A/N: Wanna hear a confession? I've spent most of my free time playing games instead of doing this. :P
Chapter 4
Ken had been speaking a lot to his girlfriend, Yolei who had been sobbing in her palms for the past 10 or so minutes. The boy had barely spoke all the time they were in the mansion but now was the time for dialogue. He never hesitated to counsel her.
"Thanks Ken. I know Matt have it worse, but I can't stop crying."
Ken kept the interval of his patting to her backside. "Who's to say that he deserves to be more sad than you? Davis is your friend which is just as important."
She felt her tears retreating slightly. "Thanks again for being so sweet. But I still can't shake the feeling that I shouldn't be so openly sad when Matt have lost his love."
Without much apparent thought, Ken seemed to have an answer for that.
"Who's to say that your feelings aren't worthy enough? Just the fact that you feel makes you alive and worthwhile."
The sobbing increased. Not only Ken was intelligent, he was emotionally intelligent too. He was so cute, she couldn't help but cry harder.
Bewildered, Ken stayed silent and continued comforting her with his palm and body heat.
They ended up being the last ones to leave the lounge room.
Finally all the members of the gang gathered in the hallway. Tai counted the heads to see if everyone was really there. "One, two, three, four…" He whispered to himself before counting the rest of them silently in his head. Including the two lifeless bodies, there was 11 in the room which was everyone since Joe hadn't met up with them yet. And hopefully, he never will.
"Right, now that everyone's here. I got some bad news to announce." Tai said. The others except Matt made eye contact with each other, wondering what the bad news could be. Tai gave Kari a glance before revealing the news.
"I'm afraid we're trapped here." He announced.
The others now looked at each other in confusion. "What do you mean?" His sister enquired.
"The doors can't be opened." He answered. "What?.. Why?" She asked.
"…There's a strange barrier blocking the door and the same goes with the windows as well."
"Believe me! Do not touch the windows!" Matt added. He was massaging both of his temples to alleviate the headache. Obviously something had happened to Matt while TK was trying to get the others out of the living room. Being Matt's brother, TK had to know.
"What happened?" TK asked, feeling no need to elaborate.
"I'm fine." Was the answer.
TK narrowed his eyebrows which caused his older brother to avoid eye contact with him. All TK needed to give was his silence.
"I had an accident…"
TK and the others stayed silent, awaiting for more explanation.
"You now that moose head above the door in that room." Matt's head faced towards the same room Tai and Izzy came in through on the day before. And because only those two came into the house through that room, everyone except those two shook their heads.
"Moose head?" TK questioned.
Matt pointed towards the head sitting on a chair which can be seen through the open door.
"It fell on my head."
"How?" Mimi wanted to know more. "It just fell?" TK asked as well.
"No… it's the windows…" Matt's breathing became tougher and he was visibly unbalanced. He had to sit down on the staircase.
Tai continued for him. "He tried smashing the windows but it…" Tai stopped, not knowing how to explain it. He didn't experience it but whatever made Matt frightened, it must had been horrifying.
The interval of Matt's breathing increased further. If the children hadn't experienced some freak events in the past few minutes or hour, they would have thought Matt's expression and heavy breathing was the result of feeling dazed. Perhaps another weird incident occurred.
"It's mainly why you should stay away from the windows. Don't even touch it with an object!" Matt resumed his explanation.
"What happened?" Mimi enquired.
He took a deep breath and straightened his posture in an attempt to get himself more balanced.
"Firstly, Tai said he broke a hole through a window yesterday to get in. Apparently that hole seemed to have fixed itself..."
Izzy's eyes widened in astonishment and his earlier anxiety, swiftly returning to his body.
Matt continued.
"...Tai touched it first and felt a jolt of electricity as well as some faint screaming. I touched it too and I felt and heard the same thing. Next, I punched it and then I heard the same thing but about a hundred times way worse! It knocked me a few feet back. Furious, I grabbed a chair and whacked it at the… glass…"
The older teenager couldn't finish his sentence. His tone began to get softer.
"... and then I heard it. It was a hundred woman screaming the same thing at me. And not only that, the rebound was much stronger that time and only the door kept me from falling backwards until that freakin' moose dropped on my head."
Out of incliniation, Mimi took a step to rub the head of Matt but he brushed it off with his hand.
"I'm fine now. There's no need to worry."
He stood up from the stairway and began to walk down. "C'mon let's find another way out." Just before his foot landed on the last step, his body collapsed down with his forehead making contact with the floor with a thump!
"Matt!" A few people shouted in unison.
Mimi and Tai were the first to put their hand on him. To both of their relief, he was still breathing and his skin was still warm.
"That bump must have taken a lot out of him!" Tai commented.
Several children carried Matt back to the lounge room where Davis was lying there. They carefully removed the younger boy from the sofa and placed Matt on the same spot while Davis was placed next to a wall adjacent to the sofa.
