Monday, October 3rd, 2016

Sid followed Davy around the school feeling highly annoyed. He had moved Heaven and Earth to get permission from his mother to go to school that morning—his mom had come over to pick him up—and now Davy was running from him like the scared little chicken he was, refusing to talk about his dream.

Why Davy chose to ignore the one person who would understand him was beyond Sid, but Davy had a habit of acting out of the ordinary. Davy had left to go to school before anyone had been able to talk to him that very morning, and that included his parents. He had spent the rest of the night in his parents' room but had pretended to be asleep for the duration of it.

He even sat with other people during lunch, which was right about the same time Sid had enough. He told Cory they needed to talk, but that he needed to convince Davy to stop acting like a bitch first. Much to his surprise, Cory had simply nodded in agreement.

"Dave, we need to talk about this!" Sid grumbled as he caught up with his best friend right before he was able to get to his locker.

"About what?" Davy asked, feigning ignorance so well he could win a Grammy for his performance.

"The dream, idiot."

"What dream?" Davy asked, avoiding eye contact as if his life depended on it. He pushed Sid out of the way and walked up to his locker.

"You saw her. I know you did."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Sid. I had a bad dream. So what?"

"That's how we're gonna act? Why don't you talk about it to me? You know I understand?"

"Because!" Davy snapped, stomping his foot angrily as he pulled open his locker. "It was just a dream, right? Like you said, she's just in our dreams. That's it. We ignore her, she gets bored of us, and she'll go right back to Cory. I don't fucking care."

"Jeez, thanks," Cory's voice sounded behind them. He was sauntering closer as Sid turned around to face him. "Look at the pictures you took and tell me what you see?"

Sid frowned, Davy rolled his eyes, switching books while ignoring Cory. Sid, however, didn't want to argue with the one guy who could possibly help them solve the issue. He pulled out his phone and opened the pictures they took in the woods, swiping through them until he got to the ones Edward had taken by the lake.

His eyes went wide as he stared at the picture. Where he previously only saw eyes, he now saw the very same girl standing not too far behind him. Her eyes didn't even look evil; she seemed curious as she took him in. She continued to look curious in each picture after that, as she indeed kept focusing on Sid.

"What the hell?" Sid exclaimed, and Cory gestured for him to keep it down. "She attached herself to you. The more you'll interact, the stronger her connection to you will grow and the more she'll be able to do."

"See, ignore and it'll go away—"

"She won't give up, don't you understand? I've ignored her for nearly two years already, but she kept showing up in my dreams until you guys went into the woods. That night was the first night I didn't see her."

"Then how do you sleep?" Sid wondered. Since they were already talking about this, he might as well get an answer to the pressing question he had; how to make it stop. Or at least control it enough to sleep well again and convince his parents he wasn't crazy.

Cory shrugged, "she's..." he looked over his shoulders and around the hallway, before he continued, "hella afraid of knives. That'll keep her away."

"Is that why she came to me? Because Sid waved a knife in her face? I can do that."

Sid pulled up his eyebrows in surprise. "That's it? What about the ear-piercing scream? It caused me to scream as well."

"You'll get used to it."

"So, she'll leave if we manage to get a knife in our dream?" Davy repeated, suddenly all ear to Cory's words, like he didn't just wish for the girl to go back to haunting him. "I'll sleep with a knife under my pillow from now on."

"Guys?" Annika hesitantly said as she addressed them, "going from Sid's description of this girl... I did some research, and you need to see this."

Sid nodded, and Davy and Cory shrugged their shoulders as Annika headed back in the direction she came from, walking with them in tow until she reached the library, where Amber was impatiently picking her nail, apparently waiting for their arrival.

"I just googled for kids that went missing in the woods and added her description. You know? White dress, bow tie, short black hair, barefooted."

"This is what we found," Amber said, gesturing at the computer, showing an old article. Another internet page showed a picture, and Sid's heart skipped a few beats when he stared right into the bright and cheerful eyes of the girl who was now haunting his dreams. She seemed so innocent and sweet in the picture that it was hard to imagine she was trying to lure them back into the very same woods she went missing in, according to the article.

Apparently, her name was Angela Donna, and she had been only nine when she went missing—which fit her appearance—over fifty years before. The details in the article didn't miss a beat when it came to describing the young girl. She had been on vacation in one of the Devlin Cabins alongside Lake Legis, and went missing while playing outside with a few of her friends.

"That's her," Cory mumbled, shocked above anything else. "That's the girl."

"How could a nine-year-old be so fucking scary?" Davy wondered out loud, as his eyes scanned the article.

"Well, she was reportedly abducted and killed. Since the boys all seem to recognize her, it's safe to say she indeed died. They never found a suspect, since their last suspect killed himself and they never made sense of the copy-cat theory," Amber summed up, gesturing at the screen again. "I'd be pissed too, if I were killed by someone who was never punished for it. Not to mention the fact she was never found. Poor girl."

"Right, but we—"

"Guys, we know she's scary," Annika interrupted her brother, who huffed in annoyance but didn't dare to interrupt her back, "but this article tells us a lot we didn't know. I mean, I was aware that Cory wasn't the first to get lost, and I know some kids disappeared in the woods. But they talk about 1962, 1949 and even 1650 as years in which kids disappeared. And think about it; there were always six kids who went missing."

"Your point being?" Sid asked, sitting down on a chair because he felt like Annika had a plan, and since she was the smartest of their group, he felt like it was worth hearing her out. "How is any of this helpful to us? The fact that there's more, or six? It's still just Angela haunting our dreams."

"It is still just her, right?" Davy asked, shaking Cory lightly, "no more surprises, right?"

"She's all I saw, I swear," Cory replied, holding up his hands in defence.

"I told you they wouldn't get it," Amber mumbled to Annika, before she cleared her throat, and again gestured towards the screen. "She wants to play hide and seek with y'all. Maybe, just maybe, she wants you to actually look for her. She's nine, playful is what she is. But after so many years, she might just want you to find her and give her rest. Maybe she isn't bad, but she just doesn't realize it's basically a suicide mission to go in there and find her."

Sid took in a deep breath, exchanging a look with Davy and Cory, before he turned back to face the girls. The thing was, they were probably right, but they weren't experiencing it first hand. Stating that Angela probably just wanted to find them sounded logical; it just didn't solve their problem.

Because there was no way on Earth that they would be able to solve hers.

She's right, though.

Sid sucked in his breath and held it in while he allowed his eyes to scan the room after hearing her voice. He didn't see anything, which was why he looked at Davy and Cory. They seemed unfazed, as they seemed to listen to whatever Annika was saying. Why was he hearing her, and not them? Hadn't she haunted Cory for far longer than him? Shouldn't her connection to him be stronger?

Whatever the reason was, Sid opted to ignore her. Because maybe Davy was right, and ignoring it would make her go away, on the lookout for someone else who would possibly respond.

It was worth trying.

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