<<< Needle >>>
“Are you Roy Greystone?”
I sat up in my desk to see a girl standing by my desk. Her name was Kiana Leon, a student that had moved here in early November and had only been attending this school for about a week. “Yeah, that’s me.” I said. “Why do you ask?”
She looked away. “I, um, wanted to make sure you got this.” she said, holding out a folded piece of paper. I didn’t really know how to respond, so I took the note. After I grabbed it, she gave me an awkward smile and ran back to her seat. I didn’t quite know how to respond, so I opened the letter. Inside, the words “Please meet me at Café Floure at 6:00 tonight. -Kiana”.
“A confession, huh?”
I looked over my shoulder to find out who had spoken. It was Mateo Decker, a friend I had met only two weeks prior. He smiled at me and plucked the note from my fingers. “Hmm. I’ve seen plenty of these. Definitely a confession. Do you know this girl?” he asked. I tried to point in Kiana’s direction as subtly as I could. “No. I hadn’t even talked to her before now.” I replied quietly. Mateo nodded, signaling his understanding. “Well, it seems that you have a secret fan base, my friend. I can’t say I’m surprised. Lots of girls are into the quiet types, you know.” he said with a wink. I tried to keep myself from shuddering. I’m not the kind of person that likes attention, and even thinking about that kind of thing was scary. I could already feel the pit forming in my stomach. “What should I do?” I asked him, trying to keep the desperation from my voice.
Mateo shrugged. “I’ll walk you through it if you want. It can be hard dealing with your first confession. The first thing you need to do is decide if you want to accept.” he told me. I thought for a second. “I don’t really know her, but I don’t want to be mean. She seems really nice.” I said finally.
The bell rang, and Mateo ran to his seat. Through the entire class, all I could think about was the note. Was this really a confession, like Mateo said? If it wasn’t, what else would it be? If it was, why? The period seemed to pass all too quickly, and I had only finished processing the situation by the time the bell rang. As soon as it did, Mateo rushed back to my desk. “Wanna come over today? We’ve still got a few hours until 6, so we can prepare.”
I agreed. I met up with him at his house at 5:30. His family was very wealthy, so his house was about four times as big as mine. When I knocked on the door, I was greeted by Mateo's sister, Ashly. She was a year younger than me, and she would hang around us whenever I came over. She never really showed any signs of emotion, so I only had the clues my eye gave me to rely on. In a sense, I could really relate to her. People often saw me as emotionless, too.
"Hey Ashly! Is Mateo home?"
"Yeah, he's been waiting for you. Come in."
I walked into the house. Thumping sounds came down from the stairs, and Mateo appeared from around the corner. He was wearing a T-Shirt with an album cover I didn't recognize on it and some green shorts. "You know it's winter, right?" I asked him.
"Of course, but it's warm inside. Take off your coat and sit down!"
I hung up my jacket on the hook and took a seat on the living room couch. The room had always reminded me of a ballroom. It had a high ceiling with a shiny chandelier hanging down from it. There was also a grand piano in the corner and various paintings littering the walls. Mateo had called it his mother's "hobby room". She had always wanted to live in a palace when she was young, and this area was the manifestation of that. I always liked sitting in it, imagining what a real ball would be like.
As soon as we had all taken our seats, Mateo began talking. “Where should we begin? Confessions are fragile things, so you have to be careful what you say.”
Ashly rolled her eyes. “Don’t listen to him, Roy.” she said. “He might be fairly attractive to most girls, but he doesn’t know the first thing about love.”
“Would you shut up?!”
“Guys, we’re not here to fight!” I cautioned them. Although I could tell that they both loved each other, Ashly and Mateo often got into fights. Sometimes I wondered how they managed to live in the same house without burning it down.
Mateo sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. We’ve got to work together if we’re going to make this night work. Get Ashly caught up on all of the details, and we’ll get started.”
I turned to Ashly and began explaining what had happened. “Before my last class a girl came over to my desk with a note. After giving it to me, she ran back to her own desk. That’s about it.”
“What was the girl’s name?”
“Kiana Leon. I think she moved here about a month ago. Do you know her?”
“I know of her. She’s that quiet girl that won’t talk to anybody. I highly doubt this meeting is a confession unless she’s been spying on you or something.”
“If it isn’t a confession what it?” Mateo asked.
“I don’t know. I guess we just have to take this one step at a time,” I said. “I’ll go to the place the note said and try to determine why Kiana wanted to talk to me. It’s not like it’s a matter of life or death.”
Mateo nodded. “I guess that’s an honest way to approach it. You should go now. It’s always polite to be early,” he said, rising from the couch. “Tell me how it goes tomorrow!”
