A Night to Remember [open to everyone]

She was a history buff too? Man, what a catch. That boosted her up a few points in her book, even if she was a complete killjoy. Jane might've returned the favor and called her by her last name, but she couldn't even remember it, if she'd ever told her to begin with. "Grace has more guts than you," she said, giving the girl a small nudge with her elbow. "What would you wanna do then? Smoke behind the kissing booth?" She couldn't hide the disappointment in her voice. "Everything here has a line. It's a fair." Waiting ten minutes was better than not going at all. "I was planning on cutting anyways."

If Grace was in, then they could just leave Maisie to do whatever the hell she did, but that bitch was always scowling. It was depressing. She needed a bit of a spark in her life, even if it was pissing herself on a drop tower.

Cutting in front of kids? That was something she didn't expect from Jane. Maybe she was more ballsy than Maisie initially thought. The blonde looked around, holding off actually lighting the cigarette, blinking at the different attractions. They all looked really boring. Jane's suggestion was the centerpiece, high above everything else.

She sighed, withdrawing her cigarette. "Fine, we can go on your dumb tower." She glanced over at Grace, a little bitter that the girl pussied out and didn't really pick a side. How in-the-middle could you get? Why did Jane hang out with this girl?

Well, it seemed like things were decided: they were going on the Drop Tower. It's not like she could blame anyone else, though. After all, she had agreed - well, sort of agreed - to go on it. Still, she couldn't help but gulp nervously, taking another look at the ride before having to look anywhere but at it. Looking at the two girls she was going to be following, she couldn't help but feel horribly out of place. Jane was confident to the point of cocky, and Maisie was somewhat of a cynic, and Grace couldn't help but feel that Maisie didn't like her. This was going to be uncomfortable. At least until one of them decided to toss her off a ride or something.

Now, was that so hard? For a second she'd been afraid that she'd have to leave Maisie behind and head off until it really got too late. Nothing against Grace, but three was better than two, and even if Maisie was a spiteful bitch half the time, at least she talked. Jane looped her arms around their shoulders and started to forcefully walk them away. They were both shorter than her, Maisie by two or three inches, Grace by four or five. "You won't regret it once we get on. Well, I won't, at least." But that was all that mattered, really. "We're going to sneak somewhere up the middle of the line. Make sure to use your womanly charms, alright? We don't want anyone making a fuss." She glanced between the two of them, wondering if that was even possible. "Smile a bit. Talk. Look innocent." Those were the key rules of mischief.

It only took a minute, weaving their way between greasy food stands and rides, before they arrived. The tower was even more intimidating up close, the deafening whir of machinery only drowned out by the screams of the people on board, growing comically distant whenever they rocketed up the tower.

The line was as long as Maisie had bitched about, coiling around the tower in a spiral, but among this giant crowd of people moving around in all directions, no one saw them cut across toward the upper half of the line. This was as far as you could get without being suspicious, and away from the prying eyes of the people operating the whole thing. Metal railings penned in everybody in line, but Jane just crossed under, making her way toward the first person she saw, and only hoping that Maisie and Grace had chosen to follow.

"Hey," she said, pinching at his sleeve as she shimmied in front of him. Everyone in line was pressed ankle to ankle, and for a heartbeat, they were nose-to-nose, their breaths mingling. You could feel his nervousness from three yards away like a heavy pressure. Awkward, baby-faced, a little short for his age, oily black hair. The poor kid started to open his mouth to speak, pure terror lighting up in his eyes, but Jane spoke first, as fluid and natural as ever. "Thanks for saving our spot for us. It's been a really long wait, so that was really sweet of you."

"I, um..." He took the hint. His voice almost squeaked. "Y-yeah, no problem. Any time. Hah."

Just like that, an hour long wait had turned into five minutes. Would that be good enough for them? Jane glanced over to Grace and Maisie, then let her gaze wander up over the tower, just as the gondola came rushing back to earth with an ear-piercing wail.

Maisie commended her efficiency, internally of course. There was always that friend in the group, the one that could smooth-talk and get them into places with a clear voice and a pretty face. It seemed that the girl had found that person, and she visibly brightened with optimism, even offering Jane a light smirk. Maybe she'd be able to find friends at a boarding school after all. She was expecting a bunch of nerds and weirdos.

The girl casually ducked into the line, imitating the nonchalance of Jane, and hoped that Grace would follow along. Nothing set off alarms in these situations like hesitation, a lack of confidence that the people behind them could detect. Mob mentality was a bitch, and she was not about to go down because the shy girl couldn't duck properly.

Arm around her shoulder, Grace moved along with the two girls, biting back her intense nervousness. They were going to cut in line, and she knew that was wrong, but it was probably better to have a few strangers looking grumpily at her than two people she knew - or "knew" - being disappointed in her. So she would comply to the best of her abilities. "Womanly charms." What in the world did that mean? She wanted to ask, but there wasn't enough time, and she didn't want them to think she was stupid.

Jane did it so easily. She just slipped into the line and passed it off as nothing, and the guy "saving their spots" fell for it. It couldn't be that easy, could it? Then Maisie was following, and so she was compelled to go too. The line was packed, and immediately there were people around her, 'bumper to bumper' so to speak. Grace let out a shaky breath and tried to act as nonchalant as the other two. Her smile was the most wavering smile in existence, but she just inadvertently found herself closer to Maisie, looking up at the ride instead of the ridegoers. Not her best idea.

