Prankster

"Hey guys! It's Asa of Asamesauce and today I'm with my sister Lily with the Locked In challenge! If you don't know, the Locked In challenge is a challenge where you pick a person to be locked in a room with for 24 hours. Lily's this person over here."

"Hi," Lily said, waving and smiling. "I am one-hundred percent anticipating some sort of prank. I'll be trying to guess what it is based on the supplies in the room. If I guess it, Asa isn't allowed to prank me again during the twenty-four hour period and I get a hundred dollars."

"Who knows," Asa replied, beaming. "Maybe the prank will be that there's no prank at all, and you're just going to stress about it for twenty-four hours." Lily playfully shoved Asa, who stumbled but started to laugh with Lily.

Present-day Asa paused the video, sighing, pausing it on their happy, oblivious faces. That was over five years ago. If only Lily didn't get so easily offended. If only they were both less stubborn. Asa's phone rang and broke the silence of the room, startling her. As she scrambled for her phone, she noticed the contact: Mom. Asa wondered what this could be about. They normally only called twice a week.

"Hi, Mom," said Asa. "Is there an emergency? Is everyone okay?"

"Goodness gracious! I call you one extra time out of the blue and you assume it's an emergency? Is your poor mother calling not a welcome surprise?"

Asa rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Of course your calls are welcome, but what if I was wrapping up some work? Or I was in a meeting? There are reasons why we schedule our calls, Mom."

"So serious," her mother huffed. "You'd think Lily was the one running that strange prank channel, back in the day. What did you call it? Awesomesaw?" 

"Mom, I really don't want to talk about that now," Asa snapped. Or ever, she thought. "Look, I'm finishing up some rental business. I'm signing the lease, so…" She waited for her mother to make some final remarks. 

"We've tried everything to get you two girls in the same room, and now you're voluntarily moving closer. Do you remember Christmas last year?" Asa winced. Their parents had told the two girls that they were divorcing, so they flew over as fast as possible. As soon as they made eye contact, they each ran out of the room. "And Thanksgiving, and even New Year's three years ago." All similar stories. "Well, I just wanted to tell you that I'm glad you're moving to be closer to her at least, even if it's just for work."

"I mean, I kind of want to talk to her. Maybe apologize," Asa said uncertainly. "Kind of."

"Well, that's good at least. Bye, Asa."

"Bye, Mom." Asa ended the call. 

Asa switched to a different tab on her computer. The lease. Who knows, maybe being closer to her will be a good thing. Asa clicked on the textbox and e-signed the lease.

-

Asa surveyed her bedroom. It was nearly complete, only Asa hadn't actually set up the bed frame yet. She'd been sleeping on her old mattress for the past two days. The next thing on her to-do list was to set up the bed, but she was just so tired. She noticed her old camera lying in the corner behind the mattress. I was wondering where that was. Asa picked up the camera, turning it over in her hands. "I should watch the video one last time," she said to herself, the sound filling the empty room. "Just for closure, I guess."

She opened her camera. In it was the prank video, the start of the downfall of Asamesauce. Asa pressed play, and watched. 

-

Asa made sure Lily's ears were truly covered and she started talking to the camera. "Lily's afraid of spiders," she said to the audience, dangling a large fake spider in front of the camera. "I'm going to put this in her hand, and ask her to open her hand. And I'm going to put all these little spiders–" Asa opened her other hand to show a bunch of baby-sized spiders–"around her feet!"

Asa began to do just that, very quietly placing the small spiders all around Lily's feet. "What are you doing on the floor?" Lily asked, barely holding in her giggles. 

"This surprise requires a lot of set-up, you know." The two sisters had planned little surprises for each other. One of Asa's was guaranteed to be a prank, but Lily wasn't sure which one. For being stuck in a room with each other for twenty hours straight, they both looked pretty happy.

"I'm going to put a little something in your hand, all right?" Asa asked. "Keep your eyes closed." Lily hesitantly opened her hand, probably anticipating something disgusting. Asa placed the spider in her hand and told Lily to close her hand. Lily did, getting a feel for the 'spider'.

"I mean, at least it's not slimy," she said. "Or stinky. This is probably a surprise, not the prank. It's…kind of furry? Aw, Asa, did you get me a little stuffed animal?" No, I got you a fake tarantula! Asa thought, but only replied with, "Open your eyes and check!"

Lily excitedly opened her eyes and her hand, only to see the tarantula. She screamed. At this point Asa was bending over and laughing at Lily's sudden change in emotion. Lily's eyes tracked the tarantula across the floor to see the baby spiders. She started to shout and scream and bang at the door. 

Asa watched her, worried. She wasn't going to let them out, though, because it was the twenty-four hour challenge, not the twenty hour challenge. She'd spent a long time setting this up, so it was important–

Lily snatched the key out of Asa's pocket. "Hey! Give that back!" Asa shouted, lunging for Lily. Lily escaped and Asa could hear sobbing even from the challenge room. Asa glanced back at the camera, but ended up chasing Lily. 

