Have you ever accidentally turned half of humanity into zombie-like creatures? Yeah, not exactly on my to-do list, either.
          It was the worst night of my life, really. Who knew that the party that Lilith, my best friend, dragged me to would end up here? As the howling wind seeped through my tattered fairy costume, I looked around. The weeping willow trees scraped against the broken wooden planks of the fallen house. As rumor has it, the owner lit the house on fire, with him and his three children in it after his wife supposedly left him. The story, real or not, made the whole place even creepier. The shadowy hill loomed over it all, giving the graveyard coverage as the rain washed away all of the innocence I used to have.
        I texted Lilith asking where she was five minutes ago, but I never got a reply. I shivered in the stale fall air as a twig snapped in the distance.
    "Missed me?" Someone whispers in my ear. Rushing with adrenaline, I turn faster than humanly possible, and kick as hard as I can. 

     "Jesus Christ, Ara! Was that really necessary?" Lilith groaned as she rubs her shin.
I laugh as I reach to help her up. "Well, there are punishments when you try to scare me in a graveyard!" Our laughter fades as I begin to wonder. "Hey, uh, how did you get here? It's like you appeared out of nowhere!"
    “Take a joke much? I was just being quiet!” The thing is, the Lilith I knew was very proud of her pranks, usually making them backfire by giggling so much. I shake off the bad feeling, thinking it must just be because we were in a graveyard, and focused on the dare I was given at the party.
    "Okay, you're the expert. Where is that book I'm supposed to read out of?" I asked Lilith, who was positively beaming.

   "Right under a pile of three rocks, as black as the night. You’ll know it when you see it," Lilith replies, smiling.
if Lilith is so relaxed, nothing bad can happen. She might joke around, but she’s my best friend, and knows what’s good for me. As I find the three rocks, I squeeze Lilith's hand. Her tacky witch hat flies off in the wind. I place them into a triangle large enough to fit in, and I pick up the book. It was written in Portuguese, a language I didn't know.
    "Hey Lilith, any chance you know what 'Liber vivificati' means?" I call back to her as I read the title.
    "Of course not!” Lilith said quickly, playing with a strand of her hair and suddenly becoming very interested in the red rocks. I give her a pointed look. 

     “Lilith, you took latin for six years, and were at the top of the class.”

She flipped to a page titled "vivifica" and handed it to me. The dare she gave me at the party was to go to the graveyard, find a book she found a few weeks ago, and read a spell that Lilith chooses at random. The old ghost story implies that the children, as they were burning, cursed their father’s journal and threw it out of a window. The first thing it touched were three rocks, which immediately turned to onyx. That’s where the book stayed hidden, right on top of the grave of the second child, a girl named Aliyah Spinner. As I read the spell, I saw a flash.
      I was standing on the edge of the very same hill the house burned down on, with a girl I didn't know. From the way she stood I could tell she had some sort of strength, beyond the bright redness of her hair. I looked more mature, my long blonde hair now short and white. Lastly, I saw another 16-year-old, with hair as black as the night sky, and eyes as red as mars. She reeked of darkness, yet was somehow familiar.

 After I finished reading the spell, Lilith smiled at me. It chilled me to the bone.

      "Finally. You have no idea how long I’ve had to put up with you. God, a teenager who doesn’t want to go to a party? I should’ve disposed of you and moved on to the next willing parasite. You see, fifty years ago, there was a family. You may have heard of them. The Spinners. The father, Marcus Spinner, beat his wife and daughter. His two sons, on the other hand, were treated like royalty. Never went hungry, never were belted, and never felt that they were in danger. On the girl’s sixteenth birthday, her father belted her harder than before. Skin came off of her back in chunks. Blood spewed all over her white dressing gown. While her mother was tending to her wounds, she made a promise. She took a book down from a shelf, and told her daughter, ‘Aliyah, I’m leaving tonight. I’m running away and finding a place where he can’t find us. Once I find one, I’m coming back for you. I swear on this bible, We’re getting out of here.’"

 She started shifting. Her bones looked like they were fusing, her blonde hair lengthening and darkening into black. Her facial features changed, chubby cheeks to high cheekbones. Half of her face was burned, disfigured. It was the most horrible thing I’ve seen. 

