A/N: So, just a quick warning before we get this story started.

This story contains violence, gore, sexual content, and strong language.

By reading this, you'll be exposed to in-depth insights of abuse, mental illness, and their effects on the mind.

The story really isn't that much different visual wise from the game, the only major differences would be that I dive down into mental disabilities more so than what the game does. Don't worry, there will be plenty of Josh lovin' though ;)

Hope you enjoy!

:Summary:

Gracie Lowe had always been close to the Washington children. When Josh's mental state had begun to deteriorate, she stayed by his side. They both helped each other with their demons up until the day her parents divorced and she moved away with her mother. Two years later Gracie comes back, however her old friends have all changed, and Josh is nothing more than a stranger. Will she be able to mend the broken friendships of the past, or has everything they loved been lost to the Mountains? [JoshxOC]

There are things in life you just simply cannot change. Try as you might to do so, you cannot change what has happened and the past will always be there to haunt you.

The past...

The past is such a beautiful thing.

When reminiscing of past events, it can be quite joyful. You can travel back to the time you and your grandmother made homemade cookies; you can look back on the time you scraped your knee and your parents were there to kiss it better; you could also remember a certain moment shared with friends: laughing at some dumb joke, playing a random game you had created, causing mischievous trouble for some poor unfortunate soul, and all-in-all just having a wonderful time in the presence of the other.

The past is also very dark.

It can show you things you desperately wanted to never see again. You can remember the things you could and wished you lived without. The past is a dangerous mistress that takes great pleasure in wrapping her icy claws around your very soul and squeezing ever so slowly. She squeezes and squeezes and squeezes until you finally can stand no more and you can do nothing but beg for release from the terrible pain.

This is a very dangerous place to be, and it is exactly where this evil mistress wants you.

Once you get to this point, there is almost no hope of returning. The only thing you can truly rely on to save you from damnation is the very thing that is slowly dragging you to your destruction; the memories. The happy memories that were, and the happy memories that could be.

Yes, the past is a beautiful thing. A very beautiful, wonderful, deadly thing.

Everyone has their fair share of the darker and lighter past events, and everyone must eventually battle with their little inner demons in order to keep on living for more memories.

Many people can make it. Many have that one special person who gives them enough good memories to keep going.

Just as many don't.

This is why Gracie Lowe finds herself standing before the roots of the cursed mountains once more; standing before the mountain that carefully hides her evil mistress within its many shadows and crevasses as she waits patiently to snatch up Gracie's fragile soul the first chance she gets.

If she could help it, Gracie would have never set foot on this tainted soil ever again. If it wasn't for him, she would have never set her dark brown gaze upon the damned mountains for as long as she lived.

Her heart thundered within her ears like a thousand war drums being pounded on at once and her feet twitched desperately for the slightest opportunity to bolt. Her large eyes gawked at the ever-looming, intimidating mountains that held so much sorrow and pain and malice and her fingers picked at the zipper of her olive-green parka nervously. She could sense the evil here; she could feel the beady, malicious eyes of a thousand creatures just daring her to take another step further into the woods that had once held so much comfort for her. Even so, she held her ground. In that moment, she was a planted stone with a quivering heart.

She would damn herself if she ran from a mountain. She would hate herself forever if she turned into a cowering, kicked dog with its tail between its legs. She would not turn around and catch the next bus back into town when there was so much at stake.

She could not run. She would not run. He needs her.

"Well, you coming or not?"

Gracie felt her heart leap into her throat and she flinched away from the sudden voice with a horror-stricken gasp of breath. "Jesus, Sam!" Gracie wheezed when she managed to gather up enough air into her lungs to do so. She put a hand, lightly kissed by the rays of the previous summer's sun, to her racing heart and with the other held up a finger. "Hold on, let me make sure my heart's still beating. God, don't do that to me!"

Sam tried and failed at covering a laugh behind her own hand. "Someone's a bit jumpy," the blonde joked.

