I was supposed to wait for more reviews before posting this. That was the plan. But I GOT TOO EXCITED AND I HAD TO POST IT TODAY! It's probably my favorite chapter so far. Guest 2019, thank you for always reviewing. And thanks also to PrincessoftheFae! This chapter is for you guys! Hopefully it explains your question, Guest2019. ;)
Disclaimer: I'm not even going to WRITE the disclaimer here because I've already written it in the first 5 chapters. Any doubts, and I suggest you go back and have a looksy :D
Enjoy!
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Chapter 6: The Fellowship of the King
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A few hours later and the sun was slowly sinking behind the trees. It was the last few minutes of the day before the sun went off to shine on another part of the world. Sarah pushed open the school doors, and walked out of the building. She had no reason to go home to an empty house, and then come back for the meeting, she reasoned. So she had decided to hang around school the whole day. The sky was beginning to turning a cobalt blue with stars peeping out, one by one.
She found Taylor, Emily, and Luke already waiting in silence by the school fountain. Sean arrived a minute later with Stacey trailing behind, texting busily.
"Hey guys!" Stacey smiled brilliantly at them, "One sec..."
"Jeez, how is it this dark already?" Sean grimaced, shoving his hands into his team basketball jacket and looking up at the sky. "It's only 6:10!"
Taylor stood up from his seat on the fountain. Emily stood to move by Sarah, her hands twisting nervously together. The soft underwater lights of the fountain auomatically turned on and the water continued to gurgle peacefully.
"Who're we missing?" Taylor asked.
"Um...I don't see MJ.." Emily softly said, nervously looking around.
"You guys look like the cover of a Christian rock album." MJ spoke up from behind them, making Emily jump.
"Jeez! What are you, a ninja?" Sean asked, startled as well.
"Vampire." MJ deadpanned.
Emily's mouth fell open, "But...I've seen you in the sun!"
"I am the day walker. Fear me." She deadpanned again.
It took everything in Sarah not to not laugh and roll her eyes at Emily's expression. She cleared her throat. "Ok, look...we all know why we're here. The black out at the pep rally. The wind. The voice."
"I... I don't know what you're talking about." Stacey gulped and stared around at the group wide-eyed.
This time Sarah did roll her eyes. Why would she even be here if she didn't know?
"Stacey, I saw your face during the rally. I saw ALL of your faces and you were just as freaked out as I was. You all heard the same thing I did."
Taylor nodded, "'Everyone plays together."
A long, heavy pause filled the air as everyone refused to look at each other.
"There's...there's something else..." Emily spoke up timidly. She held out her phone with chubby, shaky hands.
"Emily...are those texts from Dan?!" Sarah gasped.
"Wait...you got them too!?" Luke was shocked too.
MJ held up her hands, "Hold up, did we all get weird-ass texts from Dan last night?"
Sarah's fingers moved towards the bruises on her neck which began to ache at her touch.
"Guys... I have to tell you something..."
She summoned her courage and told them everything that happened last night. The texts...the blackout...the fae creature that wore Dan's face.
"I know it sounds crazy. But…. the Goblin King is back." Sarah looked around at the familiar faces surrounding her, gauging their expressions.
Sean's face scrunched in fury, "We have to call the cops. Right now. They'll find that sicko that attacked you..."
"Sean," Sarah tried to calm him down, "There's no point. There's no way the police would believe us."
"You don't know that!" He got angrier, "Why does no one EVER call the cops or tell an adult?! This is like one of those stupid, cliched horror stories! We gotta tell the police."
Sarah scoffed and shook her head. Pssh. I think Sean's been reading fanfiction again...
She turned to MJ to prove her point, "MJ, would your dad believe you if you told him that a mythical nightmare shadow being from an underground realm was coming to kill us all after we accidentally woke him up from a 1,000 year slumber about 10 years ago?" Sarah raised her eyebrows at her.
MJ's normally stoic face broke into a genuine smile and she chuckled. Everyone stared at the sight. It was so rare to see MJ smile.
"Hell no. He'd make me pee in a cup and search my room for drugs."
Taylor recovered the fastest, "Uhh…Besides, what are cops going to do against the Goblin King? Arrest him?"
Sean looked crushed, "Yeah, alright. I get it." He crossed his arms and aimed a sharp kick at a pebble on the asphalt, sending it flying across the school parking lot. "Still…it could've been just some creep trying to take advantage of Sarah..."
Sarah made an indignant sound, but before she could say anything, MJ said "Oh yeah, uh speaking of cop stuff, Dan's parents reported him missing this morning."
"They what?!" Sarah turned to her, terrified. She had already imagined that was the case. Now it was just official. Memories from her strange experience in the locker start flooding back to her….the Goblin King himself told me that Dan was lost in the woods.
