It's a couple of days later when they discuss the events that occurred the night they went on that cursed field trip—well, more like the cursed Sorrel Weed House. It's real, and it keeps happening every night at midnight, leaving them all absolutely exhausted the next day. They look like the walking dead to any passerby.
The group is sitting at the lunch table feeling like zombies when the short-haired brunette speaks up. "I think we should go back to Savannah," Tyler grumbles out as he stares down at his lunch tray, which contains food. He's not really hungry... In fact, he doesn't feel hungry at all. That happens at night keeps him up, and dare he even think, afraid.
"Alright," Ashlyn says, her hand on her face in frustration. She's tapping her foot on the ground, feeling anxious. "Let's take some time to think things through and then vote on it tonight. -Not now."
"Why not talk about it after school?" Tyler asks, getting a bit annoyed but keeping his voice low in order not to trigger the rising anger bubbling up inside him.
"Because I have ballet tonight—"
"-So, skip it!—" Tyler argues with a sneer on his face.
"-Are you forgetting? You have baseball tonight, and I'm busy with my club tonight," Taylor reminds, her hand gentlyon her brother's shoulder. She can feel just how tense he is under her touch. He realizes that she's right and softens the annoyed expression on his face. 'She's right... I can't keep skipping. ' Coach will get mad at me...' the short-hairedbrunette thinks.
"I'm busy as well. I have the flower shop to tend to today," Logan says softly. This snaps something inside the short-haired brunette boy.
"See, Logan's busy too," Taylor says. "With everything that's happening, we can't just neglect our day lives, Ty—"
Tyler grits his teeth. "-We aren't going to have a future if we're all dead—" His heart drops the moment he spat out those words.
"-It's not just our future, Hernández. If we continue to talk and act like this, we'll get thrown into a psych ward. Do you think it'll make things harder or easier for us to have our meeting during the day?" Ashlyn grits softly through her clenched teeth. She's getting irritated with Tyler.
"She's got a point—" Aiden agrees, his face betraying a hint of smugness. Ashlyn looks over at the blonde-haired boy, thinking, 'You're not helping.'
"-Whatever!" Tyler storms off but then comes back to grab Taylor by the arm before storming off again. He can't stand to be around those guys right now. 'I don't owe them anything, so why try to come up with a fucking solution?—' he angrily thinks before cutting off those aggressive thoughts and taking a short, deep breath.
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After school is over for the day, Tyler drives home a bit faster than usual. Taylor doesn't say anything. She knows he's been in a mood all day, so it's best to avoid any type of conversation. He parks in the driveway and angrily slams the door before storming into the house in a huff. He ends up pacing in his room when the long-haired brunette enters the house. Taylor peers into her brother's room to see him angrily stomping about, staring holes into the floor. "Tyler?"
He whips his head up and glares at her before dropping his angry look and just sitting down on his bed, feeling defeated. He lets out a sigh and combs a shaky hand through his hair.
"What?" he grumbles.
"We can't keep skipping," Taylor says, staying in the doorway.
The short-haired brunette shakes his head slightly. "I know." Tyler acknowledges. "I need baseball to get into college, and you have your club with all your connections... It's just ...does anything of this even matter if we end up dead?" He sneers at the floor with his head down, his left hand covering his face. Taylor takes a deep breath before stepping into his room and walking over to him, where she sits down on the bed.
"So, you just wanna throw all our hard work away? Everything we built...because you think that if we die, we did all of that for nothing?" Taylor asks, turning her head to face him. He's not looking at her; instead, he's looking at the floor.
"No, of course not. I'm just...confused. Things are only going to get worse—I don't know how...but..." He sighs, combing that hand through his hair again. He lays down and just curls up into a ball. Taylor feels something inside of her just break... She reaches over and covers him with the blanket. He doesn't look up at her.
"Get some rest; I'll take care of Mom tonight," she says before getting up and leaving his room. She glances back as she reaches the door. Her brother is just staring off at the wall, not saying anything, not blinking... She lets out a soft sigh and shuts his door before walking down the hallway. 'I wonder what she's like today...'
