Worthington, Ohio was the place I've called home for my whole life. Despite my wish to live somewhere where I could interact with more people, my aunt chose to live on the outer skirts of town. Of course, this was probably because she practiced magic daily.

I, of course, was never allowed to be in the room when she did. The house always seemed to smell of some form of incense though, and it's not like I wanted to be in the room anyway (I did). She always let me go to public school. The only weird thing that kids saw about me was the crystals I always wore, at my aunt's discretion.

A typical day was what you would expect it to be; wake up, go to school, go to work, come home. Food was in there somewhere, practicing Latin to make up my own spells that would inevitably never work was usually during school as well. I was lucky enough to have a school that thought Latin was the devil's language. Worthington Christian High School, an arguably high-end school, was where I was currently being sent. The uniform was ripped off after about five minutes after classes ended for a Taco Bell uniform. If you ever caught me eating that food it's because I have to and not because I want to. It was the only private school I had been to thus far, and oh my God were these people stuffy. My aunt almost physically fought them over the wearing of my crystal.

In the summer of 2009, I was usually found in the living room of my house. The school was going to start in a few weeks, and I was not looking forward to my senior year. Tyler, my best friend, had been out of school for a year now and was in college. It was on the same campus, but because of our schedules we hardly ever saw each other, except for the days he would come into Taco Bell with Chris and Nick, my other friend and boyfriend (respectively). I was the youngest in their group, their little fledgling as they called me.

Luckily, they were still on campus, but at the college portion. They didn't have to wear a uniform. Tyler was typically my ride to work, where he would hang out to do homework with Chris and Nick. They ate Taco Bell like nobody's business. I was due in just a few minutes to go in and start another day fresh in suffering.

I heard a honk outside and looked out the window to see that Tyler had pulled up.

"Lorelei, I'm heading to work!" I called. Upon hearing no response, I ran out to Tyler's car.

I got into the laughter of Tyler, Chris, and Nick, "About time you showed up."

"Not my fault my ride showed up late," I sent a playful glare to Tyler as I adjusted my uniform. Nick grabbed onto my hand and kissed my cheek.

Tyler laughed, sending me the bird before driving off.

We arrived at the Taco Bell sufficiently hungry. Tyler refused to stop so I could eat somewhere else, so it looked like I would be eating some soft tacos.

I had already thrown my company hat on and was rushing to the back to get in before my shift started. I finally got back there and threw my purse to the hook, running to the front so I could buy the boys what they wanted.

"Thank you, Reece," Tyler said as Chris and Nick went to go sit down. I smiled and handed him his cups, along with what food I could get to him at that moment. My boss, Michel, called me from the back to continue to clean and cook. The food was already cooked anyway, so it didn't matter if I cooked it even more.

The shift was slow, so slow in fact that I was allowed to join my friends at their table as they wrote songs for their band. They were in the process of recording an album and already had a few songs done. They figured they would go one song at a time until the album was done. I noticed a lot of the songs written so far, like Implicit Demand for Proof and Fall Away, were written as calls to God. It both warmed my heart and saddened it because I knew why he was calling for Him.

"The album is just missing one song," Tyler said, "And I would love if it was released at some point in December. We still gotta see if people like it, and-"

I put my hand on Tyler's arm, effectively stopping him, "Relax. People will love it. I can sell copies at school if you want," I said.

Tyler nodded, looking back down. I leaned back into Chris' arms, relishing in the coolness of his body that saved me from the heat in the back. The restaurant was empty except the four of us. My boss had taken off early because of something that happened with his daughter, so I told him I would close for him. After promising me an extra $5 an hour for my over-time, he left.

However, the doorbell jingled, alerting me to get up and go serve the new customers. It was a group of four men, all dressed in formal looking clothing. Honestly, it wasn't the weirdest thing I'd seen. I had a grown man come in a few months ago dressed as Hannah Montana for the release of her movie (somehow also not the weirdest thing, but it was close).

"Hello, what can I get you guys today?" I asked, getting ready to input their orders into the system.

There was no answer from the men, they just stared at me. I blinked a couple of times, looking to my friends. They looked terrified. I shook it off, looking back to the men that just came in.

"Is there anything I can do to-" I began, but as I was speaking one of the men, I'm assuming the leader, lept across the counter at me.