"Ugh, who's texting me at three in the morning" Connor Murmured to himself, voice edging with a tired croack before yawning tiredly as he unlocks his phone. He blinked away the sleepiness from his eyes and squinting through the blinding brightness illuminating from the screen to see an unusual text from an unknown number.
TEXT MESSAGE
UNKNOWN NUMBER
Hey, are you there?
It's Stacy.
I messed up. I'm so sorry...
CONNOR
Stacy? Are you okay?
What happened?
STACY
I went into the woods.
I had to be sure, I had to prove myself that it was all in my head...
But it isn't, Connor, it's all real. He's real.
CONNOR
Stace, Are you drunk or something?
STACY
I heard him whispering, just like last time
CONNOR
Stop it Stace.
we made all that stuff up.
He doesn't exist. He never did.
STACY
He does.
He's here with me now.
CONNOR
Wait, Where are you?
STACY
I can hear him in the trees.
I hear him whispering.
His mouth went dry, who? Where? Stacy wasn't making any sense, none of them hadn't gone back there since the incident 10 years ago.
Who was whispering?
A loud tap tap tap came from Connor's bedroom window, making him jump and drop his phone. He sees a strange dark figure outside his window, and nervously fumbles for the light switch, and breathed a sigh of relief when it's light flooded into his room bathing it In a warm glow.
"Stace?" He blinked, refocused, blinked again as he caught the familiar face of his sister Stacy green standing outside his bedroom window. "What are you doing here?"
Her face was mostly covered by the dark of the outside world and the hood of her muddy jumper covering her brown hair. He couldn't see her properly in the dark lighting but the light from the lamp showed him enough to see how malnourished and sickly she looked, as if she hadn't slept nor eaten in weeks and was barely clinging on to consciousness.
"Connor, Can I come in?" Stacy says eerily.
Hesitantly, He replies, " I guess so... Hold on a second"
He walked the small amount of steps towards the window and slid it open wide enough for Stacy to be able to slip through without too much difficulty, and now in the brightness of his room, He let out a horrified gasp at just how bad she looked.
Her hooded jumper and black jeans were covered in dirt, and the grass stains, mud caked under his finger nails as if she had been chased. The girl looked miserable, broken even, but her eyes were devoid of emotion.
"You've got some explaining to do." He sighed, rubbing his hands over the exhausted face. "What the hell are you doing here? We haven't spoken for nearly two years.... And suddenly you decided to pay me a visit at three in the morning."
" I'm sorry" Stacy replied, with a stare on him that wasn't intentionally cold, but it lacked anything behind it, It was completely soulless.
"Don't apologise... Just tell me what's going on, you sounded really freaked in your texts..."
"It's nothing. Come on,we need to get the others." Stacy replied, without missing a beat.
Connor's eyebrows knitted together in surprise. "What others?" He blurted out.
"Our friends!" Her voice raised an octave, a wild yet gleeful grin now etched onto his once emotionless face. "I've got something to show you. We need to get everyone."
The sight of Stacy looked so haunted, spitting out delusional stuff like a homeless man shouting about the end of the days, instead of worrying about his own well being-- She was far more focused on getting everyone back together again, more so than her own mental instability and health.
He scoffed, Unable to fathom this was Stacy. "Stace, I haven't spoken to any of that group since we were little. After what happened to Luke--"
Stacy scowled. "But they have to be there" She said. "That's the rule." She growled lowly.
She made a step forward, reaching out to grab his forearm, cold and clammy hands desperately clinging onto him, Yanking him towards her with surprising strength.
He didn't get a chance to respond to her delusional antics, or shove her pressing figure away. His long forgotten phone buzzed again, ratting against it's position on the floor. Taking a deep breath to soothe his racing heart, Connor knelt down to retrieve the device.
"Stace, I honestly want to help you right now," he said exasperatedly, " but it's the middle of the night and we are a long way from home" He paused for a second. " How about we will get our friends in the morning?" He said, feeling that something is wrong.
His phone buzzes again, starting to annoy him. He finally looks down at the phone to see a text from Stacy.
STACY
Are you still there? I think I'm lost...
Connor, My battery is almost dead, Please help me!
His mouth run dry and and icy chill spread up the line of his spine. His legs were filled with concrete as He was practically paralyzed to the spot, unable to find the nerve or strength to move anything but his eyes that followed the messages on the screen over and over again, enough to recite every word, letter by letter.
"We have to go back to the woods, Connor"
The lights flickered, a cold breeze sweeping in through his still open window.
"Stace" He faintly whimpered.
The lights flickered off, permanently. Making the shadows highlight every crevice on his face.
A smile grew on her face, making it wider than possible. Then she spoke, through her gaping mouth was a simple word that in a normal situation wouldn't frighten him but coming from her mocking tone made every bone in his body beg for him to run.
"Connor"
Fear crippled through him like a toxic virus. He took a step backward but his limp flew out faster than possible, clutching onto his wrist with inhuman strenth.
With every ounce of strength and adrenaline, His over working lungs, his heart thundering heart, and his burning muscle could provide, Connor desperately tried to yank himself free from her grip like a wild beast pulling at a tightly held leash, but she didn't budge, she gripped the reins tighter, fingers digging into the tender flesh of his wrist painfully enough to pull him back into place.
"HEY!!" He yelled angrily.
With seconds remaining on the doomsday clock, he had to think fast, to start thinking with his fists, and not the brain.
He ripped his hands from her tight grasp, picking up a dumbell and slammed it hard against the imposter's jaw; shaking out the pain that blazed up his arm, but it managed to hurt him more than it did to her. She kept on grinning.
A searing hot pain spread up his back before he realised that the imposter tackled him to the ground like he weighed nothing more than a rag doll.
"We all have to go back. Don't you remember?" Her eerie smile was replaced by a sudden wave of anger.
"Get off of me" He thrashed and clawed at her face, using his finger nails. But she only pinned him down harder despite his futile attempts to escape her hold.
She lowered her head closer to his face, her breath stinking of mold and rotten flesh. And then she spoke the telltale words of his childhood.
"Everyone Plays together"
With a lewd grin, the zombie like creature wrapped her hand around his throat in a tight squeeze that left him good hand clawing at her fingers for air. With each passing moment, his vision blurred and dimmed, leaving the creature atop of him to appear like a mass of bloody reds and purples. Shadows seemed to writhe and bleed into the dark room around him but the boy fought like hell. He let out one last fight for survival, hand attempting to pry her fingers off one by one, but the air was being punched out and his lungs by the second-- He couldn't scream for help. His face was growing purple due to lack of airflow and blood was beginning to seep Into his eyes. He knew he was going to die. There was no fighting it.
He simply sunk, paralyzed and weak into the dark abyss that swallowed him whole like the Ocean.
***