"How cliche. Cat goes missing in the woods the day before Halloween. Good prank, idiots." Trina rolled her eyes as the group of friends stood by the large front door. She watched as the teenagers exchanged various worried and panicked looks, all but Jade who stood silently staring out into the woods.

"This isn't a prank." Beck replied, pushing past Trina to look outside slightly. He stood on the porch, his eyes scanning the view as far as he could see.

"Yeah, Trina shut up." Tori's eyes glared at her elder sister.

"Should I call 911?" Robbie added, pulling out his pearphone. His voice shook as he spoke, his eyes focused on his cell. He felt as though the wind had been knocked out of him, fear controlling his every move.

"No." Jade hushed her friends loudly. "We don't even know she's missing or gone. Knowing Cat she's wandered off and is playing hide and seek with us all." As usual, she was the responsible and adult one out of her friends.

"How can you be so sure?" Andre raised his eyebrow at his scary friend, taking one step away from her as he spoke.

"Because this isn't a fucking horror movie." Jade expressed, stubbornness in her voice.

"Maybe we should split up and look for her?" Tori suggested, her voice confident whilst her eyes flicked back and forth between the woods and her friends.

"We're not the fucking Scooby Doo gang." Jade hissed sarcastically. "But whatever, if it'll make you guys stop shitting your pants lets split up and look for her."

"Oh, I'll look with Beck!" Trina's hand rose in the air the moment Jade finished her sentence, her eyes changing from worry to excitement in a flash.

"Whatever, go with him. You guys can check the forest behind the cabin?"

Beck nodded. For once he didn't care about being paired with Trina. All he could think about was finding his innocent friend, safe. "Ok."

"Robbie and I will head forwards of the cabin? Check up to the road and stuff?" Andre suggested, pointing into the distance.

Tori nodded. "Ok, and Jade and I will check the house over."

"We'll meet back here in a half hour? If you find anything send a mass text, so everyone keep their cells on loud. Got it?" Jade instructed, facing her fears head on and accepting the situation that was happening around her.

Tori and Jade watched their four friends head off in different directions until they could no longer see them before heading back into the quiet house. The house was in a dead silence, except for the intermittent creaks and moans from the old floorboards. The cosy cabin suddenly felt overwhelmingly large and daunting as the two girls stood in the middle of the living room. The downstairs was all in one room, the living room, kitchen and dinging room was all in an open plan space, meaning there really was no where for anyone to hide, especially Cat. Sharp shadows roamed around the room, making it seem bigger and more eerie than before.

"Should we check upstairs again?" Jade took a deep breath, grabbing Tori's hand and dragging her up the old staircase before she could answer. The floor creaked and groaned under the girls weight as they tiptoed upstairs.

Tori followed Jade slowly, making sure her feet copied Jade's, creeping slowly around the three rooms that consumed the upstairs. "Trust the guys to mess their room up after only a day of being here." She pulled a face as they entered the guys room. Dirty clothes, pillows and food coated the floor, so much that only a sliver of wood could actually be seen.

"Cat would never come in here." Jade said straight away, turning around without even looking in their room properly.

The two girls stood in the hallway. "Well, she isn't in here." Tori stated, her scared eyes falling onto Jade's.

"Let's hope they've found her outside then. She's probably got lost. She gets lost in her own house so it wouldn't surprise me if she got lost in the woods." Jade tried to laugh to lighten the situation as panic finally hit her hard.

Tori stood still, her lips not moving at all as she forced laughter to fall from her mouth. "Yeah." Was all she could manage.

...

The light was just reaching the top of the trees as the sun rose, creating new shadows and newly lit patches around Robbie and Andre as they walked. The wind wailed between distorted trunks, carrying the sickly stink of wood rotting. The boys moved faster, ignoring the branches and bushes that caught at their jeans.

"Cat?" Andre called out. His voice echoed around the forest, loud shouts falling into quiet mumbles as the sound disappeared into the distance.

"Cat?" Robbie called out after Andre. "Caterina Hannah Valentine?" Robbie shouted louder, emphasizing her full name.

"Caterina Hannah?" Andre questioned, scratching his head as he stepped over broken branches. "I never knew that was her name. I thought it was just plain old Cat."

Noises sounded from all around the two boys. In every direction a snapping of a branch or an animal noise would disturb them both, making them both turn around in a panic with every step.

"Cat you better get out here right now before Robbie wets himself in fear!" Andre screamed, his hands around his mouth in an attempt to make his screams louder.

"Where the hell is she, Andre?" Robbie's courage only lasted a small moment before he fell to the floor, his hands covering his face as he took deep, long breaths in an attempt not to cry.

"I don't know, man. But we'll find her. Come on, get up. We need to be strong for her. You need to be her knight in shining armor." Andre helped Robbie to his feet, patting his back as he pushed him slightly.

"I'm trying but I'm so scared." Robbie's voice wobbled as he stood up, his knees buckling and his body feeling weak.

"It's true, even I'm scared." Rex added, his voice slightly more confident than Robbie's.

"We all are. But Cat must be even more scared so we gotta find her. We gotta show her how brave we are."

Robbie nodded, his head still bowed down. "I'm never letting her out of my sight again." He sighed, stepping one foot in front of the other as he headed forwards.

...

"Oh no!" Trina shrieked, stopping in her tracks and screaming loudly.

"What? What is it?" Beck span around almost tripping over his own feet to face Trina.

"I broke a nail!" Trina groaned, holding her hand up to Beck's face. "See?"

