“Snap out of it,”

The clap of Sienna’s manicured hands calls me back to reality. Like miniature bells, the tips of her rings clink against one another, jagged-cut jade and silver chiming before me.

I blink, breaking out of my daze with a deft rub over my eyes. “Yeah. Right. Sorry.”

“Where is your head at?” Sienna laughs, taking a long sip from her Solo cup. She tosses a few of her jewel-woven braids over one shoulder, shaking her head.

Around us, the party bleeds through the night like wet ink. The band of old trailer cars clustered at the center of the thicket had been transformed into a party hotspot for Westwood University’s students. This year, it had been used for an end-of-the-year celebration filled with synthwave music and cheap booze.

Although I’d objected, Sienna had practically forced me to leave the sanctuary of her dorm and join her and her boyfriend—Mark—to attend the party.

I glance down at the skintight dress she had forced me into. Its silk material feels foreign against my skin, the cosmetics caked onto my face smearing from the boiling hot air radiating from the bonfire.

“I’m getting another drink,” I mumble, rising from my seat and wobbling as I make my way towards the concessions stand.

My head feels foggy. Strange. My skull is filled with mucky water, dull colors staining it.

_Something feels off. _

Sienna’s rings clink again.

The air is hotter.

I groan, rubbing my temples.

“Booze?” The boy standing behind the stand asks, taking my Solo cup. I recognize him.

_Jonas_.

The Bio Med student I slept with during my sophomore year at university. I internally recoil at my past naïveté experiences, hoping he won’t bring up our past relationship.

Thankfully, he simply fills my cup up, only occasionally stealing glances at me.

My headache is getting worse.

As Jonas hands me back my cup of booze, I find a smile spreading across his face. An eerie smile that leaves his eyes blank.

“We’re glad you came, Charli.” His voice sounds robotic and rehearsed, as if he’d spoken the words hundreds of times before. I take the cup with reluctance, quickly turning away.

I begin to notice—after an embarrassingly long amount of time—that a few other students are smiling at me as I make my way past the trailers back to Sienna. They smile wide enough for their teeth to grind and make screeching sounds.

_Something feels off. _

Sienna’s rings clink again.

The air is hotter.

I groan, rubbing my temples.

“We’re glad you came, Charli.” Ayano—my classmate from my CS 1 class—utters the same words Jonas spoke through another tight smile.

Everyone is smiling now.

“The hell?” I mutter, making my way towards Sienna with a hammering chest. She’s with Mark near a trailer, her back turned. They’re both smiling, unblinking and disturbingly still.

“Is this some kind of fucking prank?” I hiss, squeezing my Solo cup. Booze drips onto my dress and the grass below, cold and bubbling.

“Sienna!” I grab for her arm, turning her around to face me. Sienna levels herself to my gaze, teeth bared and flashing.

“We’re glad you came, Charli.”

_“What is this?”_ I’m shouting now, jolting like a deer caught in headlights as the rest of the party’s students make their way towards me smilingly.

Sienna’s rings clink again.

The air is now boiling.

The water inside my skull is overflowing, my thoughts now lost in their muddy depths and leaving me groggy. I struggle to keep myself upright.

I begin sprinting away from the trailers, confused. The students repeat the same five words to me in the distance, voices overlapping. I feel distraught and horrifically confused.

The rest of the thicket comes into view, dark and uninviting. But it hardly matters. Hopefully I would be able to hide away behind a few bushes and return to the party that would gone back to normal.

Sienna’s rings clink again as she claps, shattering my next thoughts.

The sound rattles down my bones and nerves, hitting my body like a bolt of lightning. The water inside my skull evaporates to nothing, every inch of myself going painfully numb.

I try for a scream, but my throat can’t get any words out. I fall to the ground, paralyzed.

Panic floods me as the students envelope my limp figure, smiles unwavering. I try to fight. Search for a way back to my feet.

But I can’t.

Sienna’s willowy figure comes into view, illuminated by the bonfire’s light.

“I’m glad you came, Charli.”

She claps one final time, the miniature clinks of her rings bleeding into the deafening sounds of screeches.

Blood leaks from my ears, my vision dominated by white.

Silence.

When I rise back to my feet, I feel light.

Light. I am so light.

So

so

so

so

light.

I smile at Sienna and the other students, my teeth grinding against one another and cracking. I am so light and so light and so light and so light and so light—

Suddenly, my voice comes back to me.

“I’m glad I came.”