Nausea infested my stomach and began to hike its way up my throat, pulsating and radiating unwanted heat throughout my body. Not today. The shadows attacking, attacking again, and finding out about the recent murder made all of this too real. I just wanted today to be a day where I could lay in my bed, sleep this all off, and process what happened yesterday.

The burden revolved chaotically in my mind until I slipped under the pressure and fell into the couch, catching my hanging head in my hands while Sarah and Autumn interchanged thoughts.

Their conversation was mere white noise to the static of panic that cluttered the voice of reason.

"So what are we going to do now?"

Is there anything we can do?

"I don't know, Sarah. Julian is a solid lead, but the kid that just died-"

Arthur Chang. I hardly knew the kid.

"I don't know if I can do this, Autumn."

At least I wasn't the only one who felt overwhelmingly incapable.

"I don't think I can either, but we have to do something. I just can't figure out if if we should do anything now."

"Because there could be a possibility that Julian could not be Spring."

"Yes, that, but, well- well. Maybe. But why would he react the way he did if he was an assassin? But who was the kid that died? Why did he die? There would be no point killing an innocent human that could not see Ethel, so he has to be involved with Spring somehow."

It took a lot for Autumn to get flustered, yet here she was stumbling over her words. But eventually, when she was able to regain her train of thought, my sister sighed and continued rambling off all the sides to this possible situation with Sarah chiming in with her two cents now and then. But, there was nowhere they could go with it.

No conclusions to draw.

They were stuck speculating the same small morsel of evidence, circling around the same twisted cycle of deconstructing the impossible mystery of Spring.

Sitting here listening to them repetitively deliberate showed how pointless it was to decide on anything right now. Any conversation the two of them were having were sputtering products of their paranoia.

My head slid further down my arms as my hands reached up to claw at my ears- their words pecked and berated my anxiety like a flock of vultures, but there was nothing I could do to stop or add to their conversation. There was nothing I wanted to add.

It was hopelessly all the same thing.

Squinting my eyes at the mental tear and fatigue that threw my mind into a delirious haze, I buried my head into the couch behind me and stared up at the ceiling, only thinking about how screwed we were.

If I didn't show my powers on the field that day, none of this may have happened. Screw my recklessness; I swore I had everything under control. I tried, really, to refrain myself from punching Julian, but when I let loose I didn't expect freaking flames to come out from my fingers. It was all an accident.

An accident out of my control that cost everything. I don't know how I lost my mind like that.

For a moment, Autumn and Sarah silenced their conversation, and I could almost hear the concern in my sister's gaze when she looked at me.

"Maybe, we should stop thinking about it, for now, keep low profiles, and wait for Mandell's instructions." Autumn's hesitant voice broke softly in surrender to willing defeat.

With her eyes still trained on me, Autumn spoke up again. "We all could use a break, so let's go back to doing whatever we were going to do. It would not only relieve a lot of anxiety, but it would also make it seem less suspicious, you know? Anyways, I promised Carter I would see him later today."

My sister was one hell of a human being. As shallow sigh escaping my heavy chest, I ran my fingers through my hair and shook my head. I could not understand how she was doing this right now: trying to make a game plan for finding out who Spring is, suggesting that we act like we nothing ever happened, and, most of all, simply keeping calm.

A gentle hand rested on my shoulder, it's warmth bearing a familiar touch. "Maybe you can go see Sean today? As much as I don't like him, he's the only friend that seems to get you to relax."

Was it that obvious with how tense I was? But it was my sister; she knew everything about me.

"But how do I know if Sean isn't some assassin or something? Mandell said they could be people we already know." I groaned while passing my hands down my face and pulling at my bottom lip. "Doesn't seem safe, as much as I wish it was."

A bright laugh bubbled from my sister. "Sean? An assassin? The guy that has the stealth of a revved airplane engine? No, Matt, I doubt it."

The smile on her face was contagious, and just peeping at it through my hands caused a small smile to crack on my distress ridden face. "True." I laughed while shaking my head and sitting completely up now, "We could never involve him with our pranks. He shitted on us for weeks when he discovered we excluded him."

Autumn's face glowed with reassurance, and with a final pat of confidence on my shoulder she stood on her feet. "Exactly, but, to be on the safe side, don't tell him anything. If he asks, just say you're tired or something."

Then turning around to Sarah, who was still sitting on the floor digging her fingers into the threads of our carpet- lost in thought, Autumn checked on her. "Sarah, you good?"

"Hm?" Sarah replied in a light drone. Her eyes fluttered up from the carpet and immediately widened when the question hit her a second later. "Oh, yeah, I am. Might just go home, unwind, and process all this. Had nothing planned today anyways."

