Scavenger hunt.

It all started in the month of July. Since I saw her every day that I would watch her enter the school, to the classrooms, and in some cases, I’d follow her home. It just struck me of how strong she was, willing to take any risks even if her life’s at stake. She just amazes me because she is still 14 and yet she’s done many great things and for me, horrifying things. Then the great moment happened. We were seatmates in class and the typical seatmate-friendship-shit happens. I never noticed this but she is surprisingly very boyish. How could’ve I not think that despite all the life-risking joy rides she goes to? Days passed and we became closer than we were. My feelings for her grew but I never really knew if she feels the same. I thought that maybe she does not have them for me because of her tomboy like façade but there’s really something about that intrigues me. This Halloween we make our own scavenger hunt and assign someone else to scatter these things in haunted places in different areas of the city and the person who loses would have a very good dare and a good hundred dollars for cash. On November 1st we started our first scavenger hunt. There were 10 things in the scavenger hunt and the first one was a letter located in the Amsterdam theatre. This place really terrifies me because there are unusual noises in the corners of the hall. Then finally, after I managed to not wet my pants, I got the first item. Later on I already got 6 things and I don’t know how many she already got but in the end I won so I get to make the dare. This dare I made was a good one because I really pushed her of her limits and she was so frustrated at me that ignored me for almost a week. Finally the silence broke and we just laughed it out. Every Halloween we did the scavenger hunt and there were a couple of times that she won and she gave me the worst dares ever, well for my sake, one was letting me sit in class without pants on and some other things I don’t want to mention. Two years later, we went to get coffee to the mall and to my surprise, she confessed to me of how she felt. She also told me if I noticed her boyish style. She told me that she does that because she doesn’t want to be treated as weak. But the next days, to my and everyone’s surprise, she got her head shaved. I asked her why she did that and asked me if she looked stronger. Then I told her that she looked strong even way before. She said that she felt weaker when we started going out. Other guys would laugh at her and they ended up breaking their noses due to her doings but I loved her the way she is.

It was in the middle of October when I first didn’t see her nor talk to her. I texted her and then she said that she and her family are out in a vacation. She was gone for like four weeks and our scavenger hunt was delayed for two weeks. Finally, texts me to already start to look for the items because she already had already started a few hours earlier. She cheated. I release a groan. I look at the list. I see 5 pieces of paper which means there are 5 items to find. A message at the back said that I must save the orange paper, the last item, and it told me not to open it until I’m done with all the items. It’s raining and so I had a hard time in looking for the items. In a haunted mansion, I find the first item, the two cups we drank in on the day she confessed. I can’t help to release an awe. The second item was the necklace I gave her on her 15th birthday and it was located in an abandoned carnival. The third Item were pictures of us from the day we met until her 16th birthday. The fourth item were dried flowers-I recognize it was the one I gave her on Valentine’s Day. The moment I pick the orange paper, I feel my hands tremble with excitement and suddenly it slips my hands and goes down beneath the wet pavement. Through the crystal rain water shows her name. She’s telling me to look for her. She made the scavenger hunt. I expect to see her in a terrifying abandoned hotel, her friends playing at me and scaring my soul out of my body. I shiver. I see a clue on the paper, it says ‘stones and bones’. I finally know where she leads me: The Calvary Cemetery. She knows that I hate it there. So she will play a prank on me there. I get in a cab and it takes me to the place.

It then came to me would she give me these things if she was just playing a prank on me? Why should she bring back any memories in the lease favorable time in the year? I now remembered the time when she shaved herself. Did she really shave her head? I now feel my hands tremble again, not of joy but of fear. What if the vacation she took wasn’t one? It was an operation or something. I push the heavy thought out of my head. She will be on the cemetery. She’s going to prank me. She told me she was getting weaker the time we started going out. Did she mean it literally? I think and go down the cab and enter the cemetery. It was so quiet until I see black umbrellas with familiar faces dressed in black. Then I feel something on the flowers I found. A note that says: “You found me and I hope that every day you always will. Remember me. I love you.”