“Sure. See you later!”
“Good luck!”
I got into my car, looked up the address on my phone, and started driving to the café.

<< 2 >>
The café was completely empty aside from one boy working at the counter. It was well decorated, with paintings of various trees and flowers hanging on the walls and comfy looking furniture spread methodically around the room. I looked around, trying to find a table that was as far from the counter as possible. Once I found one, I sat down and waited. The time passed quickly, and eventually the person of interest came. Kiana had the same look of fear that she had worn when she handed me the note. My eye started to twitch, but I closed it before anything could happen.
“Is something wrong?” Kiana asked.
“I’m okay, you don’t have to worry about me. Have a seat.” I said, gesturing to the chair across from me on the table. She took a seat and started fidgeting with her hands. I felt powerless not knowing what to say. What was I supposed to do?
Before I could say anything, a large sheet of metal slammed over the doorway. Each of the windows followed suit, and before any of us could react we were trapped in the café. I jumped up from my seat and ran to the door, trying to open it. It moved, but I couldn’t get it past the metal panel. The boy at the counter banged on the windows while Kiana just sat in her chair, her look of worry growing more intense. I opened my right eye.
Steel Barricade: A metal panel that’s too strong for you to move.
That wasn’t helpful. The only thing I gleaned from the description was that I had no hope of moving it on my own. Shattered glass broke my train of thought, and I whipped around to see that the boy from the counter had broken a window. “Hey, you!” I said, yelling across the room. “Help me with this thing!” The boy nodded and ran over to meet me, but even our combined power wasn’t enough to open the door.
“Those things are shut tight! You can’t open it with just the three of you.”
The voice came from the women’s restroom, which was just down a side hallway from the door that the café boy and I were trying to force open. After they finished, the speaker opened the door all the way and stepped into the hallway. To our surprise, it was a little girl that couldn’t have been older than seven years old. She was wearing a pink dress, and her short blonde hair had a pink hair clip in it.
“Max and Roy, right? You guys are taller than I thought you’d be!”
The café boy, whose name was apparently Max, clenched his fist. “How do you know our names?”
The girl giggled. “I know everything.”
“Who are you, then? Are you some kind of…freak?’
She giggled again. “No, I’m not a freak. I’m just a little girl.”
“What’s your name, then?” I asked, trying to stay calm.
Now she just looked irritated. “I just told you. Little. Girl. Try to keep up.”
Girl: You don’t know who she is, but she’s kind of creepy. 6y,4f,70l
I hadn’t seen her before, so I couldn’t help but wonder why she knew who I was. Was she some kind of stalker? “If you know everything, then tell us how to open this thing.” I said.
“No can do.”
“Why not?!” Max spat.
“Because I put them there!”
The emotionless face she said it with made us shudder. Why would kind of motivation would a little girl have to trap three high school students in a café? Luckily, she answered this question before I was able to ask.
“We’re going to play a game, and I don’t want any of you guys cheating. That would ruin the fun!”
“A game? What kind of game would require this kind of…confinement?” I asked.
“It’s a secret! I’ll tell you later.” she replied. She then pulled some kind of tablet I didn’t recognize out of her back pocket and held it up to her ear. “Chapstick, fire up the bus. We’re ready.”
An annoyed voice came from the speaker. “Fine. Hurry up.”
The call ended, and Girl put the phone back in her pocket. “We shouldn’t keep him waiting. Let’s go!” she said, skipping to an emergency exit in the back of the café. I mentally slapped myself in the face before turning to follow. Before I could take the first step, I felt a hand on my arm. It was Kiana, who had gotten up from her seat while I wasn’t watching. I had kind of forgotten that she existed, but I tried to keep the surprise from showing in my voice.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
She turned her head so that she wasn’t making eye contact with me. “I just…don’t think we should go. That girl is creepy.”
“But what other option do we have? Staying in here? All of the exists are blocked.”
“The police will probably come and find us!”
I hadn’t thought about that. “You’re right. I guess we can just stay here until they co…”
“No.”
Girl’s voice turned suddenly serious, and her expression was grave. The emergency exit opened, and a man clothed in a black trench coat emerged from the doorway. He looked like someone straight out of a noir film, with a matching black hat and a mask around his grey eyes. His smirk was all the motivation we needed to get in the car.
The car door was pressed up right next to the emergency exit, so there was no way I could slide through the crack. My only option was to get in the vehicle. Inside was another boy, this one looking close to my age. His hair and eyes were both teal, and I could see a crow-shaped teal mask on the dashboard that was presumably his. He looked over his shoulder and smiled at us.
“So, you’re the unlucky crew, huh? My name’s Connor. Pleased to meet you!”