Beck felt his face burn in anger. "I thought you'd found her."

"I'm gonna kill her myself when I find her. These nails cost me $40!"

The two of them carried on walking up the hill, Beck slightly in front of the dramatic Trina, ignoring her pointless conversations. The loose foliage beneath their feet made them slip continuously. The hill was long and steep, covered with leaves, loose branches and other various woodland debris, making it even harder for the two to climb up it.

"Look, if I can't get up this hill I'm sure little Cat can't either." Trina stated, standing with her arms crossed over her chest, her foot tapping against the hard ground.

"We have to check everywhere." Beck replied, not looking back.

"What would have possessed her to walk up here? This is stupid. I bet Tori and Jade found her. She was probably in bed the entire time."

"If they had found her, we'd of got a text by now. Until then we need to keep looking."

Trina sighed loudly. "We're in the middle of the woods, we don't get any signal for our cells dumb ass."

Beck scrambled in his pocket, pulling out his cellphone and holding it up in the air. For once Trina was right, although it almost pained him to admit that. "Maybe we should head back soon? I don't want us getting lost either."

"Finally. I've been saying that for the last twenty minutes." Trina turned around, heading back down the hill slowly.

Beck followed behind Trina, watching his steps carefully. As they got closer to the cabin he felt his breathing get deeper and faster, almost as though his chest was being squashed. He replayed in his head the night before, reminding himself of every last detail that he could remember. Last night was nothing out of the ordinary, in fact it was the total norm for his friendship group. His hands twitched and started to sweat as he could see the cabin in sight, still in total silence.

"Did you find her?" Tori said in a rushed panic as Beck and her sister walked through the front door.

Jade watched in silence as Tori almost flew out of her seat to greet the others, totally panic ridden. After looking around the cabin twice they had resided to the living room, both of them sat side by side on the sofa without breathing a single word to one another for well over an hour. As the minutes ticked by it dawned on Jade more and more about what was going on. The situation didn't feel real, it couldn't feel real. Her legs felt like complete jelly as she tried to stand, her heart almost pounding outside of her chest. "Well?"

Beck shook his head as Trina sat down casually on the sofa, kicking off her muddy shoes and resting her feet on the arm rest.

"We climbed up a mountain to look for her, and surprise surprise, she wasn't up it." Trina fell onto her back, her eyes focused on the white ceiling. Sarcasm was her cover up. For Tori's sake she had to be the brave one, she couldn't show she was weak. Inside Trina was breaking to pieces, every inch of her body ached to find the missing girl. But on the outside she was like a rock, spitting out rude comments to hide her pain.

"Did anyone look by the lake?" Tori questioned, her eyes darting from one person to another as each shook their heads.

"Maybe Robbie and Andre did." Beck placed his arm around Tori, wrapping her in a protective hug.

Tori pushed off of him gently, moving back onto the sofa and closer to Jade than before.

"How did no one notice her leave?" Beck questioned, his dark eyes circling the room of guilty faces.

The girls sat in silence, exchanging the same look to one another. "I slept like a baby all night." Trina started. "I wish I hadn't."

"We all slept through the night." Jade moved her hand over to Tori's, tapping her fingers across her tanned knuckles as she carefully held the scared brunette's hand.

Tori half smiled back at Jade, moving her fingers up to lock with Jade's. Although she was smiling she couldn't of felt worse on the inside.

The four friends sat down, not one of them saying a word. Silence is the most powerful scream and in this case everyone was screaming internally. The cold breeze smothered the atmosphere, the quiet only being broken by noises outside of the cabin. Trees hit against the windows, scratching the glass and sending loud scream like noises into the room. Tori's eyes darted toward the window as she witnessed a bare tree branch silently dancing in the afternoon breeze.

A loud, human-like scream finally broke the awkward silence, sending them all onto their feet.

Tori panicked, rushing to the door and forcing the hard bolt across the hatch, locking the door tight as the others stood by the window, peering out of the dirty glass to catch a glimpse of what or who made that noise.

"Open the door!" Trina cried out, rushing towards Tori and pushing her out of the way in a hurried motion to unlock the door herself.

Tori stood in shock as her sister swung the door open in a panic. "What?" She mumbled, only to be interrupted by a second scream.

Andre ran in first, his heart pounded to the beat of his feet racing over the hard ground. Numb and breathless he collapsed into a heap on the floor just as Robbie entered after him in a worsened state than Andre. Both of them were covered in fresh mud. Dirt and grass embedded in their hair and clothes.

"What the fuck." Beck rushed over to help his friends. "What happened? Andre? Robbie?"

Both boys had glazed over eyes, fear driven deep into them both.

"Fucking hell." Jade screamed loudly, making everyone jump at her voice.

Andre raised his head, making eye contact with only Robbie, neither one of them uttering a single word.

Robbie was the first to crack, several tears falling out of his eyes like a waterfall. "We found her." He sobbed as he fell to the floor, puling his knees into his chest and letting out louder cries. "WE FOUND HER." He screamed again, pulling his hands through his hair.

The friends felt a weight lift off their shoulders for a brief moment, smiles exchanged as Robbie shouted those words again and again, until his voice cracked; the words becoming longer and more painful.

"We found her, but it was too late."

A/N - I can't believe how many favs, follows and reviews this got after being up for less than a day! Thanks so much!

I know some of you are gonna be so mad at me for the ending, but if you read the plotline you knew at least one of them wasn't gonna make it back! I'm sorry!

So, now you know Cat's fate, who or what do you thinks to blame?