The Creature

I remember the day I met her just like it was yesterday. It was the first day of Mrs. Berry’s first grade class I had on my favorite blue jeans and a baby blue shirt with my favorite blue hat. The day started out with my mother dropping me off to eat breakfast, I went to class, and we had to introduce ourselves before snack time. We did some basic math and coloring before lunch, and then it was everyone’s’ favorite time of the day. RECESS!!

My desk was right next to the window with full view of the biggest slide I had ever seen, so of course that was where I was headed. It was a big orange slide with large steps and a middle tubular section, everyone wanted to go down it hence the super long line that I ran into. As I waited impatiently for it to be my turn, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and there was a small petite girl in a white t-shirt and pink overalls, she had blonde hair pulled into a high ponytail with a pink and white ribbon. She gave me the biggest smile and her big brown eyes lit up with excitement.

“Have you ever seen a slide so amazing!” she exclaimed.

“I’ve been looking at it all day I’m so excited!” I said.

We talked for a few more minutes about this and that and then finally it was our turn! I started to climb up the stairs shaking with excitement and nervousness. It was so much taller than I had originally thought but she was right behind me pushing me to keep going. And then I was finally at the top and it felt like I was on the top of the world, I got in position to slide down and she got right behind me putting her arms around me to comfort me and then we were off!

It was slow at first and then it was like the speed of lightening, we went under the tubular tunnel and out the other side and then we were at the bottom. We were laying on the grass laughing like we’d never laughed before she rolled over on her stomach and she looked at me and said, ‘My name is Marie, what’s yours?’ ‘It’s Jesse.’ I said and that was the start of the most beautiful friendship, from that day forward we were stuck to each other like glue.

As we grew older Marie and I had some ups and downs, but it only made us better friends, and we were always there for each other with no questions asked. It was only inevitable that I would start having feelings for her in our freshman year of high school, of course I never told her, but now I’d give anything to. We had been through so much together with her father just passing over the summer and with her mother going through the depression. We had been spending a lot of time together because it was too much for her mom to see her since she had grown up to look just like her father.

We had both grown up to be completely different people than we had been at 7 years old. Marie was still very petite and beautiful as ever, but her long blonde hair was kept short and dyed blue, blue was always my favorite color. She was one of a kind, and free spirted. She loved the excitement of haunted houses and Halloween and all things horror. And that love of horror is how this story really begins, or in my case how it ends…