It felt like Tessa had a pit in her stomach. It was like Tessa's body knew everything was about to get fucked up. Tessa awoke to the sound of her phone buzzing, probably Lonnie and Lukas arguing about some stupid shit that wasn't even relevant to life.

Tessa angrily ripped her sleeping mask off and tossed it onto the floor, ripping her phone from off the charger. Tessa rubbed her eyes as she logged into her phone, going straight to her messages. Tessa acknowledged her forty unread messages from Lukas, but decided to ignore them as she preferred to reply to Lonnie's single text.

Tessa opened the chat, only to find that Lonnie didn't text his usual good morning message but instead a simple 'I think there something wrong'. What the fuck was that supposed to mean? She wasn't some God damn wizard that understood secret messages. "ill reply to that message when I know what the fuck that means, Lonnie."

With a grunt, Tessa forced herself out of bed, making her way to her closet where she picked another great outfit. Afterward, she brushed her hair and teeth before checking herself one last time in the mirror. She didn't looked any different which kind of bothered her— but she ignored it and headed downstairs with her bag.

Tessa made her way downstairs, expecting to see her mother and father typing away endlessly on their laptops. Instead, there was no parents. Tessa stood in the dining room, staring at the table which would of had her mother sitting at. But her mother wasn't there. Nor was her father, who'd often work in the living room. Tessa slowly walked further more into the dining room, noticing that her mother's computer was still on the table. Her mother may not have paid much attention to Tessa, but Tessa knew for a fact that her mother didn't leave her computer behind. Under no circumstances, she had always had her computer with her everywhere she went. So why was it just sitting on the table?

Tessa reached for the computer, trying to turn it on. No luck. Maybe it was dead? But if it was dead, wouldn't she have plugged it in? Tessa slowly put the computer back on the table, closing it. Tessa turned back into the kitchen to see if any of her parents were there. Not a single soul. Tessa gulped as she headed towards the living room, expecting to see both her parents there. However, there was no one there. It was like no one was ever there. Tessa shook her head slowly, "hey Mom! Dad! I know you're asshole's but this isn't funny! Where the fuck are you?!" Tessa called out, hoping for a reply but the only thing she could hear was the settling of the house.

Tessa put her hand over her mouth, feeling a sick feeling. Maybe they left her? Tessa quickly reached into her pocket to pull out her phone. With a shaky hand, she unlocked her phone; going straight to her mom's contact info. Tessa knew that her mom would just answer, say that she and her father had went out early and this whole thing would be over. Tessa hit the call button, putting it to her ear. Tessa waited impatiently for the ringing to stop and her mother to answer. Suddenly, the ringing did stop but she did not hear her mother's voice, nor her fathers. Tessa clenched her hand into a fist as she heard the telephone operator tell her that she had gone to voicemail. "What the fuck!" Tessa yelled, pulling the phone away from her ear and slamming it down on the dining room table. Tessa could feel warm tears beginning to build up in her eyes, but she quickly wiped them away. She wasn't going to cry over this.

Tessa bolted towards the door, quickly unlocking it and forcefully opening it. Tessa stepped out onto her porch to see that both her parents' cars were still there. Tessa ripped her attention away from the cars to look out into the street.

The streets weren't filled with a single person. Not a single soul was there.

Tessa ran her fingers through her curly, tangled hair. Tessa abandoned her bag on the porch, running down the street. "Hey!" She screamed, continuing to run down the street, "Someone!? Anyone?!"

Tessa's heart was beating profusely as she began to pace herself, eventually slowing down. This felt like a dream and Tessa prayed to god that it was another one of those messed up dreams in the movies. "if something were to happen where would I go...where would I go..." Tessa mumbled to herself, "where would ..the church!"

Of course, they went to the fucking church! If there was anyone here, they would have definitely gone there. Tessa began to run again, but instead this time she knew exactly where she was going.

