Chapter Text
Friday, December 12th, 2025, 6:20 PM
Lucas felt the shadows growing over him. Licking at his feet, tugging at his khaki pants. His breath shortened. But he lifted his foot anyway, and dropped it down on the first step.
One. Two. He might as well have been falling to his death.
His chest inflated with a deep inhale. Three. Four. The cool air swirled around his ankles as he stepped to the last stair. Lifting the latch on the door, Lucas clicked it open and discarded it on the last stair. One breath in, one breath out. He pushed the door slightly ajar, peering into the darkness.
When the shadows slithered back where they belonged in the space in the door, Lucas opened the door and threw on the lights before the shadows had a chance to return. A dim twitch later, light exploded across the basement. It might as well have been the North Pole in there. Lucas buttoned up his shirt by one, rattling the white beaded necklace laced across his neck.
The basement was bland at best. Aside from the he black rotary dial phone pinned against the wall in front of him, there was not much to say about it.
Lucas briefly considered closing the door, but decided he had seen the first Scream movie far too many times and instead kept it wide open. He made his way towards the mini fridge, dipped into a kneel, and started rummaging through the handful of bottles.
Freya hadn’t specified what alcohol was needed—just said not to collect more than four. Whatever, there wasn’t any harm in taking a guess. Lucas stacked a heavy bottle of beer on top of the fridge, added one of tequila, and craned his neck down to have a look on the lower shelf.
He skimmed through the labels on the bottles and guided his hand to the back, moving them as he went to get a clearer look at the label messaged across the front of the bottle.
“Golden Grain,” Lucas read aloud, reeling his arm back and examining it closely. Strangely, it felt heavier in his hand than the other bottles, like a mound of boulders were clenched in his fist. Well, Golden Grain might be a bit harder than other liquors. Maybe that made it heavier? Science wasn't really his best cla—
A ringing blasted across the basement.
Lucas almost dropped the liquor in his hands, almost winded out a gasp so loud it likely would’ve torn his lungs. He forgot where he was for a moment, until the ringing halted just to blare out again seconds later.
Deep breath in, deep breath out. Lucas laid the bottle of Golden Grain on top of the fridge and kicked it closed, before spinning around to face the ringing.
Nothing. No voices, no twitches in the shadows. He was the only thing in the basement, and God, was Lucas glad to be alone with just the black phone screaming.
He inched one tentative step towards the phone, breath caught in his throat and nails bleeding into his palms. Who even needed a rotary phone in their basement? Didn’t people stop using them decades ago?
Before he knew it, Lucas was in front of the phone and taking it in his hands. Throat so dry, he could hardly breathe out the word waiting on his lips.
“Hello?”
Silence droned over the static on the other end. Lucas sucked in a tight breath.
“Hello?” he tried again.
.
.
.
And a voice Lucas didn’t have time or words to describe creaked out on the other end.
“Lucaassss,” the voice breathed, and Lucas swore his life flashed before his eyes.
His feet spiraling until he dropped to the floor, he clumsily slammed the phone back down and crawled a couple feet away, breath clogging up his closing throat.
What. The. Fuck. Was that?
There was somebody pranking him. Somebody who knew about his fears of the distasteful things he saw and the depressing memories he heard dragging him into the shadows and chaining him there. There weren’t many people he trusted to tell about the things he saw and heard, but no matter who knew, they always reacted negatively.
Pranking was one way people reacted. But it was fine. It didn’t matter. He’d entertain them for a minute or two, tell them to fuck off, retrieve the drinks, and the night would continue as he planned. It didn’t matter.
“It doesn’t matter,” Lucas grunted under his breath, even as the phone started up again. He leapt to his feet and stormed up to the phone, ripping it off.
“Don’t hang up,” the voice chirped before he could say anything. Masculine and a bit high pitched, the youthful voice was hushed, like they were trying to avoid someone or something hearing them.
“Is this you, Liam?” Lucas sighed. Despite being more on the quiet side, Liam Blander sure had a mouth. If he found something out about a person, he would bitch about it to them until the day they died. It was why Lucas avoided any form of interaction with him, which proved rather difficult since they were partners for a geography project.
