tw :: mentions of a missing person, very brief mention of an abusive person

(this chapter has footnotes)

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Taking the paper from Patton's shaking hands, Logan looked at it again just to be sure. They were right. Well, they were all right. He watched carefully as the text on it glitched from one message to another, his message lingering a little longer than the others. Odd. Of course it would be, they probably weren't even in the same plane anymore, nor were they probably in a place where Earth's laws of physics and whatnot were observed.

If he were to be completely and utterly honest, he'd say that he still hasn't gotten used to so many things going on in less than 24 hours. Heck, he didn't even know Patton before this whole shitshow began. Logan still wasn't entirely too sure whether or not he would ever speak to the guy once everything goes back to normal, but he wouldn't be surprised if they don't ever talk or see each other ever again. They only knew each other's name and a few details that were brought up due to said details being relevant to the matter at hand, but it wasn't like he wanted any more friends. He's got enough, he thinks. Oh, and he's got his stupid brother too. Newton, what would he do if he ever lost his brother? Logan couldn't even think about it.

A snap brings him back to the real world. Or well, the current world he was in. Whichever one it was. His eyes darted towards the source of the sound, which happened to be Virgil.

"Hey, you good? I swear, if I lose you, I will lose my shit and cry. Do you want that? No, you don't."

Logan blinked. The paper was slowly removed from his grasp. "My apologies, I was figuratively lost in thought."

For a moment, everything was silent. The group continued to move forward, looking for anything that could help them out. It didn't help that the floors were creaky and the wallpaper was falling apart. The house glitches once in a while, causing rooms to shift ever so slightly. Logan had a theory that whatever was targeting them had put them in the virtual world. He didn't have enough evidence to prove it, but the occasional glitches and the fact that a social networking site was involved gave him that idea. Also, wasn't Dmitri trapped behind a screen?

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the others stopping in place. They were looking at... something. It was a pale-skinned creature with captivating green eyes. Its long and shiny brown hair swayed gracefully with the non-existent wind. Virgil extended his arms sidewards as if he were defending them from the creature. The creature glitched towards them, causing them to move backward. Logan's feet almost tripped on a piece of fabric. He picked it up out of curiosity, inspecting it. The fabric, upon inspection, was deduced to be *charmeuse. He wondered why such fabric was in a place like thi-

Oh.

"Cover your eyes!" Logan yelled as he shielded his own eyes from staring at the creature. Dmitri's words rang in his ears like a song stuck in his head. This must be the creature Dmitri said not to look at in the eyes.

They heard a loud, roaring sound. It sounded frustrated and angry. Once its screaming had ended, Logan slowly peeked from a tiny space between his fingers. It was gone. He checked all sides before he fully removed his hand from his face. It wasn't beside him on either side, so that was good. The others haven't moved and haven't removed their hands from their faces. He turned around and was greeted by a horrifying grin that could rival the cheshire cat's. It stared right at his dark brown eyes.

He shut his eyes tightly as he chanted "Holy water! Holy water! Holy water!" until he felt it leave.

Logan opened his eyes once more. It was finally safe. Or rather, temporarily safe. Virgil started laughing at him. "Holy water? I thought you were more of a science guy!"

Logan cleared his throat and fixed his collar. "Now, if I were in the right mindset and had enough time to process what was in front of me, I would've said something that made sense. But you see, it was terrifying and right in front of my face. I'm not a religious man, but if that scared it away, I might as well start to be."

Roman snorted. "Alright Coperni-spooked, shut up and let's get going."

"I think we should go back," Patton suggests, gesturing to the direction from which they came from. As much as he would love to do that, Roman disagreed.

"I think," Roman began rather loudly, pausing for dramatic effect. And also to get their attention. "we should proceed forward. It's obviously a void out there, which means that to progress, we must face whatever is ahead of us! Maybe we should split up! Two of us go back and see if anything changed while the other two explore the house."

"And I think," Logan said harshly as he grabbed Roman's arm, stopping him from walking away even before Roman could think about moving. "we should not split up. Do you not remember what happened just moments ago?"

Roman weakly nodded. His brother tended to act like a parent more than their own parents.

"Then it's settled. We will not split up, no matter what." Logan finalized as he released his deadly grip on Roman's arm.

All of a sudden, the lights went off.