Tessa reached the entrance of the church, not even hesitating for a second before she pushed the church doors open, stumbling inside.

The loud chatter suddenly stopped, all eyes on her. "Tessa?" a familiar voice said. Tessa looked around, her eyes settling on a curly haired boy standing in front of the church among others. It was Lukas.

"Luke?" Tessa asked slowly, looking around the church and at everyone, "what..what's going on?"

Lukas rushed over to Tessa, pulling her into a hug. "You're okay! Why didn't you answer our text messages??" lukas questioned, Tessa could tell that he was worried.

"Please just tell me what's going on, Lukas." Tessa pleased, gripping Lukas's shoulder.

"Get her some water, sit her down." a girl in a bright red shirt said, motioning to the chair next to her.

"Who the fuck is that?" Tessa asked as Lukas led Tessa to a chair to sit down, "Lukas I swear to god what is going on.."

Lukas kneeled down in front of Tessa who was sitting in the chair. "Something happened," Lukas started, his tone becoming softer, "something really bad happened. We don't know what but..Tessa..there's people missing."

Tessa, who was staring at the ground quickly looked up, panicked. "Where's Lonnie?"

"Lonnie went looking for you," Lukas reassured her, "we thought you disappeared too."

"why didn't you come get me?" Tessa asked.

"We didn't see you come out of your house so we assumed you were gone, like the others." The girl with the bright red shirt spoke again.

"And please tell me who the fuck is this?" Tessa asked, eyeing the girl.

"I'm Quinn." Quinn replied, her tone becoming more harsh. "And you need to calm the fuck down."

"Calm the fuck down?" Tessa asked, "how am I supposed to clam down when there's people fucking missing! When my parents are missing! I don't even know what's going on here!"

"Hey..Tessa.." Lukas whispered to her, "we'll figure this out. I promise you."

Tessa tried to ignore the background noises of people arguing. Tessa hasn't felt this hopeless in a long time and she hated to admit it, but she wanted her parents back. Tessa tried her best to hide her fear, nodding. "what's our plan?" Tessa asked.

"Our plan," Quinn stated, raising her voice so everyone could stop arguing, "is to take a car to see if the railroads are still operating."

"Who's going?" Lukas asked.

Quinn scanned the church room, "Mia, Fox, Marcy, Jaz and I will take a car to check on the railroads."

"what do you expect the rest of us to do?" a girl asked from the back of the church.

Both Quinn and Lukas shared a look. "The rest of you have to stay here and wait for us to come back."

The entire church erupted into chatter as Quinn walked towards the open church doors, a group of four teenagers following her. Quinn turned around to look at Lukas and Tessa. "Wait for your friend to come back, but try and make sure this place doesn't go crazy, Alright?"

Lukas nodded and Tessa rolled her eyes before they disappeared out the door.

Quinn led them towards the street, heading towards a shiny black car that was parked. "This your car?" Jasmine asked, sitting down on the hood of the car.

"No, I'm almost one-hundred percent sure that the door is open and the keys are inside," Quinn said as she forcefully opened the car door, snatching the keys from the floor. "And we're in— get the fuck in."

Jazmines eyes lit up, a blush spreading across her cheeks. "Sexy.." Jazmine admired before she jumped off the car hood and got inside the passengers' side.

Marcy, Fox, and Mia hopped inside the back of the car before Quinn started up the car. "You know how to drive, right?" Fox asked, putting on his seatbelt.

Quinn gripped the steering, turning to look at Fox. "Better hope so."

Fox rolled eyes before he gripped the car handle; Marcy laughed as Quinn drove the car out the parking spot and sped towards the railroad.

—

"On a scale of one to ten, how fucked do you think we are," Fox asked no one in particular.

Quinn turned right, heading towards the bridge. "You're seriously asking that?"

Fox nodded towards Quinn. "Might as well ask."

