Prologue [Ext. Boardwalk. Shining neon lights, big towers, ocean at hide tide, sun settled.]

Unknown (voice): (sorrowful) Your life can change its course in the matter of a second, and it can go a good or bad way. One second you can be with someone you love, and then the next second you are staring death in the face. Many events or one little one can cause that to happen, can it be preventable? Some can, some can’t. Death occurs every day, some unexpected, others were in a foreseeable future. What happened for this one? A kid with a promising future dying in the arms of the girl he loves. Was this one that could have been prevented? Or was the kid doomed from the start? When two hearts collide anything can happen. Let’s look back how we got to here and see what went wrong if anything did.

Highway to Masquerade

Scene 1

[Int. Almost empty school hallway. Sounds of lockers opening and closing, students chatting, students walking to rooms, and teachers telling students to move along.]

Mr. Helms: (monotonic) Move along folks. Same goes to you Mr. Novak.

Peter: (rolling his eyes) Yes Mr. Helms.

Peter walks to his homeroom but Kristine sees him.

Kristine: (smiling) Hi Peter.

Peter: (shyly and blushing) Hey Kristine. How was your weekend?

Kristine: It was busy. I had to work double shifts all the weekend. (Raising her voice) People are so annoying!

Peter: (curiously wondering) Where exactly do you work anyway?

Kristine: The mall. One of the little store kiosks in the middle.

Peter: (a look of shock) Really? (normal) I hate those. They are always coming up to you to try samples and scam you into buying their crap.

Kristine: (laughs) Not me. (Normal) I work at the one that sells bags. It’s a special this week. BOGO. I hate it when we do that deal.

Peter: (confused) Bogo?

Kristine: Sorry. It means buy one get one. It gets busy when we do that.

Mr. Helms: (Shouting monotonically) MR. NOVAK! MISS DELILAH! DIDN’T I TELL YOU TWO GET TO CLASS!

Peter looks at his watch.

Peter: (Upset) We still have three minutes Mr. Helms. My homeroom is right here.

Mr. Helms: What about you Kristine? Where is yours?

Kristine: A few down the hall. Hey Peter, I’ll talk to you more later. I don’t want to get yelled at again. I have a splitting headache.

Peter: (hint of sadness) Okay. See you later Kristine.

Kristine walks off to her homeroom.

Peter: (Angry) Mr. Helms, did you really have to do that?

Mr. Helms: Well I don’t want you to get in trouble for being late. So I tried to save you on that. You know the teachers have been more strict about the times getting to homeroom.

Peter: I guess so. Oh well thank you for that. See you around soon.

Peter walks into his homeroom.

Scene 2 [Int. School auditorium. Senior meeting.]

Mr. Stars: (announcing) We will be passing out the paperwork for the yearbooks now! Your teachers will be passing out information for graduation and Project Graduation too! Please remain in your areas!

Stanley moves over to Peter’s homeroom section.

Peter: (curiously wondering) Stanley, what do you think of it?

Stanley: (Look of careless) Eh. It seems okay but not really catching my attention. What about you?

Peter: (hint of happiness) I like the idea. I am definitely thinking about doing it. Hey I think your homeroom teacher is calling you bro. He looks pissed.

Stanley heads back to his homeroom section.

Peter looks around to see Kristine sitting by herself. Kristine sees Peter as he motions to her.

Peter: (raises his voice) Kristine. Got a minute?

Kristine moves next to Peter.

Kristine: Hey! Better make it quick, the homeroom teachers are getting angry a lot of us are moving around.

Peter: (laughs) I will try. (Serious tone) What are you doing for the Senior Masquerade?

Kristine: Ummmm. I am not sure. I am thinking about going to it.

Peter: Me too.

Kristine: (look of shock) Really. Who are you going with?

Peter: Well, right now no one. But there is someone I want to go with.

Kristine: Who is it? I hope the girl says yes.

Peter: (Laughs) Funny thing about that. (Normal tone) I actually wanted to ask you to go with me to it.

Kristine looks at Peter in shock.

Kristine: (shocked) Me? Wow. Um I’m actually surprised by this one.

Peter: Remember the junior prom? That night to me was really fun because you helped make it fun. I want that to happen again because I don’t normally get that kind of fun over things. So what do you think?

Kristine: (Look of loss of words) I’m really flattered by that Peter. You know what, I will go with you. I think it can be really fun.

Peter: (huge smile) Awesome. This is going to be fun I promise you that.

Kristine’s homeroom teacher starts yelling for her to get back to her assigned area.

Kristine: Looks like Mr. Davidson is telling me to go back.

I’ll talk to you more later Peter.

Kristine goes back to her area.