"that's... peculiar." aiden comments with crossed arms. "disgusting is more like it." tyler says from next to him.

aiden looks at him confused, "where'd n/n go? you two stop fighting yet?" he asks. tyler scoffs and looks away at his question. "i'm here." you tell him while sticking your head out from behind tyler.

"what..?" logan asks while putting on his glasses, one arm on his stomach. you look at him and try to smile but it turned out cranky, "are you feeling any better, logster?"

tyler side-eyes you, "why do you look like that?" "shut up."

logan sweat drops at your question. "not really- what happened to it?!" he yells out in shock when he sees the melted phantom that had several eyes that were all moving, staring at you all.

aiden looks at him with a maniacal smile, "turns out if these things are exposed to light for too long they start to wig out and turn to goop." he giggles.

"like their body start to twist, and bubble, and spaz-" "okay, stop." tyler shuts the blonde up and looks at the phantom disgusted. "i think he gets the picture. now quiet before you make him sick."

he then puts down his weapon and looks at everyone, "since he's awake now, let's talk about savannah." he stares directly at ashlyn and the girl stared back at him with a frown.

you whistle when you see the glaring contest they were having, "this place is about to become a lot more entertaining." aiden snickers and wraps an arm around your shoulders, "entertaining indeed!"

everyone moved to sit around in a circle. it was ashlyn, aiden, you, ben, logan, taylor and tyler so you were in front of ty but in the middle of ben and aiden.

you look at ashlyn and tyler that were arguing and lean against ben. he stopped writing on his phone to look at you, he was quiet before looking back at his phone with the tiniest blush on his face.

"we can't keep hoping that things will go back to normal on their own." "and we can't risk getting stuck here permanently." the two of them say sternly while glaring at eachother.

taylor looks at them with a sweat drop, "um... going back doesn't mean we have to go back to the house again or interact with the phantom, right?? maybe we can just search around for someone who might know something?"

"we've been reading myths, lore and have watched who knows how many investigations about savannah for the past two weeks, and we still haven't found anything useful." she looks down.

tyler nods thoughtfully at her words. "i'll agree to avoiding that place and only searching for local information. that way we don't have to risk anything." he says and crosses his arms.

logan avoids eye contact when he speaks up, "i-if we don't go back to the sorrel weed house, then i'm not against... going to savannah." he says with a stutter.

you shrug, "i don't know man. i was kinda looking forward to going back to that place but i guess if we go around asking the locals, that's fine too."

ben starts typing on his phone and when he showed it to everyone it said, "i'll go with whatever aiden decides."

aiden raises one of his eyebrows, "hm? i don't care either way. both options seem fun." he grins. you deadpan at his words, along with everyone else.

it was silent before ashlyn spoke up. "i don't this was an accident. there's the possibility that lady did this on purpose and we could run into her again. there might even be others like her."

tyler growls at her poor choice of words, "so you're still going against?!" "no, i'll go. but only if we wait a year." she says sternly while holding up a finger in the air.

"a year?! ash, are you batshit crazy?!" "you want to be stuck here for a year?!" both you and tyler yell at the same time. ashlyn groans and covers her ears at the mixture of both of your loud voices.

she huffs, "i sometimes forget that you two are so alike... calm down, there's no guarentee that even if we go back, we'll find a way out of here. plus none of us have a car or a license."

you all visibly deadpan at that.

"and aside from finding a way down there, i think a year would give us time to prepare for the worst outcome. even with all our precautions, we could still somehow get stuck here permanently or have another encounter with that woman." she informs.

"so for a year we should train ourselves, research, and turn this place into a reliable stronghold to survive in. it's about time we start taking this seriously."

⋆.˚✧────────✧˚.⋆

"this is stupid." you comment while looking at the whiteboard in front of you all that aiden found in a junk pile. ashlyn ignores you and picks up one of the pens that shouldn't even work at this point.

"alright, so this should be our first goal." she starts scribbling down something. when she was done tyler crossed his arms unamused. "...how are we going to do that?" he asks after a while.

she stands next to the whiteboard where it stood, "first main objective: gunshop" in bold letters which shocked you because you didn't think the pen would work, considering it's from the trash.

