Hot Chocolate

(NOTICE: I originally posted this story under my older Wikia profile with a different title, (Snow...) but I've decided to re-post it on my new page.)

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For the first 12 years of my life, I grew up in northern Canada. I had a normal family, a normal house, normal school, normal town. Nothing in my life was out of the ordinary. Everything was as it should be. Of course, Canada is usually known for being cold. And, according to my grade-school education, northern parts of places usually have colder, snowier winters. When I was about 10 years old, I had five friends. Evie, Quincy, Samantha, Rhoda, and Johnathan. I specifically remembered having a crush on Evie. She had...green eyes, I think.

Yes, dazzling, beautiful green eyes, and auburn hair. Evie had a sister, Jamie. She loved to bake, and always made cookies when I came over. She made the best oatmeal raisin cookies in the world. Whenever Evie and I were colouring or something, she would give Evie this look and wink at me. I think she knew how much I liked her. Sam and Quincy were twins, and they both had blonde hair. They moved in across the street when I was almost 8. They did everything together and were pretty antisocial. I think I was their only friend. Rhoda's mother was a good friend of my mom's, and we would always play Candyland or something while our mothers talked. I never liked her much.

Johnathan was my best friend. We were inseparable, and loved to play pirates. All my friends and I had one thing in common; we loved to play in the snow. Snowball fights, tobogganing, you name it, we loved it. But one gloomy afternoon when I was 12 years old that all changed. My friends and I were going to have a snowball fight. We would all meet up at this stick we put in the ground called "Snowman Corner", count to three, then run away and throw snowballs at each other until we got tired. At about 11:00 AM on a Sunday afternoon, we met up at Snowman Corner.

Rhoda yelled, "1...2...3!" and we all ran like hell. I ducked behind a tree and started to make snowballs when I was ambushed by Sam and Quincy. Sam giggled and Quincy ran away. I nailed Sam and she whitewashed me until I said 'uncle'. she dashed off and I stood up to find another place to hide. From what I could hear, everyone was in one place, and having a ton of fun. I was about to go join them when I realized I had no snowballs. I cursed under my breath at Quincy and Sam for making me waste them all, then walked until I found a wooden fence. I looked over it, and saw an old, abandoned cabin.

"Yes," I whispered, hopping the fence.

I sat there making snowballs for a while, listening to the occasional shriek, giggle, or thud. It was comforting. I was making my last snowball... when everything fell silent. I didn't hear the sounds get quieter, or decrease in number. Everything just got quiet. I assumed everyone had left without me, and was about to call out, when I heard a loud scream. I breathed a sigh of relief. It was Rhoda. They must have just stopped to reload. But then...I heard Quincy. It was a scream of obvious agony, not surprise or pain. Shortly after, I heard Sam's loud sobs and then an ear-piercing scream.

Evie screamed, "No...NO!" I was so scared. What was going on? Johnathan's scream was worst of all. I swear I heard my heart shatter. I cried for what felt like hours, when it dawned on me. I needed to get out of there.

I peeked over the fence and saw nothing. I hopped over and started to run. After about five minutes, I was in a large field near a playground that Johnathan and I loved to play at. I held back tears and continued to run, or at least tried to. I stopped dead in my tracks when I felt a frail hand on my shoulder. I spun on my heels to face a beautiful girl about my age. She was obviously French, she had a soft face with pale blue eyes and dark hair. I was relieved until I noticed that she was only wearing a thin white nightgown. I staggered back in amazement at the fact that she was also barefoot. Big mistake. I toppled over, and she kneeled down to me. She was sickly, skeletally thin and frail. Her nightgown was covered in dirt, food...and what looked like blood. That's when I noticed about 50 people starting to encircle me. The girl stroked my face and smiled.

"Ssssh..." she whispered. "I'm helping you. Remember that." I frantically looked at the people, until I saw a pair of sparkling green eyes.

"Evie! No!" She just stared at me. I began to see my other friends in the crowd, staring at me.

I broke from the girl's grasp and tried to run but she pinned me down and screamed, "I'M...HELPING YOU!" I threw her off of me and pushed over a little girl to get out of the circle. I ran. And I kept running. When I got home, I had a nervous breakdown and told my mother what had happened. She immediately grabbed the phone and asked Rhoda's mother if she had come home. She hadn't. Neither had Quincy. Or Sam. Or Evie. Or Johnathan. My mother told all of them to come over, and when they showed up, she told me to go play upstairs. I remember seeing a police car speed off to the woods. Now that I'm older, I've decided to dig more into the case. I went to the police station and asked if I could see the file. They said yes. I reread my story, then looked at the other details of the case. My stomach did a 360-degree turn.

It said that officers found the cabin, broke down the door, and found my friends, horribly mutilated, propped up at the table with mugs of hot chocolate sitting in front of them. They took the hot chocolate and mugs for forensics, then went upstairs. They found over 50 bodies in the closets, also horribly mutilated. They said that they showed pictures of the victims taken before they were murdered to me, and I remember. They asked if I recognized them, and I said yes. They asked if I knew their names, and I didn't. I told them, "They were with the girl."

I remember them giving my mother a look then saying I could go, and they gave me a lollipop. I ran off in glee. But the file said that the people had been dead for a long time, the longest being two years. But what was even more disturbing, was the fact that most of these people were from places miles and miles away from where the cabin was. The thing that disturbs me the most to this day, is the fact that after they took away the hot chocolate on the initial sweep, they came back to collect the bodies and found that there were five new mugs on the table, all filled with steaming hot chocolate.