"Dan's missing and you're just telling us about it now?!" Taylor scowled.
MJ looked embarrassed for a moment and then glared back defensively, "I figured you had already heard about it!"
"Not everyone's dad is the Sheriff, MJ!" Stacey snapped at her, high-strung.
Sarah looked at the forest in the far distance, the outlying black tree-tops were barely visible without the sun. Time is running out.
She turned to the group, determined, "Guys, Dan's in serious trouble. We have to go find him!"
Stacey waved her arms around, "Sarah, come on. He needs actual help from, like, adults!...and professionals!...Professional adults!"
Sarah shook her head, "No. It has to be us."
Luke spoke up then, "And why is that, precisely?"
Sarah gulped and said, "Because we know who took him."
Stacey scoffed, "Right...his imaginary friend from when he was, like, 8 years old."
"The Goblin King wasn't just Dan's friend." Sarah glared at her pointedly.
MJ glared at Stacey too, "And you damn well know that he wasn't imaginary."
Sarah became desperate and looked pleadingly to Stacey and the rest of them, "I know no one here wants to dredge this stuff back up…ESPECIALLY me….But it happened. We all saw the Goblin King, and we all saw what he did to Jess." Sarah grew angry, "We CAN'T let him do the same thing to Dan."
"No one did anything to Jess, Sarah. It was just a freak accident." Stacey said sadly. She looked about ready to break into a million pieces. But she wasn't letting go of her illusion... she wasn't giving in.
Taylor lost it and yelled at her, "That's bull, and you know it."
"All I know is that we were a bunch of dumb kids who shouldn't have been playing in the woods by themselves!" She yelled back.
'President Thomas' came between them with his hands up and calmly said, "Look, let's just all calm down and consider the facts. Everything that happened at the rally can be explained by some faulty wiring."
Sarah scoffed out loud, shaking her head. Can the door blowing open be explained by faulty wiring as well? And the texts? Puh-lease.
He looked over at Sarah sternly and continued, "As for Dan... what exactly are you proposing we do?"
Sarah, like Taylor, had had enough of this. "Isn't it obvious?! We have to stop this! Now! We have to go find Dan and figure out what Ja...The Goblin King did, so we can undo it. We have to go-"
"...Into the woods..." Emily gasped.
The wind picked up. Leaves flew across the asphalt as Emily backed away, shaking her head frantically.
"No. No, no no...I am not going back there." She started to tremble like a scared lamb.
Taylor moved toward Emily holding his hands up in a calming gesture. " Emily, I know you're scared but if we want this to stop we have to-"
Sean blocked his path, putting a gentle but firm hand on his chest, "Back off man, Emily doesn't have to do anything that she doesn't want to."
"Are you serious right now?" Taylor turned angry.
Somewhere a heavy door slammed open.
Everyone tensed as one, like a group of stray animals caught in a predator's stare. Three cheerleaders rounded the corner of the gym, chatting happily as they passed. They vanished into the school and the group started to breathe again.
Stacey was the first to speak, and she was spiteful, "Taylor...maybe you have time going running around the woods chasing boogiemen, but some of us have real problems."
Taylor turned to her with rage, "Gettin' kidnapped by some shadow-monster nightmare-dude seems like a PRETTY REAL PROBLEM!"
"Guys...we need everyone's help." Sarah tried to calmly say to Stacey.
"I'm sorry. I just can't get involved with this." She gazed at Sarah desperately, willing for her to take sides with her. Why is she…?
Taylor seethed, "Why? Afraid it will mess up your precious popular world?"
Stacey's eyes flashed, "No, because if Dan's been kidnapped by some crazy guy, a bunch more of us stumbling around the woods isn't going to do much for him!"
"And what if it's not some guy?" Sarah tried again for the final time, "What if there's actually something supernatural going on?"
Emily's voice trembled as she put her two cents in, "Then we should stay far, far away from it!"
Taylor rounded on Emily like a mad dog, "So you're just going to close your eyes and pretend that nothing's happening, just like you did when my sister died?"
Their faces all fell.
"Taylor..." Stacey tried, looking about ready to cry.
"No. I've had enough of this. The Goblin King killed Jess right in front of us, and you all shrugged it off like nothing happened."
"Hey! No one 'shrugged off' anything." Sean said, angrily.
"The hell you didn't! Class president, cheerleader, basketball jock, football star...you all seem to be doing pretty fine."
The gang all looked at Taylor, really looked at him. His beanie covered his head of long, unwashed hair that stopped at his shoulders. His jeans were saggy on his boney hips because he was a bean pole, very thin. He was wearing a faded denim jacket with a few holes. Sarah felt like she got punched in the gut. She knew his mom didn't earn a lot of money. They mostly got help from the government ever since Taylor's dad walked out on them, and his mom collected disability because she got crazy migraines so that she refused to work. 10 years later and Taylor's situation had gotten worse with time and not better for it. Besides that, they had all sort of abandoned him, which made it worse. It was no excuse, but unconsciously they all thought the same thing: Every time they looked at his face...they could see a hint of Jessica.
