~~~~~~~~~Third Person POV~~~~~~~~~

The sun had already started to set in the town. Deep within the forest, Alyse's four main friends walked through it to visit her, hearing what had happened with her sister and wanting to go comfort her.

"You think she'll want to us..?" Snow asked as she fiddled with one of her pigtails. "She now lost both of her siblings.. God knows how she must feel.."

Varian was a little more serious. "If she wants us to leave, we will, but we have to check on her first."

"And her parents, they're probably feeling much worse.." Mabel added.

They all stared at the ground in shame, not even able to imagine the pain of losing not one, but two important family member in the spam of two months..

Well, all expect Dipper, who looked forward for one second, then narrowing his eyes when he spotted a strange figure on the ground. "Hey guys? What's that over there?"

They all looked over, confused to whatever was in the distance. No one disappeared if they weren't alone, so they weren't that worried about it being a trap set by the culprit as long as they stuck together; so they walked over, eyes widening in realization of what was there.

Or more accurately, who was there.

Aidston Anderson, one of the missing victims, was now lying on the forest grass in a heavy sleep. His breathing was slow but steady, skin a sickly pale, and wearing a strange wetsuit.

Mabel was the first to run over, kneeling beside the boy's head before carefully placing a hand over his mouth. "I-it's Aiden! And he's breathing!!"

The other three ran over as well, Varian placing a hand over the victim's forehead. "We need to get him to a hospital, now!"

"H-hello, Alyse?" Snow spoke after bringing her phone to her ear. "We found him, we found your brother!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The only thing heard was the beeping of machines inside the room. It had already been a day since he was found, and Aiden was now lying on the hospital bed, surrounded by all sorts of hospital machinery that studied his conditions, and he still wouldn't show any signs of movements.

His parents sat beside him, keeping a close watch after FaceTiming with Alyse, who was still to young to be in this part of the hospital.

After ten minutes of that, one by one, each of his friends would enter the room for visiting hours. Sage, Victor, Noah, Lola, Gia, Austin, and Ben now stood by the corner in a deafening silence. No one knew what to say, nor do, they were just frozen in place as they stared at Aiden's unconscious form.

By then, his parents had gone out to get a bit of rest since they had been keeping an eye on him since they found him. Sage walked over to the side of the bed, carefully moving his bangs to the side as she bit her lip to hold in her tears.

"He's.. h-he's gonna be okay.. r-right..?"

"The doctors said there was nothing physically wrong with him, minus the huge amount of exhaustion his body has.." Ben tried to answer to the best of his abilities. "Once he recovers his energy, he should wake up.."

Gia lightly gripped the end of her skirt. "But.. why was he in the woods..? That seems a little too convenient, if you ask me.."

"Especially since we've checked that part of the woods countless times.." Lola finished for her.

"Maybe this was Iv's doing." They all turned to Victor at his words, seeing his serious expression. "What's convenient is that Iv disappears, and not even two hours later, Aiden just miraculously comes back..?"

"And didn't Lola get a call from Iv too..?" Austin asked.

Lola nodded at his question before pulling out her phone, showing the call. "'Lola, trouble. The culprit, she's', and then the call was caught off.."

"It only took us around eight minutes to get to her place, but she was already gone by then, with more traces of blue dust left behind.." Ben explained the rest.

"We also know whoever got her was a she.." Noah gripped his sleeves, looking over at Lola. "Did you happen to hear anything else..?"

"I heard a scream right before the call ended.."

"Iv had just found the pattern,and the culprit broke said pattern to get her. She probably found out who was doing all this, and they took her to keep her silent." Victor said as the dots all connected in his head. "Not only that, she probably took Aiden's place."

Gia looked up at him. "What do we do..?"

"... there's not much we can do by try to find what she found.."

Thanks for reading!!! 'Till next time!!!

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