The One

Chapter One

"And with that guys, I'll see you in the next video or livestream coming up! I don't know which one will come first but we'll see. See ya, guys!" And with that, I turned off the stream. I laid back in my desk chair that was located in the corner of my room, sighing in relief at the thought of my current stream being finished.

I stood up and stretched, passing my fingers through my long blue hair," I wonder where I should go next for visiting places," I thought to myself, wandering off to my kitchen upstairs, my black cat, Shadow, chasing behind me with his tail in the air.

"Hey Raven, I'm home!" My best friend said as she walked in, closing the door behind her and removing her shoes.

"Hey Kasey. Did you find anything interesting for us to go see while you were having your coffee with your boyfriend, Connie the Conrad?" I asked her, smirking. I walked up to the fridge, getting a glass of water and getting the leftover lasagna from last night.

"One, he's not my boyfriend. That's disgusting," she put her bag down on the island, pulling her laptop out and sitting on one of the high stools, "And two, I actually did. It's over in the States though. Not sure how much it'll cost us to get there but I can tell you that it's pretty interesting," she looked at me.

"Why do you say that?" I asked, grabbing another bottle of water and sliding it to her.

"Well, it's all the way in San Diego, California but it's an abandoned mansion said to be haunted by whatever entities that are resting there. Reports say that they've even seen shadows in the windows and heard screams from within the building."   

"And that's only around 6 hours from here by plane or almost 43 hours by car," I thought. It peaked my interest but it sounded a bit expensive.

"Yup, which would roughly cost us 642$ for plane tickets or 681.39$ for gas , not counting food, drinks, one night for a hotel, etc," she tied her long, wavy black hair into a messy ponytail, looking up at me for a response.   

"And the gas prices is for my car or yours?" I questioned, crossing my arms as I leaned against the counter, facing her.

"That's with your Camaro (photo at the beginning). I would've calculated for my car but I can't use that since my sister is using it to get to school considering our mom refuses to pay for the buses," she sighed. I looked at the floor, rubbing my lower lip as I thought for a minute.

"We'll fly by plane. Much faster and saves the hassle of trying to run my car for an entire day and risk breaking down," I pushed myself off the counter, putting my lasagna in the microwave.

"So we'll fly by plane. When should we leave?" She started writing stuff down on her laptop, creating a plan.  

"We're only Monday so Thursday I guess," I answered, pulling my lasagna out and putting it on the counter.

"Sounds good. I'll start getting ready then," Kasey closed her laptop and went to her room, dragging her bag with her. 

I walked back into my room and set my plate on my desk. Shadow meowed behind me, becoming excited as he knew his dinner was coming.

"Here you go," I grabbed a cup of cat food and poured it in his bowl, "Not the greatest but it'll do," he jumped up on his cat tower and began eating peacefully.  I sat back down at my desk and began to eat until I received a message.

INSTAGRAM samgolbach sent you a message

I opened it up and took another bite as I read the message.

samgolbach: Hey! How was the stream? Sorry I couldn't make it. I'll watch it once the stream is uploaded. Been busy with editing. Finally taking a break. About to order some pizza for me and the guys. :)

theravencrow: Hey, it wasn't that great. Equipment kept failing on me and my game wouldn't work. Luckily, it still went ok though. The community continued to entertain whenever things weren't going the way they were supposed to.

samgolbach: Dang, that sucks. Hopefully it'll work next time. BTW, I heard you might be headed to Kansas City, Missouri soon to check out on that mansion in Cali!

I raised an eyebrow, confused on how he knew until I realized that he also speaks to Kasey. I wrote back to him.

theravencrow: yeah. Headed there this Thursday in fact. Hoping to be able to find a hotel to stay in before we head there. Don't want to be stranded.

samgolbach: Funny you say that. We have a guest room and a spare bedroom you and Kasey can sleep in if you'd like. The bedroom used to be one of my best friend's room until he.... went missing.

theravencrow: I'm so sorry to hear that. I hope he'll pop back up at some point. Kasey and I wouldn't mind. We'd appreciate it. If that's obviously okay with you?

samgolbach: Of course! I just have to clean it up a bit and dust. I'll make sure to warn the guys.

theravencrow: Alright, thank you!

samgolbach: My pleasure. I'll see you Thursday! Keep me posted!

theravencrow: Will do! Goodnight!

samgolbach: Goodnight, Raven!

And with that, I turned my phone off and finished eating, questioning who his missing friend was. Before heading to bed, I decided to do a bit of research until I came across a news article.   

"20 year old male, goes missing after incident in a forest known as The Witches' Forest," I read out loud, "A man in his twenties, Cole Robert "Colby" Brock, went on an exploring trip to a forest with his 3 friends and was nowhere to be seen after doing a paranormal investigation with Jake Webber, Sam Golbach and Corey Scherer," I rested my hand on my chin, eyebrows furrowed, "And he's been gone for 3 years? Maybe one day he'll come back. If the police have found no clues and no body, they might still be searching for him since they don't have any evidence of him being dead," I thought to myself, getting ready for bed.

"Anyway, all I can do is pray for Sam that he'll come back soon," I yawned, getting comfortable in bed as Shadow climbed onto one of the pillows and curled up for a nice long nap.    "Goodnight Shadow," I whispered.    "Meow." Shadow quietly said after washing his paws.