Then, there was about 45 minutes of footage of a blank room where a muffled argument could be heard until Asa came with a new red mark on her face to turn it off. Her angry eyes were the last thing in the video. 

-

Asa sighed at the ending, knowing exactly what would come after. They both graduated from college, and then they wouldn't speak to each other for months on end. They moved houses just to get away from each other. Asa knew they were both being dramatic, but five years of silence wasn’t easy to break. 

Looking at the time, Asa noticed that it was almost time for the party. The neighbors were throwing her a welcoming party, so she probably would need to get ready for that. 

After Asa did her makeup and deliberated on bringing a gift (she ultimately decided not to) she checked the time, and somehow it was 6:45 already. She wanted to be slightly early, so she set off toward the host's house. 

At the welcome party, a few snacks were laid out on the table, but it was clear the people there expected everyone to have eaten already. That was unfortunate for Asa, who had been expecting it would be more like a dinner party and did not eat much beforehand as a result. She helped herself to a few snacks and hoped it would be enough. Everyone should be gone in 75 minutes, which should be fine. You can buy fast food or something.

People started talking to Asa, asking all the things you'd expect at a welcoming party: did she like the neighborhood, what Washington was like, how long was the plane flight... After everyone had come up to her and asked their questions, Asa found out that she was suddenly alone. Everyone clustered off into what seemed like familiar groups. Even though she was the one who the welcoming party was originally for, she felt like an outcast.

Of course, when she felt like an outcast, she found a few nice plants and sat among them. So she hung out next to the plants. She just sat there, scrolling on her phone, bored out of her mind and continuously checking the time, until she saw another person hunched over next to a rose bush, scrolling on their phone and checking the time. 

Asa had always found her friends in the fellow outcasts, and hoped that she and this person could be friends. "Hey! I'm Asa, the new neighbor–"

The person turned around and Asa had the shock of her life when she saw her sister Lily's face. The last time she'd seen Lily in person was Christmas last year, and that had been absolutely disastrous. Asa felt compelled to keep talking, for some reason. Five years of silence, accidentally broken, and Asa was determined to keep breaking it until they were friends again. She missed her sister. 

"I didn't know you lived so close," Asa said immediately before Lily could walk away. 

"I didn't know you moved here," Lily replied, and it was so strange to hear her voice. It hadn't changed much since college, but it felt more mature somehow. More…wise. It gave Asa hope that she'd gained emotional maturity since then as well, and they could be friends. 

Asa had never liked dancing around things. She was always straight to the point–that was why she was never really good at socializing. "I didn't mean it, you know. I didn't think–"

"No, you never really thought about your pranks," Lily said sharply. Asa wanted to argue, but as she considered it, she realized it was true. From revealing her friend's fears for more views to scaring Lily off with a hyper realistic tarantula, Asa had always been desperate for success. She thought it was just a YouTuber's life, but watching other prank channels, she realized that that just wasn't true.

"So I didn't," Asa admitted, "but you held a grudge for five years straight. I apologized and tried to contact you for a couple weeks after the fact, but you wouldn't budge." She saw Lily frown, like she was shuffling through her memories to try and recall that before her eyes lit up. 

"You wanted to make it as a YouTuber so bad. A couple weeks is nothing compared to what you put me through," Lily hissed. Asa, incensed, began to walk away before Lily called her back. "Asa! Wait!" Asa came to walk back to the rose bush, curious as to what Lily had to say after that. Lily seemed more angry about the event than Asa had ever been. 

"Look," Lily forced the words out, so Asa was beginning to think this was an apology. "I'm… sorry for what I did, okay? I gave you the cold shoulder for three weeks, but then you blocked me! It would have been only a month, not sixty of them, if you hadn't done that. It's not like I was going to try apologizing to you."

"That was preemptive action," Asa said defensively. "I thought that since you blocked me in real life, it was appropriate to block you online." As Lily opened her mouth to argue, Asa cut her off. "But that's a small detail in a long story. So."

Asa took a deep breath. She never thought this day would come, where she truly had hope. She held out her hand to Lily, hoping beyond belief that Lily would take it. "Am I forgiven?"

Lily contemplated this for a long time, so long that Asa's arm began to tire. She was about to assume the answer was no before Lily gently shook it. "I don't know. Maybe someday."

Lily started to walk away, leaving Asa feeling stunned. It was a good result, but she couldn't help but hope forgiveness would be granted easier. It's been five years, Asa thought. Five years. Then again, neither of them had any closure until about a minute ago. Just give her time. Time to let go, time to give up. Asa had hope now, but she didn't know if it would fizzle out before Lily came around. 

Asa's phone dinged. Your blocked contact Lily:-) unblocked you. Asa looked at her phone and smiled. She tapped at the screen, which then dinged with a new notification from Messages. 

You unblocked Lily:-).