To all readers, every chapter has been fully updated now! Thank you for being so supportive! This chapter is especially dedicated to skyseeker1 and DemonicEcho! Thank you, thank you! I appreciate how skyseeker1 gave me enough patience and persistence to complete this chapter. Next, thank you to DemonicEcho for being a good buddy and making me laugh with your hilarious profile!
But… how?!" exclaimed Melody.
"Didn't she just explain how we'd be able to leave this place?" said Marie, rolling her eyes, "If Cyndi was able to summon clothes into the game, then there must be a way to reverse that ability and use it to get us out of here!"
"No," replied Talia, shaking her head.
"What do you mean by 'no'?!" shrieked Marie, "Isn't that what she said? You tell 'em Raine!" she demanded, but Raine just looked stunned at her sudden involvement and stared, dumbfounded.
Devin gave Marie a gloating look that seemed to say, 'Now don't you start on her!'
Spurned by their mindlessness, Marie snapped back, "But I heard what I heard! You all heard it clearly, didn't you? Didn't you?!"
Talia finally looked up, after searching her depths of knowledge. She answered, "No, I don't think that that's what Melody means. I believe that she means, 'so now what?' How are we going to be able to untangle this mess? Cyndi has taken Eve; the both of them have disappeared. Why would she just take Eve? Why wouldn't she take Fern too? Perhaps the madness within Cyndi couldn't last any longer, so within that short amount of time, she could only take Eve. From what Fern said, it sounded like Cyndi was fighting a mental war. She could've just taken Eve and left Fern here to suffer. If she wanted to take us all out, then she could've just stayed and attacked us all alongside Eve and Fern."
Tai spoke up as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "Or what if Eve knew something— something that Fern didn't know. Which leads us to…"
"Hide and seek!" giggled Candi. "Hooray! I can read minds now! Just kidding… it means that we have to find them," she finished glumly. Tai reassured her that they could play later.
"Now you're talking sense, Candi!" cheered Talia. For once, Candi wasn't being beguile.
"And you are talking nonsense," responded Marie, "Look, I enjoy being with my pals, but I don't think that they'd be happy to have us all sacrifice ourselves in a mere attempt to find them."
"What else should we do though?" Ani clucked, "I know that our friends won't like it, but we really don't have any other choice. We can't stay, because those monsters know our location now. If we stay any longer, they'll figure out how to out-maneuver our defenses."
At the mention of the zombies knowing their location, Fern had bursted into tears. She felt as if she was worthy of the blame for leading the zombies here. She trembled in the corner, as the flashlight's light was still on her. It was blinding, and the night's breeze made her feel more unwelcome, as it swept at her plaid dress and made her feet feel cold. Her mint-green hair drooped and covered her brown eyes. She felt like a threat to her loved ones, ever since she had been bitten. She felt her stomach churning, as she dreaded the possibility that she could lead another swarm of those bloodthirsty beings to their base again. All of her friends could be obliterated, and she would have no knowledge of it until she had awakened. This feeling of helplessness felt worse than being a corpse. At this point, she was practically a traitor against her own will.
It was hard for Ani to see Fern this miserable, so she decided to defend Fern. Jumping up and down in her new outfit, which was a giant, red crayon, she yelled, "Alright! I would like to continue speaking, and if any of you dare to object, then prepare to get batted on the head!"
There was silence, except from Marie, who exclamored, "I want to see how that feels like."
"Be quiet!" demanded Ani, who hit Marie on the head once.
"Ouch!" she whimpered.
Everyone shushed Marie, before Ani took the spotlight. "Ahem," she commenced, "So… we're not gonna' just leave Fern here, right? I'd say that it's best to not leave her here. First of all, none of us would ever forgive ourselves, if we ditched her. Second, um… Karma's gonna' get us if we do."
The first reason was enough for everyone. Talia gave her approval without a second thought. "Of course, friends are friends. We'd forgive easily for accidents, but we wouldn't appreciate it if you tried to cover it up and refuse to tell us earlier, which ends up hurting all of us more," she turned to Fern, "So the next time, if something's wrong, tell us if you do have the ability to. I know that you couldn't this time, because you weren't in your right mind. But if you can, you must, there wouldn't be another… er..."
"Candi situation," finished Tai. He knew how Talia was reluctant to bring up nearly losing someone again.
"Instead of walking, could we skip this time?" inquired Candi, hungry for some fun.
"Candi," laughed Tai, "I'm sorry to say, but I've told you this before: We're not in The Wizard of Oz."
