A group of friends discover a mysterious statue

"She's not going to be with us _all _summer, is she?" Scarlet Howard asked.

Hannah Windsor glanced over at her cousin Amy Beth. The girl looked a little bit like a drowned rat. She was a good several inches shorter than the rest of the girls and so skinny she looked like she might snap in half if she got hit by a strong gust of wind. Her short brown hair was curly and unkempt, making her look boyish. It was hard to see her mousy face on account of it being covered by a pair of comically large glasses. She stuck out like a sore thumb.

"I have to bring her along. My mom is making me do it," Hannah explained. "Don't worry, you won't even notice her. She's as quiet as a mouse."

"Fine," Scarlet rolled her eyes and tossed back her wild mane of red hair. "But she better not try and preach to me. Isn't her mom a total Jesus freak?"

"Don't worry, I'll make sure she doesn't do any of that," Hannah wasn't worried. She would be lucky to get Amy Beth to say a single word all day.

Scarlet shrugged and wandered over to Hannah's other two friends, Becca Russo and Emily Kim, leaving Hannah in the general vicinity of Amy Beth. A few awkward seconds passed before Amy Beth nudged her way over to Hannah. The girl's eyes were fixed on her shoes.

"You have so many friends!" Amy Beth said softly. Her voice was a tiny, shrill sound like the squeak of a mouse.

Hannah didn't know how to react. Three friends hardly seemed like so many. Then again, Amy Beth didn't have any friends at all, save for Hannah (sort of).

"Uh sure. Listen, Amy Beth, can we chat?"

Amy Beth gazed at her blankly with those huge brown eyes.

"Listen, I know you're mom is super into the Jesus stuff, but could you tone it down this summer?"

The girl looked around nervously, "did I do something wrong?"

Hannah immediately went into damage control. Amy Beth was delicate, like a flower. She needed to be tended to carefully.

"No, not yet. It's just that..." if you start spouting on about Jesus, I'll never hear the end of it. "You want to be cool right?"

Amy Beth's eyes widened, "cool? I've never been cool before..."

"Great! Well here's your chance. Just chill out, don't give any sermons, and don't be such a goodie two shoes. That's how you be cool in this group. Pretty easy right?"

Amy Beth beamed, "I'm going to be cool!"

Oh brother.

"Hey you guys, get a look at this. I found a dick statue!"

It was Emily who called out. She stood in between two small birch trees dressed in a baggy white t-shirt with a pot leaf decal. She was the sixth child of immigrant parents. Her eldest brother was a renowned doctor, the next an engineer, the next after that an HR representative. Her fourth eldest sibling was in college now studying dance. Each successive Kim child had lowered the bar for expectations, but it was Emily who crashed it completely. She took nothing in life seriously.

Amy Beth shivered at the utterance of profanity.

"Just be cool, okay?"

The girl gave Hannah a nervous, yet dutiful nod.

"That's not a dick, you idiot," Scarlet said. "It's an obelisk."

"I don't know, Scar, Em has a point," Becca, the blonde of the group, said. "Why is the top so...swollen?"

Hannah stepped closer and got a good look at the statue. When she did so, she shivered. Immediately, the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. An aura of pure evil seemed to exude from it.

It stood over ten feet tall. The surface was pure black, the surface unbroken save for a quartet of faintly glowing gemstones, one on each side. The colors were red, green, blue, and a purple so dark it nearly disappeared into the ebony stone.

Stay away from it. It's evil. Don't touch it, don't look at it, get out!

Hannah tried to put herself at ease, but she could not.

"There's a plaque, I wonder what it says," Scarlet bent down to take a look.