Lies
A truth that goes unspoken between all of them, is that Shannon isn't like the rest of them. She died that night. While the rest of them got their "cure" that night, her body lay in there cold and still.
They had mourned her. They had buried her. They had put her name on the memorial. And three days later, she had shown back up at school like some sort of blue haired goth Jesus, smiling and acting like she hadn't been a corpse the last time they saw her.
"Why are you all staring at me?" She had asked. "Is it the blue hair?"
Behind her, Kenny slashes a line across his throat while staring them dead in the eye.
"You look nice with blue hair" Josh offers nervously.
"Thanks! I'm thinking of trying a more gothic look!" She admits, before skipping off to the next class.
Later, Kenny gathers them in a group.
"We can't tell her!" He demands.
"We have to!" Ashley insists.
"We don't have to do anything! She's back, and we already failed her once. We left her there, like all the other students we left there! I promised him I wouldn't leave him behind. I promised him, and yet-" Kenny trails off crying.
He's been crying a lot since Shannon died. They all have. Between the death of Shannon and the limitations of the "cure" they have all been feeling emotional.
"Who was he?" Stan asks.
"Dan. We tried to escape. I have nightmares about it, some nights. Other nights, I dream about hers."
"What should we tell your parents?" Ashley asks.
"We can tell them Jack Shit! They don't actually care!"
The rest of them wince. They know the Mathews have problems with their parents, but it's never been put into words so bluntly.
" I have her back! We have her back. I'm not going to fail her again!"
In the end, none of them say anything. It's easy to almost forget. It's another secret buried between them, like Ashleys body wasn't, like the drugs they take, and the nightmares they share. It's part of what breaks up Ashley and Kenny, even as she keeps her walkie-talkie charged when not on her person.
It's not something they can forget, no matter how much they would like to.
Shannon and Kenny go to collage. Stan goes to jail. Josh goes off chasing leads in this story.
Ashley gets into a fight with Shannon about the drugs. Shannon believes that willpower is enough to keep her herself. Ashley rants to Stan about it later in tears.
"She says she's accepted it as part of her biology, but I can't do that! I'm alive! I want to be alive! She's dead, and she doesn't understand it's not the same for the rest of us!"
Kenny's in the worst position. Stan watches his old best friend spiral. Shannon probably doesn't help, in retrospect, with her talks of willpower. She doesn't get it.
They don't know what Friedman did to him during the time he was captured,but Kenny gets hit with the worst of the effects even with their drugs. They never found records of what happened to Kenny.
Stan looks at the transformed Kenny, and wonders if that will be him one day. Wonders if it will be all of them one day.
He looks at the woman beside him. At least if he stays with her, he can be assured of someone who can and will put a bullet into him, should it come to that.
After all, she could kill her brother.
He should be easy in comparison.
We all assume that the second game followed the first game after an "everyone lives run", but with that death ending of "Spores coming out of the casket", and Shannon having spore manipulation powers in the next game, I wonder if it doesn't make more sense that she died and came back. I'll do it with others too, but she makes the most sense to me for it