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Tyler wakes up in the mirror dimension that night. "Don't move." He looks to his left to see the others all huddled around the ginger-haired girl who is looking around intently. Ashlyn pushes the blonde-haired boy's head away from hers so she can think without having someone hovering over her. It takes the short-haired brunette a second; he recalls what happened the night before. A phantom jumped them inside the walls and took them all by surprise. It got in somehow. They still haven't figured it out yet. They all duck down behind the last row of seats when Ashlyn waves them on to do so.
"Still here?" Tyler asks as he hides with Ben and his sister. Ashlyn nods. She's hiding with Aiden and Logan on the other side.
"What do we do?" Taylor whispers as she kneels beside Ben on the floor. The tall, brunette-haired boy glances over a little to see the long-haired brunette trembling slightly.
"We'll have to try and kill it," Ashlyn says bluntly.
"How do you propose we do that?" Tyler asks, sounding a little unlike his usually angry self.
"We should have Logan shoot it through the window," Aiden says, turning to face the shaking boy who's behind the ginger-haired girl who turns over to narrow her eyes at him.
"No, the gun is for emergencies only," she reminds. Aiden shrugs.
"This is an emergency," Tyler whispers, the words seething through his teeth. The ginger-haired girl sighs softly before looking him in the eye, gathering her next words.
"An emergency is a swarm, not one," Ashlyn argues back. "We don't have many bullets, so we have to try to kill them with the weapons we have." She gestures with her head to the front of the glassware. Their weapons are stored in a box. She's about to say more when she cuts herself off and puts a finger up to her lips. Taylor looks on in terror, knowing exactly what the ginger-haired girl is silently telling them. "Hide under the seats," she whispers, and they do as they're told.
They wait as one of those things walks into the bus. Tyler's eyes widen as he sees the legs of the phantom stepping into view on the opposite side of the bus. He can hear it making a creaking noise or cracking noise. Ashlyn attempts to retrieve a weapon by moving as slowly and silently as possible, but the sound is too loud in the early silent space. The phantom hears her and crouches down a seat in front of her.
"Not good—" Tyler says as he and Taylor get up from the floor.
"Ash!" The long-haired brunette calls out.
The ginger-haired girl rolls out from the seat and quickly gets up to her feet. The phantom grabs hold of her right braid, yanking on it and causing her to stumble backward.
"Get the weapons!" she calls out with a squint eye.
"On it!" Tyler calls out.
"Just hold on!" Taylor says that she, her brother, and Ben run past the ginger-haired girl.
"Stay with me," Aiden says to Logan as they sit in a seat behind the struggling Ashlyn. She tries to free herself again but instead ends up falling backward—yet again. Aiden and Logan catch her before she can hit the floor. "You good?" the blonde-haired boy asks as he softly smiles down at her.
"Yeah." They help her sit up, and she shakes off their hands once she's stable. The phantom crawls under the seat and tries grabbing her again. The strawberry-blond-haired boy jumps back in fear, but he doesn't go far, as he is still seated on the bus. She screams and crawls onto the seat, then onto the two boys who helped her up. Aiden holds her close while Logan huddles in the corner before they all get up and move to the back section of the bus. The phantom slowly rises, towering over the three scared kids—more like two, because of Aiden, who thinks this situation is a little amusing. It lunges at them, and Aiden grabs both of its hands before twirling it around with it. He falls back onto a seat with the phantom on top of him before placing his feet on its midsection and kicking up as hard as he can. He manages to throw its upper half out the open window. "Close the window!" he yells out. Logan and Ashlyn jump into action and slam the window shut onto its upper half. Its sharp claws wave around wildly as it attempts to free itself from where it's trapped.
The phantom stops moving for a second before it suddenly moves around again, even more violently than before. Logan falls back, clutching his arm with a shriek of pain. Ashlyn turns around from the window to see red glowing down his arm and the side of his blue sweater. He's sitting down, curled up in the seat when the others rush over quickly. It starts moving again. The twins hold their legs down as Ben stabs them in the back torso. Tyler lets go of the leg and walks over to Logan, who's curled up in the seat, shaking like a leaf. His entire left side and arm are slashed up pretty good and bleeding pretty badly. "Ben," Tyler calls out softly, and the tall brunette-haired boy goes to get the first aid stuff. "Can you move at all?" Tyler asks, trying to get the strawberry blonde-haired boy to look at him, but Logan hides his face while holding himself.
