Stella sat in one of the hard school desks that was placed in the back of the class where she continued to tap her pencil, waiting for eighth period to end.

Her violet eyes stared up at the clock as the secondhand moved steadily across the numbers. Then, it stopped. It felt like a whole minute to her that the clock had stopped working, or that time had stood still. She urged it in her head to keep going. The secondhand began to move again, starting from the number nine that was placed inside the clock.

3:13 now, everyone in Stella’s free period class and probably the entire school was tediously waiting for the bell. She was sure that it would go off soon. It had already been a minute late. She counted down in her head 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. The bell didn’t ring, but the secondhand continued to move around the clock. Let’s try that again Stella thought to herself. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5—the bell finally sounded, breaking the silence of the room.

Her long, straight brown hair swung around her back as she got out of the desk. She grabbed her bright turquoise side bag and joined the queue that stood waiting to get out of the room and into the halls where they would finally be free to leave their day of school.

“Stella,” a girl made her way through the crowd of students that flooded the halls. She was about 5’ 1” but her wavy medium-length hair and green eyes made her almost impossible to miss.

“Hey Jenny,” Stella said as they continued to walk through the hallways of the school building.

“Did you plan your birthday party yet?” Jenny asked

“Yeah, a pool party, in my backyard. It is big enough there. I already have the whole thing planned out. There is going to be a BBQ for dinner, a DJ for music and well, as if it even needed to be said, the ground pool and hot tub from my backyard.

Stella continued to go into great details of her party. She made sure that she didn’t miss one thing about it that had been planned, including the date it was to be held on. That day was her actual birthday, May 27th.

“And the list?” Jenny asked after waiting for her to finish.

“Right here,” Stella said as she took out a sheet of paper that had been folded into fourths. “Seventeen guests for my seventeenth birthday.”

“How original,” Jenny said as they laughed together and looked at the list of who would be coming.

“Hey, Stella, Jenny, what’s up?” a boy about 5’ 11” was walking towards them. He had wavy brown hair that covered his bright blue eyes.

“Evan, Hi” Stella and Jenny said together as he reached the two of them.

They continued to walk together through the halls that had contained few kids in it now. Passing rows of light brown lockers, one after the other, Jenny and Stella took off on their conversation again.

“What are you two talking about?” Evan asked.

“Jenny and I were discussing my birthday party.”

“Which isn’t even for another two weeks,” Evan reminded her.

“I know, but I always like arranging stuff like this ahead of time, it makes the excitement last longer.” Stella replied with her eyes sparkling with the excitement she had been talking about.

“It is going to be awesome!” Jenny said as she continued on retelling every detail that Stella and her had discussed moments ago.
***

Stella said goodbye to her two best friends as she made her way to her silver car that was parked in the back of the school building.

She unlocked the door to the driver’s seat, got in, and then threw her side bag over to the passenger’s seat. She turned back to the front of the car to start the engine, but quickly turned around, screaming at the person staring in at her from the passenger seat’s window.

“Anthony! What are you doing?” Stella said in a high voice as her heart rate slowed down and her breathing slowly went back to normal.

Anthony, with his short, straight blonde hair and green eyes stood ducking down to the window’s height and pointed his finger down, signaling for the window to go down.

“Hey Stella,” he said in a casual voice, smiling at her.

“Hey,” she replied

“Are we still going out tonight?” He asked.

Stella and Anthony had been dating for six months now

“Yeah, of course,” she said “7:00 at the roller skating rink, your picking me up.”

“Right, see you at your house then,” Anthony said as he got back up to his regular, tall height and made his way across the parking lot to his own car.

Stella rolled down all of the windows of the car, letting the cool spring breeze in.

As she looked in the review mirror, she saw a boy with wavy black hair that covered the bottom of his ears, and his bangs which covered the eyes that had been staring right at Stella.

His name was mason. He was a new kid this year. His green eyes remained on her violet ones, not daring to move an inch.

Stella lost her gaze and slowly began to leave the parking lot. She tried to forget about mason who was still standing at the front of the school building with his eyes continuing to stare at the place where she had been just moments ago.

She pulled up into the driveway which led to the dark green and brown house. She turned her car off and got out of the car. Stella walked up to the house as she pressed the button on the key ring that made the car doors lock.

She went through the door which led to the living room. It was completely dark with the exception of the rays of light that came into the room from the door which Stella had just opened.

She spotted a note on the brown table that lay in the middle of the living room surround by three matching couches.

Stella walked over to the table and picked up the note. It read:
Stella,

I am out shopping for groceries.
I will be back around five to make dinner.
Until then, call me if you happen to need anything
Mom


Stella placed the note back onto the coffee table and turned on the lights. The walls were painted a medium green to match the brown furniture.

She walked through the living room which led to a hallway that contained stairs lined with gray carpeting. Stella reached the stairs and walked up them. She passed two doors in the long upstairs hallway and opened the third white door that led to her room.