“Who’s Liam?” the voice questioned, and Lucas’s fingers closed in on the phone.
“If you’re not Liam,” Lucas said, “who are you?”
“I don’t remember.”
What? If Lucas wasn’t certain if someone was fucking with him seconds ago, he sure as hell was now. “What do you mean?” he pressed.
“The longer you’re gone, the more details you start to lose,” the voice said.
Lucas let out a huff. Were they trying to waste his time? “What do you mean?”
The voice exhaled an identical huff, like they were growing impatient with him as well. And then silence. Lucas wondered if they’d hung up on him, until the voice returned, quieter.
“Lucas,” the voice hushed. “There’s a trap door in the bathroom. You might have to spend some time looking—it’s hidden pretty well.”
“...okay?”
“Look inside and you’ll see what I mean.”
Just as Lucas opened his mouth, the line clicked on the other end.
“Hello?” Lucas called. “Hello?”
Grumbling under his breath, Lucas hung up the phone and returned to the fridge.
As he pulled out a bottle of whiskey, he pondered the point of the call. Was somebody deliberately trying to fuck with him or did they actually mean it? He doubted it meant anything other than a stupid prank call. He got those all the time now, particularly from Liam. Apparently he didn’t have a life outside of making others lives hell.
Lucas piled the abundance of bottles in his arms, nudged the door of the fridge close with his foot, and stumbled out of the basement. With the push of his elbow, the dim light broke down immediately. And Lucas quickly ascended up the stairs.
~ + ~
Friday, December 12th, 2025, 7:12 PM
The Lost Boys won 3-2 on the majority vote. In all honesty, Lucas couldn’t care less about which movie they chose. His attention was throwing itself back and forth between absorbing him in the movie and blanketing his thoughts in the phone call.
Was there actually a point in investigating the caller’s strange advice? Why couldn’t they just explain the concept behind them ‘not knowing’? It was obviously a prank call, Lucas reminded himself, but how could somebody not remember themself? If they had just said a name, this whole process of his thoughts being far too fast for him to keep up with would be over and done with.
Lucas adjusted his position on the fern green bean bag, swallowing his spit and combing his tongue over his dry lips. Should he…?
Ugh, whatever. It’d just pull five minutes out of his time. It wasn’t the end of the world if it was some shitty prank. Right…
Lucas patted Freya, who was laying on her stomach on the bed, on the shoulder gently. “I’m gonna use the bathroom,” he announced, trying to sound calmer than he felt as he gathered his balance.
“Don’t clog the toilet,” Freya yelled back as Lucas shuffled past the group and locked the bathroom door.
Hand to his hammering chest, Lucas propped himself up against the door.
One breath in…one breath out.
One breath in…one breath out.
One breath in…one breath out.
There we go, Lucas thought as his heart settled.
He pushed himself off the door and looked around the bathroom. It was rather clean, remarkably so, with glistening white walls, a prominent floral scent clinging to the air, and not a single spot anywhere. Freya must’ve cleaned the house very thoroughly.
Now, where was that trap door?
Lucas started examining every inch of the walls. Hidden pretty well, the caller informed him. Well, with all white walls in an incredibly clean bathroom, he had no difficulty proving that correct.
His left palm passed over the back wall in the shower, and he felt a tile shift under his fingers. His eyes jumped up along with the leap in his nerves. He pressed the tile again, and it caved further into the wall.
This must be it. The caller wasn’t lying after all. Lucas flipped his hand forward, and the tile dropped into the wall.
Shadows seeped out again like cold wind drifting into a cabin through an open door, but Lucas ignored them. Ignore, ignore, ignore. That was going to be his mantra for the night. He spilled his hand down deeper into the shadows of the confined space, until paper brushed against his index finger.
Documents? Lucas guessed, but dipping his hand underneath a thin stack of these papers and drawing it up towards the light of the bathroom, he was proven dead wrong.