"Maybe a five out of..." Marcy's sentence trailed off as Quinn slowly crossed the bridge and stopped the car. Marcy's eyes widened. She unbuckled her seatbelt and quickly got out of the car, the rest of them repeating her actions. "I think that's five just went to eight."

Marcy hopped onto the train tracks, kneels down to touch the vines that had started to grow over the tracks. "This wasn't here yesterday.." Mia asked as she crouched next to Marcy.

"No shit, thanks for pointing out the obvious," Marcy replied quickly, standing back up and stepped farther. Thick vines and greens covered the tracks, while overgrown trees, bushes and other plants were surrounding the town— some vines growing on the bridge. From what they could see, it looked like an entire forest was growing.

"We're fucked.." Mia grumbled, "what are we supposed to tell the others?"

"What do you think we're supposed to tell the others?" Quinn questioned, already heading back towards the car. "We tell them what we saw."

"We should..ya know..go back" Fox suggested.

Jasmine nodded, still in shock. "Yeah..c'mon guys."

Jasmine, Fox, and Mia started to follow Quinn back to the car. Mia stopped to turn around a look at Mia. "Are you coming?" Mia asked, looking at the car and then Marcy.

Marcy looked towards Mia before looking back at the forest in front of them, she nodded. Marcy and Mia walked back to the car, the two of them getting into the back of the car once again.

—

When the group arrived back from the railroad, they found Tessa, Lukas, and Lonnie sitting in front of church. The car made a loud, piercing screech as Quinn parked it directly in front of the church, almost hitting Lukas in the process. Quinn opened her door and got out, slamming it afterwards. "There's no way out." Quinn said, no expression in her face or voice.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Tessa questioned, standing up. The rest of them got out of the car, walking over to the three of them.

"It means that there's no fucking exist," Quinn said, repeating what she said but in a different way.

"How Can that be..?" Lonnie asked, quietly.

"Both exits are completely covered in vines n' shit," Mia said, "you wouldn't even believe the bus stop or train station."

"What are we supposed to do now?" Tessa asked, now beginning to sound more and more worried about the situation.

"There isn't much we can do.." Jasmine replied.

"We have to wait for the morning." Marcy said.

Tessa's eyes widened as Marcy spoke. Tessa rubbed her eyebrows, feeling a panic swirling inside of her. She couldn't wait an entire day. She just couldn't. It'd keep her up all night. Tessa didn't know when or if tomorrow would come. And if it did come, she didn't know what would have changed. And that terrified her. "Where'd everyone else go? Are they still in the church?" Jasmine asked, trying to change the subject as she sensed Tessa's panic.

"Nah," Lonnie replied, "we sent 'em home. Told them it would be best to relax and stay in their houses. We told them that if anything new happened, they'd tell one of us immediately."

"I think that's what we should do." Lukas suddenly spoke up.

"You cannot be serious.." Tessa grumbled, glaring towards Lukas.

"I agree, I think it's the best." Lonnie said.

Tessa bit her lip, not feeling confident enough to look anyone in the eye. Tessa gulped, slowly looking at Lukas in the eye. "I don't wanna be alone."

Lukas's facial expression softened into a frown, wrapping her into a hug. "You can stay with me, Tes."

"Really?" Tessa asked quietly.

"Yeah, you won't be alone."

WORD COUNT: 2,176

( UNEDITED & RUSHED )

                                                                               AUTHOR NOTE

                                                                                     .·:*¨ ¨*:·.

you don't understand how hard I cried during this. It ain't because this shit sad but because I'm literally so stressed and I'm emotional asf. I wrote this chapter because I know y'all like this shit

Anyways,  if your character STILL hasn't been showed, don't worry. It's gonna happen. Give me time. I introduced more characters this chapter your welcome :')

The first few chapters are gonna be rushed and unedited and just kinda boring do bare with me. I have better ideas in future chapters.

Stay safe ya'll. I lowkey thought I posted this a day ago but I didn't skfnwkfne

Updating some of my other books next—!