Tuesday, September 20th, 2016

Ever since Cory Dunn joined Sid's group of friends during lunch the week before, Cory had been hanging out with them more often. Amber seemed to like him a lot, and she spent a lot of her time hanging out with him during and after school.

Sid didn't exactly mind his presence either. Cory had a sense of humour, and he was pretty intelligent. It now was Sid's and Cory's thing to make a fool of Davy whenever he said something stupid, which he did a lot.

It caused Cory to sit beside Sid during lunch every day. And whenever he did, Sid felt cold, though he tried to ignore it as much as possible, since Cory had told him 'he wouldn't understand' anyway. Cory was mainly silent until Sid pulled him into a conversation, or Amber would ask for his opinion on whatever matter they were discussing. He did not talk about the forest, no matter how many times they asked. By then, he mainly just ignored them whenever they asked for clarification on what had happened to him, or why he had been in the forest all by himself.

But he did see Cory light up whenever he was greeted by either himself or Amber. It was hard to imagine what the boy had been through in the past two years, and what it had done to Cory's self-image. Not to imagine the fact he had been isolated for so long.

Sid sat down next to him in class, instead of sitting in his usual spot between Davy and Annika. He didn't share many classes with any of them, but History was something they all had together.

"Hey, I was wondering if you're free to hang out later," Sid asked while grabbing his book, notebook and a pen. "Dave, Ed and I were gonna game at Dave's place."

"First of all, I'm always free," Cory mumbled, watching how Sid was grabbing his stuff right next to him. "I don't have any friends, remember. I'm crazy. Which brings me to my next question. Why are you sitting here, instead of with your friends? You don't have to pity—"

"Because I want to sit here," Sid cut him short. "I like hanging out with you. If I wouldn't, believe me, I wouldn't fake it out of pity."

"Really? Because you seem to have plenty of friends without me."

"We're friends in my book. So, will you join us tonight or not?"

"Even if we're friends, Edward and Davy don't seem to like me. I don't think it's smart to join when half the people present don't like me."

"Davy is just grumpy because we made fun of him last week. Edward is a pussy who blindly follows Davy and me without stating his own opinion. He's fine with you, believe me. If he wasn't, he suddenly would have an opinion because he only voices it to complain."

"Well, I'm free. So, if you really think they're okay with it, sure."

Sid smirked, happy with the answer. He shuddered, incapable of ignoring the cold that seemed to surround Cory. But the boy had refused to explain to him why he was so damn cold all the time.

Or why Sid was the only one who seemed to notice the fact he was surrounded by cold air.

He had given up on getting an answer after a week of prying and focused on their history teacher Mr. Brightwaters, while he told them about their town's history. Which would've been intriguing, if the Miller woods would have been included into the course. But since it was mainly about the founders, the Mills just outside of town and the development of the town, Sid had to focus to stay awake.

He was all too glad when lunchbreak came around, and Edward and Davy instantly pulled him away from Cory and in the opposite direction as soon as they left the classroom.

"Dude, did you ask him again?" Davy asked, aiming at the fact he had been trying to get Cory to talk about what happened. He seemed eager to find out what was in the Miller woods that had caused Cory to temporarily lose his mind.

"No, of course not." Sid pulled his arm out of his hold. "As if he's going to tell us. Let alone during history, where we systematically ignore the forest as a subject in total."

"We should find out what happened," Edward said, leaning against a locker while Davy switched his books. "Remember we always used to try and find ways to get into those woods?"

"We had a wild imagination," Sid mumbled, chuckling over the memories of their ideas on how to get into the woods. "I remember a trampoline and breaking both our legs if we would've jumped over the fence."

"Remember how we deliberately kicked a ball inside the woods?" Davy laughed. "The guards were fucking pissed about us trying."

"It should still be there," Edward laughed. "Like the frisbee, and that imaginary dog we came up with."

"And your siblings who got lost," Sid pointed out, laughing even harder. "We were desperate."

"We should use our more mature brains, and the knowledge we have now, to come up with a realistic plan to get in there and figure this out, once and for all."

Sid bit his lip, wondering if it was such a smart idea to go into the woods in the first place. Cory obviously was still very much affected by the events that happened nearly two years ago. What would they encounter? Were they ever going to be able to find a way inside? And was it something they would want to figure out?

"It's impossible to get in nowadays. The fences are too high, there's too much volt on them to accept a few jolts of pain," Edward summed up, counting on his fingers. "My cousin said it could electrocute you. You know, to death."

"There're guards doing patrols, the fence is lighted with streetlights so there's no dark spot," Sid added to his list of reasons why it was impossible to get behind the fences.

"Barbed wire..."

"Unless you want to execute our plan of going skydiving, landing in the forest," Sid joked.

"Yes, yes, I get it!" Davy grumbled. "You two only think in problems, not in solutions. There has to be a way to get in those goddamn woods. I want to know what the government is hiding from us."

"Have you ever considered they're not trying to keep us out, but something else inside?" Cory's voice sounded cold, and the three of them yelped and jumped in their spots at the sound of his deadpanning voice. "And that it really is a terrible idea to want to figure out what is in there? Since tons of kids died, and apparently the adults with knowledge about safety rather lock the woods away than solve it?"

Sid swallowed, staring at Cory. He was both a bit scared, and slightly impressed by the boy and how... calm, yet strict he sounded.

"Did it ever come to mind that this can't be solved, and you, as a bunch of seventeen-year-olds couldn't possibly solve this opposed to adults who've tried for years?"

"Then tell us what is in there, so we won't feel the need to find out ourselves." Davy stood close enough next to Sid, for him to feel Davy shaking slightly. He just wasn't sure if he was cold because of Cory's presence too, scared because Cory's eyes turned cold, or angry.

"You wouldn't understand. You wouldn't even believe me if I told you. Nobody does."

"Try me."

"Fuck you."

"Wow," Sid laughed. He hadn't expected Cory to snap back at Davy like that. "Calm down, we were just... fantasizing."

"About what?" Cory grumbled. "Endangering yourself and everyone in this town by trying to find a way inside that forest for your own fucking entertainment? Why don't you guys just let it go?"

"Because we're curious by nature," Edward replied lamely. "Besides, you survived."

Cory rolled his eyes, while Sid noticed his hands were bawled into fists. "You call this surviving? I have no life ever since I got stuck in those woods. I have no friends, I have nothing besides school, homework and sleep. My family fell apart and you three seem to think that this is fun. That this is what survival looks like. I'm still trying to survive, because it never ended for me."

"What's that supposed to mean? Did some alien plant a thing inside you that comes out every full moon?" Davy was trying to joke, but it sounded cold, and Sid didn't find it funny at all. He elbowed him between his ribs to tell him to shut up, Cory obviously wasn't joking around.

"Every second I close my eyes, I'm back in those woods. It never leaves me alone. It's always there, even when I was 50 miles away from this place, locked in a ward. If you go in there, it will be part of you until the day you die. You really shouldn't want to go in there," Cory ignored Davy's taunting words, turning to Sid while his eyes turned a bit softer. "Especially not you."