That was an understatement. Gracie hadn't felt this uneasy in years, and she was fairly certain her heart would leap from her throat if a branch was to suddenly fell from a tree or something of the like.

Gracie's glasses had fallen in the snow due to her startle. Sam, being the caring friend she was, leaned down and plucked them from the frozen ground. She handed them to Gracie, a not-so-apologetic smile gracing her lips as she did so.

Gracie went to say something, something along the lines of Sam being a jerk, but the words caught in her throat so suddenly it nearly choked her. Sam was smiling, her eyes were smiling, and yet Gracie could clearly see something else in those blue orbs; it was a dark spark of worry, nearly desperate and distressed in a way, and it was glaring back at Gracie in such a way that it shocked her to her very core.

Samantha Gibbings was a very warm and caring individual. She was so carefree with her daily goings, so calm and level-headed, and she always seemed to be the one of the group who was able to handle any given situation with an ease that could only be envied. She seemed to never get touched by the hands of panic or anxiety in any way, and Gracie admired her for that. However, Sam is still only human, and no human can go on forever without a few good cries in their lifetime. Gracie had been there for many of those days when Sam needed a shoulder to cry on, but the look Sam had now was like no other she had ever seen in her blonde friend's eyes. This wasn't just the look of stress or sadness or even anger; this was the look of fear.

Gracie understood the reason behind the fear, and yet that didn't make the look any less unsettling in her strong-willed best friend. She didn't know what to do. She didn't know how to assess the clear anxiety that radiated from Sam and blossomed within her own self and still continue on, so she didn't assess it. She took back her glasses and returned a smile that no doubt mirrored Sam's down to the very last dark glint.

As she slid the glasses back into place upon the bridge of her nose, Sam's somewhat awkward and unease voice floated out into the open, silent air. "It's, uh, pretty weird being back, huh?" she asked, her gaze glued to the looming mass of the giant mountain before them.

Gracie followed her friend's line of sight, slowly gliding up the dangerously large rocky side with accusation and regret. She answered with a small, "yeah," into the cold breeze, her mind floating back to a life-changing moment in her life she never witnessed.

A year ago today, a prank had taken place upon this very mountain. It was a very stupid and heartless prank, and it resulted in the death of two of the greatest girls Sam and Gracie had ever had the pleasure of knowing; Hannah and Beth Washington.

It was an idiotic and inconsiderate joke that wasn't meant to hurt anyone; Sam knew that. She also knew that it would hurt someone.

And yet, she hadn't prevented it from happening; deciding instead to not get involved at all. That had proved to be the absolute worst decision she had ever made. Samantha Gibbings hid on the sidelines that night, and she would regret it for the rest of her life. Regretting is all anyone can do in a situation like this. Her guilt weighed heavily on her shoulders like some unseen force had strapped digging bricks to her back.

Through her own scorching pain, Sam could see just how hard it was on Gracie as well. Even if she wasn't there that night like Sam was, the impact on Gracie had been devastating.

Gracie had been raised alongside the Washington children since the very day they were born, and they had been inseparable since the day they could walk. It grew to the point their parents would call them siblings when out in public. The Lowe's and Washington's were closer than most any blood families of today, and on some levels they still were. Gracie's mother, Emma, and Mrs. Washington, Melinda, had been college friends and stayed so afterwards. It was through Bob – a young up-and-coming film producer that had married Melinda – that Gracie's mother met Allan Lowe; a close friend of Bob's and later the husband to Emma and father to Gracie.

Sam had never had siblings, and although she has had many friends over the years, she had never had a close sibling-like bond with any of them. She could not even begin to imagine the pain Gracie must have felt when discovering Hannah and Beth were missing, especially when she was already dealing with angry legal battles in result of her parent's sudden divorce from the previous year.

