I have been such a huge fan of The Haunted and The Haunting Trilogy since the first movie, (made by RejectedShotgun on youtube.) Since I love it so much, I wanted to make a fanfiction about it. This is a fanfiction about the Haunted that is in Grayson's perspective about his life in the four years after the Haunting. This is the first fanfiction I've written, and it's going to have many chapters. I hope I can write these for a long time. These take a while to write, so please be patient when waiting for future chapters. Let me know your thoughts on this and if you have any feedback. I hope you guys enjoy this fanfiction :)

Chapter 1

This is Where We Part

Now that I have had time to really reflect about it after many years, I could say that my sad tale all started when I took the dragon egg from the end of The Ten Trials, but that would not only be stretching the truth, but that I would be telling a flat out lie. I guess you could say that it started when I arrived at the arctic base with my only memory of falling into pitch blackness, but that is a story for another time. My story starts from that moment that I walked in with some firewood for the camp we made by Iron Myer, the moment Drake had requested that we part ways.

It was a hard night for my friend Drake, but I think that it was an even harder night on me. If you think that it would have been hard for someone to deal with the loss of his best friend, it's even harder to watch them grieve, knowing that there is not a damn thing in the world that you can do for him. It hurts even more when you yourself are grieving, yet you can't, because you have to be there for your friend who's grieving just as much as you; and if you aren't, then who in the world would? That was who I was that night: the one who was there for the other because he felt he had no other choice.

I was coming back to the makeshift camp for the umpteenth time with a very light armload of small sticks and bits of wood for our pitiful looking campfire. The oxygen deprived flames were struggling for life, reaching up towards the sky, pleading for more air to further ignite its flames. I kept a long stick by the fire so that I could shift the wood once in a while to provide it more oxygen, and continually made the ten minute walk to the nearby woods and come back with another armload of wood to keep the fire going. I left Drake there, he did not pay much attention to me, at the time, I thought he was too absorbed in watching the flames, but he wasn't watching the flames; he was looking into them.

He just kept on staring with a blank face into the flames. Beyond those flames were his memories. Beyond those flames were the faces of the people cared for most, the places he called home, and beyond those flames was life and death, good and evil. Beyond those flames were the soulless eyes of the man they call Him. The man who took my friend. The man who took Armen away from us. The man we thought was dead at last.

As the night went on, something strange began to happen. Something that wasn't natural,. The fire began to dim out when Drake had finally seemed to be dozing off, and I hadn't touched it in a while. I was halfway to turning around to pick up the water bucket to put it out completely. Drake stared at the ashes, then, as if by will, the ashes spontaneously went up in roaring flames. I jumped in surprise, as I had nearly gotten swallowed up by the flames. A few minutes late, when I asked if Drake wanted the fire to be put out, he said to keep it that way. And that, I now believe, was when he began to be able to use his powers at will, I certainly do not think that it was consciously though. Not yet, but soon, he would be able to fully harness the power of an extraordinarily rare gift inside of him, waiting to fully blossom into life.

It had been very clear to me that Drake wanted to be left alone to stare into the flames. And though I knew he did not want to be bothered, I kept pestering him out of simple concern. Our conversations were short lived, and usually ended a few sentences in. I tried to talk to him once in a while through the night when I thought he needed it, but to little success. Yes, he was fine. No, he wasn't hungry. Sure, I could go get some more wood. No, he didn't need anything right now. As he said before, he was fine, and yes, he was sure. No, I could have the bread, he wasn't hungry. No, he wasn't tired. Yes, he remembered that one time when we found that strange technology under the base. Yeah, he thought it was weird too, but it doesn't matter now. How many times did he have to say that he was fine?

No approach that I tried succeeded. Drake only told me to leave him alone, and so I did. And quite frankly, I needed some time to just think about things too.

I came back with a small armload of sticks and bits of wood for the pitiful looking fire. Its flames were choking from lack of oxygen, and reached towards the night sky, gasping for life. I carelessly threw the wood in, and sat down next to Drake, who let out a sad sigh of sorrow and loneliness. He did not push me away from him this time, I assumed that he had grown too tired to try and avoid my presence. With him, I stared into the scorching flames, and tried to see why Drake was so intent on focusing on them. It was beyond my understanding to know of what Drake saw within the flames that was so important to him. One does not understand the true importance of fire until one wishes for their sorrows to be consumed by its flames.