"Yeah, are you okay? That sounded pretty bad," Aiden asks from over the seat. He startles Tyler, who jumps into another seat. The blonde-haired boy is covered in black blood.
Ben gets everyone to go to the front of the bus while he examines and patches up Logan for his own privacy. The strawberry-blond-haired boy flinches, and Ben pulls back his hand in worry. Logan doesn't look at him. "Is it bad?" he softly whimpers out before flicking his glassy eyes over to Ben. Tears are rolling down his slightly flushed cheeks. Ben shakes his head. The tall-haired brunette needs to lie to him in order to let the boy trust him enough to allow him to patch him up. "Are you sure?" Ben nods his head. A fat tear rolls down Logan's cheek, which he wipes away with his other hand. Ben gets to work and patches him up as quickly as he can, but Logan keeps swirling around. Ashlyn walks over to the two when the wound is clean to give him some pain meds. She pats him on the head as she gives him some water in a bottle. She then says a soft "Thank you for helping me" before leaving the bottle of water with Ben.
"So I guess that means the Savannah conversation is on hold," Tyler complains, taking a glance back at Logan and Ben.
"Let's decide what to do with the phantom first," Ashlyn reminds everyone so they Don't stray too far from the important topic at the moment. They all get up and walk over to it. Tyler nudges one of its legs with his blade bat. "What do we do with it?" He looks up and over to Ashlyn, who looks from him to it.
"...good question..." she says slowly, staring at it with confusion instead of direction.
"Maybe we could examine it and see if it has a weak point or something," Taylor suggests with a shrug.
"It's dead," Aiden says, stating the obvious.
"Well—I don't know!..." She grumbles with her arms crossed as she turns her head to look away from the blonde-haired boy.
There's a second of silence before Aiden perks up. "I have an idea."
"This can't go anything but well," Tyler says sarcastically. Aiden turns on his phone's flashlight, and the phantom begins to shake. "Turn it off!" Tyler shouts, feeling his body trembling a bit.
"Okay, okay—" Aiden shuts it off.
After Ben finishes patching up the strawberry-blond-haired boy, Logan's head falls off the seat he is leaning on. Ben catches him and rests his head on the seat, his sweater covering it. He walks over to the others but keeps a heavy eye on the sleeping Logan only a few feet away.
A couple of seconds pass before Ashlyn crouches in front of it. "That's... odd," she says in bewilderment. She tilts her head to the side and sees black blood spilling out of its wound and new wounds, it seems.
"...what's...going on?..." A soft voice calls out. They all turn their heads to see Logan standing up while holding his stomach with his left hand and putting on his glasses with his right.
"Are you feeling any better, Logan?" Taylor asks with a soft smile.
"Not really—" he cuts himself off when he sees the dead and oozing phantom. "-What happened to it?" he asks with wide eyes and trembling hands. The phantom resembles a gooey black mass with eyes...
Tyler looks away. One of the eyes was looking at him. It makes him feel...weird.
"Turns out if they're exposed to light long enough, they turn to—uh, goop. Kinda reminds me of Venom a little..." Aiden says as he eyes the goop. The body of the Phantom no longer has a shape; instead, it's just a puddle of blood group that's pooling onto the floor. Logan looks ill, so he ends up looking away.
"Knock it off, Aiden," Ashlyn says after noticing the strawberry-blond-haired boy's face.
"I think he gets the picture without you having to tell him," Tyler says. "Well, now that he's awake—" he looks over at Logan. "—we should talk about Savannah."
They all agree and take a seat on the cleared-out section of the bus.
"What if things go back to normal soon?" Taylor asks nervously, feeling a tiny bit hopeful.