Sam couldn't help but to realize just how broken everything had seemed lately. She couldn't have wished for a better childhood; especially with the amazing friends she shared it with. And yet, the sturdy bridges and strong ties that had taken years to create were suddenly being destroyed within a matter of a mere three years. Gracie's moving away with her mother seemed to be the thing that set everything off balance; the incident with Hannah and Beth had dislodged everything.

Even so, Sam knew she shouldn't be upset; at least, not this weekend. Hannah's and Beth's older brother Josh didn't want everyone to be sad. He knew just as well as everyone else that what happened was only a prank and that no one meant anything to happen to the twin girls. It took a while – he hadn't really spoken to anyone since it happened – but he seemed like he was finally able to forgive. He could never forget, but at least he was finally taking the steps towards mending the shattered friendships – at least to the point of leaving on good terms.

After all, Josh hadn't invited the entire group back out to the Washington Lodge on the twin's anniversary for nothing. In the back of their minds, both Gracie and Sam knew that this weekend of healing would most likely not work the way Josh had planned. The entire group had more or less disintegrated with the loss of the sisters; hardly anyone had talked to each other the first few months that followed, and they still hadn't fully began talking a year later.

Gracie and Sam had known this, yet still they decided to come back. Gracie hadn't seen anyone for two years and she knew that the relationships she shared would never be the same, and she was scared to see what had become of them. But she knew she had to come. She and everyone else had been nothing but selfish these past years. This weekend was a time to not be selfish; a time to pay respects for Hannah and Beth and of friendships long lost. Josh had invited them back to the Lodge to make amends and settle on good terms, and also to celebrate his sister's short lives.

Hannah and Beth should be remembered in the light that they lived, not the darkness of their end. No one should be selfish on this weekend, no matter of their own inner turmoil.

Sam forced a smile on her face and it almost hurt her to do so. She gave Gracie a gentle nudge with her elbow and raised an eyebrow. "Well, are we just gonna stand here and look at the mountain, or are we actually gonna go up there and have a good time?"

Gracie smiled at her friend, desperately hoping it didn't look as strained as it had felt, and she nodded as she readjusted her glasses. "Yeah, let's get going before Matt and Chris eat all the good junk food." Both young women chuckled at this as they began to trudge through the ankle-high mounds of snow up the old, overgrown path.

The trek up the path was not near as long as Gracie had remembered it to be, but it was still full of the memories she had collected over the years. After climbing over the broken gate – and a small scare with Sam almost falling over it – it didn't take long for the two women to reach the cable car station. It wasn't a very big building; it was more of a rusty shack than anything else and it held only two rooms, both of which were locked. Sam shimmied her phone out of her pocket and checked the time. Her brow scrunched noticeably as she glared at the dim screen, and Gracie took notice. "What is it?" she asked.

"It's Chris," Sam said while looking over the text once more. "He said he got here fifteen minutes ago, but I don't see him."

"You think he's already up at the Lodge?"

Sam shook her head. "I've never known Chris to leave his bag behind," she gestured with a nod to a lone backpack sitting on an ice-covered bench. The situation was odd, but Gracie didn't feel it was time to panic just yet. Sam, however, couldn't help but show a glint of worry as she called out, "Chris?You here? You're not in the bag, are you?"

"Don't think too much of it," Gracie told Sam gently with a light shrug. "He probably just found his long lost squirrel family and followed them back to their colony or something." Sam shot her friend an odd look, then laughed at the absurd thought.

"Well," Sam started, her infamous smirk gracing her lips, "be that as it may, we should still go look for him."

"I don't know, you know how nuts Chris can get. Maybe he belongs with the squirrels."

"You belong with the squirrels, Gracie."

"Really? I thought of myself as more of a chipmunk kind of girl."

Sam rolled her eyes and let out an over exaggerated groan. "You're ridiculous!"

Gracie threw up her hands in mock-surrender and managed to say through her giggling, "okay, okay! I'll go find our lost King of the Squirrels."

