It was all set. Everyone had responded to the email and said they were free to come, they had spent the last 7 hours safe proofing the basement of Lily's house and the list was completed. It was all set. Shannon was the first to show up. She greeted Mandy with a hug. "Hey!" she squealed in excitement. "I haven't seen you in so long! How have you been?" Mandy smiled, wondering why she hadn't had time for her lately. Then the thought Oh, yeah crossed her mind. "It's really great to see you too, have a seat. Lily! Get the door for the other guys!" she called as she sat down and began a long and cheerful conversation. It was a real cheer up after the recent events. Jade and Marcus were the next to arrive. Marcus looked… different. He had bulked up, he had a clean shave. Mandy could not hide her surprise. Suddenly, it was like she was 17 again. And Jade looked pretty much the same, except from the fact she now had green in her hair, and long curls instead of waves. And unsurprisingly, Hayden had shown up last. Mandy sat everyone down. "Okay so you're probably all wondering why we're here. It's… about that night." The faces in the room frowned, as the remaining seven remembered that night. "Everyone else has started dieing. So far out of the 12 of us that escaped, 5 have died. And we found out why that was. During that night, something sent me a vision that saved us, but it turns out, we cheated death, and we were all meant to die that night. And now, death is picking us off in the order we were meant to die in. But I have these visions, and they give me clues as to how we'll die. And I can save you. But it's only possible if we all work with each other. And you have to trust me, and most of all Wendy, 100%. Okay?" she said. "What does she have to do with all this?" Hayden said. "She saved her friends from an accident, and since then she's learned a lot about this. So, are we all clear?" Yes's filled the room. "Time to get started. Me and Marcus will research visions. Shannon and Natasha, work on finding who this Bludworth guy is. Hayden and Lily, work on some death prevention, how we can be safe, stuff like that. Jade, you're good with spiritual stuff, work on that and see if it has anything to do with this. Wendy, this is gonna be hard, but find out what you could have done." She shook her head. "I try to figure that out every day." She said, tearing up. Mandy sighed. She felt sympathy and empathy for the poor young woman. She was still only 23 years old. She'd never tasted a drop of alcohol, but she'd tasted her friend's blood unwillingly in her mouth. It brought tears to Mandy's eyes just thinking about the tragedy she must have endured.
Marcus and Mandy were sitting inches from the computer screen. Mandy let out an overdue yawn in the fifth hour of research. It was just about 4 o'clock. They had ordered pizza and new computer software all day. They had been linked to a thousand media sights with documentaries about Flight and Route 180, the McKinley speedway, Devil's flight, train 081, the bridge collapse and several others. There had been several useful sites however, which involved feelings leading up to a premonition being caused by several flickers of the 90% of the brain unused working, giving the person an accurate and vivid image of near future events. And others involving the butterfly effect of the world, which when tampered with, can cause a ripple in the timeline which the universe or death itself will try to fix, unless the ripple is resolved. Giving them hope, because it told them it could be resolved.
Shannon and Natasha were not having much luck, however. They were constantly sucked into his countless interviews with him about the accidents. He was always involved, somehow. They had scraped up some information. He got his job as a coroner in the 1990's, did a recording for a roller coaster, briefly took a part time job working as a subway announcer and seemed to have a weird passion for death's plan. This led them to believe he was an evil being, involved with death. Or he was a freak. They were still working on it.
Hayden and Lily were becoming successful in their search. They had learned of clues, signs and distance between deaths and visions. Their search was almost over. The time lapse between premonition and death was 5-45 minutes for a single person, and a large group premonition could act out in seconds. Any member of the accident was able to see signs to a certain extent which could help in the prevention of death, and varying your actions unexpectedly could save you potentially. And clues were available in signs, photographs and several other places.
Jade worked on the spiritual side of things, and discovered something interesting. Apparently, the devil himself was the one sending the visions, to challenge death and see how things turn out, as if it was a sick game orchestrated by him.
Wendy sobbed in silence as she recounted each event of Devil's Flight and those that followed, staying strong as she tried to remember the details of those nights to realise what she could have done. She COULD'VE fought harder to get Jason and Carrie off of the ride. She COULD'VE called Ashley sooner and saved them. She COULD'VE pulled Frankie out of the car. Could've, would've, should've, DIDN'T. And she refused to let Mandy end up like her. That's why she sobbed silently. She still could have the one she loved, like she could've had Kevin. He pulled her out of the way, but couldn't get himself and Julie out of the way before the train hit them. She remembered the pounding heartache, and the 11 hours she had to spend staring at the splattered bodies until she was found. This time, she could save lives.
Mandy was staring intently at the screen with Marcus right next to her. "Okay, none of this stuff is gonna sink in. Am I the only one not paying attention?" Mandy said, frustrated. "Did you mean to save me?" Marcus said, leaving Mandy dumbstruck. "W-What?" "That night… With the collapse… Did you mean to get me out of there?" Mandy thought for a moment. "No. I'm sorry. I was just so shocked, I just wanted to escape. I'm so sorry, if I had thought it through, I would have grabbed you and got us out. Wait, why did you follow me?" "Two reasons. One, I wanted to make sure you were okay, you're important to me. And two… I guess, for a second… I believed you. When Lily was calming you down, I got a bad feeling and turned around, and I was about to yell, but then it just happened. I have one more question for you."
"What?"
"How was I meant to die?"
Mandy sighed. "A lamp post fell and crushed you. And I was so scared." He shushed her and leaned in close. Her breathing intensified. "You know how they call me 'just curious' Marcus?" Mandy nodded. "I don't think I'm curious anymore." He whispered. They closed their eyes and fell into a deep kiss. They stayed in a fixed position for one endless minute, before Wendy accidentally made a noise, and Mandy looked back to see the crying woman and went over. "Wendy?" she looked up. "I'm so sorry; I can't believe I made you do this. Look, just come with us, we're close to a breakthrough." "Sit down." She sniffed. "You have so much. We're so different. You still have the one person you're meant to be with." Mandy looked back at Marcus. "The others fell asleep 4 hours ago, and he powered through so he could keep you alive. I've never seen anyone so devoted to helping someone since Kevin Fischer. Go to him. Keep him safe." Wendy sniffed. Mandy nodded. She stood up. "Mandy! Wendy! Come here! You're not gonna believe this!" He said loudly. Mandy and Wendy rushed over. "What?" "Oh, Mandy, you won't believe this. I skipped to the last page of results, or what looked like the last page. I saw another blue dot at the bottom of the screen, and guess what? It was a link to some hidden website. Look at the web address." Mandy looked at the screen at the little bar showing the web address. "It doesn't have one. It's just red now." "Right, so I looked at the article down at the bottom, DvEiVsIiLoDnEsVIL." "But…what does that mean?" Mandy asked. "Separate the big and small letters. The big ones say…" Mandy thought for a moment. "Devil, devil." She said. "And the small ones…" "Visions!" "Yes! So I looked at the article and look what it says."