Everyone laughed lightheartedly, including Fern, even though she had had a long frown upon her face for a long time. Afterward, they all got down to business— the business of unpacking. Devin and Raine both gazed meekly at each other's eyes, and opened their mouths as if they wanted to say something, but both of their courage failed to appear. Therefore, they dropped their gazes and went to assist the others with their long list of tasks. By dawn, Devin had finished disassembling their last bedframe silently with Tai, before hearing Talia bark, "Ani, stop drawing irrelevant pictures on the list!"
"It's not One Punch Man (an anime character who is bald), it's an egg to represent food!" cried Ani, clearly hurt by Talia's misinterpretation. In revolt, she attempted to whack Talia on the head as a wake-up call, but Talia easily blocked it. Displeased, Ani attempted to even more.
"Oh. Sorry," mumbled Talia, seeing that Ani was fanatical about whacking her, yet she continued to refuse getting whacked by putting her arm up to block every hit. "Speaking of food," she said, "Who did you send to handle the food?"
"Candi and Marie."
"Noooo, why them?!" shrieked Talia, as she started to lose her cool.
"They were standing around and refused to do anything, until I mentioned the kitchen. They even promised to save something for me!" replied Ani, outraging Talia.
"They refused to do, anything, but eat!" screeched Talia to Ani's face, before she dashed off to the kitchen. She skipped the ladder, and jumped down onto the first floor. Skidding at the turn in the hallway, she used all her might to throw herself at the kitchen door, in case it was locked. With a loud crash, Talia burst into the room. She rolled to a stop, before she got up and tried to catch her breath, ready for the crisis. To her horror, her fears had been confirmed true.
Candi looked up from trying to swallow a cherry pit, while Marie tossed her 32nd juice box away.
"HOW COULD YOU?!" Talia roared.
Candi shrunk into the corner with fear, while Marie just walked nonchalantly past them to the counter next to Talia, picked up a cupcake and bit into it. That did it for Talia!
Her roars of pure rage practically sent an earthquake from the kitchen, causing everyone else outside of that room to wobble as the floor trembled beneath their feet! When they finally got a stable footing on the floor, Tai got up and bolted to the kitchen to see whether poor Candi was alright.
Meanwhile, Raine was guarding Fern in her confinement room, when the "rage-quake" had struck. The crude floorboards beneath her had some large gaps between them. Unfortunately, she caught her shoe in one of them. Fighting to tug it out, she was no match for it while the floor kept trembling. The tension between them sent her flying back when her grip on her shoe slipped. She shrieked, when she was sent rolling across the floor. She got up during her roll. Dizzy, she hit the balcony's railing and felt dazed, before she rubbed her neck. "Lucky that railing is here," mumbled Raine, as she rubbed her sore neck. She suddenly aroused when she recalled that she was supposed to be keeping Fern in her room and out of trouble! She bounded back to the door, quickly yanked at her shoe and crammed it back onto her foot, before she pressed her ear to the door and listened. There was silence. "Did she escape, while I was distracted?!" concluded Raine. She paled as she imagined what the others would say about this.
That's when she heard Fern murmur from inside the room, "Are- are you okay, Raine?"
Raine exhaled with relief when she heard that, "Thank goodness, you're still here."
"Of course I am! Where would I go? Why won't you all trust me?!" snapped Fern in anguish, as her breathing became heavier.
There wasn't a peephole in the door for Raine to see through, but if there was, then she would've seen the irises in Fern's eyes flicker and gleam red for a moment.
When Fern saw a red light flash on the floor, she didn't realize that it came from her own eyes. She looked around the room. There were no windows here, as the others wanted to prevent her from escaping that way. The lightbulb, hanging on a wire overhead, teetered and bathed the room in a dim, yellow glow.
"Whoa," thought Fern, shaking her head, "Stop it you." She threw her head back against the wall, while her forehead was dotted with beads of sweat.
In her mind, she could hear a tiny voice that responded with, "Oh? Says who? Me. I do what I want, and no one can stop me, not even you. You're lucky, because in one moment, you're about to get a taste of freedom from this pathetic structure… but you still won't get a break from me!" Fern wrenched her light green hair. What was wrong with her?! She whisper-shouted breathlessly in agony, "My mind is going insane!"
Meanwhile, Raine just stood outside the room, thinking about Fern's response, "Ouch. Um, okay, I guess that I deserved that bit of ferocity. I didn't mean to hurt her feelings though. I guess that I might've taken my job too rigidly."