Not interested in looking at the fire, I watched my friend, Drake, as he stared into the flickering flames with tears streaking down his face. He was constantly wiping them away from the enderman half of his face with a strange look on his face. It was as if he had been burned by his own tears. I would hear him muttering under his breath, "I hate water." In my time of knowing him, I am sure that I had never heard him complain about water before that night.

I finally decide to break the silence between the two of us that had lasted nearly the entire night, "Hey,"

"Hey Grayson," he sighed, still staring longingly into the fire.

"How you holding up?"

"Not so well," he said. I finally had a little bit of truth to work off of.

"Yeah-" I said, "I miss him too."

Armen. He was my friend. He was Drake's friend- no- his best friend. And he left us, not on purpose though. He died sacrificing his life for us. Images of a young, icy blue eyed man who wore his burnt brown, wavy hair swept outwards race through my head. The Chosen One ripping his helmet off his head and throwing it towards me. It lands in my hands, and I stare at it, baffled. He yells, "Screw it! I've had enough of this!" Stunned, I watch helplessly and he runs towards the ledge of the platform and leaps forth and kills the white eyed man suspended in air with the fiery sword, tackling him into the lava. Drake runs toward the ledge with tears in his eyes, reaching out his hand to save Armen, but he's too late. Armen fell with the man who had haunted us for so long, and killed Him. But Armen died as well. It's a bitter-sweet memory of winning and losing the same battle, a mostly bitter memory.

"Hey uh-" Drake said, breaking my train of thought, "can I see Armen's helmet?"

"Oh, sure. Uh- let's see-" I said, dropping my backpack onto the ground. I opened it, and pulled the white-ish-purple helmet out of it. "Here it is," I said, handing it to him. I began to take off my own armor from The Hall of Heroes, and stuff it in my backpack. "I don't need this anymore- Are you sure you want it?"

"Yeah," he said, clutching it in his hands. "Uh, do you mind if I keep it?"

"Um-" I close my back and heave it over my shoulder, "yeah-sure-you can keep it." I had no use for the helmet anyway, I was glad to give it Drake. He probably needed it more than I did.

"Alright, thanks. Um- listen," he began, looking up at me, "I'm gonna head out soon," he said as he loosely pointed in a random direction.

I tilt my head in confusion, then it hit me that Drake wanted to leave by himself. But this was Drake decision, not mine. He must have seen the slightly hurt look in my eyes, "I don't- I'm sorry," he apologized. "I-I just don't want any reminders of any of this," he explained.

I understood why he wanted to leave, but I was still hurt. "That's fine," I lied. I was anywhere from fine. I've gone through this before for- I don't even remember how many times. But it was somehow- different this time. Collin had gone missing, then Luke, then Jacob died on the oil rig field, then Emmett went missing too, and now Armen had died right before my eyes. Anyway, I had felt sad all those times. But this was different, it was very different. It's different if someone chose to leave, and you know the others never meant to.

"Well- wouldn't the helmet count as a reminder?" I asked suddenly.

Drake looked down at it longingly, wishing that his friend were still alive. "Well-it just more to remind of Armen than-Him," he said.

"Yeah," I sighed.

"Look, I just-if you don't mind, I'd like to go now and get a-a head start."

I wondered what his rush was, it wasn't like he had anywhere to go, but I didn't hang onto the thought very long. "That's fine," I lied again. I actually wasn't lying, not completely. I was fine with him leaving, I just didn't want him to. I looked towards the twilight in the distance, where the sun's light was just beginning to show over the horizon. "The sun's coming up soon, so-"

"Alright, and thanks Grayson, for everything. I'm just glad this whole nightmare's over." I heard my own thoughts coming out of his mouth, it was like he had read my mind

"Yeah-be safe, okay?" I said. It wasn't a request, even though that's how it sounded, I wanted him to be safe.

"You too."

"I'm gonna stay here for the night," I said, then yawned. I really needed sleep, lots of sleep.

"Maybe I'll see you around sometime," he said as he started walking away from the camp.

I looked off in his direction. "Maybe," I said, as his silhouette blended with the shadows in the distance, hoping that it would be soon. In my sorrow, I picked up The Pipes of Time that I got from The Hall of Heroes, and blew two notes through the small instrument. Two long, sad notes, one dedicated to our loss, the other to our bitter-sweet victory.