“Michael, you know that we have to go!” My friend Erin said. While we walked to school, she talked about a party that our mutual friends were throwing. No matter what I said, she did not want to listen. She just does not understand that I am not good in crowds. Rolling her eyes, Erin brushed her blond hair behind her.

            “Erin, you know I don’t do well in crowds. You have known me since we were kids. You should understand,” I said, annoyed at her complete dismissal of my feelings.

            “But if you do not go, mom won’t let me go. You know how she is,” She said, sighing. Then she did the one thing that she knows affects me. She looked at me and did her little pouty face. As hard as I tried to look away, she was just too cute when she did that.

            “Fine, I’ll go, but after that, you are going to play destiny with me,” I said with a sigh. There really was not any reasoning with Erin when she got like that.

            It took about twenty minutes to get to school from where we lived. I was dreading school today we had an exam in Algebra. No matter what I did, I was never that good at math. I did well enough to pass, but that was about it. Erin and I shared the first hour together, which was biology. Mr. Hammond decided today we were going to dissect frogs. The thought of having to cut open a frog made my stomach protest. Erin did her best not to gag, but soon we were done, and the bell rang.

            The rest of the day went well other than the math exam. It was almost the end of class before I finished while everyone else sat there.  When the final bell rang, I walked out of class and waited for Erin at her locker. She was talking to one of her friends in another class. I did not know her very well other than that her brother was on the football team.

            “Hey Michael, are you ready for the party?” Erin asked as she hooked her arm around my neck. I shrugged as we started walking down the hall to the doors. I did not want to tell her I did not want to go and just deal with her pouting again. As we started our walk home, I noticed that Cameron, another one of my friends, played some card games with many geeks in our class. I was a geek by right, but I was more into video games.

            The walk home was quiet. Erin seemed to be lost in thought, and I did not really have anything to say. As we said our goodbyes, she hugged me then rushed off to her house. With a sigh, I walked into the house.

            “Michael, is that you, dear?” my mom asked from in the kitchen. She was home early.

“Yeah, mom, why are you home so early?” I asked as I walked into the kitchen. She was making her special brownies, which I could never get enough of.

            “The meeting ended early, and my boss gave us the rest of the day off. The game is almost finished,” She said as she put the pan in the oven. My mom worked for Riot Games. It was cool. They were working on a new VR game that was going more immersive than any other game before it. The game was called Fantasy’s End.

            “So how was school today? Do you think you did well on your exam?” she asked. To that, I just shrugged. There was no sense telling her I struggled with it. She knew how I struggled with math.

            “Oh, hey mom, Emily Prescott is having a party tonight, and Erin asked if I would go with her,” I said.

            “Yeah, Susie told me about it earlier. It is okay for you to go if you remember to be home by 9:30 and no drinking. I know how Prescott’s live their lives. Mom knew that I would never drink, but she seemed to derive some pleasure in teasing me with it every chance she got. After giving mom a hug, I walked to the bathroom to make sure I looked decent before the party. Looking in the mirror always bothered me. It was not about the freckles on my nose or the tree bark brown hair. It was the fact that when I looked in the mirror, the person staring back at me was not the person I felt like on the inside. Even as a kid, when I would go to Erin’s, we would play dress up, and I would wear her dresses and clothes the entire time I was there. After fixing my hair and brushing my teeth, I went to my room to work on my homework until it was time for the party.

  It was almost 6 when Erin came ringing on the doorbell. With a reluctant sigh. I answered the door before walking outside.

            “I can’t believe you are coming. I am telling you it is going to be fun. Who knows, maybe you will meet a nice girl while your there,” She said as she brushed her bangs behind her ear. What she did not know was that while we had been friends all our lives, I had always secretly had a crush on her. The only problem with that was that she was a lesbian. It made it hard sometimes to see her flirting with another girl when my heart ached to jump out of my chest and show her just how I felt about her.

            By the time we got to Prescott’s house, the sounds of music and chatter began filling our ears. Cameron was trying to impress one girl by the door because he could fold his tongue into a clover, but the girl seemed less than impressed. To be honest, I was not impressed either. As we made our way inside, the scene did not change much, just more people hanging around. Most of them were in small groups, or what you would call cliques. This was not the party you would expect from normal high-school kids.

            “I’m going to go find Ashley. Why don’t you mingle and try to make some new friends,” Erin said before running off. She did not even give me time to answer. Reluctantly I walked around trying to find the nearest spot to sit. The number of people here was bothering me, and I needed to feel grounded. As I moved through the crowd of people, I saw someone I recognized. It was the girl who sat in the back of the class in Biology. She was standing outside on the balcony. With a little effort, I made my way out.

            “Hey, you’re the girl who sits in the back of the room in biology,” I said, realizing then how ridiculous I sounded. She looked at me, then nodded. I never noticed how beautiful she was until tonight. Her blonde hair wrapped around her face until it framed her glasses. She was wearing a white dress that showed off her gorgeous legs.

            “My name is Michael,” I said. She looked at me, then nodded.

            “My name is Taylor Prescott. How are you enjoying my sister’s party?” she asked. I never knew Ashley had a sister, not to mention that I had her in my class.

            “I didn’t know that Ashley was your sister. Must be awesome to be related to the most popular girl in school,” I said. She sighed and looked out at the lake below.

            “It’s not actually. Ashley thinks that just because our family has money that she is better than everyone else. She even forgets that I am her sister when she is around others. All I want to do is get away from here and be normal, like everyone else. I don’t really care about the money or the name,” she said without looking at me. After that, she was quiet, and I did not know what to say, so I just followed her and looked out toward the lake. It was then that I noticed something that I had not before. Dark clouds were rolling in, but there was something different about them.

            As we stood there on the balcony, something strange happened. It suddenly started raining hard. The wind picked up, bringing with it a biting cold. I was just about to turn around and go back inside when I saw the lightning. But it was different. The entire sky seemed to light up at once as if it were one giant thunderbolt that filled the sky with many colors. Taylor seemed to be just as curious and freaked out as I was. I was so caught up in the spectacle I did not notice the lightning come toward me.

            With a flash of light, a burning pain spread throughout my body, dropping me to the ground. It felt as if even my bones were on fire. The pain was so intense that I could not even keep my eyes open. As I tried to move, the pain worsened until I could not take it anymore, and everything went black.