Jackson was an average boy, attending Sultana high school in Hesperia, California. He had sandy blonde hair that was shaggy and almost covered his ocean blue eyes that made you instantly hypnotized, it drug the girls in and made them fall in love.

He was a senior, getting ready to graduate in three months, but only if he pulled his act together. You see Jackson was the popular type of guy, invited to everything and the all-star on his schools baseball team. The typical jock. Senior all night party was coming up and it was the talk of the school. Word was everybody was heading to Lake Silverwood; some where up by the San Bernadino Mountains that coming weekend.
As the day grew closer to the trip the more pumped Jackson and his friends became. Everybody was going that they knew, it was the normal soon-to-be college kids party a lake, plenty of booze, and babes; what more could they ask for?



The day came finally and all of the seniors were supposed to be ready to go right after school, Jackson was more than ready. The school day came to an end and Jackson walked with a too excited strut as if he couldn’t walk fast enough, his hair feathered and his smile bright as the light you imagine seeing as you pass away.
“Are you ready for the craziest night of your high school years?” he shouted to his big group of tan Californian boys he called friends as he nudged one of them with his elbow
“Hell yeah! Woo hoo!!” one of the boys replied



They all loaded up and put their bags into Jackson’s cherry red jeep wrangler and the others crammed into Mark’s (Jacksons’ best friend and some what of a back bone) black SUV that looked as if it hadn’t been washed in at least a good four months. All the seniors met in the back parking lot and were planning on following Mark there because the all night party happened to be in an area where he grew up going camping with his family. It wasn’t too far of a drive, probably about a forty five minute drive. There was in the least fifteen cars all following each other that were all high school students, which meant danger.


Finally everybody was there; it was sunny, ice-blue water, and everything they imagined. Jackson was the first one to grab some alcohol, flung his head back and mouth open and then his buddies followed his act. They were jet-skiing for hours while others were swimming, tanning, and fishing. Hours passed by and it started to grow darkness. Jackson and his friends were having a blast drinking and doing dumb ass things, not clearly thinking of their decisions. There were around 100 people by the middle of the night, so you can imagine the boys were trying to show off for all the ladies that night.
“Heyy! You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen” Mark attempted to say clearly, but only slurred his words to this girl with wavy brown hair. As she gave him a death glare, she rudely said
“As if, you dumb drunk!”
“Watch this” Jackson said as he stumbled his way over to this quiet girl observing her peers.
“Hey, uh I noticed you were sitting….alone. Uh and your hot! Want to be my sleeping partner? If you know what I mean”
He gave her a wink and she gave him a face full of fruit punch.


After that incident Mark and Jackson got a bit competitive with each other. It started with who could get with the most girls, then, who could jump the highest over the fire, then who could drink the most beers; no one knew where it would stop. They were in the spot light of attention that night. They decided to see who could touch the bottom of a little pond they found near the campsite. Mark made Jackson go first, so he did. He dove into the pond not knowing how deep it truly was. Mark, being as drunk as he was slipped on the edge falling into the water causing a big splash, his ankle getting caught on a root that sat right above where the water was. He struggled violently, but he was too drunk to even know what was going on. He gave up and he became unconscious. Jackson just as drunk some how made it back to the top of the water gasping for air, he looked around seeing nothing except the moonlight reflecting off the water and a glimpse of the bonfire through the trees. He saw no sign of Mark so he just stumbled back to the campsite soaking wet just figuring Mark went back as soon as he dove into the water.

Jackson walked back alone forgetting about Mark as soon as he saw all the girls sitting around the campfire. The party went on and there were senior group pictures with only one person missing, Mark. After about another hour or two all the alcohol was gone so it was getting about that time to pass out, so one after another people hurried to their tents as the sun was coming up. Morning came and people were waking up and making breakfast on the hot charcoals from the night before, and that’s when Jackson remembered about Mark. He at first checked Mark’s tent, then his car, and then he started asking around. When nobody said they had seen Mark since last night he started to get really worried. Jackson got one of his friends named Craig to help search for Mark. They searched and searched and searched until they were about to give up, that’s when it clicked in Jacksons head; the pond. That’s where Jackson last saw Mark, they walked to the pond, but they saw nothing at all. Craig and Jackson were both turning around to keep trying to search, when Craig kicked something with his foot; it was Marks phone. Jackson got this nauseous feeling in his gut, they took the phone as a clue so they looked around in that area. He glanced in the pond and saw as much as a school of fish surrounding and feeding off a big shadowed figure. It was him; it was Mark. Dead.



They couldn’t even say a word, they lost their breath, and they didn’t know what to think. Both Craig and Jackson were freaking out inside; they panicked. There thoughts were to tell people how it happened? Or just say they didn’t know? It was a big factor in the accident. They ran back to the site and told the truth when the police and ambulances showed up to take away the rotting corpse. A few days later was Marks funeral, all of his family and friends attended, including Jackson.


Within those few days that were in between the incident and his funeral, Jackson started to feel weird and abnormal. His skin started to get so dry it flaked and felt rough, it wasn’t soft like a babies butt anymore. His eyes were no more ocean-blue, but they were now crow black, and his smile was hidden and looked as If he were lifeless. Everybody thought it was just what happened to Mark that made Jackson that way, but it was more than that; his body didn’t feel right. After a while he started to run faster than ever and just plowed anybody over that got in his way. Some said steroids and some said he was just a freak, but he was actually scared of himself because he didn’t know his own strength. His skin started to lose its color and that’s when he realized he needs to go to the doctor.



“We’ve never seen anything like this, you say you feel like you have more strength than ever?” Doctor Wong said promptly
“Yes…I don’t know what it is either, I was hoping you, being a doctor could help me” Jackson said
“Well, we can take some DNA samples and run some tests, but it will take a few days maybe even a week to get the results back”
“That’s fine, just help me” Jacked said with his head lowered.


Jackson and his family received a letter in the mail four days later it said:

To the family of Jackson Fisher, we are pleased to inform you that Jackson doesn’t have anything abnormal in his body or outside of it. There is some bad news though; Jackson has been diagnosed clinically depressed. The flaking and roughing of skin and the eye discoloration are side effects of his depression. We did tests and it shows that Jackson is so depressed, that he needs professional help that at our hospital we cannot do anything for him. We recommend Christy Care Mental Institution for kids ages from 15-19. Thank you for your time we would appreciate if you rapidly would get back to us.

Jackson took the blame for what happened to Mark, he thought as it of his entire fault which made him so depressed he needed help. He wasn’t running any faster or any stronger, play-by-play what happened that night re-ran in his head all the time so he never had time to think about anything else. That night was imprinted in his head forever. When his parents read the letter the hospital sent they didn’t take it seriously, in fact they were kind of offended by it. Jackson went on being depressed not really doing anything about it, he got some pills from friends to help him be in a better mood and kind of forget about everything, but it never helped. Jackson’s parents came home from work one night to see they’re son lying on the floor almost unconscious from being so doped up on the pills that they didn’t even know who he was anymore. It hit Jackson’s mother harder than the father, it hit her hard like concrete. That day she decided she couldn’t take it anymore, she couldn’t take seeing her son like that, so she called the hospital right away and admitted him into the mental institution. Two days later they had to say good-bye to their son without knowing how long it would be until he was back to normal, it was very difficult for the family to have to do this; it was for the best and they knew it too. Jackson spent seven years trying to re-cooperate and go on with his live from the tragic night, Marks death still haunted him and forever it will.