The cool breeze gently brushed against Layne's uncovered arms, causing him to shiver slightly as the hairs raised and bristled, displeased by their exposure to the elements.
He stood roughly 5 feet and 10 inches tall, with wavy black hair, pale skin, brown eyes and two sleeper piercings in each earlobe
Layne rubbed his arms and looked around, noting that he stood in front of a solitary maple tree, while the grass was springy and pleasant beneath his bare feet, it vanished rather rapidly into the tremendous body of water in front of him, so far out that it dominated the horizon.
As he admired the view, some movement caught his eye, and when he focused his attention on it, he saw a woman, with long blonde hair and wearing a light dress, a shade of green much darker than the grass that surrounded her
The woman turned towards Layne and smiled, then beckoned for him to follow her.
Layne whipped his head around, convinced that he had misread her gesture, that there was someone around him that she had been communicating with, but nothing but empty grassland, solitary oak and the continuing light breeze awaited him, so he shrugged and moved in to follow her closer to the edge of the water.
As he attempted to approach her, she turned and smiled mischievously, before walking knee deep into the water, and then turning around to beckon at him yet again, her stunning green eyes, now that he was close enough to see what colour they were
"What the hell right?" he murmured to no one in particular, as he followed her into the water, the water cool, but not unpleasant as he waded in, and though he was wearing pants, they didn't seem to hinder his mobility as they got soaked
When Layne was waist deep in the water, the woman turned and smiled at him
"I've been waiting for this for some time, it's so nice to finally meet you like this" she spoke softly
"Do I know you already?" Layne asked, now that he was close to her and could make out all the details, there was something familiar about this woman, something that made him feel like he'd known her all of his life, but at the same time, he'd never seen her before.
"You will soon"
Before Layne could react she reached up and grabbed him by the shirt, and then leapt backwards, taking them both under the water, impossibly deep and impossibly fast
Layne yelped in surprise, releasing a cloud of bubbles and letting his only air escape and fade away into the blackness that surrounded the two of them, yet somehow her face was impossibly clear and perceptible in the darkness
She opened her mouth to speak and said
"Layne, wake up you useless piece of shit!"
Something smashed into the side of Layne's head at great velocity, rousing him from his previously quite deep slumber and he groaned
"Every god. Damned. Monday. It's the same shit with you Layne" a girls voice grew louder and and more displeased with every syllable "You stay up to hell knows when in the morning, doing shit knows what and you're always making us fucking late to school"
She stepped into his field of view, with dark skin, neck length brown hair and deep brown eyes, wearing a white blouse and a green tartan skirt that made up the female variant Layne's school uniform
"If you don't get out of bed now, i'll send this at something that breaks easier" she threatened, aiming at Layne's computer setup "Maybe i'll break it anyway, you might actually go to bed on time without that thing around"
She launched the pillow, but Layne who had heeded her initial threat caught it with an outstretched arm and tossed it onto his disheveled bed
"Why are you like this Moll?" he asked, shaking his head
"I don't want to hear that from you" a deep voice interjected, belonging to a figure leaning against the doorway, wearing the male uniform of navy shorts and a white polo, with his arms crossed, he was of a similar height and build to Layne, but had dirty blonde curls of hair and dull blue eyes, and at this very moment, a rather stern expression
"You know you have to go to school, it's the rules, you could have dropped out, but you didn't, so don't half-ass it"
"Why can't I take a day off here and there Joel?"
"That's what you said the last few times you tried this, if you don't make that minimum attendance they won't let you graduate, it's like four more months man, just bear with it"
Woefully outnumbered, Layne acquiesced and threw on his school shirt and applied some deodorant
"Fine, but i'm going to sleep in English"
"Not if I have anything to say about it" Moll growled
One eternity later, at recess, Layne stared blankly at the door as he sat on a metal silver bench and absently chewed on a green apple,
Joel came out of his maths class with his usual "S'goin on?" and a huge grin at the sight of the bags under Layne's eyes "I wasn't sure we were actually going to get you to make it today, but Moll said she'd beat your ass if you wagged off today"
"Sup…and I figured that'd be the case…so I came, but I'm here under protest" Layne replied easily as he leant his head back against the grey concrete wall he was sitting in front of, closing his eyes in a vain attempt to pass out before end of recess bell.
