Dark Revenge chapter 2

CALI:

I remember when Kylie first moved to our town. She was so different from everyone else. She was quiet and shy, always keeping to herself. But somehow, she and I clicked instantly. We had so much in common. We laughed about the same things, liked the same music, and even finished each other's sentences.

Then we met Daphne and Keira, who also didn't have a clique and they joined our gang and we became a tight foursome.

We spent every waking moment together, exploring the town, having adventures, and creating our own little world. We were inseparable. Even when we started high school, we stuck together. We didn't care what anyone else thought of us. We were content with our own little friendship.

But then Kylie started to change. She became distant and secretive. She would disappear for hours at a time, only to return with wild stories of things she'd seen and done. We didn't understand it. One minute she was our best friend, and the next she was this completely different person.

It all started with this new horror movie channel she discovered. At first, I thought it was just a phase, but it soon became an obsession. She would watch these movies all the time, even when we were together. She would be so entranced by them that she wouldn't even realize we were talking to her.

At first, I thought it was harmless. I mean, I liked scary movies too, but not like that. Not to the point where it consumed my every thought and action. But then, things started to get weird. She would start acting strange, saying things that didn't make any sense. And the more she watched those movies, the more she seemed to change.

It was like she was becoming someone else. Someone dark and twisted. Someone who didn't belong in our world. The more she watched those movies, the more she seemed to lose touch with reality. She would start talking about these horrible things, these atrocities that she'd seen on the screen, as if they were real. As if they were normal.

And the more time she spent with them, the more she started to act like them. She would dress differently, talk differently, even walk differently. It was like she was trying to emulate these characters she'd been watching on TV.

I tried to talk to her, to get her to see what was happening. I tried to convince her that these movies weren't real, that they weren't worth sacrificing our friendship over. But it was no use. She was so lost in this twisted world that she couldn't even hear me anymore.

One day, I came home from school to find her sitting in front of the TV, watching one of those movies. She was wearing this creepy, blood-stained dress and had black makeup smeared all over her face. She looked like some sort of twisted gothic version of herself. I tried to talk to her, but she just ignored me. She was so focused on the screen, so absorbed in the movie, that she didn't even seem to notice I was there.

And that's when we met the popular clique. MacKenzie, Natasha, Kasey and CeCe. They were the most beautiful girls in school, always dressed to the nines and surrounded by a constant crowd of admirers. Daphne, Keira and I were instantly drawn to them, fascinated by their glamour and their seemingly perfect lives. We wanted to be a part of their world, to experience the excitement and the attention that came with being one of them.

We started hanging out with them more and more, slowly but surely becoming a part of their world. It was an exhilarating experience, like we had been let in on some grand secret. They accepted us for who we were, even if we weren't quite like them. They didn't care that we didn't dress as extravagantly or that we didn't have as many admirers. They saw something in us that the others didn't, and for that, we were grateful.

Kylie, on the other hand, didn't seem to take to it as well. She probably thought we just ditched her. But it was her fault. She ditched us for her horror movies and I think that was a real bitchy move and that makes her the shitty friend. Not us. 

So I threw a party on my yacht and I invited Kylie. But I had to make sure she went nowhere near me or my friends. We had to make her feel unwelcome. We told the girls what she did to us and they didn't take it too lightly. They didn't want to see their new mates hurt, I guess.

We decided we'd give her a little taste of her own medicine, and we came up with this brilliant plan. We invited her to my party, but we made it seem like we weren't so sure about it. We acted like we were doing her a favor by including her, like we were giving her a chance to prove herself.

When she showed up, dressed in her favorite black dress and her signature dark makeup, she had no idea what was waiting for her. As soon as she stepped onto the yacht, we surrounded her, acting all nice and friendly at first. But then, we started to change. We began to whisper and laugh behind our hands, like she wasn't even there. We ignored her for long stretches of time, pretending to be engrossed in our own conversations or busy with other guests.

And when we did decide to talk to her, we'd say the most cutting things, the most hurtful things. We'd tell her how we thought she was a fake, how we didn't really want to be her friend. We'd say these things with such sincerity that it was almost believable. We made her feel unwelcome, just like she made us feel.

Of course, Kylie didn't understand what was happening at first. She thought we were all being nice, that we really did want to include her. But as the night went on, she started to realize that something was very wrong. She began to feel isolated, like everyone was against her. And by the end of the party, she was in tears, begging us to tell her what she had done wrong.

Then Natasha did something awful.

She grabbed Kylie by the hair and slammed her face-first against the bar. Kylie let out a muffled scream as blood splattered against the gleaming wood. Natasha repeated the motion again and again, laughing maniacally each time. MacKenzie, Kasey and CeCe looked on, their faces twisted into expressions of delighted horror. Even Daphne and Keira seemed to find some sick pleasure in the scene unfolding before them.

Then Kylie was out cold. She was breathing. She wasn't dead. But she was unconscious, and her face was a mess. Blood had trickled down her cheek and neck, staining her favorite black dress crimson. Her eyes were swollen shut, and her lips were bruised and split. It looked like she had been through hell and back.

Natasha finally let go of her hair, standing back to survey the damage she had done. "Well, that was fun," she drawled, wiping her hands on her pants. The others laughed, some more maniacally than others. Even I had to admit, it was sort of twistedly amusing.

But she was my best friend. Once. I keep having to remind myself that she needs a taste of her own medicine. 

Maybe it seems like we were the bullies, but trust me, we were the victims.