"Taylor, we can't hope everything will just go back to normal soon. It's been a week since we've been back. We don't even know how this first happened—" Tyler explains before he's so rudely interrupted.
"The Weed House," Aiden says with a shrug.
"How do you know that for sure, though? You don't. None of us do! We noticed something was off when you entered that house, but what caused it? It had to have been something because up until that moment, the day had been perfectly fine, and we hadn't seen that thing.
"Okay, okay," Ashlyn says. "Stop... Tyler, we can't risk getting stuck here permanently—"
"-But going back," Taylor starts. The two look at her. "It doesn't mean that we have to go back to the Weed House. As you mentioned earlier, we are unsure of the cause. What if going back to the weed house makes everything worse?" she asks the room but gets no response. "Maybe we can search for someone who knows something about that house more than us. There's gotta be someone who knows something!"
"How do you propose we do that? Who the fuck would—" Tyler starts but receives a glare from Taylor. He shuts up for a second. "Look, I'm just saying. Why would anybody tell us anything? Who would know about this kind of thing? Wouldn't you look insane to anyone who we're asking?"
"The locals might know something," the ginger-haired girl says. "It wouldn't hurt to ask. We could just say it's for a project or something or a book—..."
"I'll agree if we don't have to go to that house—"
"Scared halfwit?" Aiden teases.
"In your dreams, peabrain. I was just agreeing with my sister that maybe going into the house would be a bad idea, but I'm not opposed to going to town. We shouldn't risk anything if we just speak to the localsand ask questions, telling them, if they ask, that this is for a school project. I knew that lady seemed off..."
"Well, if we don't have to go back to that house... I'm up for going," Logan says, looking up at Tyler and giving him a slight nod.
"What about you, Ben?" Ashlyn asks, turning her head to look at the tall, brunette-haired boy.
Ben types his response. (I'll go with whatever Aiden's going with.) The ginger-haired girl looks over at the blonde-haired boy, who has been awfully quiet throughout this conversation.
"Oh, I don't care. Either or will work for me." He shrugs with a smile on his face. Tyler lets out a soft sigh before looking away from him. He ends up turning his attention to the ground. His head is feeling a bit cloudy. It's been cloudy all day. Maybe it's just a side effect of being angry and annoyed all day?...
There's silence for a second. "I agree with Tyler."
"On what?" Aiden barks out a laugh. Tyler glares at him. The blonde-haired boy quickly looks away. He didn't mean to say that out loud. "That lady at the Weed House... I mean, the open tour, her phone, then her leaving us alone for an extended period, not to mention the timing of everything..."
"So, you're saying that you're still against going?" Tyler narrows his eyes at her.
"No. I'm saying that... Look, I want us to wait a year bef—"
"-A year?!" Tyler shouts as he stands up, getting very upset. He's like a light switch. One moment, he could be docile and not filled with much emotion at the moment; in the next, he could be very, very angry. She stands up, too.
"Calm down," she says, staring into his eyes. He isn't going to back down, but he doesn't try anything stupid.
"You want us to stay in the nightmare place for a year. Don't expect me to accept that answer, Ash!"
"Back up, halfwit," Aiden comments, standing up and putting a hand between the two of them.
"Don't fucking touch me, psycho. Like you have room to talk—"
"Enough, you two," Taylor says, yanking her brother away from the blonde-haired boy. He falls back onto his ass, shaking his head and fuming as he tries to cool off.
What I was trying to say is that there's no guarantee that if we go back, we'll even be able tofind a way out of here. Like you said earlier, we don't know anything about our current situation other than when we go to bed, we get stuck here at midnight, there are phantoms everywhere, and if we get hurt here, it's a faint pain in reality—"
"Also, the light," Taylor says to Ben. He was pointing at the pile of goop. Ashlyn nods. "And the light." She takes a breath before calming back down.
"I think a year would give us plenty of time to really think about our next moves," Ashlyn continues.
"Next moves?" Logan asks, squirming around as he kneels on the cold bus floor.
