THE NEXT COUPLE OF CHAPTERS WILL BE A FEW HUNDRED WORDS LONGER THAN NORMAL FOR A THANKS FOR ALMOST 1K READS! TYSM! <3

Darryl Pov:

After me and Zak partly rescued Fundy, things started to go well.

I stopped seeing those.. ghosts.

And nobody else went missing.

It's been a week, and everyone is happy.

Monday morning, me Zak and Alex are talking in the hallway.

"Hey, I never asked this. But what was that whole situation with Fundy?" Alex asked me and Zak, "I heard what Wilbur said 'I thought you were dead!' and how Fundy said you guys saved him. Saved him from what?" He finished.

Me and Zak looked at each other.

Alex has been getting more and more off of my suspect list. I've started to notice that he just actually has no idea what's happening. I do still need to ask him about that note in Karl's locker tho-

"Oh! It's nothing, really," Zak said, breaking me out of my thoughts.

"Oh yeah!" I added, "Fundy's fine, he was never in danger. They just hadn't seen each other in a while, that's all."

"Yeah, that's all..." Zak said quieter than how he was talking before.

I nudged him with my shoulder.

Alex gave a bit of a confused look at first, but eventually it changed to a look that says "okay."

We started talking about how awkward health class was, even though we are in highschool.

The bell rang and we all said goodbye before we went to our advisory classes.

Advisory is always peaceful, that's why it's one of my favorites. The kids in the class are calm, no crazy ones. And the teacher is so nice.

I sat at my desk and looked out the window the whole class.

This song kept repeating itself in my head all advisory. It's called "ride with u." The way the you is spelt kind of annoys me. Why would you want your song to look unprofessional?

The song reminds me of someone.

Of Zak.

It's like the song was made for us.

The school day went advisory, math, and halfway through history we had lunch.

The same friend group, Alex, Ranboo, Cara, Tommy, Zak, and me sat together once again. And of course, the new addition, Wilbur and Fundy.

We were laughing and joking, overall having a good time. Today was a great day, and it was going to get better!

History was amazing since it was a kids birthday and the teacher actually allowed them to give the class cupcakes! Though I do prefer muffins.

And then the next class was awesome since it was art class, and art class is always awesome! Well it's not just art class. It's specifically painting! I'm not the best at it, no. But I enjoy it and that's all that matters.

I started walking to my next class, standing up straight, and smiling a big smile.

Today was good!-

"Hey brat!"

Ohh come on!

I felt someone grab and wrap my hands behind my back, making it so I couldn't move them.

It's these guys. They are the school bullys, they pick on everyone who wears glasses, or who looks remotely "nerdy."

They don't pick on me every day, only a couple times a month. But I really didn't want one of those days to be today.

"Leave me alone!" I yelled at them.

"Not a chance," the guy with the bushy eyebrows said.

Don't ask me why he doesn't pluck them. I think they look dumb. On him, at least. Anyone else it's fine.

"Listen here, nerd. We're gonna take this," bushy eyebrows said as he grabbed my phone out of my pocket. "And you're gonna go in there!" He smiled and pointed to his right.

I looked over and saw a door... wait, the janitors closet?

They quickly shoved me into the closet before I could do anything.

They slammed the door behind me and I could hear them talking, "yeah! Grab that, and put it outside the door. He won't be able to get out," their voices were muffled but I could still hear them.

"Hey... wait! Wait wait wait!" I ran over to the door and tried wiggling the door knob, but to no avail.

I started banging on the door, frantically trying to get out. "Let me out! This isn't okay!"

But they were already gone.

What am I gonna do now? I thought, backing away from the door.

I leaned on the wall I could feel behind me.

They think they are sooo cool. I scoffed just thinking about them.

What can I do?! I don't have a phone and this hallway is rarely used. I only use it to avoid annoying people. But apparently that didn't work.

I noticed that it was pitch black. And I am not very fond of pitch black closets. Especially when you don't know what's in them.

I started searching the wall that was closest to the door I came in from, which was across from me.

I glided my hand along the wall until I felt something that felt like a light switch.