Stella’s room was painted a light turquoise with a light brown trim. Straight across from her on the other side of the room laid a bed. She walked over to it and set down her side bag.

Stella glided over to her brown desk and opened the window that was placed above it. She then sat down and began to rummage through a drawer that was full of envelopes. Grabbing a stack of turquoise envelopes, Stella turned on her computer, opened a new document, and began to type.
Dear

,
This is an invitation to my birthday party which is going to be held on May 27th, 2010. There is a pool and hot tub so I welcome you to bring a swimsuit, towel, and a change of clothes. A DJ will be provided for entertainment and we will have a BBQ for dinner. Contact me with any questions you may have. Also please tell me if you are able to come as soon as possible.

~Stella~


She printed off seventeen different copies, each having a different name that had replaced the line after the word dear.

Stella gazed out of her window while noises sounded from the printer printing the papers. She looked at the house that stood next to hers. Directly across from her window on the next house was a window. Her new neighbors had moved in a year ago. That room was masons.

The printer was still going as Stella took out another copy of the list that had been misplaced at the roller skating rink. The names on the list read:
Amy
Ann
Stephanie
Jaime
Christine
Karen
Lilly
Ellie
Ashley
Andrew
Nathan
Kevin
Cameron
Jenny
Evan
Anthony
Mason

The printer stopped. Stella extended her right arm, grabbed the papers and began to fold each in half. After that she put them in the envelopes and wrote the names on the back. When she finished she placed the seventeen envelopes in a basket next to her desk that stood on the brown carpeted floor.

A car door shut outside. Stella looked out the window and saw mason walking to the front of his house. Right before he reached the front door, he stopped. Stella looked away from the window but she could still sense the gaze of his green eyes.

“Why is he always doing this?” Stella wondered to herself aloud as she shut the window.

Stella walked away from her desk and lay down onto her bed. She closed her eyes and lay still for several moments.

The front door of the house opened and closed loudly. Stella got up from her bed and slowly made her way from her room.

“Hello?” she called down the stairs from the hallway as she waited for a reply. She continued to wait until she was convinced that no one would reply. Then she walked down the stairs trying not to make a single sound while her heart continued to beat louder than ever.

“Hello?” she called again. Still, no reply had come. She walked into the living room where someone had turned the lights back off.

Stella reached for the cold wall as her hand searched for what seemed to be five minutes. Finally she had found the light switch.

The lights came on and so did the sink. In the living room she could hear the water coming out of the faucet that was in the kitchen.

“Hello?” Stella heart was racing and her eyes had widened as far as they could go. “Who’s there?”

“Hi,” a voice of someone sounded behind her. Stella screamed and turned around within two seconds.

“Sorry, Stella, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“That’s okay mom. I didn’t realize it was already 5:00, I must have dozed off. I heard a noise and I didn’t realize it was you who had come into the house.”

“That’s quite alright dear. Will you help me with dinner? We are going to have rice topped with vegetables. If you help it will be finished when your father gets home from work.”

“Sure, I’ll help,” Stella said as she made her way into the kitchen, finally calming down.

Stella tried to keep her hand steady in order to cut the green pepper that lay in front of her on the cutting board.

“I really didn’t mean to scare you,” her mom said watching Stella attempt to cut the pepper.

“I know mom, this is just the third time someone has scared me today, but I’m over it.” She said in a determined voice as she continued to help her mom with dinner.

“I’m here,” a friendly voice came in through the front door as well as a tall man with shaggy hair and blue eyes. He was dressed in a nice pair of pants with a bright blue shirt that was tucked in.

“Hey dad,” Stella called in from the kitchen. “You are just in time for dinner!”

They ate dinner together and when they finished the doorbell sounded.

“Oh, that’s Anthony. We are going to the roller skating rink. I will be home around nine.”

“Alright, see you later, love you,” her mom said as Stella got up and left the house.
***

They pulled up to a large building that had a bright neon sign reading Jim’s Roller Skating Rink.

Anthony opened the door on Stella’s side. She thanked him, got out, and walked with him into the building as they talked about their day.

When they entered the building music filled their ears. The giant room was filled with multi colored disco ball lights. In the center there was a giant rink. To the right of that was another room that was full of arcade games. Many kids in the town came to the rink to hang out.

“I’m going to go hand out some invitations and then we can go skate together. Is that okay?” Stella asked smiling at Anthony.

“No problem,” he said smiling back at her.

She grabbed her invitations and left her bag with the guest list and other items sitting on one of the chairs sitting next to a table.

Stella walked around a bit while she looked around for people that were on her list. After a minute of so, she began to walk over to a girl with long, curly brown hair, blue eyes and was dressed in jeans, a pink tank top and black flip-flops.

“Hey Amy, What’s up?” She asked as Amy directed her attention on her.

“Not much, Ann, Stephanie and I were just about to go skate.”

“Before you do, I have some invitations to give to the three of you.”

