Heather woke up suddenly, covered in sweat, her sheets were in a mess, and one of her thigh-highs was gone. She stayed this way for about ten minutes. The cold air of her terrifying nightmare had been chased by the pale sunlight on her white walls, covered in posters of smiling celebrities and cheesy horror movies. She was breathing heavily as she stared again to each little corner of her perfectly tidied room. It was time to get dressed. She took off her remaining thigh-high and grabbed the carefully prepared outfit on the office chair standing next to her Ikea wooden desk, with her also carefully prepared school bag. Skinny jeans , gray tee with a slight cleavage, checkered shirt worn opened on it, and sneakers.
Heather was what you could call a "regular girl", but she was perfectly regular. The epitome of conformity- but a conformity that would grab attention and affection, rather than what would make you invisible. Slightly pear shaped, about 5'6, skin a regular beige, eyes a regular hazel. She had shoulder-length bleached blonde hair tied in a messy bun, her dark brown roots starting to show – it had been a bit less than a month since her last visit to the hairdresser. Heather would dress quickly, but she spent much longer on her make-up or as she called it, her "no-makeup make-up". Rather than make-up, it was more like painting. She sketched, shadowed and high-lighted in a way that radically changed her oh-so-regular face, round eyes, and straight nose. She was Galatea and Pygmalion at the same time, sculpting the perfect woman in her own flesh. Preocuppied by her social life and what she would talk about with her friends, for a moment she forgot about that terrible night.
Heather was a well-liked girl, this due partly because of her ever-so-perfect lines. She was fairly popular and often aware of the weirdest rumors, which was a nice source of inspiration for writing, she thought. However, other popular people weren't really her cup of tea. Because more than all, Heather liked to be rewarded for her work. So she would rather stay with the local outcasts- they kept praising her constantly, for she associated a perfect face with clever humor. It felt like a payback for all the efforts she put into being always the best, the "cool" girl in the group.
She lived close to her school, so she went there walking. She was welcomed by three of her friends.
Annie was the fancy girl of the group. She was fairly tall and thin with blue eyes, and her layered hair, originally a light blond, came down to her waist and was dyed all sorts of funny colors – this time a gradient from peacock blue to emerald green. To contrast with that, she wore mainly black clothes, her outfits generally consisting of a tube top, short shorts, fancy stockings and plateform sneakers. She didn't care much about the dress code or what other people thought of her somehow revealing clothing. As she said herself "Even if you considered me as only a slab of meat, you should still respect your food". Some people were actually jealous of her figure. Most of the time she had some sort of sweets in her hand, but she never gained weight. Ashley on the other hand had the opposite figure. She was short and slightly chubby. Her dark, wavy brown hair came down to the middle of her back, and she had narrow, dark brown eyes, and dressed in the most discret way possible. She had no make-up either, save for some glitter on big events, and would rather invest in new books than in an eyeliner pencil. She had entered the group when she became Zack's girlfriend. Zack was about the same height as Heather, had short black hair, black eyes and rectangular glasses. His clothing and tastes were similar to Ashley's, but he had a much stronger interest in sordid news, rumors, and paranormal stories. He came to school by train, so he often had in his hands the free newspapers that are given at train stops and liked a murder joke once in a while, to which Ashley often answered with a gold glance. Zack's main quality was that he was always on time, and generally arrived at school before everyone else. He liked good organization over everything, which was reflected in his perpetually good grades – However he "snapped" when something went wrong. He would have rather died than arrive two minutes late. Which made Ashlyn and himself the perfect couple : they both were nitpicky and somehow two-faced.
As Heather arrived, Annie hurried to yell her name from the other side of the yard, and make large waves with her hands, and was the first to greet her, asking the usual questions –How's been your weekend ?- in her overly cheerful voice. "You won't believe the news", she said a bit quieter. Zack pulled his newpapers out of his bag. "Remember Liu's brother, Jeffrey ? This happened yesterday" he said in that satisified tone he always had when he learned something big to someone. He handed her the newspapers.
The crime had happened in the outskirts of the town. A woman and his son were found dead, a large smile carved in their faces with a knife. It was, undoubtedly, the work of "Jeff the killer", who we hadn't heard about for around three weeks, and who was never caught. Half the town was surrounded by the woods, and as Jeff was already a living legend here, he was believed to live in there. Zack knew that, and he knew Heather lived nearby those woods and that the news would scare her. Heather quickly understood that.
"Come on, you really have no mercy !"
To which Zack answered with a fake exaggerated creepy laugh, and Ashley with a sigh.
Jeff the killer was Zack's favorite topic, and he was proud to have such a legend so close to where he lived, whereas everyone was afraid to one day come home to see their entire family bleeding on the floor with that infamous bloody smile that was his signature. However that topic made Annie and Heather rather uncomfortable, for one particular reason : They had known Jeff before that. And even more, they had known Liu, his brother. Liu had been in their class, he had joined some months after it had started when his family had moved in. For Annie, it had been love at first sight. Liu was much shorter than her. He had a pale skin, but was all in warm tones, with light golden brown hair and big green eyes with long eyelashes that standed out even more due to his freckles and gave him a more child-like look. But more than all, he was the one who seemed the most genuinely nice. "I'm not sure about what I could say about my tastes, but right now I think I quite like you all", he had introduced himself to the class. Annie had confessed her love to him and although he admitted not being attracted to her this way, they had in an instant become great friends. Except, Liu had disappeared. Liu was missing. He had been missing for two months and no one knew where he was. Annie was one of these beautiful, rich, spoiled girls that had everything and she felt gifted and thankful, and considered it her duty to make everyone else's life a bit greater by being the happiest, nicest she could be, and today like any other day, she kept laughing and having fun with her friends, hoping to make their days brighter, but inside she was crushed. She knew she would probably never see him again and every morning, when the bell rang, she looked at the school's gates with empty eyes that a miracle would happen and Liu would run to her, smiling as usual. Her and Liu mostly used to hang out after school, and he was never part of her friend group, so she didn't expect them to understand and kept it to herself, but Heather could read it in her acts – since his disappearance, she seemed often absent-minded and even if her "niceties" were the same, her voice that used to be so genuinely cheerful had a hollow impression, like she didn't put her soul into it anymore. It was way too busy trying to survive on happy memories. Annie, who used to be the nicest girl in the world, was secretly fueled by rage. Rage against Jeff. Everything was his fault, and she knew he was behind Liu's disappearance the police didn't even care about anymore. Just like he was behind every single one of the daily murders falling like a curse on her perfect little town. He had ruined her optimistic vision of the world, which now seemed to her like a pointless masquerade.
Author's note :
Hello ! I hope you like this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope it wasn't too cheesy but in the end, it's also a good thing if it makes you laugh !
I hope it doesn't have too many english mistakes, especially since I tried to give more emotions to the words so my descriptions may be a bit strange.
I also hope not to turn Jeff into a complete cliche, but I'm not gonna lie, The way the story will progress is heavily inspired by your regular horror movie storyline.
