Eddie had no intention of getting separated from the others again, so after hearing the scream, he reacted on instinct. He grabbed Didi's hand and slung Tom's arm over his shoulder.

And he ran. Didi just followed along listlessly, but Tom tried to resist at first. "What about Syd!?"

"She'll catch up!" And to prove he wasn't just saying that, Eddie shouted over his shoulder. "Syd! Let's move it!"

No sooner had he yelled than he saw her slip under Tom's other arm and help support him as they ran out of the cafeteria. She looked pale, well, as pale as a black kid can look.

A ridiculous thought struck him. She looks like she's seen a ghost...

It was almost funny.

Almost.

{ { o } }

Suzanne froze, suddenly shaking violently.

Fred put a hand on her shoulder, being careful not to touch her skin. "Woah, you okay?"

"Alan's dead... And the others..." She shook her head. "Damn it!" She lashed out, hitting the closest thing her fist could reach. Which, coincidently, happened to be him. Fred grunted as her bony knuckles cracked down on his chest. She wasn't looking, so he allowed himself to wince. Damn! She's stronger than she looks.

"Hey," he said softly, gently squeezing her shoulder. "We'll get out of this."

She scoffed. "You can't know that."

He shrugged. So what if she was right? But... "Neither can you."

She paused, then finally looked at him. She scowled, but it wasn't as harsh as her usual scowls. "Quit butting in on my pessimism. I'm trying to be Johnny Raincloud here, and your optimistic attitude is ruining it."

"Well," he said, acting just a little bit smug. "Everyone has to be good at something."

She scoffed again. "Sure. Keep telling yourself that." Suddenly she gasped, grey eyes widening as she jerked her head around.

The abrupt movement caused Fred to twitch in surprise. "What!?"

"They're coming!"

"Who?"

But she just stiffened in place, and then her gaze snapped to the floor. "They're one floor below us, and coming up. We can meet them at the stairs! C'mon!" And she took off running down the hall.

Fred was dumbstruck, and it took him a second to get his butt in gear and chase after her. How the fuck is she doing that with her foot like that? That's gotta hurt like hell! Still, he followed close behind her, letting her lead the way.

{ { o } }

Tom was starting to wonder if maybe he'd broken something. Because his foot really shouldn't have been causing him this much trouble. Not to mention the bruises on his side from when he'd jumped at the door and the burning cuts on his knuckles. Once they reached the top of the stairs, they all came to a stop, breathing heavily.

He pulled away from Eddie, a scowl on his face. "We left him there!"

No one answered.

"What the fuck!?" He wanted to hit something, but his hands hurt too much to do that. He also wanted a drink, but that wasn't going to happen either.

He turned to Eddie, fisting the collar of his shirt in both hands. "Why did we do that? Huh!? Why the fuck did we just leave him there!?"

Eddie glared right back at him, grabbing his wrists and shoving him off. "Back off! At least we're still alive! You think we shoulda just stayed there to get torn apart right along side him? I don't know about you, but I kinda wanna have a life! I wanna get the fuck outta here!"

"And in any case," Syd interjected, her voice much calmer and quieter than theirs, "what would we even have done? I saw it. I saw Melody. She had him by the throat, but his hands passed right through her. I don't know if there's anything we can do to hurt her. Our best bet is to find a way out, so let's calm down and think about this."

Tom was still breathing heavily, still furious and guilty, but he nodded. He took deep, slow breaths, trying to calm himself. "Alright," he said. "So what should we do?"

"And what about her?" Eddie added, pointing at Didi. The girl was still completely detached from reality, oblivious, gazing straight ahead at nothing. "I get that we're in a stressful situation, but why the fuck is she a zombie?"

"Maybe I can answer that."

Tom's heart leapt into his throat. As one they looked down the hall where Suzanne and Fred were walking up. Suzanne had a suspiciously happy look on her face, whereas Fred looked mildly disgruntled.

Without thinking, Tom wrapped Fred in a hug. If he had to pick one person, amongst all his classmates, to call his friend, it would be Fred. "Asshole," he snarled. "I thought you were dead."

Fred patted him on the back, a bit tense and awkward. "Yeah. No. Me and dead aren't friends, not even acquaintances. And I'd kinda like to keep it that way."

A whistle from Eddie snapped Tom back into himself, and he instantly pulled away. He cleared his throat, face flushing in embarrassment. "Yeah. Just happy to see you still walkin' and breathin'."

Fred looked surprised, but not upset, and he nodded. "Same to you man, it's good to see you. Really." They traded a nod of understanding.

Though Eddie was still giving them a curious look. He opened his mouth.

"Shut up, Eddie," Tom warned.

Eddie grinned, but closed his mouth.

Tom shook his head. How Eddie manages to still be a happy-go-lucky idiot in a situation like this I will never understand.

{ { o } }

While the boys caught up, Suzanne turned all her focus on Didi.

