Short chapter, sorry loves~ Mostly just a filler to show what's happening to some of the others. But I'll make it up to you in the next few, everyone will finally be meeting up, and those should be pretty lengthy! Enjoy! 3
"Dooo... Youneedsome... wata, Miss?" The words slurred and mushed together as a thin brunette rose into an upright position, compared to her previous state of unconsciousness. Carley rubbed her head, and then her eyes, everything was beyond blurred. She blinked a couple times before taking a moment to process and scan her surroundings before flinching, widening her hues, condensation trickling onto her from the bottle of ice cold water hovering beside her.
"Huh what?!" She grabbed the nearest helping hand and hauled herself up, flattening out her clothes and fixing her matted hair. "I, no, I'm... Yes, thank you," she dipped her head in thanks as she graciously took the bottle from the assistant to her right. Carley glanced over her shoulder, noticing a familiar fake city-esque backdrop and a giant sign, the letters 'W.A.B.E' printed onto it. Then it struck her. "What.. W-what happened...?" She groaned, her head pounding with every noise she emitted to make a word. One of the assistants shook his head, sighing.
"I dunno, man! You just... When the camera started rolling, you just dropped. Fainted. Passed ou-"
"I get it," Carley growled lightly, snatching up her microphone from the desk.
"Yeah, well, it was like you had stage fright or something. It's not your first day is it? Mine, too!" He grinned foolishly, and Carley exhaled deeply, taking a seat behind the desk.
"No. It's not. S-sorry... I don't know what came over me," she rested her head in her hands, propping her elbows up on the desk. She didn't remember a thing, just that she must've passed out, and she had a horrible dream.
The manager spoke up, her voice older and a bit dry. "Do you want to re-shoot that one, or take-"
"Take a break...! Please." Carley sighed, and took a sip from the refreshing water. The director nodded.
"Take 15, everyone!" She called before walking off, leaving Carley at her desk.
"Oh, God," she whispered under her breath, her headache growing. Her whole body began to sweat, and her water was soon chugged until she had nothing but tiny droplets left over. "Can I get another water, please?!" She asked a bit harshly, her mood quickly declining. She peered around the set, waiting impatiently for her water. She felt dehydrated, even after downing the whole bottle. "Hello?" She raised both her eyebrows, gripping her microphone in frustration.
"Here you go, an assistant told me to give you this, he had something to do. Here," Carley hovered her eyes over to the familiar tech boy.
"Thanks, Doug..." She thanked, only knowing his name from his name tag. And my crazy dream. I hope people in your dreams don't have the dream, too. Do they? She bit her lip, turning away as she twisted the bottle cap off and took a big swig from the bottle.
"Uh..." Carley could sense him still behind her, and she glanced behind her shoulder, quirking one dark eyebrow.
"Yes?"
"You okay?" He asked, rubbing the back of his head. "You looked really scared and petrified out there. Like you had seen a ghost, a vampire. A zombie." Doug continued, putting an odd emphasis on his last words. Carley froze, her whole body tensing.
"I was just light headed. Didn't eat breakfast. Must have passed out because of hunger!" She nodded lightly, not meeting his eyes, taking another sip from her water.
"Oh. Well, okay. Just wondering. I know we don't talk much-"
"Ever..."
Doug nodded, shrugging. "Yeah, well, I'm just looking out for you." Carley glanced at him, nodding for a moment.
"Thanks. I'm fine though, really. Just had a crazy dream, though," she slipped out, rubbing her arm. "With... Uh, ghosts. Lots of them." Carley lied, avoiding eye contact; she wasn't the best at lying under pressure, she knew Doug would find her crazy if she told him he was in her dream and was brutally killed.
"Yeah... I have a lot of those dreams. I think I had one last night, actually. Except, not ghosts. More like man-eating, flesh-grubbing corpses," Carley widened her eyes, staring at him. "But ghosts are there a lot, too. Just not in this one. Crazy, right?" He laughed nervously, obviously hiding something. Carley may have not been able to give a lie, but she wasn't too shabby at detecting one. She nodded slowly in doubt, her dark orbs narrowed.
"...Right." She peered right through him, opening her mouth to say something before her manager cut her off with her loud call:
"Attention crew! Make that 15 even longer, give yourselves a treat. Doug?" She tossed a phone to Doug, and he nodded, quickly dialing the number and taking a minute in the corner before returning to Carley's desk.
"Pizza's on the way," he confirmed as he returned the phone to the older woman with a toss. She smiled and disappeared again, leaving Carley with Doug.
"There, now you can eat and won't have to worry about fainting," he grinned at her, and Carley chuckled, shrugging.
"I don't know. I'm not feeling hungry. Just have a pounding headache," she held her hand to her forehead, which was burning with a fever. "I'll be okay. I might have to take the rest of the day off, though," she sighed, "Just hope when I get to bed tonight more people don't die in my dream."
"People died in your's, too? Horrible." Doug shook his head, and Carley glanced up at him momentarily.
"Y-yeah..." She huffed before rolling her eyes, letting it out. "It wasn't ghosts. It was zombies, crazy, I know. Such a coincidence. But that's not the biggest coincidence. You were in it." She admitted, plopping her head back on her hands. Doug looked frozen, and he folded his arms.
"Same."
"R-really? Wow... I thought it was just a myth that people in your dreams had the same one. It was the same one, wasn't it?" She raised both eyebrows, hoping something was different.
"If Lee was in your's, too, then no." He dropped the cold truth on her, hearing the man's name literally paining her.
"...Oh. God." The brunette buried her head in her palms, not quite sure what to make of that. It had felt real, definitely more real than she had ever felt a dream, or nightmare, had been.
"No use dwelling on it. It was just an odd dream, right?" Doug raised an eyebrow, smiling weakly.
"Right... I hope."
"Pizza's here!" Carley heard a voice call just as a familiar figure turned the corner onto the set, a pizza delivery cap planted perfectly on his head. He stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes glancing from Doug to Carley, and back.
"Glenn...?" Doug whispered, glancing down to Carley, her face flushed, her head shaking, her being the only one who's eye caught the scraggly corpse directly behind the pizza boy, slowly creeping closer.
"Fucking Hell."