A House Closer to Death ||| Book 1: The Game that Ended it All

Round 1, Chapter 0: The Bonfire of Honeydale

Damp. That was pretty much the only word that could describe the atmosphere of that night. It had rained in the morning, and everything was just beginning to dry off, so it gave more of a swampy feeling than a forest. The grass was damp, the trees were damp, hell, even the air around us felt damp. It was a miracle the fire stayed lit.

My name's Charlie. I'm 14, and this was the summer after my class's freshman year. It was the 20th of June if I recall correctly, I'm not very good at keeping up with dates.  I live in a small town known as Honeydale, and by a small town, I mean a really small town.  Pretty much everyone knows everyone else and their extended family, which honestly makes it nice around here.

Anyways, it was getting dark, but I knew most of everyone would be awake. Tonight was one of the town's annual Bonfire Nights. I'm not exactly sure where and how it originated, but the whole concept is that everyone in your class gets a night all to themselves, where they can do almost whatever they want while keeping a bonfire lit the whole night. The tradition takes one night for every class after 4th grade, and pretty much just keeps going even for the people that have already graduated. Yeah, that means our parents go too. But thankfully not on the same night.  We all get separate nights to ourselves, and it lasts for the whole summer.

I was walking down the gravel roads of our town, heading over to Thomas's house.  I had a bag full of snacks I prepared for the night.  Usually we'd have Colleen bring them, but she got pneumonia and had to stay in sick, so I got the honors of taking the time to bake everything for the whole day.  I didn't mind, though, it's what I'd usually do to pass the time anyway.

I knocked on the front door and patiently waited for my best friend. Thomas and I have known each other since elementary school, so we're pretty close. I don't exactly know what's up with him, I always assumed it was Tourettes syndrome or something like that, but he's really spastic and jittery all of the time.  He twitches every once and a while, and to top it all off he's extremely paranoid about things he's never seen or heard from before.  I guess that's kind of why he lives here, that and the best therapist his mom could find for him was here.  Nonetheless, we hang out a lot together, and even though he can be a handful at times, you kinda get used to it after a few years.  Jeez, with the way I say that I might as well be his dad.  Or more like an older sibling.

I could here the door creak open and a small lock slid aside.  Thomas opened the door, a nervous smile plastered on his face.  "You ready to go?"  I asked him.

"I guess so."  He said, stepping down from his porch. He was only a little bit shorter than me, and his eyes were two different colors. One was yellow and the other was a yellowish green. It was kinda pretty, but of course I can't say it out loud. I don't want everyone thinking I'm gay, at least not while I'm only considering the fact. "Did Kees say anything about going?"

"Yeah, he said he was waiting for us by the dirt path." I answered. Kees was another good friend of ours, though he only moved in around middle school. He's pretty laid back and chill most of the time, and he doesn't really care about the unimportant stuff. Pretty much the exact opposite of Thomas, so being in a friend group with the two of them is kind of like getting to experience the best of both worlds.

With the pace we were going at, it only took us about 15 minutes to get to the entrance of the woods. As promised, Kees was leaning against a tree, but he was also standing with Ally and Jo.  Jo was the shortest out of all of us, but to be fair, Ally and Kees were about 6 feet tall already, and she hasn't even hit her growth spurt yet.  She had light brown hair, sunset yellow eyes, and was surprisingly shy.  She's lived here all her life, but none of us have seen her until middle school because she was apparently homeschooled. We never knew why though.