That wasn't so hard, was it?

She didn't like to think of it as manipulation. That was such a vicious word. It was just a few sweet words and an implication. If he'd had a problem with it, then he could've said anything, but he'd chosen to be a sweetheart instead and let them slip ahead. Was that so bad? Nobody decided to make a fuss, and after a few minutes of waiting, they were closing in on the front of the line. The drop tower rose ahead of them like a monolith.

Then they were there.

Jane glanced between the two of them, a thousand watt smile plastered on her face. "Show a bit of excitement," she said as the operator waved them through. She half-led, half-dragged the two of them toward the first three empty seats she saw, climbed in, and pulled the restraints in over her head. It came down with a hiss before clicking into place.

Now they were trapped. "No closing your eyes."

Once every seat was filled out around the entire tower, there was a low whir of pistons, and the machine rumbled back to life. The gondola began to rise, lifting them off the ground and rotating around the steel tower. Three feet, five feet, ten feet. Ten seconds passed, heart beating like a drum, and then it was twenty feet, thirty feet. They could see the entire park sprawled out beneath them, the lights and strings of stalls and games, the outer edges of town, and Beata Academy looming over it all, like a haunted mansion isolated from the rest of the world. The people below were just insects weaving through a manmade maze.

A hundred feet off the ground, the tower ground to a slow halt. The change in temperature sent a shiver down her spine. She couldn't help but glance down. Jane felt her heart drop into the pit of her stomach, and then—CLICK.

It released with a roar. She threw up her arms and screamed as they fell, blasted by the wind, crashing back down to earth in an unmitigated free-fall. The concrete below seemed to rise to meet them with a speed and intensity that made her eyes water, and she could feel herself get lifted out of her seat, only held down by the plastic restraints over her shoulders and across her chest.

The wind roared in her ears, deafening, but just before they hit the ground, there was the squeal of the brakes. Jane sucked in a lungful of air as they slowed, touching back to the ground again in a complete halt.

And just when time seemed to resume again, they rocketed back upwards with the same speed they fell with. It was like getting shot out of a cannon, propulsed straight back into the air like they were attached to a bullet, rebounded out like a slingshot. She was flattened back into her seat by the sheer force, and once they made it back to the top, there weren't any brakes. They were sent falling straight back down again with a hundred screams, the world spinning around them.

The last amusement park ride Maisie went on was one with her mother and father, a few months before Serenity came into conception. It was a rollercoaster, one of the big ones on the outskirts of the Texas urban sprawl. She remembered hating it, but loving it at the same time. It was a weird feeling, the adrenaline-filled panic you'd get on these sorts of things. The human spirit was weird.

Maisie shut her eyes against the wind, despite what Jane said. Her feet suspended ominously over only what she could guess was an atmosphere of nothingness. She had to open her eyes as they reached the top, a terrified check of her surroundings. She couldn't be blind when it dropped. She would be so much more vulnerable to its pull, and she would probably die.

But of course, she could close them once it began. That's what she did, squeezing her eyelids shut against the funnel of wind that surged over her chin, freezing her face pale as she plummeted like a rocket downward, preparing for a crash landing that ended with a padded halt. But she was not saved, and though dazed, she endured another catapult, an upwards rush, opening her eyes against the dry torrent of wind and screams, but she stayed silent, gritting her teeth in a scowl against the flurries of excitement in her stomach, excitement and fear. Her body made it seem like she was going to die. She had some experience to base it on.

Back down again. She bit her lip, and the plummet-force drew scarlet.

'Show a bit of excitement.' This was the first thing that Jane would say that Grace could not follow. Her face was already one of great trepidation even as they waited in line, and that turned into noticeable terror as they actually made it through the line and to the ride. If Jane hadn't been dragging them there, she may well have just stood there until security ushered her out, frozen in abject fear. However, Jane was there, and now all three of them sat on the ride, the bar coming down and trapping them in their seats. A prison of their own doing.

By this point, any weak attempt at seeming like a normal, sociable person had been forcefully abandoned as she shook like a leaf in her seat. As soon as the ride came to life and they began moving upwards, her hands clenched the bar before them like her life depended on it. Hey, maybe it did. Slowly but surely they made their way to the top, every second ticking by another second closer to the end. It was horrifying.

Getting nearer to the top, Grace wondered if this was what being in an airplane felt like. They could see so many things from up high, and it was kind of entrancing in its own way. She had never been on a plane before, but it always seemed like an interesting proposition. Now, maybe not so much. They stopped at the top, and against her will she looked down at her feet dangling over nothing, the ground so very, very far away. She thought that she might be sick. As seconds crawled by, she began to wonder if the ride had broken down, and if that was any better than participating at all. Then they dropped.

'No closing your eyes.' This was the second command of Jane's that Grace could not follow. Immediately her eyes squeezed shut as they fell, and her screams hit the air hard, mingling with the screams of other passengers on this ride to hell. It wasn't until they hit the bottom that her screams finally ceased, her eyes slowly cracking open to see that they'd made it. She would've breathed a sigh of relief, but then she was distracted by the ride suddenly slingshotting them back into the air.

Shock hit her like lightning, enough to where her eyes didn't close and no screams left her lips. That didn't keep her from being scared out of her wits, however. Her wrists had begun to hurt from how hard she was holding onto the bar, and when they shot back down for their true final descent, she found the ability to scream again.