"So what do we do now?" Mimi asked.
Tai already had an idea in his mind. "A few of us will check out the back while the rest of you watch over Matt. Who's with me?"
Izzy and Mimi opted to go with him. Ken also wanted to but the sight of his sombre girlfriend prevented him from answering.
"Makes sure no one is alone. If anybody has to go to the bathroom for example, make sure another is following them. In fact, it would be best to have at least two people inside the bathroom too."
All the people in the room nodded. Not one of them opposed to the idea.
Without much unnecessary dialogue, three people made their way out of the lounge room straight away.
The only way to the back garden was through the kitchen. The room was now almost pitch black but sometimes temporarily illuminated by the lightning. Guessing where the light switch may be, Tai tapped around the wall on his left until he felt a nub.
He flicked it which caused the room to blink in and out of illumination at random intervals. Within moments, the kitchen was illuminated with an unappetizing yellow. The dim colour of the lighting made him feel drowsy rather than awake and despite the light now present, the outside still couldn't be seen through the windows.
The windows to the back garden was completely black and little raindrops could be seen hitting the glass and sliding down.
It was rather strange that the outside couldn't be seen at all through the windows. It didn't seem like it conformed to normal physics. But what does he know about the physics of the world?
With some reluctance, Tai slowly went up to the back door with two of his friends closely behind him.
The blackness displayed by the glass of the door didn't provide any encouragement at all. He didn't have any other choice really. The alternative was to not open the door and stay around the house waiting for something to happen. That wouldn't be his style.
He paused his thinking for a moment long enough for himself to quickly turn the handle and pull open the door. He did it so quick, his backside bumped into his two friends as he pulled the door.
There was nothing to fear as the outside appeared to be a normal garden. He could see from the dim kitchen lighting coming out of the doorway that the grass was completely wet and it was still pouring. There were pools of puddle covering the gravel in front of Tai. Unfazed, Tai placed a foot down onto a puddle of water.
The two friends behind who were a bit less accustomed to nature were reluctant for a moment before following him.
It was a simple garden where the ground was divided in grass and gravel. From what Tai could only see, the gravel that he was standing on covered only about one-tenth of the garden. He could just about make out the end of the garden from the flashes of lightning that boomed even louder now that there was no roof and walls to alleviate the sound.
He tested the soggy grass with one of his foot and decided that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to go in there. It felt so soft and mushy, it may as well be quicksand.
The downpour discouraged Tai and his group to venture out into the grass and if he could make out every corner of the garden, then perhaps there would be no need to go there.
However a tiny object sticking out of the mud at the far end caught his eye. It looked almost like a human finger. This was something he can't ignore. Even if it was the trap of a supernatural being, he still wouldn't ignore it. There would still be a chance that someone alive was drowning in the sea of mud.
Tai took a step into the grass area. It indeed felt like quicksand as his foot was slowly getting absorbed into the ground. It was so soft it was a wonder how the various objects around such as a ball, a chair, or a table could still be above ground level.
It was a bit of a struggle to reach to the finger and every step they took, they found the mud ankle deep.
Finally when they managed to trudge through the mushy ground as well as the thunderstorm, they reached to the finger. It appeared to be an index finger belonged to a young person beneath the the mud.
Without much thought, Tai began to dug the ground with his hands.
Mimi and Izzy who were more reluctant to get dirty, gazed around the garden for some digging tools.
As if their request was granted, they both spotted two shovels lying against a tree at the same time. There was a strange feeling that the shovels weren't there when they came out but both of them didn't have the time to dwell on it when there was possibly a person to save.
Without much communication except for a few nods here and there, both Izzy and Mimi joined up with Tai. They were careful not to accidentally dig into a possible human body shortly they found some dark hair appearing and then when a part of the face could be seen, the more desperate they were to dig him out of it.
It didn't take them long until the face was more exposed to a recognisable form. They could now tell despite from all the rain and wind in the eyes that Joe was unconscious in the ground there.
"I'll go get the others." Mimi shouted through the raging wind and rain. She ran back to the house without waiting for any acknowledgement. There was no need for a response as they all silently agreed with her.
Both Izzy and Tai managed to dig deep enough to Joe's chest level by the time Mimi and the others joined them. It was such a difficult task as the dampy mud kept sliding back to the body.
There were a few people missing in the group. Namely, TK, Kari, and Matt. They hadn't forgotten Tai's order of not leaving anyone alone which includes the unconscious Matt who was being supervised by the two younger members of the gang.
Tai was too focussed in the digging to care about TK and Kari being missing from group. And when Joe was finally dug out, he had already worked out why those two stayed in the house.
Izzy immediately checked the pulse of the boy lying unconscious in the ground and as expected, he was already dead.
