You looked back behind you for what felt like for the hundredth time. For some reason today while you were walking to your bus stop, you were as paranoid as can be. It was the early morning, but it wasn't dark anymore as the sun had risen to give off enough light to brighten up the neighborhood street. You noticed how it was strangely quiet, even the construction workers building new houses around your own to add to the neighborhood, who's machines gave off a ton of noise, weren't there. You tried to shrug it off, maybe they had a day off, but you couldn't help to pray the school bus wouldn't come late...again.

Your (E/C) eyes seemed to dance around your neighborhood road, looking for any movement. When you thought you started hearing footsteps, light and slow, you flinched and yet continued to keep walking...well, speed walking. You didn't dare stop, because if you did, you felt like you would be taken by someone...or something, it always happened in the movies.

After what felt like hours of walking, you had finally reached your bus stop. You looked around in circles a couple of times, feeling tense. After seeing nothing, you started to realize that maybe the footsteps you thought you heard was just your brain catching up to your paranoia and confusing you. Still, you didn't feel like taking chances so you kept your backpack on your back to act as a type of shield for you. It felt like a boulder, but you couldn't be swayed to put in down until your friends reached the bus stop. You checked your watch, it read 7:56 AM. The school bus usually seemed to come around 8:22 AM, but you never knew when it would decide to not be late for once.

After a couple of minutes went by, your best friend Alia and her brother Aidan finally walked up to the bus stop from the other side of Maple Creek, your neighborhood. Alia was in the 11th grade while you were in the 12th grade along with Aidan, you think, he could be in the 9th grade, but all three of you didn't seem to care about age so the thought never crossed your mind. They put their bags down, Aidan on the curb with his feet and bag siting in the road waiting to be run over as always and Alia's on the sidewalk next to where you were standing. Having them there made you feel a bit more calm and somehow protected, so you put your boulder of a bag down next to Alia's.

Looking around feeling much more light, you were surrounded by houses and houses being made as you lived in developing suburbs. The bus stop you were standing at, complete with its own stop sign, was half-way down the neighborhood's entrance road, which was also the one you walked along to get to and from the stop. Another road branched out from the entrance road creating a "T" intersection and the stop itself. Alia and Aidan lived down that road. If the branched road continued on the other side of the entrance, or main road creating a cross shape, then it would run into a huge pasture full of cows. Ah Maple Creek, you thought, Where your backyard neighbors were a bunch of big four-legged animals that went "moo."

You turned to Alia: "So how's your book with Annex coming along?" Annex was one of many creepy-pasta characters she had borrowed and come up with for her book she was writing on a site. It was about how they lived together, you thought. No matter how hard you tried to understand it all, the plot was a bit confusing. Still, you tried your best to support her as she cared immensely about it. The book itself might not have been official, but it might have well been as it had a ton of views.

"It's going well I think, people like it and I'm grateful for that, but they want to know what the characters look like and I suck at drawing, especially the computer," She replied, giving a small smile on her brown face as she chuckled in an embarrassing manner.

"What? I don't believe that you can't draw, you're so talented!"

"Believe it (Y/N). I've seen it and I can't even tell what it's supposed to be," Aidan called from the curb.

"Shut up, Aidan!" Alia yelled back at him while you gave a quiet chuckle. "It's not as bad as that..."

"Well let me see it then," You told Alia. "To be honest I want to see it for myself now."

"Okay, but don't laugh," Alia told you, reaching for her computer. Aidan barked a laugh from the curb, saying something like "that's impossible." Alia gave him a scolding look at showed you the picture.

"Well...," You started. Oh my God he was right. It was the creepy-pasta Alice in Wonderland, that much you could tell, but it looked like it was covered in a blob of desperation. "I know who it is, but what is all of that?" You pointed to the blob.

Alia let out a nervous chuckle: "I maybe got a little tired while drawing and couldn't lift my finger off of the touch pad very well..." You both looked from the picture to each other's eyes and busted out laughing. Alia, about to fall from laughter, shakily putting her computer back in her bag.

"Told you!" Aidan called and laughed a bit too. Alia couldn't stop laughing to yell at him to shut up.

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When the school bus finally came in all its yellow "glory," you realized you had forgotten about your walk to the stop only a little more than half an hour earlier. You got on the bus and sat down in a surprisingly empty seat, starting to feel tensity crawling up your back again. You scanned the stop through the window as the bus' doors closed, almost dismissing it, too. Suddenly, as the bus rolled away, you caught a glance of a man in a reddish-brown suit and what looked like a ski mask appear right where you were standing, watching the bus leave with a stern expression and a cigarette hanging from his mouth.