My sister nodded. "Still up to grab lunch?"

Even Sarah seemed slightly shocked and appalled by Autumn's abnormal calm composure, but she threw her shoulders back as if to heck with it and agreed.

The house was empty a few minutes later when the two of them gathered enough of their senses and left to continue the rest of their plans. Meanwhile, I simply sat in the basement alone, waiting for my friend Sean to swing by. He said he would be at my house in thirty minutes, but knowing him he was going to be here in an hour.

Sean was always late. To everything.

Sighing, I clicked the Play Station on and kicked back into the couch with controller in hand, vicariously exploring the wilderness in the virtual reality universe of Outlast 4 through its main character.

It was a relief to come back to this game, although it was so old and had been ages since I played it last. The trees, scenery, and plot always calmed me- to an extent. That was until random bullets, enemies, and walls crash everywhere to kill you. It was like nothing wants you alive.

Similar to my life at the moment.

I scoffed at the irony and shifted into the crease of the couch, sighing while sliding my thumb across the stick of my controller. The character followed suit and jumped from cliff edge to cliff edge. Physically, for a normal human being, this physical feat should be impossible. Yet, as a teenager, who never exercised a day in his life, running four-minute miles without being tired should have been impossible as well.

Wonder if I could ever jump from wall to wall.

Slowly, my mind began to shift from the wild rainforest on my screen to my earlier encounters with the shadows. In video games, it was normal for everything wanting to kill you- a little adrenaline to spark up the day, but to have that in real life scared me shitless.

What the hell was I supposed to do?

Unlike a game, I had no direction. I didn't have buttons that let me access any ability I wanted. On top of all that, I only had one life.

"Starting without me, dick?"

That familiar fowl mouth.

"Hello to you too, Sean," I responded with a light chuckle- not taking my eyes off the screen and focused on landing the jump I couldn't pass for the past ten minutes. "Late as always."

"Yeah," he muttered while whisking another controller from the cabinets and sat down beside me. "Had some stuff come up at home, that's why."

I threw him a look before resuming my game.

Sure he did.

Mind scattered, I leaned in to make the final jump in the game, trying the same sequence of obstacles, but my character landed pathetically, face flat into the cliff. Done. So done. The controller flew from my hands and bounced lightly on the couch.

Sean decided to add onto my seething wounds. "Dude, you're fucking terrible at this game. No wonder you haven't completed it." He commentated ever so factually, leaning back with the pompous air of a pundit spectator.

"At least I'm not wasting my life on it." I quipped as a reference to his unhealthy gaming addiction. The guy spends about four hours a night playing all sorts of games: Halo, Overwatch, Call of Duty, and hell knows what else. I don't see how he could not run out of games to play when spending time like that.

My friend taunted me with a belittling sneer while tossing a wedge of blond hair out from his face. "At least I can do something. After all, sucking at video games was what made you lose our bet. Fortunately for you, you look alright as a brunette."

Upper lip curling into a slight snarl, I shook my head and picked up the controller to try the jump one more time. He really had to remind me of the bet- not that I'm reminded of the lost bet every time I look in the mirror. They originally wanted me to dye my hair bright tomato red, but when I wimped out they settled on a more natural color. I would only agree to brown, but even then I hate the way it looked on me.

But I just wish he shut up, but I didn't feel like arguing with him anymore.

Instead, I threw him the controller after the fifth attempt and watched him succeed the jump after the first try.

A cheeky smile cracked up his lips when he handed me the controller, which I begrudgingly took and switched to a two player shooter game. That was what we always played when he came over- only because it was what took my mind off school and other things.

Hell. I needed that distraction more than ever with all that was happening now, but dark silhouettes would dance on the walls in the corner of my eye, taunting when I turned my head to find nothing was there.

I swallowed hard when I turned my head back to the screen and tried to resume my normal life. Paranoia was an understatement.

"Dude, are you alright?" Sean asked while pausing the game, rolling his shoulders, and shifting his relaxed posture so that he looked straight at me.

"Of course." I lied between my teeth while keeping my eyes trained on the screen with back hunched like we were still playing. "What made you give a shit all the sudden?" It was hard trying to act normal. I didn't know if I was overcompensating for the nervous wreck inside.

I prayed Sean wouldn't detect anything odd about my behavior, but he simply shrugged his shoulders and leaned back into the worn leather folds of my couch.

"Don't know." He murmured quietly to himself- the rustling of his fingers on the controller louder than his voice. "You're sucking more than usual. That's why I ask." His face was stern, calculative, and quiet when he aligned his gun precisely to pick off an opposing player, a ridiculously perfect headshot. It took me a moment to realize that it was me when my screen blasted with red before it boasted a replay of his kill.

