The Ultimate Costume Party

It was the hottest party of the year. Cecilia Summers practically owned your town, or at least her parents did. Back during the Gold Rush, there was gold found in the hills near Silver Bay, and Cecilia’s great great grandparents founded a town and made their fortune. In the time since, her family has had a part in the local government affairs of Silver Bay, but that’s not really important. What’s important is that she’s super rich and known for throwing the greatest parties, getting an invite to her birthday party was tantamount to getting invited to a royal wedding. For your entire life, you’d never gotten an invite, your social circle being way under Cecilia’s radar, but this year was different. While she’d gotten into an expensive, Ivy League school, a lot of her friends stayed around in town and ended up at the local university, so she was helping to throw the big Beta Omicron Iota/Gamma Alpha Lambda Halloween party. The difference between this party and her birthday parties, is that the Halloween bash has a much less exclusive guest list, since it’s also designed to advertise Greek life on campus. Sure, it wasn’t as impressive as being in her inner circle, but it was still pretty amazing.

Cecilia had gotten into a university far from Silver Bay, but her family had still put a lot of money into Silver Bay University, and so even their fraternity and sorority houses were closer to McMansions than they’d be at most other schools. This particular party was being held at the Gamma House, the sorority house made up of all of Cecilia’s friends who never left town. Walking into the sorority house, you looked around at how big the place was. Sure, it looked huge on the outside, but inside it looked even larger. A large double staircase sat in the middle of the foyer, leading upstairs to what you presumed were the bedrooms of the various sorority sisters. And downstairs the party was in full swing with everyone wearing a costume and boisterous drinking and socializing happening.

“Welcome to the Gamma House’s Halloween Bash!” a chipper voice exclaimed.

You turned around to see a tall blonde standing in front of you. You recognized her from high school, although her name escapes you at the moment. You could tell from her expression that she didn’t recognize you at all, which you expected. You were one of those kids who blended into the woodwork back then. Honestly you still were, you weren’t particularly tall, or strong, you were just sort of… there. You didn’t even wear a costume, since you didn’t know exactly how long you’d be there. You were hoping to meet up with some of your friends who were already there, but you still had to find them.

“I’m Brooke, is this your first time at one of Cecilia’s parties?”

“Uh, yeah.” you said, nervously. “I’m Simon, we went to high school together.”

“That’s great, it’s always fun when you don’t know what to expect.” she quickly barrelled into her spiel, ignoring your comment. “So the major rule for this one is that you’ve gotta have a costume and we’ve got stylists and makeup artists upstairs to help get you ready. There’s a bowl up there with costume ideas on it, you pick up a slip of paper from it, and head into one of the empty rooms and they’ll set you up with a costume, then you can come down here and drink, eat and party to your heart’s content.”

“That sounds awesome, thanks!” you smiled at Brooke, who smiled back, before quickly being distracted by the next arriving guest and giving them the same spiel.

Walking upstairs, you froze upon making it to the top of the stairs.