Out of shock, they all held onto each other. The lights were only out for a brief second, but once they were back on, everything changed. The light was red and they were back in Logan's room, sitting down on the bed just like before. Well, they hoped it was Logan's room and not just some weird simulation. Virgil gently tapped his foot on the floor, making sure it wasn't some kind of trap. Logan looked around, making sure nothing was out of place. He knew where his things were and kept a detailed list in his notepad about all his items' whereabouts. He's gone through it enough to be able to recite it word for word, even with the newest additions.

Meanwhile, Roman had other ideas. "Due to the events that transpired, I will now be taking a nap." Roman lied down in the middle of the bed, pulling the covers up to his head.

"You sure now's a good time for that, kiddo?" Patton asked, tilting his head slightly and raising his left brow as if he were a cartoon character.

"No time-" Roman let out a yawn. "like the present." He surely felt exhausted.

Just as he was starting to get comfortable, a thought popped up in his head. He got up and made a beeline straight to the door. He tried to open the doorknob. It didn't budge. He tried it once more. Still didn't open. Third time's the charm, so he wanted to try one last time. Roman took a step backward and glared at the door, giving it his best fighting face. He shook his hands and did a boxer shuffle.

The door flew open.

The door hit Roman Castillo in the face.

"Darn!" Roman exclaimed. "Defeated by a door!" He grumpily made his way to the kitchen, looking behind him every few moments. He could never be too sure. He whistled a lovely tune as he grabbed ingredients for the salad he'd been wanting to make. Roman had no idea what kind of salad he made, but he knew he had vegetables and those edible leaves in them—what were they called again? Leaflets? Lettuccini? He knew it started with an "L". Oh right, lettuce.

Satisfied with his salad, he went back up to Logan's room to brag about how good his salad looks.

And then the lights went off. Again.

In the dark, he could make out a figure of a person. He couldn't see its features, but it kept glitching in and out of existence, approaching him at a turtle's pace. He was frozen in place.

"Healthy eating, healthy living!" He yelled out of fear at the figure with his eyes tightly closed, swinging the fork in front of him carelessly as it got nearer.

Then it stopped. It somehow got even darker. Pitch black, just like when they got teleported to a different plane of existence. Ah, that might be where he was. He walked around for a bit, shoving forkfuls of his salad into his mouth when he felt like it.

"Lo! Where are you? I need my phone!" His yelling was slightly muffled due to having his mouth full of food. "Anyone?! I want to call mom!"

Walking around in the dark made him tired. Well, not physically tired, more like emotionally tired—if that was even a thing. He hardly got physically tired, one of the perks of being a sporty guy. He sat down cross-legged on the ground and finished his salad. It was better than being put in another horror game he didn't know the name of. Don't blame him, he wasn't a gamer. He set down his plate on the ground. He didn't want to bring a plate wherever he went in the dark, endless void.

A familiar tune suddenly caught his attention. It was one of his favorite Disney songs, except it sounded a little... odd. Out of tune, even. The sound was coming from the left side. He began to follow it, letting the sound led him to different directions. He took a bunch of twists and turns before finally finding the source.

It looked like an amusement park. Except it looked like it came out of a horror movie. That definitely explained how creepy "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" sounded. The amusement park seemed like it was still functioning though, and who was Roman to give up an opportunity like this?

He entered through the gates, a shiver crawling down his spine. Everything about the place screamed "danger!" but he felt so intrigued by it. Roman wished he had brought snacks with him besides that stupid plate of vegetables. It didn't have any sugar. He was starting to crave cookies and cotton candy, so he walked around in search of anything sugary and sweet.

His journey led him to a cotton candy stand. No one was around so he took a pink one. It tasted like nothing. Roman threw the rest of the cotton candy in the trash and decided to look for his brother and their friends. The place was too big though, so he formulated a brilliant plan.

The plan involved getting on top of a ferris wheel. He carefully observed his surroundings, looking for anything that could help him get to a ferris wheel. A map, perhaps. The park was empty, but trash littered the place as if it were a landfill. It was so bad that sometimes a strong gust of wind would blow several pieces of trash right into his face. As if on cue, a map flew into his direction. It was a circular map folded into a triangle. There was so much to the place that he wished he could explore, but he only had one goal. He could probably go to an actual amusement park with his friends once the situation has been dealt with.

