The night it all changed was a beautiful one. The stars painted a stunning picture and the moon hung in the sky, full and large. The ocean glistened in the starlight as four teenage girls from the seaside town of Clacton, England, gathered on the otherwise deserted shore watching the waves crash to the sand.

They were huddled under one small blanket, barely covering them all completely as they sat shoulder to shoulder, arms wrapped around each other for extra warmth from the cold sea air. They sat in silence, staring out into the ocean waiting for the minutes to go by. They didn't need to speak, they just needed each other. The presence of the other girls was all each girl needed.

The girl on the far right of the group, a caramel coloured girl with short, ebony hair, sighed deeply, "It's never going to be the same, is it? This is it now," she pulled herself closer to the teary eyed, mousey brown haired girl next to her.

"I guess it is," said a brown haired girl with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, she broke her gaze away from the ocean to stare at the caramel coloured girl, who met her gaze with a look so full of melancholy it broke the brown haired girl's heart. "I mean, we'll never see each other after this right?" She snaked her arm around the fourth and final girl, a girl with extremely dark brown her and deep brown eyes that still gazed off into the ocean.

The mousey haired girl let out a sob, the tears in her eyes finally spilling over, "I'm going to miss you guys so much. I mean, you guys are the only ones who know me. This is gonna suck."

The caramel coloured girl pulled the girl closer still, "Course it's gonna suck, Reese, but we gotta stay strong. It isn't the end. Not yet." She couldn't bring herself to take the doubt out of her voice as she said it. If she were honest, this probably would have been the last time they spent together. The four eighteen year olds were all going their separate ways. Come tomorrow, they wouldn't see each other for at least a year.

Reese grimaced, moving away from the other girl's touch to place her head on her knees with a glum expression gracing her usually rather pretty face. "I know, Mia, it's just…even if we do, see each other again I mean, it won't be the same, will it?"

Mia sighed, placing a kiss on the other girl's temple, "probably not, but we've been inseparable since we were six. We won't ever give up on that."

"Yeah!" The brown haired girl agreed enthusiastically, "we shouldn't give up on that. Ever. We have to remember that. Even if we go to the four corners of the planet, we still have to love each other."

"As much as I hate to agree with my little sister…" The other girl spoke for the first time, "Sienna's right, we can't give up on love, and that's what we have right. We've always been there. Through all the hardships, we never left each other's sides because that's where we belong. Right here. Where we are now."

"How poetic, Alice" Mia deadpanned

Reese moved her head to rest on Mia's shoulder, "It's still going to change."

"Everything changes, Reese," Sienna said softly, "But I tell you, a year from today we will be standing on this exact spot, still best friends. We may not be the same, but we'll still be friends. Mia'll be one year into qualifying to be a pea – pay – paed - paediatrician." She struggled to get the word out, but still grinned when Mia smiled at her in praise. "You'll have gone through your first year at the most prestigious performing arts university in England which is, like, this really huge deal, and you'll get all the respect you deserve there for your never-ending bundle of talents." Reese giggled at the other girl, who had always been the most optimistic of the girls. "I'll practically be qualified to care for any pet they throw at me and Alice, well she'll be ready to take over Daddy's super important company once he's, uh, you know, and will already be his number two."

Alice grumbled, "Jeez, don't remind me," she moaned.

Sienna pulled her sister into a hug, "you'll be fine," Sienna comforted, "Daddy isn't that bad…when he's not grumpy. And you can still sing…in the shower and stuff."

Alice laughed softly pulling a strand of Sienna's bushy hair behind her ear, "I don't think that helps, sweet sister of mine."

The four girls fell into a comfortable silence once more. None of them wanted to leave because leaving meant growing up, and none of them really felt ready for a world of responsibility, hurt, and hardship. They just wanted to stay young and carefree forever, forget about growing up, forget about life, and just be kids.

Of course that wasn't going to happen; in fact they hadn't been kids for a long time.

The silence dripped on, ticking off every minute the girl's still had together. They cuddled together, watching, waiting, hoping, for anything - they needed something - to show them that all was not lost, that they would never loose each other.

"You know," Alice said suddenly, at around one minute to midnight, "That star up there," she pointed to a large, bright star in the sky; it was easily the biggest one there, taking its place right next to the full moon. "It's supposedly a 'Wish Star'. If you make a heartfelt wish upon a Wish Star, it will come true."

Reese scoffed almost compensating for her earlier emotional behaviour, "Do you seriously believe that?" She asked with a sneer, "That would never work in a million years."

Alice fell back into herself almost immediately, "It's just – it's better than nothing, right?" She spoke dejectedly, fiddling with the hem of her flowery dress.

Mia smiled at the quiet girl, "Course, Alice. It's great to believe in something. You have to, don't you? You can't believe in nothing. There is something here. We're here. We must have some purpose, right? That's one thing to believe in, and it's good to believe in more than that too." Reese rolled her hazel eyes in disbelief. She was easily the prettiest of the four, but when she did that, well, she didn't exactly look appealing.

"I believe in it too, Alice," Sienna said nodding her head wildly in agreement, "I think that star's magic. Everything's magical really, I think. There's an aspect of magic to everyone, they just have to find it."

"Oh my God, this is so damn cheesy!" Mia giggled. "Look, if this star of yours is magical, then just make a wish! If it works, it works." The three girls turned to Alice, waiting.

Alice gave the girl, who was quite easily the leader of the group, a small smile, "I wish that we lived." The other three girls gave her questionable looks, Mia even raising a delicately plucked eyebrow. "Like, we didn't just sit around this god awful town and wait. I wish our life was some big adventure, an adventure of, like, epic proportions and just that, well, that we weren't just some insignificant girls. I wish we were significant, an important part of something special. I wish we lived."

"How poetic," Mia said for the second time that night, and as the girl's began to laugh, the most extraordinary of things happened.

It started as a quiver, just a quiver in the sand. In fact, it may have seemed completely insignificant, had you overlooked the fact that sand doesn't quiver. The quiver in the sand became bigger and bigger until Sienna's eyes widened.

"Hey, look! Look! The sand! Look what the sand's doing!" The girl's watched in bewilderment as the sand began to rise and fall, as if it were breathing. As if it was alive. The girl's stood, fascinated.

With a large swooping motion, the sand rose up into the air. Standing at least ten feet tall, it towered above the girls, swirling and twirling as it flew around them in a miniature tornado. The ground beneath them shook violently, tremors moving up and down the beach sending shocks up the spines of each girl.

Mia let out a shriek as the ground beneath her started to glow a bright white colour and heat up a significant amount. The spinning tornado travelled closer and closer to the girls, who huddled in together once more, gripping each other's hands as tight as possible. The heat beneath their feet became unbearable and the whole ground burst into the white light.

The sky around the girls turned pitch black, there were stars in the sky no more and the buildings and landmarks around them vanished into nothingness.

"What the fuck is going on!" Reese screamed, wincing away from the others with fright.

"I CAN'T SEE!"

"Why is this happening?"

"Fuck that, what is happening, Jesus Christ."

"SIENNA!"

"ALICE!"

The white ground beneath them crumbled and fell, but the girls didn't fall.

The last thing that Alice, Mia, Sienna and Reese saw before they blacked out was the bright light of the WishStar shining above their heads.