"Don't you think you're giving him just a bit more credit then you should? A jester, maybe, but the king?" Gracie snorted.

Gracie began her search for her blonde male friend with passing glances through the trees. She wasn't really going all out in her search; after all, Chris was a big boy, he could get along himself just fine. In the back of her mind, a part of her also wasn't quite ready to see him just yet. She hadn't talked to him for months, and she had seen him even less and that was only through a computer monitor. She couldn't help but worry of the daunting fact that her dear friend could have changed.

All of her friends had changed, she knew. Even Sam had changed in some ways, and her and Gracie had stayed in close contact the entire time. How had Chris changed? How had they all changed? How had Josh changed?

Gracie suddenly found herself distracted from her dreadful thoughts by a far-off screech of metal against metal. She turned her attention to the distant oncoming cable car - which wasn't even halfway down the mountain yet – as it swayed and shook in the breeze and she began wondering when the last time that death trap had been used was. Momentarily forgetting about her search, she switched directions and instead made her way to the edge of the cliff that bordered the clearing.

The cliff was large and deep, and it was so full of dark pine trees that Gracie could hardly see the blanket of fallen snow through the thick green needles. Within one of the few splotches of land that was clear of any trees, she spotted an elk cow grazing on the last blades of grass that hadn't succumbed to the cold as of yet. Gracie couldn't fight her beaming grin as the far-off howling of a pack of wolves echoed through the valley and resonated within her very core. She always had adored nature.

Out of all of the animals she loved, wolves had always been her very favorite. The way they gracefully float through the forest quieter than shadows intrigued her; their beautiful and intelligent ways of hunting astonished her; the way they stuck together and protected each other as a family made her admire and somewhat envy them. This was one of the many reasons she loved coming to the Washington Lodge; Pinewood Mountains were one of the last few places with natural, wild wolves running about. And every now and then, if she were particularly lucky, she would get the spectacular opportunity to spot them.

Her love of nature was one of the many things she had in common with Sam and was part of the reason why they got along so well. Sam loved nature just as much as Gracie. The only difference between the two was the fact that Sam was raised deep within the city and didn't know much about nature past the initial look of gorgeous flowers and beautiful animals. Other than that, Sam and Gracie's enjoyment of the great outdoors was the same. Although, Sam's veganism was where Gracie would have to draw the line.

Gracie's long lashes fluttered shut and she allowed the biting wind to nip her flushed skin, sending pleasant shivers to race down her spine. The icy breeze caused the strands of dark brown locks that had gone astray from her single bohemian braid to lazily whip around the shell of her ears and the side of her face. Her mind easily left the world around her and, just for a second, she was flying. She took a deep breath in and the musky-yet-clean smell of dirt, pine, and water infiltrated her senses with a familiar nostalgia. The frigid bitterness of the winter wind took her away and brought her to young memories of snowball fights and sleigh rides and hunting trips.

She missed this; she missed being able to go out and simply enjoy nature alongside Josh and Sam. She missed the hunting and the camping trips she would often take with either her father or Josh, or sometimes even Chris. She missed fishing and spending time with Josh and Mike and Matt. Hell, she even missed those dreaded shopping trips she had with the girls.

She missed everything. She missed her life. She missed her friends. She missed him.

It was hard to imagine that only two years had passed since she had moved away from all of this. It was always hard to imagine things when you so desperately wished they hadn't of happened in the first place. She squeezed her eyes tighter, her brow scrunching as her mind raced with the desperate attempt at pretending that she was back four years in time; back when everything made sense.

It was the winter her and her friends went camping with Josh's parents for a weekend that she remembered most clearly in that moment. They were young then, and their friendship had been untainted for years. It seemed as though nothing could separate them; they were invincible to the hardships of the world and untouched by sadness. Well, most of them were. She remembered that was the first time Matt had gone fishing and he had fallen through the ice in a small creek. They ended up having to leave early because he had gotten sick from the cold. The corners of Gracie's lips twitched upward; Matt still loved to fish, even after that.