*Flick*

The lights turned on, making me squint my eyes at first, but then they adjusted quickly.

I turned around, and fixed my glasses since they were tilted.

Wait... what's that?

I saw a rack on the far left side of the closet, which was actually surprisingly pretty far.

I carefully walked over since I was weary of this room, and the lights flickering didn't help at all.

When I reached the rack, I noticed it was covered, absolutely covered in papers.

I picked one up and I realized what it was...

A newspaper! A newspaper for a missing kid!

"Missing, please call ********** if seen, last seen near SMP school.."

The face was a face of a teenager, he looked around my age.

Are these newspapers for the dead kids?!

I started rumaging through all of the papers.

I picked one up and gasped. It was Karl. Karl was on the newspaper! All the newspapers said the same exact thing, just with different pictures of people and different names. This one read Karl Jacobs. And the next one I picked up read Toby Smith. That one's Tubbo.

The third paper I picked up read a girls name. She had short pink hair, and a lot of eyeliner on, with blue eyes. She looked very beautiful. I read her name, Niki.

I stared at her picture for a while. She looked slightly familiar.

All of these newspapers seem to only be a few days apart. Karl first, then Tubbo, then Niki...

Wait.

The realization hit me.

This was the girl! This was the girl that I saw getting dragged that night! This is her!

"This is it! It's he-"

"Darryl?"

I turned around and saw Zak standing at the entrance of the closet.

"Zak! Look!" I ran over to him and tried to show him the newspaper, but he stopped me.

"Are you okay?!" He grabbed me by my shoulders.

"Yeah?" I tilted my head at him.

"I saw your phone outside the door, and-and there was a chair holding the door shut, I thought you were in danger!" Zak pulled me into a tight hug, and I could feel him shaking.

"Hey, hey, don't worry, I'm okay Zak!" I hugged him back as he nuzzled into me.

"Don't scare me like that," Zak mumbled into my shoulder.

"I'm sorry," I hugged him tighter. To a person who doesn't know about any of the murders, would probably be confused as to why he's acting so dramatic about this. But to me, I understand. I could have been dead. Him seeing my phone just on the ground like that, unoccupied, probably made him scared. I would be.

He pulled away from the hug a bit, to the point where we were still holding each other, but we could look each other in the eyes.

Zak's eyes were a bit red and watery, and it made me sad. But he smiled at me. And him smiling makes everything better.

"Can I show you something?" I asked him. And this time he was the one tilting his head in a curious way.

"Yeah, what is it?"

We pulled away from each other and I pulled out the newspaper.

"Here."

He took the newspaper and looked at it for a few seconds.

"Niki?" He looked back up at me.

"That's the girl from the night, I know it," I told him.

His eyes widened, and he looked back down at the newspaper.

"That's so sad," he whispered.

"I also found Karl and Tubbos," I said.

"Tubbo?"

I explained to him who he was, and told him to keep it a secret. He promised with a pinky. And I showed him the other newspapers I found.

We spent a while in there and barely even noticed the bell ringing, signaling that school was ending.

"Wait, did you skip your last class to find me?" I asked Zak.

"...maybe."

"Awwwww!" I smiled at him.

"It's nothing.." he mumbled.

.

.

.

"Aye, Zak! Darryl! What are you guys, gay?"

Me and Zak turned around to the sound of Alex's voice, and him giggling.

I felt myself blush, but pushed it away.

"What do you want, Alex?" Zak asked him.

"Schools over! C'mon, what are you doing?!" Alex urged us.

Me and Zak tried to hide the newspapers, but it didn't matter anyway since Alex was already gone.

"Let's go," I stood up and held out my hand for Zak.

He looked up at me and took my hand after agreeing to leave.

We remembered to seal the closet door shut before we left the school.

.
.
.

It's now Tuesday morning.

And today, today's gonna be about Niki. I need to find out more, it may give clues.

But, this is gonna be a long day...

Hello! This isn't too much longer than normal, but it certainly felt like it! 😨
I'll post the next part in a few days. ☺️👏 Have a good day/night!

Word count is 1685

<3