“Come join us, come join us.” I hear it as a whisper in the back of my mind. “Come Join Us, Come Join Us.” This time it's louder. “COME JOIN US,” it yells. “JOIN US!!!” a million voices scream at once. 

I jolt awake with a scream of “NO!” stuck in the back of my throat. I am sweating like a pig, which is a weird saying because I don't suppose pigs sweat. As I look around I realize that I'm in the middle of chemistry and the teacher is going on about some type of bonding in that Charlie Brown voice. 

I turn to look at Ashley, the only one who seems to notice anything is happening. Her red hair is curling around her shoulders like a Disney princess and her hazel brown eyes are calculating as she looks me up and down, focusing on my panicked expression. 

“What the hell happened to you?” she asks. “You look like crap.” 

I take a second to roll my eyes. Of course I do. Anyone sitting next to her would. “Nothing,” I say. “Just surprised myself.” She looks suspicious but leaves me alone. 

As she turns back to her work I decide to voice my earlier question about pigs. Now it's her turn to roll her eyes. “It has nothing to do with actual pigs. It’s because back in the days of industrial steel production they made pig iron. Pig iron wasn’t cold enough to move after being produced until water vapor gathered on it, hence the sweat.”

She says this as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. It's one of the reasons I love her and one of the reasons I hate her. She’s easily the smartest girl in the grade, and the prettiest, and the kindest, and just overall perfect. She's one of those people you want to hate but you just can’t. 

As I finish this thought the bell rings. Sometimes I honestly wonder if my life is a movie. I don’t think things actually work out this well for other people. Ashley and I leave the classroom to meet up with our other friends, and as we walk, Ashley starts to make easy conversation. She talks about her day, which leads us to talking about after school. “You should totally come hang out with us!” she practically begs. 

Now, I’m not one who spends lots of time with my friends, even though I love them, so obviously my first reaction to this is, “I’m not so sure. I’m pretty busy with life and homework and… yeah.” 

Of course though, Ashley knows me well enough and puts an immediate stop to this. “You will be coming to this. I will not take no for an answer. And besides, it’ll be totally chill. Just us hanging out and chatting by the lake.”

I think this over and decide that I could probably spare one day. And, if worst comes to worst, my house is just on the other side of the forest. “Okay,” I begrudgingly agree. With that she walks off beaming. 

Later that day, Ashley, me, and our group of friends meet up at the lake. I would say we were the small group of misfits that just happen to fit together, and that's all true, but then if I said that you would think of something that we’re not. We were just thrown together and somehow all became friends, but thanks to Ashely we weren’t social outcasts at school. People actually wanted to be part of our group. It’s like at the end of a movie when the outcast is finally accepted, except we didn’t have to wait until the last month of senior year. 

About half way through the “totally rockin hang out” as Ashley calls it I start to get a headache. This isn’t completely uncommon for me, but after the weird dream, it’s unnerving. 

Ten minutes pass and the ache hasn’t subsided, so I’m ready to call it quits and head back to my house. Of course everyone is disappointed and the decision is met with shrieks of “How could you” and “WHYYY” which only makes my headache worse and confirms my decision. 

I stumble to the entrance of the woods knowing I’m about five minutes away from home. Right as I step into the line of trees I start hearing the voices from earlier again. “Come join us, come join us.” They aren’t too loud right now. Just enough to get my attention.

I continue my trek through the forest. I step on thousands of leaves, crunching as my heavy boot hits the ground. With each step the voices in my head kick it up a notch. “Come join us, Come Join Us, COME JOIN US!” As I near half way home, the voices are shaking through my head and I can barely keep my eyes open enough not to walk into a tree. 

I keep going though, repeating out loud, “This isn’t real. This isn’t real.” I’m only about two minutes away from home now and I can make it. I can almost hear the road from where I am. But, to be fair, at the moment hearing things has no real truth behind it.

I step up to the last part of the forest and pause. There is a round circular clearing that wasn't there in the past. I step up to the edge of the trees, but don't dare to step further than that. As I stand there petrified, the voices change abruptly. I suddenly can’t tell where they’re coming from. Before this they were stuck inside my head but now they are coming from the forest. They also decided that saying the same thing over and over again might be too boring and change it up a bit. “Come join us, just take one step! Join us, there will be no more pain if you do.”

As I stand at the line of trees for one final moment my leg lifts up. 

I take that single step forward and land with one foot in the clearing. Then another. And another. I take five more steps until I’m situated in the middle of the clearing. I lift my leg to take the final step, everything goes quiet. I can no longer hear the birds or the trees in the wind, or even the voices. Just me and my deep breaths. As soon as my foot hits the ground, everything goes black.