"Whoa," she heard Sam say somewhere off to her left. Gracie turned to look and quickly saw the familiar map of the mountains framed upon a dilapidated wooden sign. Sam stood there, eyeing the old sign up and down like she had never seen it before – which was not true, considering how many times she had come to the Washington Lodge in the past. She hadn't noticed it before, but as she squinted her eyes and really looked at the sign, Gracie realized there was something red splattered across the cracked glass and crinkled poster; something that had definitely never been there before. Sam was staring at it with a worried scowl and Gracie's curiosity got the best of her.

A sudden breeze hit her exposed skin and ate its way through the soft fabric and warm fur of her parka, causing her body to erupt in shivers. The cold was suddenly not quite as welcoming or inviting as it had previously been, and she pulled the thick fabric tighter around her small frame as she made her way over to her friend with haste. She gasped at what she saw.

The dark red spray paint was slopped hastily across the old sign, but Gracie could read every dark word as clearly as she could see Sam.

The past is beyond our control

"Graffiti? All the way up here?" Sam tried playing it off as a joke, but her choice of words only seemed to make the entire situation just that more odd. The poorly written words that had already begun to chip from the bitter cold of the mountain set off many warning bells within her skull. They rang inside Gracie's head and all of her worry and fear of coming back began to flood her senses. Then, she felt anger. White hot anger coursed through her very core and her previously shocked gaze hardened into stone.

Some inconsiderate jerk was making a mockery of their loss; taunting the great pain they all felt.

"Who would do this?" she questioned the wind. The question spiraled away along with the breeze, forever doomed to go unanswered. Sam began to worry for the future of the seemingly cursed weekend get-together. They had arrived mere minutes ago and already so much seemed to be going wrong. It was a crazy thought, but it almost seemed like the universe was trying to warn them of something...

Maybe that was the sign they should have been reading.

Just then, something began vibrating loudly back towards the station. The girls turned and saw the light of a ringing phone flashing from an open pocket in Chris's bag. "Let's go check it out," Sam suggested. With a shallow nod and a passing glare at the terribly haunting skewed words, Gracie begrudgingly forced her feet to follow Sam back to the outcrop of the station.

The phone was dangling out of a side pocket and the girls could clearly see Ashley's name on the caller ID. Sam and Gracie passed a knowing look to each other, then rolled their eyes almost in unison. Chris and Ashley had been crushing on each other ever since Chris spilled his carton of milk on Ashley's homework in the seventh grade. Ashley was angry with Chris because of her ruined hard work, Chris was angry with Ashley because he had to sit out lunch break to help her re-do the assignment, and yet the day had ended with laughter and a new friend to add to the list of nine. The two had been nearly inseparable since then.

Gracie wondered as to why her red-haired friend would be texting Chris, considering they all would be meeting up later tonight anyhow. Sam must have caught sight of the famous mischievous smirk of her dear brunette friend because her hand darted out and zipped up the bag tight. With playful glare directed towards Gracie, Sam said, "maybe we shouldn't go snooping through Chris's stuff."

Gracie rolled her eyes but sighed nonetheless. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I just wish they'd get hitched already and be done with it, you know?"

"Don't we all," Sam laughed. Then, she gave the clearing another once-over, looking for a head of dirty blond hair among the gorgeous scenery. She didn't see anything besides trees, trees, snow, and more trees. Cupping her hands around her mouth, she shouted out loudly, "Christopher!"

"You rang?"

Sam and Gracie both jumped at the sudden voice. The familiar impish face of their missing Jester of the Squirrels appeared out from around the corner of the shack with a large smile spread out across his face and obnoxious laughter that filled the air. "Get it?" he asked through his laughter as his blue eyes sparkled from behind his thick-lens glasses. "What?" he questioned when the girls didn't answer. "You know- Lurch? From the Addam's Family? Come on guys, it's common knowledge!"

