Not sure if this update was fast enough, but I tried to get it up as soon as I could. I'm going to try to upload one chapter a week, but as always, no promises. Because life is too chaotic for that.

Lucas struggled to keep up with the three boys. They were headed towards the town entrance, though he didn't know exactly why. No one had seen them enter or leave Victor's house, and Lucas was worried that running towards the town entrance would only look suspicious.

"Wait!" Lucas called, coming to a stop so that he could catch his breath. The others halted and grudgingly turned around to face him.

"What is it?" Toshiaki questioned.

"Where are we going? What are we even doing?" he gasped.

"Nowhere. I just wanted to make sure we wouldn't be seen. We're lucky we left before that kid and his father came home."

"His name is Victor," Lucas mumbled, keeping his head down.

"Well we now know how he brought his dog back to life," Toshiaki said, ignoring him and flipping through Victor's notebook. "All we need to do now is gather supplies and wait for the perfect weather."

Lucas looked up to the sky and was relieved to see that the three wouldn't be able to perform their experiment tonight. If the next few days held clear skies, he might be able to convince them to drop the entire thing. If he couldn't however, and they did manage to successfully bring back something from the dead, who knows who might discover what they had created? And if anyone found out that he was involved in anyway, he could end up like Victor, or worse.

"Maybe we shouldn't-," Lucas began, getting cut off by Nassor who shoved a small piece of paper into his hand. Lucas squinted at the small handwriting and saw that it was a list of supplies.

"Find as many of these as you can," Toshiaki demanded. "Bring anything similar as well. The more we have the better."

Lucas sighed as he watched the three split off into different directions. He briefly glanced down at the list in his hand before slowly walking back to his house. The only option he had at the moment was follow the others orders. If he didn't, they would try to find someone else to help them. Lucas knew that there would be no one in this town that would provide them with the assistance they wanted. It would only cause trouble for them all if they told anyone else what they had planned.

Lucas didn't bother rushing to get to his house or to gather what as on the list. He had around half of what Toshiaki had told him to get, but he only picked three items that he would give to the others. His mother would notice if suddenly a bunch of stuff disappeared, and he didn't want to contribute more than necessary to this scheme of theirs. He hoped that they didn't want them by today. It was already dark, and there was no way he would be able to leave the house until morning.

After collecting what he felt would satisfy the boys, Lucas silently crept up to his room, thankful his mother didn't look up from the book she was reading. He took one of the spare blankets he had and threw everything into it. He tied the corners together so that nothing would fall out and kicked it under his bed.

Lucas felt the guilt slowly start to rise the second he plopped onto his bed. He had betrayed his best friend and possibly put him and his family into serious danger. He tried to assure himself that he wouldn't let the issue get out of hand, but he knew the second even one person from the town became aware of anything rising from the dead that they would immediately connect it to the Van Dorts.

It reminded him of the story that everyone had warned his family about when they decided to move to the small town. The one about the man who married the corpse. Lucas still didn't believe one bit of it, even after seeing his friend bring his dead dog back to life. Sparky's resurrection made sense, a dead woman magically rising from the grave to marry a living man and bring him to the underworld did not.

Lucas cleared his thoughts and rolled onto his side. To combat the stress raging in his head, he turned off his lights and quickly fell asleep, hoping that he woke up to clear skies.

...

Immediately after Lucas awoke the next morning, he jumped out of bed and pulled open his curtains. To his dismay, his saw the sky filled with dark clouds, promising a storm some time later in the day. He kicked the wall, grumbling to himself, before plodding down the stairs to get some breakfast. After eating, he grabbed his makeshift bag and exited his house. It didn't take long for the three boys to come into view.

Bob walked up to him, staring at the bag. "Is that all you brought?"

"This was all I had."

"It's fine," Nassor stated. "I think we have more than enough supplies. We should be able to do everything tonight if this weather keeps up."

"Um...What exactly are we doing?" Lucas asked nervously.

"We're testing out Victor's experiment, obviously," Toshiaki said. "Except we're going to make it better, because we're going to use humans."