Ann and Stephanie were now listening to Stella along with Amy. Ann had straight, chin length brown hair, brown eyes and was a lot shorter than the others. Stephanie was 5 inches taller than Ann. She had straight, long blonde hair that went all the way down to her waist and she had blue eyes.

Stella passed out the three invitations to them, said goodbye and then went off to go find the rest of the people on her list.
***

“Hey Anthony, I’m back,” Stella said as she sat down at the table where Anthony reading the sports section of their school newspaper.

“Want to go skate?” Anthony asked as he tucked away the newspaper.

“Yeah,” she said as she got out her roller skates.

Anthony got up from his seat first. He rode smoothly over to where Stella was sitting and helped her up.

Together, they skated over to the rink. Anthony was a natural at roller skating, as well as many other sports. Stella on the other hand didn’t play many sports, but she was a good skater.

The music continued to play while Anthony was showing of to Stella by skating backwards and spinning around.

After an hour of skating the couple called it quits.

Stella had finished taking off her skates and was tucking them into her bag.

“Hey, have you seen my list of people that I was going to invite to my party?”

“Hmm? No,” Anthony replied as he got up and asked her if she was ready to leave.

“Not yet,” Stella said as she caught site of mason who was a table away from her, “one minute.”

She got up without saying another word and went over to the table where mason was rummaging through his backpack.

“Did you see a paper anywhere near here that had a list of names on it?”

“No,” Mason looked up at here; his eyes looking directly into her own while his voice came out in a quiver.

“Alright,” she returned to her table where Anthony got up and led her out of the building.

They got into his car and drove off on their way to her house.

Stella’s mind was thinking about mason but she remained determined not to tell Anthony about her many strange encounters with him.

Anthony turned towards Stella with a questioning look in his eyes.

“Stella,” his voice came into her head.

Who is talking to me? I hope it isn’t mason. She thought as her name was called again.

“We are in your drive way,” Anthony’s voice was clear now.

“What? Oh,” she said looking embarrassed.

“Thanks for the date,” he called to her as she got out of the car and walked to her house.
***

The radio and a low buzzing sound made Stella shift from where she was laying wrapped in blankets on her bed.

Her hand slowly hovered over to her bedside table, her arm stretching. Her hand came to a halt and quickly plopped down onto the alarm clock where many buttons were. She fumbled around until only the birds chirping outside broke the silence in the air.

Friday she thought as she got out of bed and spent her time getting ready for school.
***

Stella was sitting in her fourth period class passing noted to Amy while the teacher was sitting at her desk reading a book. She had expected the whole class to be reading the same book silently in her seats. She was only right about the silent part, but everyone else was passing notes and throwing paper balls back and forth to each other in a game of toss.

The time flew by and the bell rang. Stella was one of the first to reach and continue through the classroom door as she made her way to lunch.

After waiting in line for food, she finally made her way outside to a table where her friends Jenny, Evan, Stephanie, and Ann.

Stella sat down and within a minute Anthony was sitting down right beside her.

“Where’s Amy?” She asked directing her question to no one in particular. “She said she was going to be the first one here and save us a seat.”

Everyone seemed to not have noticed until she said something.

They continued to talk and eat lunch. The bell rang they returned to the building.

Stella and Jenny walked together to their next class where Amy was also supposed to be going to with them.

They were talking to each other and didn’t stop until Stella crashed into another person.

The smell of mint filled her nose. She looked up and there was mason, his green eyes staring right into hers.

Jenny helped Stella up and they continued on their walk to 6th period.

“He keeps doing that,” Stella said

“Doing what?” Jenny asked now sounding interested about what had just happened.

“Staring at me like he was just doing before, it’s starting to freak me out!”

“He probably just likes you or something,” Jenny’s reply came easily.

“But does that give him the right to be creepy?” Stella asked in over exaggeration as if it was masons goal to watch her every move.

They walked into the classroom and their day slowly continued.
***

It was Monday morning and Stella walked into her first period class which was full of tired kids.

“Can anyone tell me who isn’t here?” the Science teacher asked.

Stella studied the room full of students and said, “Amy, Ann, and Stephanie.”

“Very well,” the teacher said as he continued with his class.

Without Stephanie, Ann, or Amy there, Stella had to find someone else for a lab partner.

“Hey, be my lab partner,” a male voice had said. It wasn’t much of a question, nor a demand.

Stella looked around and saw that everyone else already had partners. “Alright,” she said as she has reluctantly begun to work with Mason.
***

School was over and Stella’s phone vibrated. The screen light came on and it read New Text Message. She read the text message:
Help us!

The message came from Ann’s phone. Right as Stella was about to reply her phone rang.”

“Hello?” she said.

“Stella! Stephanie, Amy, and Ann are missing, they didn’t come home on Friday and I’ve been trying to call you all day.”

“Mom, I’ll talk to you in a bit, I’m on my way home.”

Another text message came from Ann’s phone:
Green eyes, That’s all I saw, Green eyes.