"Chris, you scared us!" Sam shouted and shoved him with a scowl. He only laughed harder at his friend's reaction. Gracie, despite the small heart attack, was laughing as well.

"Okay," she breathed and waved a finger at Chris."I'll admit it. That was clever." Chris's laughter was cut short. He gawked at the brunette from over Sam's shoulder with wide, startled eyes. All of the mischief had drained from his very being along with every word in his vocabulary, leaving him with a gaping mouth and a deer-in-headlights expression. The left corner of Gracie's lip tugged upward into a smirk. "Why, Christopher Hartley! Don't tell me you've forgotten about little ol' me already!" She put a delicate hand to her chest, feigning distress.

Her soft, almost cocky tone of voice was all too familiar to Chris. The nostalgic words she uttered had his sudden intrusive paralysis melting away instantly and with one great burst of baffled shock, the blonde man shouted, "Gracie!"

"Christie!" Gracie mock-yelled, imitating his surprise while throwing her arms out for a hug. The sound of his old nickname set off a live wire inside him, and within mere seconds Gracie was engulfed within a bone-crushing bear hug. Words were flowing from Chris's lips, but Gracie couldn't hear a word of it on account of the stuffy arms of his winter jacket covering her ears. She laughed all the same and hugged him back with just as much intensity. It felt so nice to hug and be hugged by him again; so familiar and comforting.

That was, until, the warm blue fabric of his coat began to suffocate her. "Uh, Cochise?" she mumbled through mouthfuls of fabric as she somehow managed to tap the back of his shoulder. "Chris, I can't breathe, dummy!" Chris slid his arms from around her back and firmly sat his large hands on the smaller girl's shoulders. He pushed her back until she was standing arms-length away from himself, which jostled her a bit with his fast-moving pace. He looked her over with an air-deprived chuckle of awe.

"Wow," he breathed out, sounding as though all of the air had been sucked clean out of him. "Look at you! You've changed so much." His eyes scanned her up and down in pure bafflement. "Damn, you sure do look different."

"Gee, thanks," Gracie gave a sarcastic roll of her eyes.

He quickly clarified with a chuckle, "not in that way. I mean- god! You look great! How long's it been? A year- year and a half?"

"Uh, two, actually," she pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, suddenly feeling nervous and somewhat embarrassed.

Chris flashed a comforting smile and gave her shoulders a small squeeze. "Hey, any year is one year too long for me!"Gracie let out a short laugh and nodded her head in agreement. As quickly and easily as she had agreed, tears began forming in the corners of her dark eyes. Confirming that, yes, any year away from him – from all of them – was indeed too long of a period, gave way to a sudden tidal wave of emotions and she felt her chest tighten painfully.

Chris saw the way her eyes glossed over and he let out a playful "aw, come here, little sis." Gracie's eyes itched with the unwanted tears that tried to fall. She efficiently hid them by burying her face within the blue of Chris's parka as she dived back in for another hug, which he happily accepted and greeted with his own.

"And what am I- chopped liver?"

Chris made a fake pouting face around Gracie's head as he held out a hand for Sam to join. "hey now, Sammy, don't be that way!"

Gracie had managed to blink away a majority of her tears and gave her own playful smile as she peeked out at Sam. Then she, too, held out one of her hands. "Now you've got to join us," she cooed playfully with a small sniff.

"Come on. Bring it in, Samster." Sam glared at Chris's use of her old childhood nickname, but she couldn't keep the hard look on her face for more than a few seconds. Her features melted into a happy smile – a smile Gracie hadn't seen in too long – and she gave a mock-sigh of exhaustion as she gave in to the beckoning of her two goofballs. "You two are ridiculous."

Christ easily held the two girls close to him, one arm around each of their shoulders firmly like a brother holding his sisters after months of being apart. "It's about time you two showed up," he prodded lightly after a few moments of well-needed silence had passed.