"we need some better weapons." she says nonchalantly, "we'll need to do two things first, fortify graveyard walls and bring jeep into graveyard." she writes that down while saying it out loud.

she taps her chin in thought, "we need a vehicle to drive to the gunshop. my parent's jeep is the closest so we'll need to bring it to the graveyard."

"however, the phantom got over the walls last time. i'm not sure how, but we need to figure out a way to stop it from happening again. so when we get the jeep, any phantoms that follow us won't be able to get in."

"anyone got any ideas?" she looks at everyone and got slightly disappointed when nobody said anything. until ben got an idea and walked over to the bag to get a notebook, he drew a drawing of barbed wire.

everyone leans in to look at the notebook. tyler hums, "if they were normal humans that might work, but i feel like it wouldn't really bother them to grab and climb the wire regardless." "yeah, i can see that happening."

aiden thinks about it for a moment. "since their body doesn't react well to light, why don't we just have some large light fixtures on the wall?" he suggests so you put a comforting hand on ben's shoulder.

ashlyn shakes her head at the idea, "i'm not sure if the generator has enough power to keep those lights on. most of the power goes towards the door... if the lights went off everytime we opened the door it wouldn't be helpful."

logan pushes up his glasses by the brim. "...we can also use solar lights? maybe?" he suggests. ashlyn thinks about it, "that.. could work." she says after a while.

the blondie grins and points at you. "then can't n/n hide some grenades under the ground? so when the phantoms come and step on the grenades they'll expolde! or something...?"

you look at him and cross your arms, "you need to pull out the pin on the grenade for it to explode so that won't work, i get where you're coming from though. you're thinking of landmines." "yeah! landmines!"

ashlyn hums, "yeah. landmines could work since they're bright when they explode, right? and with both lights the phantoms wouldn't dare get over." she looks at you and you nod.

the ginger then puts a finger under his chin in thought, "but how are we going to get them?" she asks no one in particular. aiden puts his hand up and points at himself with the other, "ah, you can leave that to me."

"i haven't been using my allowence lately so it's built up a bit." he laughs a bit at the end of his sentence. you look at him confused, "allowance? how much do you have?" "about 3000?"

"goddamn-!" you cover your mouth in shock and look at him as if he was a whole new person. he ignored you and continued speaking, "anyway, i have a card so we can order the lights online and have them shipped here."

ashlyn nods, "alright, we'll do that tomorrow. oh. before i forget, can i borrow your knife aiden?" she asks. "sure." aiden takes out the knife from his pocket and gives it to her.

her next move shocked everyone. "these need to go." she says as she cuts off almost all of her hair. her extra hair falls down onto the floor and she drops her two now-cut-off braids on the floor.

"oh." you cringe.

⋆.˚✧────────✧˚.⋆

the next day you wore (outfit of choice) while walking next to ben, who had his head hung low. everyone were walking together, without logan though because he always comes to school early.

 ashlyn had somehow gotten her hair back.

ashlyn, taylor and aiden were talking about the lights and the landmines. 'why is he buying the landmines?' you think, confused since if he doesn't mark and record them then he might be arrested.

you snap out of your thoughts when you see a random picking on logan. "who the fuck is that." you point at the guy. the others stop talking and turn to look at logan who was being bullied.

taylor furrows her eyebrows. "it's him again." she says sternly. tyler narrows his eyes at the random and starts walking towards him. you look at the two confused, "who?"

you were ignored.

you feel a chill go up your spine and you start getting goosebumps so you look at ben, just to see him on the verge of exploding, he was clenching his fists. aiden sweat drops, "whoa! hey bud calm down!"

tyler approaches the guy, "barron. what are you doing?" the barron guy sweat drops with a huff, "oh great." he mumbles. barron avoids eye contact as he continues, "...i'm just talking to my science partner about our project."