Autumn's words from before unwillingly crept through my mind in small whispers.

Those three words: just in case.

My sister and I both agreed that Sean was most likely not an assassin, and I wished on everything that he wasn't because he was my closest friend. Sean was the only guy I could trust my life with and most possibly tell a few secrets to. Hell, it was so tempting to tell him about the recent crazy events- that I had actually killed monsters in real life and had powers of Winter, whatever that meant, but I couldn't because just in case.

Just in case he was an assassin.

The plight of conflicting powers of trust and fear scattered down to my fingers, the anxiety from before causing them to shake on the controller, the half of my screen jittering side to side. Sitting next to Sean made me realize how large of a secret I was actually holding- all the things I couldn't say.

"And your sister," Sean muttered slightly, breaking his stream of intense focus, "she's been acting strange too."

The game ended, and instead of rubbing the victory in my face like he usually would set his controller down on the couch and eyed me suspiciously. "And don't even get me started on you. Wednesday you punch Julian and completely disappeared for the next two days. You didn't even text me until today, which I'm still pretty damn salty about."

There was no way I could answer that question or even look at him without appearing suspicious.

"Don't use the word salty." I murmured under my breath while clicking hard on the buttons, waiting for Sean to join in so we could start the next game.

"Why?" He questioned puzzled.

"Because you already look stupid with that overly common crew cut-"

"Stop avoiding the question. I've known you for a long time, and you start avoiding the topic when something is wrong. So let me ask you again. What is wrong, Matt?" Sean's voice was firm and demanded of answers, each syllable enunciated with a determined interrogation I couldn't escape.

Pointless words spilled over my babbling lips. The room was suddenly warm and I was completely unaware of reality itself. All that existed was a swirling vortex of oblivion that managed to skew my identity, vision, and present into meaningless existence. A frantic haze pulsed around the corners of my vision, and I quickly turned back to the screen of my television- as a way to relieve me of the panic that squeezed on my lungs when I had to address Sean.

"- and when I got caught up in the storm, I got real sick." Were the last words I recalled.

The look of momentary disbelief was wiped into annoyance. "Didn't need to give me a whole damn narration. All you could have said was you got sick."

Cheeks burning with heat after a moment of embarrassment and what seemed to be the aftermath of my panic, I turned towards the television and picked up my controller when Sean restarted the game. But the controller tumbled out from my fingers when I saw a long, hairy line stretch across the middle of the screen. Segments of the mysterious streak bulged, and the lump would slide up to one end, where it moved up ever so slightly.

Because of the darkness of the room, it only appeared like a black mysterious line I believed to be a glitch in the game. But the more it peeked out from the corner of the television and started crawling its way onto the top, I held my breath and felt my muscles tense. This was a malformed worm of some sort- a horrific creation that needs to be burned with fire.

I didn't even want to see what this thing would like in the light.

Eyes darting down towards Sean, who took a seat on the floor to be more engaged in the game, my mouth dropped when he played, unfazed by the clear distraction. It was like it wasn't there for him.

This had to be another monster from whatever the hell this Ethel was. Mandell said it was energy, but it still did not make any sense to me.

Where was Mandell when I needed him?

Swallowing hard, I peered back up at the television to catch another glance at the monstrosity but it was gone. Why did most of these things disappear after only catching a quick glimpse of it?

With one hand still on his controller- still managing to press the buttons he needed to, Sean scooped up my controller and handed it to me. Then doing what he never did in the middle of a game, Sean turned his head and bore his eyes straight into mine, not letting go when I leaned down to grab it. "Don't be afraid to tell me anything, Matt." He spoke with the sharpness in his eyes. "Anything."

For a good, solid, ten seconds, enough for him to lose his game, he continued pulling at my secrets with his eyes, narrowing his like he was trying to break in. But when I uncomfortably pulled away, Sean turned back to his game and resumed playing just as well as he did before.

But I couldn't. Sean never breaks his focus and hardly speaks more than a mutter when playing a game. Yet, right after the worm disappeared, he broke out of character like I had never seen before.

This was unlike him.

I paused when I looked down at him play like nothing happened. Something was off. This wasn't right.

A pain twisted in my gut. What did he know?  

A/N: Bleh, not the most EXCITING chapter, but it sets things up ;) 

So, new 'monster' and Sean. What do you all think of him? 

And I can not thank you all enough for the comments and votes <3 You guys seriously blow me away with your support. Thank you so much <3 And to Rach, Jothew tribute next chapter ;) 

~Rayne <3