Chapter Text
Okay, so when I was told college would take me to new worlds and I’d have a lot of discoveries, I didn’t think it was actually literal. I don’t think whoever told me thought it would be either. But when a car crash and landing a cheap place to stay all piled up into a brand new adventure, I kinda got thrust into me having to face bigger problems than just a failed math test or hangovers from frat parties. Hi, I’m Jay. Jay Sparks. And if you think your life is weird, well… Just pray you don’t end up like me.
I grew up in Tennessee in the suburbs, and got accepted into a pretty nice college in Oregon. Dyed my hair blue, and had your standard freshman year of college with lots of stress and weird experiences talking to the stoned kids in the library. Barely got A’s and B’s, hated my roommate, and partied like hell.
Okay, the last part isn’t true. I don’t love being around people, and loud noises are overwhelming. And I definitely don’t wanna get busted drinking underage. Not the point. I finally had life under control. Then summer happened. Summer is supposed to be fun and break from school. Sitting by a beach, cold Fanta in hand, listening to the newest crappy album. Not with my luck.
I had already finished packing my bags from my dorm into my car. My dorm was cleared, my roommate had left, and my parents… didn’t have room for me at home. We still had a week technically before we had to leave for good, but I still had nowhere to go. Rent was too expensive in the city, no one had a spare room in a seventy mile radius, and my parents were already in Europe, happily retired and sipping martinis by the pool while butlers offered them scones. That scene is enough to know I couldn’t afford to go over there with them. I sighed, leaning against the hood of my car. Might not be much to look at, but I was glad to just have something to drive with. My dad gave it to me as a present for getting into uni. Green pickup truck, with a nice bed and two rows of seats. Was a pretty awesome gift, and made driving up the mountain for my first day a lot easier. Now, it was sitting in the parking lot of my uni, acting as shade for a pigeon pecking beneath it at a breadcrumb.
The clicking of heels on pavement made me look up from my self-pitying. As I saw the woman approach, I pulled my hair up into a messy top bun and pulled off a hair tie to keep it in place. I feel like it made me seem at least a little taller, and the blue would ward off people like those neon frogs in the forests. Like, “don’t talk or get too close cause I’m a tough kid who has dyed hair and a septum piercing, fear me!”. It rarely worked though.
“Jay? I thought that was you! What are you doing here? I thought you were leaving!”
Of course Professor Barron would notice me. Professor Barron was my school advisor and one of the liberal arts heads. She seemed able to find anyone she was looking for, like she was a magnet towards missing people. Really started aggravating me when I didn’t want to talk about why I was sleeping in class (sue me for wanting to stay up scrolling through tumblr!) and she kept finding my hiding spots. I didn’t even know teachers could climb up trees to find you on top of the library.
“ ‘Ello professor,” I sighed, leaning my head back against the roof of the truck. “Just… lost my rooming plans so trying to figure out where to go.”
“Oh?” she inquired, tilting her head, like a puppy cocking its head when someone asks it to sit. The leg of her baggy pants rose a little, but she quickly yanked it down to cover her leg. No one knows what exactly is wrong with her legs, but she sort of hobbles everywhere despite looking like she was in her mid twenties.
“You wouldn’t happen to know of any places with cheap rent or rooms to stay, would you?” I glanced over at her. She bit her lip, and looked pensively towards the horizon. Her boot tapped on the ground thoughtfully. A pen was stuck behind her ear, the tip chewed up and the open end rubbing ink behind her ear.
“‘Fraid not Jay, however…”
She paused, her eyebrows scrunched as if she was considering something that was of life or death.
It’s freaking boarding, not some twisted riddle for god’s sake-
I took the prolonged pause as a moment to evaluate Barron. She had curly brunette hair that she kept under a beanie that I never saw off her head. She often wore baggy pants, and heavy boots. She also always wore these tinted glasses that gave her a slightly buggy expression. It took realizing she had started talking again to knock me out of my thoughts.
