the couch. Then I stopped because I just realized that I was in the living room and not in my bedroom. I came to the conclusion that I dozed off while I was watching TV because I was damn tired when I got home from school. By that time, the phone had stopped ringing, and Noah's voice rang through my otherwise empty house.

"Cody, it's me. If you're there, please pick up, because this is kind of important! And hurry, because-"

"Hey, hey, I'm here!" I said after I ran to pick up the phone. "What do you need?"

"Turn on the news. Now."

After fumbling around to find the remote (and Noah impatiently yelling "Hurry!" in my ear), I flipped on the local news.

"Local police detectives are on the case to find out who murdered Staci Briggs. She was last seen yesterday night, and her body was found this morning, in the woods behind the Allen Neighborhood Park. It appears that she was stabbed to death, or that someone had cut off her limbs and she bled to death. Keep your children away from..."

"Okay, that's freaky. Why did you show me this?" I asked.

"It gets worse. Pause the screen when they show the police tape all throughout the trees."

Why is he making me watch this? Is he purposely trying to keep me up at night? I do not need to know that there is a crazy murderer running around near my house. I guess my dreams were right.

I pressed rewind and paused when he told me to. "Now what?"

"Bottom left."

I searched the screen, and when I found it, I dropped the phone. In the corner of the screen was my blue soccer ball.

Sorry I had to add in English subtitles, but I know that there are some of you out there, like myself, that don't speak Spanish. And Cody's Monday morning routine is very similar to mine. This chapter took me way longer to write than it should have. Here is how it started:

Take 1

They go to the farm to smoke some pot. JK, that never happened.

Take 2

"I don't understand it! I don't understand anything at all!" (which I really only wrote down because my friend kept saying it over and over when I was trying to write.)

Take 3

Beth left the podium, her face streaked with bananas. I was busy choking on a hot dog, when...

And that's what happens when I bring my real friends into my fanfiction world. Read and review!