She'd come to a decision while Fred was patching her up. She couldn't do anything to change who she was, or what she could do, so she was going to the make the most of it.

Starting now, she was going to learn more about her abilities. She was going to explore them, learn how to rein them in, and how to push them to the limits. She was going to master this power she had, because she knew she couldn't change it.

The decision had lifted a weight from her mind that she hadn't realized was there, and despite the peril they were in, she couldn't help but feel happy.

Or as happy as she could, given the fact that they were still very much in danger.

Suzanne stopped in front of Didi, but the girl didn't acknowledge her, didn't even seem to realize there was anyone near her at all. Suzanne could sense something odd coming from her. It wasn't nothing, but it wasn't an actual emotion, not like anything she'd felt before anyway. It was like being in a box full to the brim with cotton. It was stifling, fuzzy, suffocating.

Numb, she realized. She's completely cut herself off from her emotions. But... no, that's... not quite it. Suzanne stood directly in the line of Didi's gaze, but the girl didn't even seem to see her, looking straight through her like she wasn't there.

Suzanne frowned, chewing on the inside of her cheek. And then it hit her. She's in shock! That's what's wrong!

Now...

How to bring her back?

She cautiously put her hands on Didi's shoulders, instinctively avoiding touching her skin. That stifling sense of numbness grew through the contact, and for a second Suzanne was almost overwhelmed by it. She gritted her teeth, and shook her head. Focus! Don't forget to keep her emotions separate from yours!

She took a deep breath, focusing on calm, on the contentment she felt in the decision she'd come to not so long ago. It helped center her, but she still needed to figure out why exactly Didi had shut down like this.

No, not why. That's obvious. Everyone handles stress differently. What I need to do is snap her out of it.

With her head cleared, Suzanne returned her attention to that fuzzy numbness. There was something... Suzanne didn't know how to describe it, it was like a layer beneath the static fuzziness. It was... Well, not solid exactly, but more solid than the fuzz. Though that was like saying gas is more solid than air. It wasn't really different, but it was something else, something separate.

Suzanne focused on that lower layer, it was quieter, smoother, but slippery and indistinct. She couldn't quite reach it.

The question was: what was it? Was it Didi's conscious? Her regular flow of personality? Suzanne slowly began to dismantle her senses. Her sight, her hearing, taste, smell, and touch... She completely shut them down, focusing her every cell on the shifting layers of emotion that was Didi.

Those layers suddenly seemed to leap out at her, and she could feel them all. They were emotions and thoughts and memories... They were everything that Didi was, and had ever been. But she didn't need to know all of it, so she just kept her attention on the first two layers.

The shock, and the one beneath it. Suzanne instantly recognized it as resignation. Acceptance. Didi was ready to die, and had been for quite some time.

There was another layer, between the shock and resignation, and that was fear. It was thin, shaky, closer to anxiety really. But it was still there.

She shifted back to the outermost layer of shock. This was the problem, this was the thing getting in the way. All those other layers were Didi's alone to deal with, but this one was bleeding through to them, tainting and suffocating her. Suzanne had to get rid of it, but how?

She'd never done this before, she had no idea what she was supposed to do, or if she even could do anything.

So... Now what?

{ { o } }

Eddie felt like shit. Which was saying something, because he made it a point to always be in a good mood. Especially since a lot of his parents' friends expected him to be some kind of rebellious goth/emo dude whose only concern was his next fix.

Sure, Eddie had experimented — who hadn't? — but it wasn't really his thing. Plus, it was always fun to knock people for a loop with how polite a pain in the ass could be. He knew his parents complained about how he never listened, so it was always a pleasure meeting someone new and messin' with their heads. Which, of course, infuriated them more.

All the same, he was a happy kid. Sure, he'd never had any real friends before, but he'd had everything else. For the most part. Why shouldn't he be happy?

It was much better than being depressed.

Not that he couldn't feel depressed, like he did now.

Though guilt... That one was new. And he didn't know how to handle it, so he decided to ignore it. Why not keep up the selfish air he'd always had about him? It made things so much easier.

Except... He wasn't the only one who felt like shit for leaving Alan behind to die. When Tom had grabbed him like that... It had shocked him.

But he couldn't let it show. These people are not your friends, that cool, calm, collected voice in his head whispered. They wouldn't feel bad about leaving you behind.

Tom and Fred were talking, and Suzie was standing with her hands on Didi's shoulders and an expression of extreme concentration. Syd was watching Suzie.

Eddie wasn't paying any attention to any of it. He dropped Alan's backpack and leaned back against the nearest wall, which was farther away than he anticipated, and his shoulder blades thumped hard against it. It didn't hurt, but it was a bit of a jolt. He let out a long sigh, sinking to the floor and letting his head fall back, his eyes sliding shut.

What do they even need me for? They're doing just fine on their own.