Chapter 25: Watching Live Nightmares

"Man, nothing beats a home cooked meal by a beautiful woman," Aaron said, leaning back in his chair.

"You said it bro," Zak commented.

Cheryl was blushing.

"It's about time someone else blushed for a change!" I said.

Cheryl, Zak and Aaron all laughed.

"Seriously though, thank you Cheryl. That was awesome," Zak said.

Cheryl smiled and nodded.

"You're welcome," Cheryl replied, standing up and started to gather up the plates.

I started to stand to help her.

"No, you sit! You're supposed to be taking it easy," Cheryl said.

"Oh for petes sake, I'm not an invalid," I replied.

"You will be if you don't sit your ass back down," Cheryl warned me.

I sighed and sat back down.

"No, not you two either," Cheryl said, noticing the guys starting to get up. "You're our guests. Besides, don't you have to setup gear or something to show us the footage from Goldfield?" Cheryl added, carrying some dishes over to the sink.

"Oh, yeah," Aaron started, standing up. "I'll get it." He added, walking over near the front door and grabbing the laptop bag he had brought over.

"You need help bro?" Zak asked, standing up and walking into the living room.

"Nah, I got it. Just gonna hook the laptop up to their TV and we can play it through that," Aaron said, taking some cables out of the bag.

"Alright, I'll boot the laptop up," Zak said, taking the laptop out of the bag and sitting down on the couch, setting the laptop down on the coffee table.

He opened it up and hit the button to turn it on.

As Cheryl took a second load of dishes to the sink, I stood up, gathered up the condiments from the table, and carried them over to the proper cupboard and put them away.

"Ali! What did I tell you?" Cheryl suddenly spoke.

"I can't hear you," I jokingly said, pretending to be deaf.

"Ugh, Zak, make her relax," Cheryl said, speaking across the open space.

"Hey, he's not the boss of me!" I said, pretending to be mad.

"Hey Ali, come here for a minute, I want to show you something," Zak said, holding up his phone.

Not thinking anything of it, I walked over to him.

"What do- ah!" I yelped, feeling Zak suddenly pull me down so I was sitting on his lap, with his arms tightly wrapped around my waist.

"Sorry doll, I lied," Zak said, grinning at me.

Cheryl and Aaron laughed.

I huffed like I was mad, folding my arms across my chest.

Zak laughed, then leaned up near my ear and softly said, "Sit here with me and just relax, please?"

I looked at his pleading face and jokingly sighed.

"It's a good thing you're cute Bagans," I replied, turning so I was sitting sideways on his lap and slouched down a bit to rest my head against his shoulder.

He smiled as he set his phone aside, and then lifted the laptop from the table and set it on my lap, opening up a program and preparing to play the footage.

Aaron jokingly made gagging sounds as he hooked up wires from the laptop to the TV.

I heard Cheryl giggling in the kitchen as she rinsed off the dishes, and loaded them into the dishwasher.

I smiled to myself as I stayed curled up close to Zak and watched what he was doing on the laptop.

It was roughly 45 minutes later.

We had watched through all of Aaron's footage.

Even though I knew what was coming, I had still gasped in shock, along with Cheryl, when the door had slammed shut behind him.

I easily felt his fear at that moment. Being trapped in a room by some unseen force.

It must have been terrifying.

I had felt Zak tighten his grip around me slightly when, at one point during the footage, Aaron's camera had faintly picked up one of my cries of pain.

I didn't say anything.

Cheryl had to cover her mouth from screaming when Aaron's camera clearly caught one of the wooden boards flying through the air at him.

Then, we had watched Zak's footage.

Zak's footage was easily the scariest thing I had witnessed, and despite knowing the outcome, I was tense with fear the entire time it was on.

I wasn't thrilled to see that Zak had started taunting the spirits almost right away, but I also wasn't surprised. I knew that was a tactic Zak often used.

I had felt goosebumps form on my arms when Zak had captured the very same frightening voice they had caught on a previous investigation.

"…you're fuckin' around in my house…"

I jumped in Zak's arms and Cheryl shrieked when the static-x camera was thrown from the tripod and smashed into the wall.

Cheryl had exclaimed "oh my god" when Zak had captured that creepy voice again.

"…gonna kill her…"

Then I had heard my own voice cry out in pain again.

God…was I that loud to be heard two floors apart? I had thought.

I felt my eyes tear up when Zak had realized the voice was talking about me, and had turned the camera on himself for the first time.

Seeing him physically weak, barely able to breath, and the fear in his eyes, hit me hard. I had never seen him like that.

I never wanted to see him like that again.

Then it was time for my footage.

I didn't know how I was going to make it through.

"Oh my god, your wrists!" Cheryl gasped.

The TV-me had just panned the camera down to show my red and irritated wrists.

I didn't respond.

I watched myself react to feeling the intense pain in my stomach.

"What happened?" Cheryl asked, thinking she had missed something.

"I felt like I had gone into labour…" I responded softly.

"Oh my god…" Cheryl replied, staring at the screen.

I watched silently as I tried to comfort Elizabeth. As I tried to tell her I understood the pain she must of felt.

Suddenly, after the PX device had voiced that it was not Elizabeth causing the pain, and I had questioned if it was Wingfield, the footage went black.

"What happened?" Cheryl asked, looking surprised at the sudden ending.

"Both her camera and the static-x camera went dead," Aaron replied, taking a digital recorder out of the laptop bag.

It had a piece of masking tape on it, with my name written across it in ink.

Oh no…

"But her digital recorder continued recording…" Aaron said softly, then hit the play button.

"Leave" "leave" the PX device spoke.

A few seconds of silence, then a scream of pure fear, my scream, emitted from the recorder.

There was a loud, metallic sounding bang as my head had hit the radiator.

My stomach rolled at the sound.

Then my jaw nearly dropped to the floor at the voice that came out of the recorder.

"You weren't supposed to come," Emily said.

I hadn't thought at the time that the recorder would pick up her voice.

"Was that Elizabeth?" Cheryl asked.

"No, we have her voice on recorder from a previous investigation. That voice sounds like a young girl," Zak replied.

Oh no. No, no, no.

A faint sound of glass shattering emitted from the recorder, and then my very soft whisper of Zak's name.

Aaron stopped the recorder.

"That's it…" Aaron said softly.

There was silence for a few seconds.

"A young girl…Ali! That must have been Emily! You said she had warned you not to go and had visions of a room numbered 109 earlier in the day!" Cheryl exclaimed, looking at me in shock.

Oh. Fuck.

"Emily?" Zak asked, looking at Cheryl, then looked down at me, his eyes slightly narrowed.

"Who's Emily?" Zak asked.

Authors Note: Dun Dun Dun! I think it's about time some of the truth came out, don't you? I also think some trouble in Bagans/Wilde paradise is in order.

I hope you enjoyed the update! :)