Playing Detective

It started out as a normal Summer night. I stopped by to pick up Noah on the way there. The six of us (Noah, Carmen, Riley, Zach, Mason, and I) went out for pancakes in the middle of the night then messed around at the park for hours. We've done this so many times that I never expected any break in the routine. We were unstoppable. It was a perfect summer night in Colorado Springs; hot but not too hot, just the right temperature where you never wanted to go inside. The only thing that was going to put the breaks on our adventure was the glint of the rising sun letting us know that it'd soon be morning.

This was a couple days ago. The night stopped being normal around the time that Noah went to go text Madison, except none of us realized that it would be weird because it happened so frequently. But Noah was gone a little too long. And then we heard Noah scream, and the rest of us ran to go see what happened. Zach joked that he probably saw a wild animal and got scared. I wish.

That night, at 4:17 AM on July 8th, Noah Rivers was found dead. We don't know who or why yet, but he was stabbed pretty badly. Pools of blood surrounded his now lifeless body, and an old rusty knife laid next to him. Riley told me all of this. Once I saw him lying there, I couldn't handle it. I hate crying in front of people, and I had just lost my best friend. Noah and I have been best friends since the first day we met back in Kindergarten. And now all of those years of friendship, all those plans for someday, everything fell apart. I love all of my friends, but Noah was... different. Noah was my other half. So once I saw Noah lying there, I separated myself from the group immediately and went to go sit on the swings at the now abandoned playground.

"Aaron? Are you alright?" I heard a girl ask, and I turned around to see Carmen sit next to me. She looked like she had been crying too. I almost made a smart aleck remark, but I bit my tongue. It's not Carmen's fault he got stabbed. And Carmen is always so sweet, it's impossible to be mean to her. Her dark skin practically glows against her purple hair, but right now it's streaked with tears. "I... I got in an argument with Noah this afternoon and we.. we ne- neve- never got to make up," she says shakily. "I feel so bad because it was so stupid and-" I get closer and wrap her in my arms. I don't have anything to say, so we sit in silence until the rest of our friends find us.

"Alright. We're sad, we're upset, and yes this was traumatizing but Noah wouldn't want us to sit here doing nothing. He'd want us to get up off our butts and do something about it." Riley says, her eyes still filled with tears. "Guys? You know I'm right." she says, looking at all of us. "Noah would want us to solve this murder. He was always up for an adventure, no matter how upset it would make him in the end. He would want to do this."

"I agree with Riley." I let go of Carmen and stand up, wiping my face.

"I don't think we should." Carmen says quietly. Mason turns to her, shooting daggers at her with his eyes.

"And why not?" he asks sharply, and I give him about two seconds before he totally unleashes. He has a bit of a temper about him. "Why in the world should we not discover who did it? He was our friend and if you don't think we should help him you can just-" Riley grabs him and he shuts up.

"Don't listen to him sweetie. Why don't you think we should figure it out?" she asks Carmen, a lot more gently.

"I don't know it's just i don't know if i want to deal with a murder it's just that like i don't know" she mumbles. Mason rolls his eyes and ignores her.

"Okay we need to figure out suspects. That's the first step in all the movies." he says. "So who do you think could have done it? Noah doesn't have any enemies that I know of. Maybe Josiah?" Josiah was Noah's older brother. He's six years older than him, but he famously hates him. Josiah is a terrible person. I wouldn't put this past him, honestly.