"Us?" Sam scrutinized and scrunched up her nose. "We've been here for a solid five minutes."

"Yeah," Gracie joined, "where've you been off to?"

Chris's face suddenly brightened and he jumped back like a kid waking on Christmas morning. "Oh, that reminds me! You've gotta come check this out! I found something kind of amazing." The two girls passed a cautious look.

Sam dared to ask, "what is it?"

Chris shook his head, a goofy smile playing on his excited face. "I'm not gonna tell you, you gotta come see it for yourself. Come one, it's this way." Chris disappeared around the corner of the cable car station for a few moments, then his head popped back around when he realized they weren't following. "It's just right around here, you big babies. It's gonna blow your mind," he gestured with his hands an invisible explosion around his head. The girls chuckled at the goofy blonde, but followed him nonetheless.

The two trailed Chris along the side of the ski lodge, their path lit only by a single dull light bulb that flickered on and off. Gracie hadn't been back behind here too many times, but she knew it well enough. She knew that there was a shooting range off behind the station, which was possibly where Chris was taking them. Other than that there wasn't really anything too terribly interesting aside from an extra room on the side of the station. It really led to nothing more than a multitude of confusing electrical boxes and outlets and other stuff that Gracie had never paid any mind to.

Gracie knew this area better than she knew herself. When her eyes flickered over the familiar metal door leading into the electric room, she knew instantly that something was off.

It was a sign. There were many signs stuck to the door from centuries past, but this sign almost seemed newer; less rotted and chipped than any of the other informational or warning signs that littered the surface of the door. On top of the sign and written in big, bold letters was a single word that was so much more different than any of its fellow red warning signs, and yet the blue word contrasted with its surroundings like a beacon in the night. It made her stomach curl more than any of the other signs ever had.

Wanted

Gracie changed course and made a B-line for the sign. Sam followed out of curiosity, but she soon grew just as shocked as her friend when she, too, caught sight of the sign. Gracie scanned over the little words quickly, then re-read them over again. It read about a fugitive last spotted on Blackwood Mountain. The man was wanted for attempt of arson and multiple death threats. Gracie's brow scrunched as she read it over again for a third time, waves of confusion coursing through her.

The wanted poster was dated back to 1998. That didn't make any sense to the brunette. Why had someone put up a poster with outdated information if they were truly looking for this man? And if they had put it up some odd years ago, then why was she only seeing this now?

'No, it's definitely within two years old,' she concluded. If it had been put up in 1998, which would be the only thing that could even attempt to make sense to her, then the sign would be much older and more tattered than what it currently was. And yet, it wasn't.

"Creepy," Sam mumbled as Chris peered over the girl's shoulder at the poster.

"Nice! Think we'll get a visit from America's Most Wanted?" he joked.

"Looks like someone thought so," Sam jested back lightly, albeit with a hint of passing worry.

Chris rolled his eyes at her tone of voice and prodded, "oh come on! This place is abandoned most of the year. Nobody comes up here." Sam quietly agreed with Chris, but she still found the sign very odd. Even so, she was able to easily shake off the words and the strange feelings of dread it gave her. Sam never was one to dwell on things for long; Chris never really dwelled on things.

Gracie did, however. She couldn't help it; she had always over analyzed even the simplest of things ever since she was a kid. When something had entered her mind, it settled, and she would be doomed to overthink it until she got the answers she knew were there. Some may label this a good quality to possess, and it may have been for some people, but it only ever brought Gracie trouble and grief.

She couldn't keep her mind from over flooding with questions - especially about the eerie wanted sign - but one question that spoke louder than the other voices made her want to turn tail and run away from Blackwood Mountains for good.

'Was it really such a good idea to come back?'

A/N: So, did you like it? If so, please follow and favorite! Have any comments or notes? Leave me a little love note! Feedback keeps me going ;*