Suddenly, he heard talking. Familiar voices. It seemed like they were headed towards him. He turned around and saw three figures. He could not believe his luck.

He ran towards them. "Logan! There you are! I was wondering where... you..." Roman squinted. That wasn't Logan. That wasn't Virgil or Patton, either. "You're not Logan."

The one in the middle spoke with a voice that sounded exactly like Logan's. "Way to state the obvious." It was shadow-like—pure black mist, but it had eyes like crystals. "Now, do tell, where is Dmitri hiding?" It looked right into his eyes, causing him to feel uneasy. He covered his eyes and shut them tight. He would not fall for its tricks.

From a distance, he could hear the calls of his name. He hoped that it wasn't another trick. "Over here, near the spinning teacup ride!" He yelled. Roman could tell it wasn't gone and that it was still in front of him, so he didn't dare remove his hands from his face.

The shadow creature took on a solid form and with a snap of its fingers, the other shadow creatures disappeared into thin air. "Such a shame," it said as it placed its hands on his shoulders, pressing down harshly on his skin with its long and sharp nails. "I could've made you like him, too." Roman carefully started to move backward, preparing himself to run in case his friends and his brother don't get to him on time.

A knife flew through the air and stabbed through the neck of the creature. Virgil's idea, obviously. Where did he even get a knife?

The stunt successfully diverted the creature's attention from Roman to the trio. This gave Roman enough time to run back to the group. It removed the knife from its neck as it scowled at the group. It would not be the last time they saw the creature and they knew it. The creature disappeared with a snap of its fingers, leaving a cloud of black smoke in its place.

"What did I say about splitting up from the group?" Logan scolded his brother, who looked down at the ground in shame.

"Not to split up..." He answered. From the corner of his eye, he could tell that Virgil was snickering to himself and Patton seemed to be watching with interest. Oh, the shame of being scolded by his brother. For sure, Logan was more of a parent to him than their own parents.

"And what did you do?"

"Get a salad?" He looked up and sheepishly grinned at his brother who was not amused. He sighed and gave a proper answer. "Split up from the group..."

With Roman finally back in the group, the four of them continued on their way, away from that Disney Dreadful Land they happened to have stumbled across earlier. The wind picked up and a strong gust of wind blew a torn piece of a newspaper right into Patton's face.

The torn paper had a picture of a girl with light-colored hair. On the top, it had the letters "--SSING" in bold capital letters. Clearly, it was meant to be the word "missing". Patton read out loud what the paper contained to the other three.

The girl was Clara Lorelei from [REDACTED] High School. She is 16 years old and went missing recently. Her parents, Mrs. [REDACTED] Lorelei and Mr. [REDACTED] Lorelei are willing to give a $50,000 reward for anyone who can bring their only child back home.

"That's weird, someone scribbled all over the page," Virgil stated.

"Yeah, and they probably did that intentionally. They covered up certain information they might not want us knowing." Logan said as he took the paper from Patton to further investigate. The backside appeared to be blank.

"Well, there's no use covering up the school name since I went to school with her." Patton chimed in.

Another piece of the newspaper flew towards their direction, which Patton somehow caught. The page appeared to be blank, so he gave it to Virgil just in case he saw something in it. This other plane of existence was weird in so many ways, one could just not be too sure. Virgil couldn't see anything from the page either, but he tried to fit that piece of paper with the one Logan had. It fit together like a two-piece puzzle, but the paper was still blank. Roman took the page from him and dramatically gasped. He cleared his throat before reading out loud what was written on the paper.

"It says here: 'Don't trust anyone you come across. —D' in fancy cursive writing. Lo, can you see it? Look! I've never seen handwriting as pretty as this before."

His brother tore his eyes away from the newspaper to see what Roman was going on about. "Huh, you're right. That's Dmitri's handwriting. Do follow what it says, I think he's trying to warn us about something."

Roman returned the paper to Virgil, who still could not see a single drop of ink.

The ground began to quake and the group held onto each other for stability. They've grown so used to the pitch-black void that seeing light there felt so foreign. The intensity of the light increased until the dark red color became too bright for their eyes. It was strange how the void worked. All of a sudden, they felt like they were falling from a tall building. The light then became dimmer and they slowly landed on a soft surface. With a final blinding flash of white light, they were back in Logan's room and the sun was shining through the window.

