Dancing Disaster

• Josha Cats, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2019

I returned home to a dingy little apartment in downtown New York, I had just gotten back from a full day of hard studying for the next exam on the following day. I looked down at my well used g-shock watch and gasped as my only excitement for the day was in ten minutes, it was a party. My best friend Samantha had invited me in a pretty little pink envelope for her twenty first, I could not miss this.
After a hurried shower and careful picking of blue jeans and a button down dress shirt I rushed to the nearby night club. You had to be eighteen to enter, but it looked so run down I would have missed it if the bouncer wasn’t there, I checked my watch as a walk up to the stained glass doors, I was five minutes late. When I came close to the doors the bouncer stopped me and asked my name and for some identification, he looked at everything and looked me over then opened the doors and I get blinded by a laser, right before the music hits me light a bullet. A moment later I had regained myself and spotted the birthday girl, she was standing with all her girlfriends, but when she notices me she leaps up like a Giselle and gives me the biggest hug before dragging me over to listen the conversation about make up.
I sat and watched for the first hour of the party, snacking on the array of party food and drinking a shot or two. Only when I got up and started dancing did I notice the creaking of the floor it sounded like an old spooky house but I dismissed and continued to party on. The creaking got worse as the night went on and I told the bartender, an old lady who had probably run the place forever, but she dismissed it as I did. The music changed after a few minutes of thinking and Samantha had me in a slow dance before I could stop her, and there is no stopping her if she wants you to do something. Soon the cake was coming out and a group of people had moved all the tables in to put the cake on. I moved next to Samantha who just smiled cheerfully at me as the cake was revealed. It had white icing and since she was a history nerd it was a recreation of the colosseum. As the crowd moved closer with the cake the creaking sounded like the rumble of thunder, I had gone to get a drink and was returning when there was a massive CRACK as the floor splintered; I immediately dived forward to save Samantha, dropping my glass of wine and pushing her clear of the disaster zone as the floor gave out and I was fell into darkness landing with a thud. I awoke in a hospital room with Samantha asleep next to me.