"Even with all of our precautions, we could still get stuck here permanently or possibly have another encounter with that woman... " So, for a year, we should train, gather as much information as we can, and turn this place into a safe haven for us to hunker down in when we're transported here," the ginger-haired girl explains. "I think that we should take this seriously now. We can't just keep winging it." She looks around, then looks around more seriously.
"What're you looking for?" Aiden asks.
"I need something to write on." She exits the bus and looks around before finding a broken whiteboard. Ben helps her with it, and they bring it back to the bus. There's a whiteboard marker in the pile. She tries writing with it, but it's almost out of ink. 'Better than nothing,' she thinks.
Ashlyn starts writing. "This should be our first priority."
"How're we going to do that?" Logan asks.
"Guns?" Tyler asks.
Ashlyn nods. "We need some better weapons."
"How're we going to get there?" Tyler asks softly. Taylor looks over at him before looking back at Ashlyn.
"We'll need to do two things before we can even go there first. Fortify the walls and bring the jeep into here. Since it's the closet vehicle, it'll have to do," Ashlyn says. "Once we're in possession of the Jeep, we can drive it to the gun shop. -But, there's one problem—"
"-The phantoms," Logan cuts Ashlyn off, but she doesn't mind. Everyone nods in agreement.
"I don't know how that one got over the wall, so we need to be careful and make sure that it doesn't happen again. We need to come up with a solution to prevent it from happening again. Anyone want to add to this?" She looks around the bus at her fellow peers—friends? Could she call them that?
No one says anything or moves until Ben turns and walks away. He crouches down in front of the duffle bag and rummages through it. He's got all eyes on him. He pulls out a red book before drawing something onto an open page. He turns the book around, and it's a drawing of the wall with lights and barbed wire on top.
"I think that's a good idea," Logan says, looking at Ben with hopeful eyes. The corners of Ben's mouth turn upwards slightly.
"If they were normal humans, that might work, but... they don't seem to feel a lot of pain. Besides, how do we even get all of that?" Tyler asks as he leans back on the wall with his arms crossed.
"I can see that happening," Taylor says. "I mean, Logan and Ash shut the window onto its body, and it was still moving around a lot."
"I agree that we should put lights up," Aidan says, looking at his cousin, who is sitting on the floor. "They'll all just turn to goo." Ben nods.
"I'm not sure the generator can handle all of that," Ash says, bursting their hopeful bubble.
"What about solar lights?" Logan suggests. Ben nods and holds up a thumb.
"That could work, but how would we get them?" The ginger-haired girl asks.
"You can leave that to me. I haven't been using my allowance recently," Aiden says with a smile. Tyler narrows his eyes at the ground. 'Rich people,' he thinks. "I have a card, so I can just buy them and have them shipped here."
"Alright, then we'll do that tomorrow," Ashlyn says with a satisfied nod. "Oh—I forgot... Can I borrow your knife, Aiden?"
"Okay. "What are you going to do with it?" he asks as he takes the knife from his pocket and hands it over to her.
"These—" she starts sawing her hair off. "—need to go—the two long ginger braids thump to the floor with a soft thud each. Everyone stares in shock.
They feel themselves going shortly after this. "Remember the plan, everyone," Ashlyn says before they all wake up back in their world.
Tyler is slow to open his eyes. His body feels heavy. It's likely due to a lack of sleep for about two weeks now. He takes a couple of minutes just to pay there before reluctantly rolling out of bed a couple of moments later and getting ready for the day. He can't already tell that today will be a long one.
After showering and getting dressed, he goes to check on their mom. He walks to the end of the hallway.
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At school, the twins get out of Tyler's car and walk towards the school. Before they can reach the front doors, the short-haired brunette spots Ashlyn. "Your hair," Tyler says lowly as he walks up next to Ashlyn. She stops walking and turns around before picking up the right braid to hold in her hand. "Yeah... I can see it in my shadow, but...it's still here," she says, dropping her braid. Tyler silently nods, and they begin walking again. Ashlyn looks over to Taylor, and she shrugs. She then looks back to Tyler.
"Look... I'm sorry about—"
Tyler lets out a soft puff of air from his nose. "-No, it's fine. I was being an ass last night." And the conversation ends just like that. The three of them walk into the school and meet you with the others.
