It was October 30th, 2019, a beautiful day with birds chirping and not too many clouds in the sky; it was a little humid but that was to be expected in southeast Louisiana. It had been a week since one of my best friends, Charlotte, went missing along with many other kids before her. There had seemed to be at least three new kids missing every week.

 My other best friend Harper and I were walking home from school which was not out of the ordinary since we were 15 and school was only a few blocks away. Harper was a brunette with blue eyes, tallish and one of my best friends, and I was blonde with green eyes, about average height, and a little clumsy. As we were walking up to my house Harper, who was a few feet in front of me, shouted, “Emma, why do you have a beat-up box with red stuff on your porch?” I looked at her and right before I could say I didn't know what that was, I got a phone call from our friend Charlotte. I answered it confused and a little scared and put it on speaker so that Harper could hear it too. Whoever was talking had an eerily deep voice with a staticky background and was repeating,  “You’re next, buddies.” 

Trembling, I hung up my phone and looked at Harper who was pale of fear and had tears in her eyes. The only person that called us buddies was Charlotte because the three of us had an inside joke, so we had known something had happened to her. Shaky, I called my mom to tell her what had happened, and to see if she knew what the package was and if I should bring it inside. She said she didn’t know what the package was, to leave it on the doorstep, and get inside and lock the door. My mom also said she would be home in a half-hour. I told my mom that goodbye and that I loved her and hung up.

Right as I hung up on my mom a creepy white van with dirt all along the side pulled up. A tall figure in all black stepped out of the van and was holding something sharp in his hands. I looked at Harper with a worried expression on my face and then we both darted inside. 

I was so scared did not look back or remember to lock the door. We ran into a closet to hide, and Harper whisper shouted, “Emma, don’t move, don’t make a sound, don- just don’t do anything! Ok?” That's when I whispered to her that I was calling the police. She told me not to, that I would be too loud and that the mysterious figure, who was already in the house looking for us, would hear me and find us. I did not listen and tried to take out my phone from my back pocket, but then I must have hit something because one of the boxes of art supplies fell off the shelf and made a loud noise. Harper and I looked at each other with a petrified look on our faces. Then we heard footsteps and a deep voice calling out, “Buddies, buddies, where are you? I don’t intend on hurting you, I just want to meet two of Lia’s best friends.” 

As the footsteps got louder and louder Harper and I were hysterical, and praying like our lives depended on it because they did. Then suddenly the footsteps stopped; Harper and I looked at each other with relief. Unfortunately, Harper and I were not that lucky, the door got flung open and the mysterious figure threw the box at us. He had a wicked grin on his face when he demanded that we open it. That’s when he pointed his weapon at us so we did not have much of a choice on whether or not to open it. We opened the box, and we saw a list of the names and pictures of the kids who went missing along with their last words, and on the bottom of the list, we saw our names, Harper Hebert and Emma Richard along with pictures of us. That was when I finally realized that this was it, this was my last walk home.