A little more liquor

Chapter 19

5 years later.

There weren't many days when Millie didn't stop and think of her best friends disappearance. Her 20th birthday had come and gone, and since her plans to move into a flat with Bella had gone out the window all those years ago, she had moved into the boys house because she wasn't a fan of living alone and having the silence eating away at her brain constantly. She often wondered if any of this could be her fault, if the fact that Bella left without even saying goodbye in person was because she was angry at them- angry at her.

Thinking back to her last days with her best friend, they hadn't been on the best of terms. Millie had flipped out at her, and Casey pushed her away. Maybe that's what she wanted in her last days? To leave her friends without hurting them too badly. Jake had talked to her about it several times, but since she had left the whole group didn't seem right. It just didn't seem whole.

Millie was snapped from her thoughts as Chris popped his head around her bedroom door.

"Hey Mills, me and some of the lads are popping down to the abandoned industrial park to explore it a little bit, and we were wondering if you wanted to come with us to take some photos for your photography course thing you are doing at uni?" He questioned, leaning against the doorframe.

"Yeah definitely, I need something to do. I have to get out of this bloody house. I'll meet everyone downstairs in 5." she replied, jumping off her bed and rummaging around her cupboard for her camera.

Downstairs she was greeted by Chris, Reece, James, and Casey. The last one made her heart sink, especially since she'd been making a point to only speak to him when necessary. Literally sometimes she would still walk out the room if he walked in, so technically this was an improvement.

The drive down to the industrial park was awkward to say the least, due to that Chris was driving, Reece called shotgun and James dibsed not sitting in the middle, so Millie was squished between a boy she didn't hate and a boy who's head could be ripped off by her any moment.

Once they arrived at the abandoned space with dozens of old broken factories left right and centre, Millie jumped out of the car as soon as the engine died, literally diving over James in an attempt to escape the car, and escape Casey. As soon as everyone had gotten their shit together, they headed off towards one of the buildings that was clearly once made up mostly of glass, because now all that was left was smashed windows all over and shards of glass littering the floor all around them. Their footsteps echoed through the silent building as they avoided stepping on anything questionable while rays of light filtered through cracks in the ceiling.

Overall, the whole place was hauntingly pretty, and Millie occasionally stopped to take photos of her surroundings.

A few hours later when darkness had set in, the group had split off and so Millie was walking along some old bridges suspended to the ceiling inside another factory with James a couple of metres behind her. Preferably she would have wanted Charlie to be there, but he was out in Canada for the next 2 weeks with his family.

At the end of the bridges, Millie spotted something out of the corner of her eye and began to walk towards it.

"Millie, the bridges get kind of broken over there, maybe we should go the other way?" James pointed to another bridge.

"It'll be fine, trust me."

Millie continued her route to the platform she had noticed, also noticing that James was right, the bridge seemed to be shaking and creaking more than it probably should.

Somehow, they both made it onto the platform and looked around in shock.

"wow, it looks like someone was living here."

"Probably a hobo."

"Millie, I doubt it was a hobo."

"Whatever."

Since the area was fairly dark, James clicked on a flashlight and shone it around, allowing both of them to be able to see the various remains of food packets, empty drink cans and a few dirty blankets thrown in the corner.

"Wait, go back I saw something." Millie took the flashlight from James and shone it to the back wall where she thought she saw something shiny on the floor.

"I swear I saw something sparkly"

"It was probably an old can or something."

"No this was different."

Millie and James made their way to the wall, confirming Millie's assumption. She bent down to pick up an old, slightly dirty locket from the floor.

"Hey, how cool is this? It's probably like centuries old." She said, trying to pry the locket open.

"It might be me overthinking but I swear I've seen that somewhere before" James muttered, obviously intended for himself and watched Millie opening the locket.

"Wait a second"

"Oh my god"

"Holy shit"

"I thought she was gone? Why was she ever here?"

Inside the locket was a photo that even an idiot could know who the locket belonged too. Even though it was slightly dirty, it was clear who it was.

The photo inside was of Millie and Bella.