The sleep over

I was always known as the weird girl; the one with no friends, strict parents, and strange habits. I was an outcast in part because I ate hot sauce sandwiches and sleepwalked. School days were long and torturous. There was nothing good about middle school. The worst part was definitely the ridicule from the 'popular' crowd. They roamed the school in a pack, infecting others with their hatred and prejudice. I tried to avoid them, but they always tracked me down. They could have been bloodhounds. As fate would have it, one school day I met a new girl, Ella. The best part about her was that she had no clique, yet. All the groups were vying for her attention. She was everything the popular crowd wanted: outgoing and fashionable. Ella was relatively good at sports, which left the jocks clamoring for her attention. She was also apparently rather intelligent, so the nerds stared longingly at her, hoping that the force would bring her to their side. However, one day at lunch, she sat down with me. At first I thought she was going to try and take my sandwich, so I smiled to myself, imagining what a surprise she'd get if she ate it. When she actually introduced herself to me, I was even overjoyed. I had made contact with a human and I still had my wonderfully delicious hot sauce sandwich. Over the next few weeks, we would become friends. Finally one day she said, 'Want to come over to my house for a sleepover, Chloe?' I didn't know how to reply, I had never been asked to a sleepover before. That was something for people with friends. 'Let me ask my mom.' I replied, the typical answer of a twelve year old. It took some begging and persuading for my mom to allow me to go. She kept saying that I would scare my first friend away if she found me sleepwalking in her house. I wasn't too worried about it, though. Finally, I was at my first sleepover. Ella and I watched movies, giggled and built a fort. It all seemed like something out of a movie. Around two in the morning, we had the bright idea to film a vlog entry. Sitting on our makeshift beds, we chattered away at the camera until we slowly dozed off into a land of sleep. When we arose the next morning, we realized we had left the camera on all night, filling up its memory. 'Let's watch our vlog entry now!' exclaimed Ella, still a bit groggy. I yawned, about to agree with her and stretched. I felt really sore, like I had been working out. Suddenly I realized that I must have sleepwalked during the night-that was the cause of my soreness. 'No, actually, let's not watch it now. Let's wait until high school graduation to watch it. It will remind us of what we were like when we were this age.' Ella reluctantly agreed. It was four years later and so much had changed. I was no longer the outcast, Ella and I had acquired a large group of friends that seemed to be ever expanding. Sleepovers were now a regular occurrence, though we had never made another video blog since the very first one. Ella called me the day before high school graduation, 'Chloe, let's have a sleepover and watch our vlog. I've been dying to see what ridiculous things we said when we were younger.' I agreed, she wouldn't abandon our friendship now if she saw me sleepwalking. We sat on the couch, buried under blankets, eating popcorn and started the video. Ella and I laughed at how immature and na�ve we had been. It brought back good memories. Ella was about to turn the video off after watching us both drift off into sleep. 'Wait! Don't turn it off yet, you're moving.' I blurted out. We watched to see what she would do. Panic gripped me. Something horrible was about to happen, I just knew it. On screen, Ella sat up and stared into the camera. Her eyes were completely white. At that point, I sat up, too. 'Ella are you okay?' I asked her in a sleepy voice. Ella continued to stare unblinkingly into the camera, then she blinked. Her eyes turned completely black, she turned her head and stared at me, her eyes eating my soul. Then I heard a noise, like a slow tearing of fabric. Ella fell backwards onto her bed in a pool of warm