Sumire Naoto

Sumire Naoto wandered through the hallways, none of her friends had shown up for school and she was confused as to why. Everything had been fine the day before, she had been texting back and forth with them on group chats and they had all seemed perfectly happy. Her phone pinged and she looked at the text that had popped up on her screen with tired eyes.

Do what I say and nobody will get hurt. Come to the auditorium now.

-Ace

Her heart was pounding incessantly, she almost felt it reverberating through her bones as she practically sprinted to the auditorium. Nobody was there, it was pitch black and completely terrifying. She felt as if she had walked into her own personal horror movie. The screen in front of her suddenly lit up and a deep, robotic voice rang out over the speakers.

“My name is Ace and you have betrayed me. You will pay.” The speakers cut off and Sumire was left on her own trembling. Where were her friends? And what the hell did she have to do to get her them back? Suddenly, the door behind her opened and she spun- she hadn’t realised she had been crying until just now. Her boyfriend walked through the doors-his name was Junji.

Junji grabbed her and pulled her into a tight embrace.

“Are you okay?” He asked, planting a delicate kiss on her forehead.

“Someone has taken my friends Junji, I need to get them back, I need to help get them back.” Junji shushed her and nodded as she spoke. They walked from the auditorium and went to their first class together-English. As soon as she walked in, she locked eyes with her ex boyfriend-Katsu. She took a deep breath and quickly averted her gaze, she had hooked up with him last summer and cheated on Junji, they had agreed to keep it a secret. He looked rather sweaty, as if he had been running somewhere. She didn’t know who Ace was but they had to be somebody in the school…she thought it might have been him, he had every reason to hate her but she wasn’t sure he was intelligent enough to pull such a massive scheme off.

English was long, she just wanted to get the day over with so she could figure out who the hell had taken her friends, and who was threatening her. She sat in biology and surveyed the room, looking for more people that could be working against her. She came to the conclusion that it could have been her two friends-Maya and Chloe. They had been best friends for years, but both of the girls were remarkably jealous of Sumire…it could be anyone, it seemed almost impossible to pick out a suspect from the sea of students. Everybody seemed to have a motive now she was really thinking about it.

“Are you okay?” Maya asked, it shouldn’t have been suspicious but it was, the way she asked…it was almost as if she could tell that something was wrong with Sumire.

“You look pale.” Added Chloe, holding the back of her hand to Sumire’s head. “Almost like you’ve seen a ghost.” Sumire took a deep breath and faked it as best as she could, hanging out with these two girls made her miss her other friends even more- Penny and Liberty were the two girls that had been taken, they were nothing like Maya and Chloe. They were genuine and she knew they would always be there for her…her phone went off in biology and she looked down at it to see another text message from the dreaded Ace.

Figured it out yet?

-Ace.

She felt tears plaguing her eyes again, she had no idea if Penny and Liberty were safe or if they were uninjured…she just wanted to know if her friends were hurt. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if her friends had been hurt over something she had done. She ran from the room panting, her boyfriend was at his locker putting his phone into his bag.

“Sumire?” She looked over at him and straight away the flood gates opened.

“I don’t know what to do.” She said.

“It’s okay my love, Ace will leave you alone.” Her heart stopped, her breath hitched in her throat. She hadn’t told Junji his name and she hadn’t told him about the texts…now she thought about it, she hadn’t told him that she was in the auditorium this morning, so how did he know where to find her? She took a step back and stared at him, her cheeks turning a deep red.

“Can I use your phone for a moment?” She asked, he looked hesitant but he handed it over to her nonetheless, she was trying to act as normal as possible so he didn’t suspect that she knew he was hiding something. She went onto his phone and was instantly drawn to the CCTV app, she clicked on it and saw her friends locked in a room…the storage room downstairs. She went off the app and handed it to him. Without another word, she ran down the stairs, trying her hardest to outrun Junji who was right behind her. She unlocked the storage room and burst inside to see her two friends. They ran over to her and wrapped their arms around her shoulders.

full story here
http://meisanmui.art/blog/NnoB/sumire-naoto