“...Take a drive. You’ve been on the east side of the mountain right? Try going down the south. You definitely couldn’t have gone down that side, the entrance is practically hidden. Just look for the oak tree with a spray painted square in it. The drive, it’s a beautiful view, and you can think about who you want to contact. It couldn’t hurt could it? And if no ideas come then, you still have five more days to come up with a plan. “ she claimed, smiling wide.
I could spend the summer sleeping in this damn car and she’s telling me to go for a drive?
“Sure, professor. Any stops I should try seeing down that way? It’s kinda off the grid though, isn’t it? I haven’t heard of any cities down there.” I asked, trying to remember what my first drive up the mountain was like.
“None that are noteworthy, just drive down. You might even see some wildlife!”
Right. As if living in a college in the middle of the woods and mountains and getting chased by a deer one night after a party wasn’t enough wildlife. A surprisingly cool breeze fluttered the end of my shirt, and Barron gave one of her slanted smiles before trotting off, probably to torment some other poor freshman student trying to not freak out. Twirling my car keys as I jimmied my door open, the entire world seemed so quiet, yet so big. No wind whistling, no birds chirping, no students complaining.
No one would notice you gone
You’re so small, so pathetic
No one here even likes you
You don’t have enough credits to graduate
There’s still summer assignments
Are your course selections good enough?
The silence was so understimulating, my brain started twisting. Hoisting myself inside and slamming the door shut, I scrambled through the glovebox.
The meds do nothing…
What were you thinking going to college? You’ll never be able to survive in the world.
I found my pill case and popped my antidepressants and HRT from the case into my mouth. The hissing noise as I popped open a bottle of soda filled my car, giving me something to focus on. The soda burned my tongue slightly, but the sweet aftertaste of Fanta was enough to make up for the pain. I felt my phone buzz as my head started calming down.
Shut up.
My phone continued buzzing, as non-sentient objects really just do not listen to people, and I already had a feeling that I knew exactly who was spam texting me.
Jay- Samantha, quit it. It’s summer break i don’t need more conspiracy theories and claiming you saw bigfoot stealing your trash from the dumpster
Samantha- I SWEAR IT WAS. But anyways!! There’s a rumor that i’m wanting to prove that there’s a haunted ghost town on the south side of the mountain valley!!
The south side? Where Barron is sending me? She wouldn’t send me into a possibly haunted town, would she? Plus, she said nothing’s there.
Wait, what am I thinking, there’s no such thing as ghosts.
Jay: Samantha, quit it. I’m gonna be driving down the south side in like thirty minutes. If it’ll shut you up, I’ll tell you if there’s a town or not.
Samantha: YOU WILL??!! THANKS BLUEJAY!!
Jay: it’s Jay -_- don’t call me bluejay. And fine.
I closed out of the text and set my phone aside onto the dashboard. Sliding the keys in, I felt the car rumble to life underneath me. Pulling out, I took one last look at the school’s main building. As much as I complain about the people and the teachers, I actually genuinely liked Garnfield University. It had a nice theatre program, and moving to Oregon was a nice change from Tennessee. I didn’t really actually hate Samantha. She and I had awesome horror movie nights and she actually remembered my coffee order when we had exams.
As I started driving toward the south side, I started feeling a weight drop off my shoulder. No one was around, and as I approached the southern edge of campus I saw the tree Barron was talking about. She was right, the road would have been incredibly easy to miss. If she didn’t explicitly tell me it was there and where to look for it, I would have driven right by it. Two trees were intertwined with an opening between them, seemingly like an off-road trail. There was a row of brush in front of it, but there was room to drive a car behind them into the opening. Carefully navigating, I winced as I heard branches rubbing against the sides. Once out of the first part, I was surprised to see a fairly clear road ahead of me. Trees arched over it, leaving the ground a dappled green color. But other than the stained-glass coloring, there was not a single blemish on the road.
This would be so awesome to skateboard down!
It was a slow incline, but I could see around the trees and saw the small cities to the west and east.
