“Your time is up. Pencils down.”

Brielle and her three other classmates groan, but their pencils slap down onto their desks in unison, obeying the command.

Song, Annette, Ellis, and Brielle herself were the only ones to take this class. It wasn’t unheard of in college. There used to be more of them but three other students dropped after the first class. Maybe it was Professor Tark. He could be a bit intense. Brielle just thought of him as passionate of writing.

Some students can’t stomach horror. Which was the epicenter of the course. Horror writing.

They discuss and debate about ways to write in the horror genre. Brielle’s favorite part is when they talk about a book and then watch the movie and pick apart the differences and what was effective and not so.

The horror genre used to scare her as a child. Her dad took her to see Jaws when at a young age and ever since horror movies terrified her. She still doesn’t go in the ocean.

But as she grew up, she realized how movies like these are so much more than scares. There are practical and special effects, stunts, costumes, and several other interesting aspects that had her recognize the power and influence horror movies can have.

When this class was in the WRI section, she jumped at the chance to take it.

Now here she is. Professor Tark asked them to write a short story in ten minutes, utilizing things they learned in the class. It had to be realistic (so no ghosts or fantasy elements) since the lecture they just had was on the realism of horror movies. Everything else was up to them.

Professor Tark collects their papers. He was very old fashioned. Refused to use the internet to hand assignments in. 8x11 lined notebook paper and no. 2 pencils.

“I will review and we will have an open discussion about each of your writings next class. Class dismissed early,” Professor Tark says and waves them off.

Immediately, each of them grabs their stuff and exit the room.

While she enjoys this class, it is still nice to leave it.

“Hey Brielle, want to hang out? It isn’t every day that Professor T lets us out this early,” Anette points out. Song and Ellis are behind her, beckoning her to join them.

She shrugs, “Why not?”

They all go to the lounge in the girl’s dorm since Ellis said that it was way nicer than the guy’s lounge.

With it being a pretty common time for classes, no one is there so they are free to lay around freely.

“What did you think of the ten minute story exercise?” Song asks after they all settle in seats and comfortable positions. She is twirling her hair, the black strands wrapping tightly around her finger. Brielle noticed how that is a habit of hers that she does often.

“It was fun to not have any rules, except for the realistic scenario and just write,” Anette comments.

“What’d you write about?” Ellis questions, each girl looking at one another on who he is directing the inquiry to. “Any of you,” he clarifies.

“I wrote about a home invasion. The female protagonist moves to a new place that happens to have a lot of money hidden inside. She has to fend off the burglars while having no real weapons, all the knives in a moving box that she can’t find,” Song offers up when no one answers right away. Brielle could see it. An enclosed setting. High stakes. Need for a strong main character.

Anette goes next. “Mine is about a young girl who is kidnapped and just when she thinks he has escaped, she gets offed.” They all cringe at her casual use of a child death.

“Slasher at an amusement park. I’m a sucker for cool settings. Final guy instead of final girl,” Ellis lists off what Brielle assumes he thinks are the most important elements of his story.

With all of them turning their attention to Brielle, she internally sighs. She doesn’t love talking about her writing out loud. It is a passion for her but when she is in front of people, the nerves takes over.

“Psychological horror of a man killing people while doing it under his wife’s nose,” Brielle explains curtly in one sentence. Watching their features closely, they nod, interested but not asking anything further.

“I love all your ideas,” Anette compliments as enthusiastic as ever. She has a penchant for gore and brutality. This was definitely the class for her.

They all have their unique styles. Professor Tark speaks in the fact that a smaller class is actually better so they can go in depth more with the material and their own writings. He challenges them to take notice of each other’s style and even the authors’ methods that they read about.

While they are all the same year, sophomore, they don’t have much in common other than this class. They are all nice enough to one another but don’t usually hang out like this.

In Brielle’s opinion, Song is the most normal one out of the three others. Or at least the person she would most likely bump into and befriend from her peers without this class.

After an hour of some more class talk and small talk (the worst kind of talk), Brielle has to go to her next class

“See you guys next week,” she waves to them and they all wave back.

She didn’t know that the next time she sees them, it wouldn’t be in class.

OoOoO

Never in her life would she think that she would be in a police station. At least for herself anyway.

But here she is, in a questioning room, waiting for someone. For what reason? Brielle has no clue. The only thing that comes up in her mind is maybe the Warner’s Park incident. Yesterday at Warner’s Park, a small amusement park near campus, got attacked. A couple people died.

When she first heard of it, she guessed it was a shooting, but apparently it was a slashing with an axe.

Maybe they are questioning people on campus since it is so close to the park.

She holds onto that shred of hope. That is until three more people are brought into the room.

“Brielle?” She looks up from her nails that she had been picking at and sees her three classmates. They all looked similarly confused and anxious. An officer had them all sit on one side of a table so close that her legs pressed against Song. Brielle was on the end with Song next, Anette, and then Ellis.

Across from them is an approachable appearing man. He is in uniform but he has a soft, round face. A bit older with graying hair and balding at the top. Gives off grandfather vibes. Perhaps that’s a tactic. To get them to lower their guards. From what, Brielle is unsure.

“Hello. I am Officer Minton. I know you are probably wondering why you are here. We got permission from your school to question a few students. Know you do not have to answer any questions you don’t want to and can leave at any time,” the officer recites. It’s like a performance, repeating from a page.

Brielle chances it and looks to her left and her classmates nod in agreement so she does as well.

“I’m sure you heard by now, Warner’s Park was the target of axe wielding attacker.”

“What does this have to do with us,” Ellis voices. It isn’t impatience necessarily but cold, in an untrusting way.

“Does that sound familiar to any of you?” The cop asks, his eyes studying them.

“Are you asking if any of us did it?” Anette laughs like this is a big prank. Brielle doesn’t see the humor in this.

Officer Minton leans back in his chair, his rounded gut on display. “Does it seem familiar?”

There is silence. All four of them know that the answer the officer is looking for is a ‘yes,’ but none of them know why. Or at least Brielle doesn’t know why.

“Ellis, your story,” Song whispers. There is shock and worry written on her features. When Ellis makes a protesting noise, she continues, “for Professor Tark’s class. A slasher at an amusement park.” Hearing Song say it now, Brielle can recall his exact words that Song echoes. It sounds eeriely similar, but she didn’t know any of the specific details and if those match.

His face goes white when he takes in her words.

“To put it nicely, you are all suspects. In this past week, there are been happenings that have been close to your writings for a class. Almost recreations. Bringing your stories to life,” Officer Minton states, cutting to the chase. His face now held some sharp barbs.

“It isn’t just Warner’s Park,” Brielle realizes. Her hands begin to tremble. Does that mean a man killed several people, trying to make his wife think that she’s crazy? That was her own story. Did that happen? She can see Song practically ripping her hair out with how hard she is twisting it.

“Correct. Now I need you all to tell me where you were and who you were with yesterday at 4:30 pm.”

Brielle gulps as the questions keep coming with no true answers in sight.

———

(What’s your favorite horror movie if you have one?

When Brielle talks about how she realized horror is more than the scares, that was very much my experience. I’ve grown to actually appreciate horror because of a YouTube channel called Dead Meat. If you like horror, you probably already know them, but if you are interested in this genre but are scared, I highly recommend watching their videos.)