        "Of course, she never came back, because when Marcus found out, he burned down the house. But that book, the one the mother swore on, happened to be a very special book. Liber vivificati, or, as I know it, The Book Of Vivification. Back then, it was just a mere bible, like I’d said. They were very, very religious. When Aliyah’s mother broke her promise and never came back for Aliyah, her lifeline was warped to this very book. So there she stayed, in a half-life, concealed in an illusion of a fourteen-year-old blonde girl for fifty years, until someone came along. So desperate for a friend, they were able to look over the tiny, impossible things that I could do. When I was burned that night, it was just my body. Before I died, I put my book under a pile of grass. Somehow, instead of my lifeline being drained, the grass died and fused together to create three onyx rocks that covered my book, and I was restored. And with my first resurrection, I went on a hunt. I found my mother. And look! You’re standing on her grave right now!”

Blanching, I look down. Engraved on a stone I had previously been standing on, was “Here Lies Mary Spinner. Dishonorable Wife, and Lying Mother. May She Forever Live A Half Life.”

     “You like it? I did it myself. Naturally, no one came to her funeral, because no one knew she died.” Lilith was almost a completely different person now. She looks so… familiar. Not like Lilith, but still…

       “No way. You’re expecting me to believe that you’re Aliyah Spinner? They found her body!” 

        “No, they found her body!” Aliyah says, pointing at the gravestone. 

Jesus Christ. How am I getting out of here? “And I expect, now that I know your ‘secret,’ you’ll be killing me?” I say, already knowing the answer. 

        “Of course not!” I stare at her, shocked, “You’ve just been so good and loyal to me. You’ll make an excellent pet!” She reaches for me. 

        “With all due respect, which, frankly, is none, you can’t believe for a minute that I’d actually agree with being turned into your slave.” I back away, preparing to run. 

        “Oh, by the end of this week, you’ll be begging. Tick tock, it’s Tuesday. You have until Saturday to pledge your loyalty. Then, I shall raise hell, and rule on Satan’s throne.” She threw her hand up, and burgundy streaks attached to a stick, which then flew to her hand. The stick lengthened to a staff of onyx, and a head of emerald and rubies embedded. She banged her staff on the ground, and a fog of pitch black surrounded her. When it cleared, she was gone, with only her laugh echoing in my mind. 

~~~~

 I tried to wrap my brain around how my best friend turned out to be fifty-two years older than me as well as a murderer, but I refused to believe it. I ran, going faster than humanly possible, all the way home. The graveyard was a twenty-minute drive home, I ran there in five.
I reached for the key hidden in the flower statue my sister made when she was younger.

"I'm home!" I shouted up the stairs. My parents were nonexistent, picked up, and left the moment my sister turned 13; it had just been Lina and me for as long as I can remember. Lina took care of me, as she took care of every stray animal in our neighborhood. She had the kind of energy behind them that made everyone want to be around her, except, obviously, our parents. 

"Hey, Ara," Lina shouted back from the other room, "How was the party?"
It's almost laughable to remember that five hours ago, Lilith and I were picking out costumes to go to this stupid Halloween bash. I drag my feet over to the family room, and Lina pats a spot on the peach couch next to her. She puts on our favorite movie and pops some popcorn. I explain to her the events of the night as her smile fades away.
"Oh, I'm so sorry. I never thought..." Lina pauses, her eyes gazing to a faraway place. Suddenly, her blue eyes snap back on me, blazing. "You know what? Not everything goes exactly as planned. She may think that she has you now, but you will always have the advantage. You KNOW her, whether she wants you to or not. Don't forget that she loved to talk, and you listened. You listened more than you think you did, and now you know who she really is." My heart swelled with gratitude for my wise sister. She tells me to get ready for bed, and I feel a surge of gratitude for my sister. She doesn’t pity, only seeks to make things calmer. Resisting the urge to call Lilith, I walk downstairs. Curled up against Lina, I couldn't imagine anyone in the world feeling as safe as I do.

I woke not to the chill of the day, though it was under 32°F. I didn't wake up to the shouting of my sister, although she was screaming. I woke up to the thud I made as I hit the ground.
"Once clumsy, always clumsy. Some faults never die, even after hundreds of years." Aliyah smirks, obviously pleased with herself that she pushed me off my bed.
"Get your hands OFF of my sister, Aliyah!" I notice that Aliyah is holding Lina in a headlock, as tears stream down her face.
"Times up!" Aliyah cackles as she vanishes once more, with my sister.
Not knowing where they went wasn't the worst part. Knowing that I just sat there, on the floor, not doing anything to help my sister, is. I throw on a pair of thermal leggings, Lina’s lined jean jacket and put my hair in a ponytail and set out to find my sister.

My sister always talked about how innocent I was, although surely I couldn't be anymore. She gave me the nickname Eagle, for my hair started dark brown and faded to white. It caught on. She mostly trained my speed, even tested my agility against her car once. I won. Besides her and Aliyah, I didn't have many friends. Why would I need any?

About an hour of hiking later, I notice something... strange. Some of the people around me had overly large eyes, completely white and milky. Some of them had odd-shaped limbs, bent at weird angles. With a start, I realize they are being controlled, and the limbs are from fighting, breaking arms and legs, and losing the fight. I quickly run to the nearest building, which happened to be a run-down gas station. Just my luck, right?

As I walk through the rusty metal doors and metal detectors that no longer work, I hear a sound. Ducking into the nearest broken-down refrigerator, I tune into the two peoples' conversation.
"We have to find food, water, and a good hiding place. This gas station is good for now but it won't be long until the sorceress tells her minions to search the buildings." A boy said.
With some shuffling around, a girl, around the same age replies fiercely, "Obviously. She's controlling almost our whole city, she's probably not stupid enough to leave the buildings unchecked."
Then, at the worst possible time, the refrigerator I was in fell down. Startled, the boy and girl start to check the spot. I sheepishly crawl out of the now-broken refrigerator. The girl pulls a switch knife out of her worn-out brown jacket and holds it against my throat.
Menacingly, she growls, "One more step towards us and I will show no hesitation to slice your throat."
The boy gently grabs her arm and pulls the knife away from my throat. "Cass, calm down. Look, it may be dark in here but you can see that her eyes aren't white. Also, why would a husk be hiding in a fridge?" He gestures over to three egg crates, "Why don't we have a little chat? I'm Adrian, Adrian Bennett."

