1 Mysterious Red Chalk

Sitting in the van, Jiana was bored.

"Why do we have to go to this wedding again?"

"Shush," her mom responded, "This is your father's good friend."

"Okay, but why do me and Lauren have to go as well?" Jiana persisted to ask.

"His good friend insisted that all family members attend to make it more special."

"...fine," Jiana groaned as she threw herself back against the seat.

Her father continued driving the car, not responding to any of her questions or comments. They continued the rest of the way to the wedding in silence.

As they arrived at the venue, the skies had darkened as though it was going to rain. Jiana groaned again, "Ugh, look mom, even the skies are crying about having to attend this event."

Her mom didn't respond this time and just gave her an exasperated look.

They weren't late to the event, but the parking lot was already full. It was going to be a huge event. Jiana mumbled under her breath again, "It's not like they would even notice if we didn't attend."

Getting off the car, everyone was dressed in their most luxurious dresses and suits. One could very easily tell that the crowd gathered here were particularly well off. As Jiana was straightening her dark blue bodycon dress, she looked up and accidentally caught the eye of a boy around 17 years old, winking at her. She rolled her eyes in response and turned away, thinking 'Teenagers.'

Lauren commented on the way in, "Why do they have all these weird chalk markings on the ground? It's so odd."

Lauren was right. There was red chalk pointing in two different directions strangely spanning the entire parking lot. It looked as though a bunch of children were given free reign of the parking lot and had unlimited red chalk. As the rain hit the ground, the red chalk began to mix in with the rainwater and look like fresh blood.

The family silently walked down the red carpet and through a pair of beautifully etched golden doors. This scene directly contrasted the red chalk markings on the ground.

Walking into the room, there were female attendants walking around in amazonian costumes. They were all wearing the same short white dresses with specks of gold glittering off their skin. Each of them wore the same feathered mask with gold rims, covering their entire face.

"Creepy," Jiana muttered in a small voice.

They walked towards their table and sat down. Her younger sister, Lauren, immediately started texting on her phone while her parents went off to greet different people. Jiana just slumped back in her chair and started people watching. She loathed events like this. As an 18 year old girl, she was super active on a day to day basis and preferred to be running, playing sports or dancing instead of being stuck at a function like this.

A couple hours later, her parents returned to the table. Jiana asked, "How do we know this dude anyway?"

Her mother gave her a hard look again and said, "Jiana. Manners. Mr. San was a good business partner of your father's. He fell into hard times many years ago when his baby daughter disappeared at an event and he only just recovered. We are all happy for him."

"Ohhh," Jiana responded in a knowing voice. So to weep the demise of his missing daughter, he decided to marry a new woman. How typical of a man.

Lauren looked up when she heard Jiana's response and rolled her eyes.

Soon, Mr. San appeared and said a few words to the crowd, "Thank you all for coming to share this joyous moment with me. I am so glad to have your love, faith and support. Please, enjoy the meal."

The female amazonian attendants with masks came out and served the food. Oddly, after serving the food, each of them stood calmly in front of each table, unmoving. Jiana grumbled again, "Helicoptering much? I can't eat in peace if I have someone constantly staring me down."

The attendant heard this a slight smile appeared on her face, but she didn't move or respond. Nobody noticed that at the top of the balcony, there was another female in a slightly larger and more embezzled mask and a long white dress looking down and watching everything that transgressed.

Soon the meals were finished and the attendants finally left after removing the dishes.

Mr. San appeared again in the middle of the dance floor and had a dance with his new wife. Everyone watched on and clapped politely at the end, new people were joining the dance floor and began dancing as well.

At this point in time, Jiana was absolutely bored. She wasn't about to dance with a bunch of strangers, she began nagging her mom and dad about leaving. Lauren simply looked at her and rolled her eyes again, her fingers never stopped tapping on her phone screen.

Then, suddenly, the lights shut off and the music abruptly cut out. Everyone in the room began to rustle around restlessly. Jiana could faintly see the dim glow coming off the golden amazonian masks that seemed to surround the people. She immediately sensed that something was off.

Tapping her parents and sister, she dragged them towards the exit, whispering, "Come on, something is off."

Her mother said, "Oh come on Ji, there's nothing wrong, stop overreacting." Ji was Jiana's nickname.

Ignoring her parents' protest, she continued to push through the crowd and drag them towards the exit. She had an uneasy feeling and as an athlete, she was trained to trust her gut.

Soon, they finally made it out the building and past the gold rimmed doors. The feeling of unrest eased slightly. Heaving a sigh of relief, she continued to drag her family towards their car which was in the second parking lot around the corner from where they were standing.

Seeing that they had already left the wedding, her father heaved a sigh of annoyance before walking towards the car. Her mom shivered commented, "It's a chilly night. Let's get to the car as soon as possible, I need my coat."

With that, they walked at a fast pace towards their car.

When they reached the car, they quickly got in and Jiana's dad tried to start the engine only to realize that all the wheels were low on air.

Jiana got out and inspected the wheels, realizing all the tires had been punctured! How odd, they didn't offend anyone during their arrival, did they?