"Drive!" Jamie's voice screeched in turn with the wheels.

"I am," growled Avery, gripping the steering wheel for dear life.

The car soared through the clearance entrance, tree branches slapping against the wind shield and scraping the sides. The vehicle wobbled, sliding over the dewy grass. Avery barely had control over it as it bumped over the dirt trail, going—he hoped—towards Louise's cabin. Distancing themselves from the explosion.

The house—the one he'd been inside of, the one Jessamine had walked right into—exploded.

There was still a shrill ringing in his ears, piercing his eardrums as he ignored Jamie's frantic yelps for him to accelerate, accelerate. But if he went any faster, Avery wasn't sure they'd make it to Louise's—or anywhere else, for that matter—in one piece. Even with the headlights on, he couldn't see where he was going, with the smoke from the blast spreading through the forest, creating a thick fog that made it impossible to detect the actual road, let alone the trees popping up on either side of him.

He kept the speed at a reasonable amount as he squinted, doing his best to avoid zooming off the road and into a bush or a tree-trunk.

Jamie quieted at last, settling in his seat with his arms crossed, peering into the side-view mirror, his jaw dropping.

Avery saw it too, remembered it. The structure falling to pieces, shattered from the inside, igniting in bright orange and yellow flames. The facade blasted to bits, whooshing about like darts thrown onto targets. Debris shot out all around, luckily never coming close enough to harm Avery and Jamie, but landing so hard in the grass that they left fiery indents and melted into the soil.

Avery hadn't wanted to take any chances, and he hadn't stuck around to learn what'd happen if they waited.

They ran.

In the rearview mirror he watched as the flames rose high above the trees, blasting upward in a strange circular movement. As if the house were enclosed in a glass ball, containing the fire and the debris in one area. He recalled how, when the house had first exploded, none of the tiles or sparks had reached him or Jamie, though they'd braced themselves and prepared for the worst. Crouched in their spot by the car, they'd covered their ears and faces. Avery had expected to see his life flash before his eyes. His last recollection was Jessamine shoving him and Jamie aside to enter the house... and then dying in said house.

Once Avery realized they wouldn't be torched to the bone, he grabbed Jamie by the arm and they ran. And ran. He wasn't sure where or why they ran, as the car was right there, behind them. But the vapors choked the area and they couldn't tell where they were nor where they were going.

When Avery finally found a door handle, he hopped into the car and started the ignition. Seconds later, Jamie crawled into the passenger seat, and they took off without a second thought.

Now, those second thoughts were swirling in Avery's mind, faster and faster as he continued to glare in the mirror. Sparks streaked through the air, accompanied by blue-ish orbs bobbing up and down, dodging the flames. Blue-ish orbs—were those Guides? Was Ada among them? Or had she been caught inside?

What happens if a Guide is burnt? Do they even burn?

There were white orbs, too—ghosts. Hurdling upwards towards the stars, through the growing haze that covered the sky with a film of gray. Where would they go now? And were the blue orbs, the Guides, able to save them?

Considerably far from the explosion, Avery lessened the car's speed, breathing deeply through his nose and mouth. Had he taken the correct exit? Were they headed the correct way? Hopefully, he wasn't cruising deeper into the forest, where he might encounter dead-ends and have no choice but to turn around and drive back towards the ruined house. If he could help it, he'd rather never see that place again.

Amy had died there. Jessamine had died there. He'd nearly died there, along with Jamie. It contained blue mists that guarded the Afterlife, it was loaded with ghosts with unfinished business, and a basement overflowing with malevolent beings who'd wanted to take over Jessamine's body and use her for their malicious plans, whatever those had been.

The only good thing was that if Jessamine was dead, that meant those demons had no means of getting out and creating chaos, as they'd planned. It meant that though the ghosts were unleashed and no longer protected inside the house, at least they were safe. The world was safe.

Shivers coursed up Avery's arms, making it even more difficult for him to grasp the steering wheel. The road was uneven, with large rocks in the way—rocks he didn't remember driving over on the way there. Panic seized his gut as he realized he'd been so panicked, he likely had driven the wrong way, seeking the first exit from the clearance without paying attention to which one.

I hope we come across a main road, at some point.

Louise hadn't specified if there were other ways to reach the house but the pathway from her property. And if there were other ways, Avery doubted he'd be lucky enough to find them now, in the looming smoky fog, and while terrified of what happened next.

Jessamine was dead. Jessamine was dead. She had to be, right? There was no way she'd entered the house and survived the explosion. She'd been inside, directly exposed to the shards and the flames and the dangers of furniture and ceilings collapsing onto her. She'd have been blinded, struck by beams, torched to ashes, pierced by sharp objects—there was no way she'd be alive.

But that had been her intention, hadn't it? To end this, end all of it. Avery had gotten that vibe from her—she'd wanted to die, to sacrifice herself to ensure no evil creatures would be able to take over her body and use it for demonic actions. She'd wanted to save the world without having to imply Avery.