"Are you able to order those lights during lunch?" Ashlyn asks as she opens up her locker.
"Yep!" Aiden replies happily, a smile spreading across his face.
"Aren't your parents going to be confused why some random lights are showing up on your doorstep?" Taylor asks.
"Nah. They're on a trip right now. Probably won't be back for a few months." Aiden replies like it's the most normal thing, probably to him. It makes Taylor a bit sad.
"I was wondering where he was," Tyler says lowly, not looking at any of them but instead at something straight ahead. Everyone turns their attention forward, where Tyler is staring, and sees Logan against the lockers with Barron leaning in very close.
"Is he being bullied?" Ashlyn asks.
"Why the fuck—" Taylor starts but cuts herself off when she sees Tyler walking over to the two of them. Barron eyes him first.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing, Barron?" Tyler asks as he walks up with a dead expression on his face.
"Oh great," Barron mumbles under his breath. "I was just talking to my science partner about our project," he mumbles, not daring to look at Tyler.
"Yeah, I'm sure you were," he says sarcastically before glancing over at Logan, who looks frightened. He looks back to Barron. "Don't take me for an idiot, Sevardi. I found I heard you yelling from down the hall. You're already skating on thin ice with the coach—"
"So you'll what? Tattle on me?"
"You're the one intimidating someone for your own personal gain; at least, I think that's what's happening. Seriously, Sevardi. I pity you. Having to rely on others to do your work instead of doing it yourself. I swear you're going to fail this year—"
"-Fu—"
"-Enough, seriously. Leave him alone. This is a really pathetic look for someone like you." Tyler stares directly into those narrowing eyes. "Back off." Barron rolls his eyes, scoffs, and mutters under his breath before trotting off.
"Thanks," Logan says.
"He really pisses me off," Tyler says, glaring holes into the back of his head as he walks off. Barron turns back only to be met with Tyler's glare. He picks up his pace. "Are you really intimidated by someone like him?" he asks, turning his gaze from Barron to Logan.
Logan looks down to the ground. "Even after dealing with those things at night? You're better than him. He shouldn't be looking down on you when he's gotten straight C's for two years." Tyler gives Logan a soft smile. Logan smiles a bit.
"What was that about?" Taylor asks as she places a hand on Logan's head. He winces a bit.
"How're you going to survive if you can't stand up for yourself?" Tyler asks rhetorically. "Right now isn't the time to ge soft—"
"-Tyler, rude," Taylor says, smacking him on the back of the head. He rubs his head as he turns to face his sister.
"Tyler's right," Ashlyn says. "Even if his way of saying it is uncalled for." She looks at him. He looks away from her. "Logan—all of us need some strengthening... I was thinking. I could ask my parents if they'd be willing to teach us self-defense. They taught me a bit when I was younger, so I think they'd be okay with this."
Tyler lets out a soft, amused breath through his nose. "Wasn't it you who said that if we did anything out of the ordinary, we'd get sent to a mental health facility?" The ginger-haired girl narrows her eyes at him.
"Well, yeah, that's the main reason I haven't asked them yet. We have a reason now—" Ashlyn cuts herself off before whipping her head around to Logan. "Sorry—"
"No. It's alright... "I agree with you," the strawberry-blond-haired boy says, his eyes glassy as he flicks his gaze from the floor to her eyes. Taylor rubs Logan's shoulder in an act to comfort him.
"Where's psycho and the big guy?" Tyler asks. They all look around. Those two are gone.
"Ben starting acting weird, so I think they went off somewhere," Taylor says. "He said that they'd meet us in class."
They all go through their day like normal. Tyler can't help but notice that two people haven't shown up. He isn't worried about them; he's just...curious about where they ran off to. He feels a bit off... He can't put the finger on it, but...something's off. He looks over at Ashlyn, who's looking at her phone. The bell goes off. They hand in their assignments, but the teacher is acting weird. He eyes him as he hands in his paper. Tyler doesn't say anything or really ponder it too hard. Today has been a stressful day for everyone, apparently.