"i'm sure you were." he glances at logan and then back at barron, "i'm not an idiot, barron. i could hear you yelling from the end of the hallway." barron scoffs at his words.

you ignore tyler and barron as you silently walk over to logan who was trembling, he had a bruise on his cheek. "you 'kay?" you awkwardly ask him. logan didn't answer your question.

barron side-eyes you and then looks back at tyler. "who the hell is she?" he asks the brunette. tyler frowns at him trying to change the subject, "don't change the subject-" "who is she."

tyler furrows his eyebrows at the question. he'd hardly consider you a friend, barely an acquaintance. or... maybe you two are friends?

his thoughts were interrupted when you spoke up for him, "none of your business." you glare at him. barron looked at you two in thought, almost examining you two.

you were standing a bit in front of tyler with a frown on your face, and he noticed tyler's glare softening just a smidge when he looked at you you. 

he scoffs, "so annoying." he mutters and starts walking away. you glare at barron when he walks away, "what a hoe." you mutter. 

logan was quietly watching you two, "thanks..." he thanks you both. you two look at logan with different expressions, tyler seemed mad and you seemed relieved.

"you're seriously scared of him?" tyler starts, "after being around those things every night. pathetic." you slap his arm which made him look at you annoyed. you gesture to logan, "don't be like that, man."

"why the hell not? he's pathetic." "leave him alone, you shouldn't take bullying lightly." you lightly hit his stomach this time as he grunts in response, but not making a move to hit you back.

you shake your head and put a hand on logan's shoulder. "what was that about?" you raise one of your eyebrows. logan looks down at his feet, "i forgot to do his part of the project..."

tyler crosses his arms, "how is he supposed to survive when he can't even stand up for himself? right now isn't the time to be soft y/n, what happened to your ridiculously short fuse?"

you snap your head towards him, "how about you shut your mouth and stop talking, ty?" you say with a strained smile, ticked off.

"tyler's right, n/n." ashlyn says, "though his way of saying it is uncalled for, logan definitely needs some strength training. we all do. that's why i'm thinking of asking my parents to teach us self defense."

"they taught me some when i was younger, but i don't remember it enough to teach you guys on my own." she explains. 

tyler looks at her confused, "weren't you worried about us getting sent to an asylum or something? what are you gonna tell them when they ask why?"

ashlyn nods thoughtfully, "yeah, that's the reason why i haven't asked them yet. but after what just happened, i think we can use logan being bullied as an excuse. something along the lines of him wanting to defend himself, and to be supportive, we're all gonna learn with him."

taylor nods, "i think that sounds pretty believable." she looks at the other three and you all nod in response. tyler looks around for the other two, "where's the psycho and the big guy?"

"oh- um... i think ben started acting weird. aiden said that they were going to the vending machine and would see us in class." taylor explains.

and by the time the bell rung, you all got to class and needless to say- they never showed up. you take out your phone and secretly send aiden a text while the lesson was still ongoing.

aiden.

wya

skipping lol
sorry for leaving all of a sudden my tactical nuke <333

dude. 💀
anyways u2 are eating lunch in the cafeteria right?

yep
we'll c u guys at lunch :D

ok, good
oh and b4 i forget

ho.
[seen]

[last message sent at 11.56pm]

you groan at being left on seen but you automatically straightened your back when you got a notifcation from tyler.

you raise one of your eyebrows and look at tyler from across the classroom. 'what?' you sign to him. but in response you only got a confused look, he doesn't know sign language. you sigh and open the chat.

tweedledum

get off your phone.

man be fr
your on ur phone rn

thats different.
who were you texting btw.

aiden
why?

no reason.

[last message sent at 11.58pm]

you look at tyler confused and turn off your phone since the lesson was almost done anyway. he's been acting so weird these past days, he doesn't even hit you anymore.

when the bell rung you quickly stood up and grabbed your backpack. "alright, everyone turn in your assignment on your way out please!" the teacher exclaims so you walk over to him with the paper.

'zo wee mama.' you silently admire his features. you weren't the type of person to crush on a teacher but goddamn you'd make mr. thomas the exception because SHIT LOOK AT HIM (i need him so bad fr).

while you were busy admiring the teacher, tyler had so rudely interrupted your fantasies. "hurry up." "shut up." you jog over to the others and wrap an arm around ashlyn's shoulder.

the girl let out a grunt but didn't do anything since she knew you wouldn't listen. when she first met you she thought you were this shy girl, but boy was she wrong.

not that she's complaining.

⋆.˚✧────────✧˚.⋆

a/n: guys so i might be favoriting tyler smh...
let me know who y'all want more screentime with !!

chapter published. november 23, 2024