Unexpectedly, Devin bounded swiftly into the room. He had jumped up from the ladder, while Tai was following close behind. Exhausted, Tai huffed at the last rung on the ladder, he threw one arm to grab a hold of the floorboards in the room. He heaved himself onto the floor, before he laid down to take a rest. Raine saw that in one hand, Tai held a potato sack.
"Quickly!" Devin called, "It's time to go." It was apparent that Devin seemed to be troubled about something. They heard another roar that caused the rooms to shake, before Raine hastily threw herself against the wooden door, grabbed a hold of the doorknob, and flung the door open. Tai took one leap, and stuffed Fern's head into the potato sack without a word. Fern screeched in agony and swiped at them with her overgrown fingernails, as if she was an attacking, wild animal. She missed every swing in her blindfold, because she couldn't see that her targets were at her sides, instead of in front of her.
"Careful," reminded Tai, "I suspect that she currently only gets deranged when she's in the shadows. We could keep a light on her, while she's in this sack to keep her sane, but our flashlights are almost out of power, so we've decided to save them for our next camp tonight instead."
With one move, Devin had Fern's arms pinned to her side, so that she could stop slashing at them. Tai quickly used a rope to tie a sailor's knot around her, before they attached a wooden board to the other end of the rope. Slowly, they lowered her down onto the first floor.
"Are we going to disassemble the last materials in that room that we held her in?" questioned Tai.
"No, it'll take too much time. We can come back for it later," replied Devin.
Once the boys had heaved Fern a good distance away from the ladder, Raine tread down and found Talia batting a rolling pin in the palm of her hand. She demanded that they all head out, before trouble would strike them today. Obligingly, Raine ducked away from Talia, and dashed out into the glorious sunlight awaiting them. Outside, she found Candi, looking ready to go for the first time in her life, while Marie stood next to Candi with her arms crossed. There seemed to be no signs of fear upon Marie's face, even though she'd recently been scolded. Talia was the last to storm outside, slamming the door behind her.
She called, "Ani, Tai, ready as defense?"
They just nodded silently, eyes wide with fright.
"Good," she responded. Seeing their terror, she rubbed her head and apologized, "Sorry about that earlier. We're short on a week's worth rations now though."
Marie nonchalantly replied, "Better eaten than never."
Talia rolled her eyes and sneered at Marie. She said nothing, as she turned away in an attempt to stay calm. She pointed towards the clear, grassy near the woods, before she began leading the way.
Raine strolled silently. She watched try to whistle quietly, as his head dropped. Thrown over his shoulder was a pile of lumber, while Ani hastily strided sideways, pointing her gun in all directions in preparation for any undead that could approach them. Raine's eyes then swung to Tai, who was joking with Candi. His hold on his weapon had slackened, as he saw Candi as a higher priority. When Candi giggled, it lightened the tense mood.
Uninvited, a creature lolled into view from a couple of trees next to a building to their right. Talia whooped out a pistol and spun it around, before she fired a few shots at it with Ani. That did the trick to vanquish the creature. It tumbled to the ground with a finished groan, before its remains blinked thrice and despawned.
It was a brief walk out of the fairgrounds, before they arrived on the grassy avenue next to the woods. Raine felt the cool shade of the trees flicker upon her face, beckoning her to close her eyes. The warm sunshine and the damp coolness of the shade in the morning air was satiating. When she opened her eyes, Devin found a strange sight beholding him. He was sure that her irises were a dark brown hue earlier, but now that her eyes glimmered happily in the sunlight, he could clearly see that they were a breathtaking blue. Raine's easygoing strides quickly turned into a skip, before she spun and… she froze. Where was Fern?
She quivered not because of the crisp, morning air, but because she had a bad feeling about this. Fern was supposed to be tied up to a rope that was attached to the wooden board that Raine was holding. When Raine's grip had slackened though, Fern must've had her chance to escape! The potato sack was not far from where Raine was standing, which meant that Fern had recently escaped and could still be around.
"Fern? Where's Fern!" Raine yelped desperately. She swivelled around and caught sight of Fern, dashing into the forest. "She's getting away!" she cried to everyone.
Raine was puzzled. Since Fern took off the sack on her head, then she would've been hit by full sunlight. Fern had only gone psychotic when she was in complete darkness. What was going on? Talia exclamored something that Raine didn't hear, before Talia attempted to chase after Fern, but she didn't get far, before her ankle gave in on her. That was when Devin made eye contact with Raine. It was a sensation between them where no words needed to be exchanged for them to know what both wanted to say. As if it was a review, Raine remembered that now that she had gained a steady balance in walking again, she had proven that she knew that the one with the most speed would be the most capable in finding Fern. It was up to Raine.