He continued, "The second Jess was in the ground you all were happy to move on with your lives and you're pulling the same stunt with Dan."
Stacey exploded defensively, "Oh now you care about Dan? Where have you been for the past year? Where were you when Dan got totally wasted at winter formal? Where were you when he was having breakdowns after every football game? Where the hell were you Taylor? Where were any of you?" She turned to glare at Sarah.
This was all news to Sarah. She was speechless. "I-I didn't know Dan was having so much trouble...why didn't he say anything?" She thought back to the last time they had really talked. It's been a long time.
"Because apparently when you become a big strong football star, you're not allowed to have feelings." Stacey retorted, looking back at Taylor.
"But we could have helped...I mean, I could have helped…" Sarah felt downtrodden. What happened to us? Why have we allowed this to happen?
"Well, now it's too late." Stacey angrily turned away, her long blonde hair whipping around as she stormed off without another word. Emily looked down at the ground, holding her textbooks in a shaking, white-knuckled grip.
"Emily..." Sarah tried softly.
"I... I'm sorry." Now Emily really was crying, "But I can't go back there. I just can't." She turned and hurried back towards the school, the glowing windows promising comfort and protection.
Taylor turned to glare at Luke, "I guess you're going to bail too, Captain America?"
Luke held his hands up in surrender, "Look, even if I did believe all this Goblin King stuff...I just don't have the time. Really." Luke sadly shook his head. He gave the group a last glance before he turned and headed toward the school as well.
"Fine! Just bury your heads in the sand! This isn't going to stop, you know!" Taylor yelled after them all.
Sarah sighed, "Taylor, leave them alone. If they won't admit what's happening, then they won't be any help anyway."
She sighed again, then turned to MJ who was cleaning her black nails, "So, what about you?"
MJ looked up and grinned. She was really quite beautiful when she smiled. "Oh, a creepy deep-woods ghost hunt is emphatically my brand. I'm in."
Sean spoke up, "Me too. I don't know about this Ghost crap...but Dan's a good guy and he needs us."
Sarah nodded, grateful that it wouldn't just be Taylor and her.
"So, when are we going? Friday?" MJ asked chipper.
Taylor and Sarah looked at her incredulously.
"What? No! We have to go tonight!" Taylor exclaimed.
MJ's face fell, "Uggh. I can't. My dad has this really strict school-night curfew, especially since it's the first day and...WOW… that actually sounds really lame out loud…" She looked sheepish.
"Yeah, I can't go tonight either. The team needs me here early tomorrow for training." Sean also said apologetically.
MJ rolled her eyes at Sean's excuse and turned to him, "Sure they do. How will team 'DudeBro' know they're having fun without some Asian minority to exclude?"
Sean stiffened, ready to snap at MJ...then he wilted, grumbling, " I mean, you're not wrong. But I have to keep showing up, right? They can't ignore me forever..."
MJ went back to being her sardonic herself, "I admire your optimism."
"So that's it? You're both sure you can't come?" Sarah looked between the two, beseeching.
Sean and MJ looked at each other doubtfully.
"MJ, what if we told your dad you were studying at my house?" Sarah suggested.
MJ looked surprised, "Huh. That might actually do it. He's always liked you. And he'll be thrilled to hear me making 'normal' friends."
Sarah then turned to Sean, "Sean I know that basketball is important to you but this could be the difference between life and death. You're the strongest person here, and I'd feel a lot better with you looking out for us."
Sean laughed, puffing out his chest a little, pleased that people have noticed his weight gain. "Well, when you put it that way... alright. I'm in."
"Taylor?" Sarah turned to him, already knowing the answer.
Taylor smiled for the first time today. It's a teensy smile, but a smile nonetheless "Yeah, I'm in."
"Alright then. I've gotta go in and grab my stuff from my locker. You guys go on ahead. We'll meet in front of the hardware store."
Taylor nodded, "Alright. And then what?"
They all looked to Sarah and it suddenly brought back memories of when they were all children, gearing up for an adventure together. Off to destroy the 'One Ring' of Sauron, or kill an evil Dragon, or some other wild tale of epic legend that they invented.
Sarah felt herself stand up a little straighter.
"Then...we go save Dan."
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*Cue Epic Adventure Music!*
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IMPORTANT NOTICE: I'm not going to post again until I get 5 new reviews. This is a stick-up! I'm holdng the next chapter hostage! If ya want the cookie, ya gotta dance first (aka review) ;)