Yet, he wondered; why, how had the house exploded? Jessamine couldn't have provoked it, so what sort of being had the power to do that? He doubted Ada and her Guides were gifted with such abilities, and the demons were locked in the basement, so they wouldn't have been able to pull that off. So who'd done it?

Had it been Jessamine, somehow? He didn't recall her having matches or a lighter on her; but then again, she might have stashed several things on her person without him knowing. Or there might have been supplies in the house that she'd grabbed on the way. She was a woman of many secrets, as he'd discovered after first meeting her.

Now, he'd never discover the rest of her secrets, because she was gone.

"Fuck," said Jamie, under his breath. He'd quit looking in the side mirror to instead focus on the road ahead. Trees, trees, and more trees—it was evident Avery had no idea where he was going.

"Yeah, fuck," echoed Avery, unable to formulate anything else. Words were there, clogging up in his throat, and yet they wouldn't come out. If he spoke, he wouldn't be able to stop, and he needed to concentrate on getting them out.

There will be time later to talk this out, if we survive this damn forest.

"Are we..." Jamie gulped loudly. "Are we okay? Will we... make it?" Avery side-glanced at him as he patted himself down, searching for scorch marks, for bruises, injuries. "I wasn't hit with anything, were you?"

Avery shook his head, holding on to the steering wheel harder.

"We were protected." Jamie brushed a hand through his hair and cringed. "I mean, not internally, but externally... did you see it? That bubble around the house?"

Avery nodded. He sighted an opening up ahead, through the smoke, and his heart skipped a beat.

An exit?

Jamie grunted. "The Guides, you think?" Avery shrugged. "Something else?" Avery shrugged again, a smidgen more pronounced, shoulders lifting higher. "Dude, say something."

"No," Avery gritted his teeth, "I can't. I'm just... give me a few, okay? I'm still processing."

Jamie was all about feelings and expressing them and sharing them; Avery wasn't. Not in this situation, not when speaking threatened to unleash all his emotions at once. To explain how he was happy Jessamine was dead—her body could no longer be used for nefarious means—but also sorrowed that he'd lost her, would be too complicated. Her death saved the world, but it didn't save him.

He cared about her, more than he'd planned to. He was supposed to kill her himself... and he was grateful he hadn't needed to. But pained that she'd had to die in the first place. Someone like her, with such depth, such a full heart, so much to give... and she'd given him so much in so little time, and he'd never gotten the chance to tell her.

She could have been so much more. She was so much more... to me.

Jamie noticed the potential exit, too, and stopped prodding at Avery for a conversation. He knew better, in any case; pushing Avery never ended well.

The car burst out from the forest, and almost at once Avery saw the cabin. Louise's cabin, with all its ground-level lights lit up, and windows unbarred by curtains, with lamplight pouring out. The same way they'd left it, a peaceful place in the shadow of a terrifying secret. Secrets, in fact—a whole slew of them.

He navigated around the side and parked near the front before releasing a deep, shivering sigh.

They'd made it. They'd escaped the explosion, they'd survived it, and now they'd continue on living. Others wouldn't—he cringed, picturing Amy in his mind, standing beside Jessamine, both glowing and smiling as if they arrived in some heavenly Afterlife. But he would go on. He'd lived to tell the tale. He'd lived to make sure their memories lived on.

And he'd be able to share this with the world, right?

Jamie didn't hesitate to get out of the car. Seconds after his feet hit the ground, he hurled his guts out on the grass in front of Louise's stony pathway to her door.

Avery waited for him to finish before getting out himself, still too shocked and traumatized to have the energy to throw up. His insides were all tangled up, but he was too tense to release any of it.

He took a whiff of the air, and immediately coughed as smoke seeped into his lungs. Despite the fog having not quite reached this area, the toxicity from the fire was still present and draining the oxygen.

"Quick," said a hoarse voice from Louise's door—Louise herself, wrapped in a robe, waving them forward. "Get inside, quickly!"

Jamie wiped his mouth and stumbled towards her, helped by Avery as he passed him. He seized Jamie's arm and tugged him along; the throwing up had taken all of Jamie's energy and all his communication skills.

Good—he needs to shut up and calm down for a minute.

"Hurry," said Louise, frantically waving them closer, as if a timer was counting down the last moments of their lives. Her hair was up in a messy bun above her head, and there were deep, dark splotches under her eyes. "There's some heavy, heavy negativity out there, and neither of you are safe outside."

Avery clenched his jaw as he threw Jamie past Louise and into the cabin, but he stopped at the threshold and swirled to look towards the car, where they'd walked from. He narrowed his gaze, unsure if he was seeing correctly. A dense haze fell upon the area, nearly concealing his vehicle within its depths. Like a monster's mouth opening, drenching everything in darkness, blowing its harsh, deadly breath into anything in its way. Or a noxious creature extending its arms out to pull the car into its toxic embrace.

"Something's coming?" A chill patrolled down his arms and legs, and he peeked at Louise, who nodded.

"Yeah, you feel it too, huh?" She nudged him inside. "Get in there, because we need to talk. And fast."

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