"What fucking time is it?" Virgil groaned as the sun's rays hit him right in the face. He used a nearby pillow to block it out.

Roman checked the time on the wall clock. "It's 10 am. Well, who's up for brunch?" HIs ever-so-casual tone made it seem like they were just pals that woke up after a *guys' night.

As much as Patton would have loved to stay, he did promise to be back by lunch. "Um, I have to be back home for lunch, so I think I should go now. But I'd love to return and help you guys with the creepy void thing!" The last sentence was way too cheery than it should be, but Patton seemed like a cheery person anyways so the others assumed it was just how he is.

"Well, I think we've gone through enough together as a group so I think that makes us friends?" Virgil said unsurely.

"We didn't meet in the best of situations, but I think we'll get along great! Even after the apocalypse! Or whatever this is!" Roman said in an equally cheery tone.

That left Logan, and everyone else looked at him expectedly. He didn't know he had to say something, he thought it was already an established thing. "What Roman said. I know we don't know each other too well and you've only met the three of us—actually, four if you count Dmitri—but we'd love to have you over again. You seem like someone that my brother would—what's the term again? 'Vibe', right. You seem like someone my brother would vibe with. I don't think I used that correctly."

"Great! Then I'll be back after lunch! See ya guys later!"

As soon as Patton left the room, a white hole appeared on the ceiling, which appeared to be a reverse black hole. By that, it meant that it was spewing things into the room—things like Roman's salad plate which he had left on the ground before.

Dmitri fell from the hole and landed quite painfully on the floor.

Dmitri Vaux had unnatural yellow eyes.

"Oh, you put contacts in?" Roman commented upon seeing Dmitri's yellow eyes.

"No, I just got here. Why, what color are they?" He asked as he got up and went to the mirror on the wall. He jumped back in surprise. "My, that's quite an unnatural yellow." He tried to take out the contacts, but unfortunately, they weren't even contacts in the first place. He silently cursed.

"Ah shit, I think I know what's going to happen next," Virgil said as he began to pace back and forth.

Logan eyed him questioningly, but soon realized what he meant. The school, right. He then turned to Dmitri but before he even got a word out, Dmitri put a hand up to stop him from saying anything.

"I know what you're going to say, but save the questions for later. I don't exactly have my shit together right now."

The room went uncomfortably silent for a moment and Roman was starting to crave pasta. "Who's up for some Pasta Pomodoro? I know I am!" No one but Dmitri raised their hand. Roman was disappointed by the lack of a reaction from both Logan and Virgil. "What, you two don't want pasta?"

"I do prefer pesto shrimp pasta, but I know Virgil's allergic to shrimp so that's alright I suppose," Logan said as he started to clean up the clutter the white hole dropped in his room. He was a bit upset upon seeing that his floor got a scratch from the items falling from the ceiling.

"It's going to be a 30-minute wait, so I suggest you three start trying to figure out what mess we're in," Roman said. Once he was out of the room, Logan pulled out a portable whiteboard that was behind his bookshelf and started to write down a timeline.

Dmitri and Virgil just watched him write, not knowing if they should be doing.

Virgil attempted to start a conversation with Dmitri. "You know, I feel sorry for Patton. He's gone through a lot of shit in the past few hours. The guy he was talking to on the phone probably knew something, but to be honest, that guy also deserved his karma since he sounded like he was abusive."

"Oh, you mean Dal-"

RIIIING!

They heard a slightly muffled shout coming from Roman, saying he'll get the door. They assumed it was probably Patton so they just ignored it. They did not expect Roman to run up to Logan's room, announcing that there was a girl outside the door who wanted to speak to Virgil. Odd. All of them went downstairs just in case the girl had more sinister intentions. You never know.

"Hi, I'm Jennifer. I don't think you know me since I'm a junior. I was told I'd find you here?"

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*Logan had a phase wherein he wanted to become a fashion designer and worked with various fabrics when he was 11 years old.

*Roman would not use the term 'sleepover' because he thinks that only pre-teens and below use that term.

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a/n :: this chapter has actually been in the works after i finished the last chapter, but once i got back to school there was a lot happening. since we're on lockdown, i figured i'd finish this chapter !! also, i named jennifer after one of my favorite horror movies. after all, this is a horror story, so why not?

other places to find me

tumblr :: virgilsinferno || spookiist

ao3 :: spookiist

instagram :: caffibug