Joel and Layne continued their banter, talking about video games they played, the anime they watched last night, trash talk about mutual acquaintances and almost anything else
Talking to Joel came easily to Layne, who had been a quiet person his whole life.
"You jerks coming back to mine tonight?" Layne suddenly blurted out, "It's Tuesday tomorrow though so we can all sleep in till noon"
"Guess we will" replied Joel, as Moll arrived, cursing out the existence of her maths teacher
"Man I really hate maths, that damned big-nosed idiot won't shut the hell up when I'm trying to talk to everyone" she said angrily
Privately Layne thought she'd do a lot better if she actually attempted to pay attention in the class, but at the same time, some people shouldn't be teachers and Mr Big Nose was definitely one of them.
He also thought it was a bit rich of her to complain about being told what to do given the events of this morning, but having been on the receiving end of Moll's ire before, he wisely said nothing
Joel and Layne glanced at each other, unsure of what to say to calm her down. Layne just cocked an eyebrow as if to say to Joel "You've known her longer, you do it"
Joel and Moll had been his friends for three years… but they'd been friends with each other since childhood, It was rare that a day even went by where they physically didn't see each other though Joel occasionally ran Moll's patience thin with his adherence to rules and he didn't appreciate it when she tried to beat his ass, but they made it work
Layne was jealous of what Joel and Moll had together, they had been best friends for essentially an eternity longer than Layne had sleepwalked into their lives. He didn't want to do the wrong thing by either of them by feeling jealous but sometimes it felt like he was the third wheel in their story, like they only kept him around because they pitied him
"Still up for yours tonight Layne?" asked Moll, which snapped Layne from his chain of thought and back to reality
"Yeah I was just asking Joel about that" Layne replied dryly "But you woke me up entirely too early this morning, so we are going to marathon One Piece until I pass out tonight"
"The hell you are, you made it a real pain in the ass to wake up today"
Layne was suddenly reminded of his strange dream, of the lake, and the woman in the green dress… It had been a weird one for sure
"Alright, I'll be good!" he replied "i'll go to bed when ya'll do"
"Sure whatever" she grinned, seemingly restored to full spirits "I'm up"
They settled into some old, easy, laughing chatter that you wouldn't expect to be so easy between three people who had only known each other less than ten years altogether; but it came naturally to them because they had no one else to share their lives with.
The recess bell rang and the group split up and headed to their respective next class and for Layne than meant going to chemistry and switching off again though he was pretty cheered by the thought of watching One Piece until he passed out that night, so the rest of the day seemed like a blur to him and he just hoped he hadn't missed anything important during the blur.
The routine bored him, day in and day out, the same old lectures, and lessons and assignments, he craved a little excitement occasionally, but there wasn't a lot of room for it in his current lifestyle, so he tried to be with Joel and Moll as much as possible, but he'd never let them know.
As the world came into focus again he was walking home with Joel and Moll, between the three of them talking about everything and nothing as it came to them.
As they were in the middle of a group wide discussion of who would win in a fight between Mr Big Nose and another one teacher, when Moll, who had been walking a few steps ahead stopped, staring directly ahead with a look of shock etched onto her face, which was slowly melting into horror every second she looked
She continued to stare ahead, stock still but the other two didn't notice that she hadn't moved for some time until they caught up with her and noticed what she had been staring at.
It was definitely disturbing, Layne would later think back on the occasion and remember; a pulsing black, red and purple hole that had appeared where his house once stood, The gaping maw had appeared to swallow his house leaving only the hole in space where it once stood
Moll was dumbstruck "Shit" was the only word her mouth could correctly form
Layne had a similar reaction "That's… my goddamn house, with all of my stuff!"
Joel just moved a little closer with his jaw scraping the ground as he moved.
