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gjnhjfdhns: Part THIRTY-TWO: The Save Point

I don't know when I lost consiousness, or when I stopped falling. I do know that when I woke up, it was dark.

I tasted dirt.

Coughing and spitting, I pushed myself up from the soil and into a sitting position. Looking up, I found myself in a rectangular, dirt hole. The sky was dark, wisps of clouds slowly meandering their way across it. I hauled myself to my feet, cringing at the dull ache in my left leg, and found that the hole I was in was deeper than I was tall- About a foot deeper.


I'm 5'2", aren't I...?

I grabbed the edges of the hole and, digging the toes of my incredibly worn runners into the dirt, I climbed out. I pulled myself face-to-face with a tombstone.

"In Loving Memory of Hazel A-"?! That's... That's my name!

I screamed out loud, making the tiniest step backward and almost plummeting back into my grave. I walked around it, and took a good look around. There was a statue of an angel with no wings, a giant, inverted cross for a headstone, a beautifully crafted teddybear...

It was the same cemetary as before.

I put my hand on my forehead, taking slow steps backward. I was here again, but this time I was alone, and the building I had supposedly come from was nowhere in sight.

Suddenly, something wrapped itself around my ankle, and I screamed for all I was worth. I turned- /"R.I.P. Mitchell B."/- and felt the world crash down around me. If Mitchell was on the dark side, I was doomed beyond hope. I tried yanking myself free, falling backward and pulling the body up along with me. He gasped as soon as he emerged, and I cannot express how relieved I was to find that his eyes were the same eyes I'd always seen him have.

"YOU'RE ALIVE!" I cried, throwing my arms up with joy. "Alive and here and not evil-zombie-ish!"

He gave me a cynical look, brushing soil out of his hair. "I almost wasn't!"

"/What/? What-what happened!?"

"You disappeared, and me and Angel were stuck with psycho-Andrew, and Angel disappeared, too, and-" he rolled up his sleeve to reveal three long cuts on his forearm- "/this/, and-" he pulled up his other sleeve- "/this/, and-"

I shouted for him to stop. "I get it! I get it! But it wasn't my fault, and-and I got cut, too!"

"Psh-"

I brought my hands up to still any comments. "Just... Just, what /happened/?"

"I..." He frowned. "I ran through the wall." My blank stare obviously elicited further explanation. "I just ran through it, no breaking or anything, just through it, like- like a ghost or something!"

"That's what happened to me/!" I folded my arms against my chest. "Except something grabbed me and pulled me through the wall... And then there was this room, and it was like the shadow-things, and..." Furrowing my brow, I strained to remember that event. How /had I escaped? I second I was huddled in the center of the room, wishing desperately for rescue, and the next I had fallen back into the room with Andrew in it!

"What?"

"Never... Nevermind." I sighed and slumped my shoulders. "So what happened then?"

"... I kept running. It was just a hallway, right? And I didn't try to go back through the wall-"

"You left Angel!?"

"She disappeared already, stupid!"

"... Oh, right, right, right."

"So I kept running down the hall, and then I reached then end, turned the corner, walked right into one of those shadow people."

I gasped. "What happened then?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I woke up, and there was soil raining down on me."

"Jesus H. Christ..." I nervously brought my hands to my head. "Now what?"

He coughed, looking around the cemetary. He started walking toward a certain grave, and when I saw the headstone, I followed.

"Brian Y"

We stood in front of it, the sound of nothing hovering around us. I started feeling sick and weighed down, like the silence was smothering my soul. Mitchell got on his knees and began to dig.

"Wait...! What are you-" I took a breath to give myself time to think of what I was saying. "Are you sure he's not gonna go psycho on us?"

There was a shrug in reply.

"What if he's- What if he's actually..." I choked, unable to voice the thought. I don't know what was worse, an evil best friend or a de- or an indisposed best friend. I didn't want to see Brian in either of those states, so I turned away, knowing that I wouldn't be able to deter Mitchell from this obvious path of disappointment.

So what happened to hope? All that fluffy goodness? What if he is alive, and what if he needs help?

What happened the last time he needed help?

You don't have a chair leg to lose now, you know...

I crouched down and started clawing at the soil.