~~~~~~~~~~

After settling down and getting adjusted, the girl introduces herself as Reed Cass, though she insisted on only being called by her last name. She had hair as a burning fire, and that basically described her personality. She was wearing a worn brown leather jacket, a black tank top, black leggings, and brown boots. Her long red hair was in a ponytail, presumably, so she could keep it out of her face. I found out that she was extremely strong when she lifted the broken fridge off of the ground by herself.  She had eyes like mine, green like emeralds.
Adrian, the boy, is almost the complete opposite. His hair is blue-black, like the night sky as it hung in waves that just reach above his ears. He’s wearing a grey sweatshirt with a night sky print on it. They both are wearing black sneakers, perfect for being on the run, which, I guess we are. His emerald eyes were basically the only thing that he, Cass, and I shared. Adrian confessed that he and Cass just met, thinking they were the only ones immune to the "takeover". Of course, Aliyah wanted me to suffer so she didn't curse me, but why them? I wondered briefly if they knew her, but when I said her name both of them were confused.
"So, how'd you get into this cozy little gas station?" Addie says, gesturing to all of the broken appliances and broken boxes.
"You see, it's kind of a long story," I explain hesitantly, as I look at the disbelieving looks on their faces.
"We've got time," Cass says humorlessly.
"Technically speaking, we don't, because we don't know how long until Aliyah, or whoever sends the husks to check the buildings. But you do your thing, I guess." Adrian said under his breath.
I explain the whole situation, with the Halloween bash and the spellbook, avoiding eye contact with Cass. We only just met, but I get the feeling that it’s not hard to p**s her off. There was an uneasy silence as I finished.
"So you’re telling me that the reason we’re here, the reason my parents tried to kill me this morning, is because of you?" Cass said, forgetting to lower her voice.
"Cass, calm down! She didn't mean to!" Adrian said as he tried– and failed– to hold her back from pummeling me. Cass and I hit against the rusty counter where the cash register is as everything fades to black.