"Don't get closer to that thing idiot" Moll snapped, snatching at his arm "This thing isn't natural"
Layne followed Joel a bit closer and Moll walked just behind Layne, cursing their stupidity and natural instinct as they moved closer to the thing. Layne gave a weak grin and turned around to look at Joel and Moll
"Well, i guess it was a damn good thing that you convinced me not to wag off that last class...but like, what the hell is this?"
They shook their heads weakly, too enraptured with the gaping maw to notice any movement around them
Layne suddenly gave a shout of surprise as a rope like object that had crept up on him during his weak attempt at humor reached up and wrapped around his waist, coiled up his chest and appeared to puncture just to the right of the heart.
Layne grabbed a hold of it with both hands and started tugging at it, attempting to remove it, but it was attached deep, strangely the only pain he felt was the piercing of the skin and there was no blood to be seen, but he felt himself growing weaker by the second for some reason,
Moll and Joel shouted incoherently and ran over to him as he fell to his knees staring blankly at the rope-thing as it started tugging at him, pulling him on his ass and dragging him towards the hole while he vainly attempted to pull it off of him.
Layne shouted weakly at the two of them as they got close "Get the hell away! We don't know what this thing is!"
But they continued their attempts at separation, grabbing a hold behind Layne's hands and yanking as hard as they could.
Without warning two more of the rope-like objects snaked out and grabbed Moll and Joel, piercing them in the exact same location, two fingers to the right of the heart, and then all three of them were caught and slowly being dragged into the hellish, gaping maw.
"Goddammit" Layne growled, "This has not been a good day"
Then he noticed that apparently the worst was yet to come
A white spike was the only way to describe it, it appeared to be made out of bone and it shot out of the maw and looked like it was going to hit Joel in the chest
"Joel!" Layne and Moll shouted together
With the absolute last reserves of his strength Layne forced himself to his feet and dove in front of Joel's struggling form, crossing his arms to shield Joel
The spike impaled Layne's right wrist at a forty five degree angle to his arm the force of the impact knocking Layne backwards and flat on his ass, impaling so deep that Layne blinked at the pointed tip covered in his blood from the other side of his wrist, and he groaned and slumped over with a dull crumpling sound, having fainting from a lack of ability to stand the combination of the sight and the pain.
Another muffled thud alerted Moll to the fact that Joel too, had passed out from the effects of the rope
Moll had been the last one to get captured by the rope but, could only watch as the ropes and the spike in Layne's wrist seemed to emit a faint glow and she could now see that they were pumping something into the three friends
Both of Layne's attachments had a deep green theme except the spike was only edged green when a black core, while the rope was fully green and when she focused on it, Moll could swear she could hear rushing water. Looking across to Joel she saw that his rope was red and sounded like a rumbling earthquake. While when she looked down at her own all she saw was a translucent white and sounded like a howling gale.
Inevitably, Joel who had been the closest of the three to the maw after Layne was knocked backwards while literally taking a bullet for him and though he had tried, with all of his not inconsiderable physical prowess to get loose before passing out he had been powerless to resist the rope and was sucked into the gaping maw, which seemed to crackle at his entry, shifting violently.
"JOEL!" screamed Moll as he disappeared over the event horizon
Moll had never been one to hide her so called "useless emotions" as Layne so often expressed them so she openly wept, her frustration and sadness coming out as she watched Layne too get closer to the edge
Layne strangely got stuck on the edge of the event horizon, strange not because Moll had any idea of what in the world was happening to them, but because she could actually see the rope/tube straining to pull him in but he wasn't budging, not being pulled in, yet unconscious and unable to get up and attempt to escape escape so as Moll moved past him she grabbed the spike that was still impaled in his wrist and attempted to hang on for dear life.
But her the pull of the rope binding her was inexorable and as she was pulled in she removed the spike stuck in Layne's wrist, and that seemed to be the thing keeping them from falling in.
As they fell through the blackness Moll let go out of the spike and grabbed onto Layne's limp left leg and held it as tight as she possibly could, before she too blacked out from the effects of the rope
Behind them the hole winked out of existence… as if it were an old CRT television that had just received the command to switch off, the only memento of its existence the complete and utter disappearance of the house it had swallowed during its brief existence.