Well this is nice. Afternoon tea with the girls, feels like it has been forever since we all got together like this. We all have such busy lives and it’s easy to forget to take time for yourself. When I was a child I would dream about adulthood being this glorious time full of independence, family, control, if I’m honest it is all those things but they are not as good as they sound. Now I dream about being a child again. Funny how life works like that.

Let me introduce you to the girls here today:

We have Alice- red hair, fair skin, face full of freckles, has a bubbly personality and could chat your ear off when she gets going but appreciates the small things in life. She has a husband who is devoted to her and two crazy kids that are always well behaved. (The type of kids that make your kids look crazy).

Lola- blonde hair, always dressed in fancy dresses that looks like she comes from royalty or the olden days (will let you decide that). She always like to be the centre of attention and is known for a beauty. But her life isn’t all that it seems. She is going through a divorce because she had an affair with her husband’s father. But we do not discuss that obviously.

Shannon and Sophie - blonde twins, one with shorter hair and one with longer hair but they never go anywhere without each other and are always side by side. Dedicated family people to their elderly farther and both speak in soft voices but tend to keep themselves to themselves.

Lily- lily is the creative one of us bunch. She never went for the family or the social standard that’s expected. She gave up a career in psychology and became an artist, dyed her hair blue and moved into a carvan. She is probably the most down to earth person out of us but we think she is lonely - her upper class family disowned her when she abandoned everything they believed in.

Then finally there’s me, dark hair for the dark horse is what they say. I am weary of people and have lots of trust issues but when I get chatting to someone it’s hard to stop me. Life has been difficult for me but we won’t go into that quite yet (I have only just met you wouldn’t wanna scare you away yet)

We all take our seats around the table. There’s a silk blue tablecloth across and fancy afternoon tea stands. We really have gone upmarket this meet-up. Everyone’s catching up and reminiscing about the last time we all went out which is nice to see. I am just fixated on this new girl at our table. Who is she? She must be a friend of Alice’s because they are sat next to each other talking. I am feeling some really bad vibes and I can’t put my finger on why. “Hello you haven’t introduced yourself, I am Amy, are you a friend of Alice’s?”

“She’s not a friend of mine, she just joined us because she had no one else to sit with.” Alice jumping in as usual. Is that strange? Someone coming to randomly sit with a bunch of old school friends? Maybe this is just my parnoia but something about her I don’t like.

“My name is Mia, Alice said I could join you. My friends let me down so I was alone.” She has a smile on her face but her eyes are dark and suspicious. ‘Oh stop’ I say to myself I need to stop being so silly and put this aside and just enjoy my tea.

A hour or so has passed and everyone seems like they are having a nice time. They bring out another bottle of champagne and now we are all a bit tipsy and there’s loud giggles and Lola is now dropping her dirty secrets as she does this time of the night. I glance at lily who shoots me a bright smile and picks up her glass of champagne. She always makes me happy. I glance again as I look again her smile is gone and she looks panicked. “Lily is everything okay?” Silence forms around us. Her face becoming more pale then it already is, the look of doom on her face makes me feel instantly worried. BANG! She drops to the floor. I run over with the hope that she has just drunkly fallen over and it’s time to take her home. But no her skin begins to go grey. Dead. What is happening?? I look around the room everyone rushing over in chaos. Medics, staff, people being sick, crying, the noise is overwhelming. I look at her glass and see white bits looking as though they are desolving. My gut feeling is that something sinister has happened. But who would do that, surely one of us girls would not put something in her drink? Just like that I notice that stranger Mia is now no where to be seen. Has she done something to lily’s drink? Where has she gone? Too many questions to comprehend. I just drop to the floor on my knees trying to gather my thoughts. I need to carefully think about how to handle this.

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The chaos has settled and everyone has just been left with this empty harrowing feeling in their stomach. Nobody has been allowed to leave. The policeman is walking sround getting statements from each of the girls and I am next. Do I tell them that I am suspicious about Mia being involved? I have no evidence so what would be the point. I think I’ll keep it to myself but I will find answers. Officer Myers approaches, I go over the events that happened struggling to keep the tears in. I mention Mia was at the table and then disappeared but I didn’t give any further information then that. He apologises for my loss and then lets me leave the building. All the other girls seemed to have gone, that’s strange, I would have thought they would have waited to make sure we were all okay. I catch Lola coming through the doors, she must have been questioned after me. “Lola what the hell happened, are you okay?” I grab her hand. White as a ghost she can’t seem to find any words to respond to me. “I knew this was going to happen, I should have protected her! I should have helped her! She warned me.” Lola screams at me. I try to calm her to get some clearer communication from her but she is in such a state that I don’t think now is the time. I walk her to the nearest bench, her shaking hands like a leaf. All these unanswered questions running through my head I making me feel scared. Lola face is full of true horror. This is not a look i will ever forget. “She was right… she was right… she was right…” Lola carried on whispering to herself. I grab the paramedic to check her over. “Go home love, get some rest we will take care of her from here” advice they have now given me. Yes this is what I need to do; I can’t deal with this right now so home it is. Home will let me process everything that is happening. I will not let this go. I will get to the bottom of this and I will find out what Lola meant. I will figure out where Mia is gone. I will figure out who has done this to my friend.