All is Quiet In The Morning

"I didn't even hear you come in." Amy yawned, the morning after.

Gale was changing out of her Pajama pants, and yawned in kind. "Well, it was only a few hours ago." She tugged up a fresh pair of jeans.

"Yeah, the craziest thing happened last night."

"That comet?!?!" Amy said excitedly.

"Yes! You saw it too?"

"Uh-huh, It went right over the lake."

"It went right over our heads."

"No way!" Amy jumped up and down on her bed.

"We were out there, playing around with an Ouija board when 'woooooosh' it just went right overhead. Parker started babbling some stuff about us being real witches. I wish you were there, it was crazy."

"Sounds hilarious, so why were you out there for so long?"

"Well once a comet flew over our heads, we all took that as a sign to get mad drunk, and we basically just hung out. No one got naked, I'm afraid."

"I'll survive." Amy rolled her eyes. "Wish I could have seen Parker's freak out."

"Would have been fun." Gale nodded and held the door to the cabin open. "Breakfast?"

"Yup."

The two went out into the world, to fill their hungry stomachs. The morning air was fresh and fine. Cool, despite the summer setting. Amy was sure it would turn against them and become a humid trap soon enough, so she enjoyed the air while it was still friendly. Neither could tell that the world had ended, and so they worried and wondered about all manner of unimportant things, and details, until they both grabbed their breakfast burritos, and were sat at a long wooden table.

The Mess hall was filled with young and yawning women, all members of their sorority. A few looked like they were nursing hangovers and ripped into their fatty burritos hungrily. Amy glanced over at The Twins a few seats down, they were her Asian comrades in a sea of white girls, they were holding each other's hand, chewing away at their breakfast with the free one. Amy raised an eyebrow and looked away. They'd never been scary-movie-twins-close before. She wondered what was up.

"Look alive." Gale bumped Amy in the ribs, she could see Parker heading her way, tray in hand. Parker was what you would imagine the leader of a sorority would look like. Blonde, white, and blue-eyed. She had a fake kindness to her, that Amy found... offputting? Fake? Completely infuriating? Any hope that the girl was going to walk past them was dead in the water, Parker was looking right at Amy, eye contact and everything. She stood before her and smiled.

"Heya Amy, howz it goin'. Heard you had a headache? I think there's some Asprin in the Nurse's cabin."

"I'm fine." Amy peeled some tinfoil away from her burrito and tried not to return eye-contact.

"Super." Parker ground the toe of her shoe into the floor, for an awkward moment. "So, I feel like things are weird between us."

"Yikes." Gale coughed and buried her face into her arms until the conversation was over.

"Well you did turn the whole sorority against me." Amy was an ardent avoided of conflict, so this was not easy for her.

"Well you did steal my boyfriend from me." Parker reminded her.

Was that fair? It felt fair, but Amy didn't like that so much. "What do you want?"

Parker took a deep breath. "Listen, I heard God last night. I know that sounds fun, but believe me, it's a huge responsibility."

Wow. "So you think you talk to god now?"

Amy always knew her blonde nemesis had a big ego, but this was taking it a little far. "I don't talk to god." Parker laughed. "I listen. And... he's telling me, that I need to make things right with you." Amy found Parker's words were starting to blur away. Her eyes were drawn to Parker's nose, and the drip of snot slowly bubbling out from the girl's left nostril. Amy was hypnotized by the disgusting little blob, and couldn't focus on anything Parker was saying. How did she not notice? It looked so big and heavy, surely she could feel it now, that it was rolling out of her nose, and to her lip. "Everyone really. I just want to be a beacon of hope and light in the world, and I really feel like I should start with you. I want us to be friends. I want us to work together to bring joy into the world, you know?"

"Yeah, yeah." Amy nodded, slowly pulling out her phone, and snapping a picture. This felt like good ****. "You've got a little something, right here." Amy gestured to her own nose.

"Oh?" Park tapped her nostril and felt the goo. "Oh dear! How embarrassing!" She giggled, grabbed a napkin from her tray, and dabbed it away. "Better?"

"Yeah."

"So what do you say?" Parker held out her hand, still a little snotty from the dab. "Friends?"

"Uh yeah sure..." Whatever kept this place from becoming a hellhole of awkwardness this coming summer. Amy hesitated for a moment, then reached out to grab the dirty hand, only to be interrupted by...

"Has anyone seen Grace?" Alex Cortez, came into the mess hall, twiddling her fingers nervously.

Amy looked around, then back at her concerned sister. "Um, no. Why what's up?"

Alex's face curled into a weeping prune. "She didn't come back to the cabin last night, and no one's seen her all morning!"

"Fuck." Gale was already to her feet.

Amy was right there with her. "When did you last see her?"

Alex shrugged. "She went for a walk in the woods last night."

"You didn't go with her?" The two of them were practically connected at the hip. Amy was surprised that either of them left the cabin the entire summer.

Alex sobbed. "We got into a fight last night. When she didn't come back I figured she was out staying with someone else, but..."

"Fuck." Amy rubbed her face, then looked at Parker. "Should we go look for her?" She might have had her opinions on the blonde, but she was their leader.

Parker had a distant look to her, like she was reaching out to the universe, and trying to sense Grace with nothing but spiritual vibration. "Yes. Let everyone know, gather them up, and meet at the center of camp in fifteen minutes. I'll tell Ruth, and call the ranger tower."

Amy looked to Gale, and Gale looked to Amy. They two nodded at the same time, and ran out of the mess hall. Whatever political bullshit was going on in the sorority didn't count for much, when one of their sisters was missing. That all could take a backseat, for now they had to find Grace.