I don’t know exactly how far down I drove, but it’d been nearly two hours and no sign of civilization. The speedometer jiggled between the 45 and 50, so I wasn’t sure why it was taking so long to go down. The sun had already touched past the horizon, and it was getting hard to see.
That’s when the bear appeared. Not like a metaphor for anything, a literal bear. A massive, hulking grizzly bear. So naturally, I screamed. The beast tore onto the road a few feet in front of me like some hellbeast dead set on trying to get itself killed. I spun the steering wheel, trying not to hit it, because I doubt my insurance would cover “A wild bear slammed into my car!”. The car swung, and started slamming against trees and rocks. I was thrown around the inside, and I was reminded of shaking a present to figure out what’s inside, except instead of legos or a new set of headphones, it was me. Pain exploded around my body as the machine skidded and rolled down, barreling over trees and rocks. My head slammed against the wheel and everything started going blurry and dark. The last thing I remember was the sound of my screaming.
Dad’s gonna kill me if the car is wrecked….
I started dreaming. I felt like I was on a cloud, floating high above the world. Hundreds of voices whispered around me, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. A bear was frolicking next to me, rolling in the wisps and batting at stars. It turned toward me, its eyes looking eerily human. Wake up it whispered, before fading away.
I woke up on a sidewalk, the stars shining high above me. There were bobbing lights everywhere, and a slight ringing in my ears. What happened? Everything came back in a rush. Driving down, big bear, crash.
“Oh, she’s still alive.” a voice said, slightly bitter. “Why are you here?”
Could they stop yelling?
Name? Name, name, name-
“Jay. I’m Jay.”
My vision started coming into focus. I was laying on the ground, my head elevated with a towel. I could feel a dull pain throughout my body, and a little ways away was my car, upright and a couple of short figures were pumping air into the wheels and gas into the engine.
But it can’t possibly be mine?
I mean, after falling down a mountain enough to knock me out, I at least expected some dents. But the car was right side up, in perfect condition. In fact, it had been touched up with paint and the worn out wheels had been replaced with brand-new ones. The only reason I knew it was mine was the plate still read HKZIPH1
“Miss, you didn’t answer my question. Why are you here?” the voice said again. It was high but slightly raspy. Looking over to my left, I saw the silhouette of a short, bulky person kneeling next to me, holding a flashlight limply by their side. He had a baseball hat pulled down on his forehead, leaving his face in a shadow.
“Bear- big bear came onto the road. Swerved, came down the mountain, passed out.”
I could barely put the words together, and I could tell I was slurring them. The paramedics must have thought I was drunk. However, the figure seemed to nod its head in understanding. I heard them start talking again, something about head injury. I was lifted to my feet by some of the people, and they started guiding me towards a bench. I felt one of them shout something, and a woman holding a string backpack came over. That doesn’t look like a paramedic?
“Hnnhg?”
“Drink what she gives you, Jay. You’ll be fine soon.” the voice from earlier said harshly.
I heard a couple whispers which for some reason were clearly entering my head.
“You don’t think it’ll hurt her, right? She’s… not from around her. Tora’s meds might be too strong.”
“She survived a horizontal rolling car crash and fell into our valley, she’ll be fine.”
The edge of a glass bottle was brought to my lips. Although I couldn’t make out the words, it was obvious I needed to drink it. The liquid was cool, slightly bitter, but tasted slightly like mushrooms.
Then it kicked in. Have you ever been on a roller coaster that you get on, and think it’ll be a slow start, then it suddenly blasts forward and all of a sudden you’re on top of a hill and everything is super clear? Yeah, imagine drinking something that makes you feel like that. Whatever drug that lady gave me needs to be in hospitals, because everything came into sudden focus and the ringing was gone. The lady was no longer a weird blob. She was black, with dark skin, and a shaved head. She had inquisitive brown eyes behind a pair of gold-rimmed glasses.
Wow she’s pretty
She pulled back the glass bottle and stuck it back into her bag, standing up.
“You might feel a little dizzy, but that should clear up any injuries you had.”
“What.. was that? I’ve never had any medicine like that before.”
She swiveled towards the other people, with a deer in headlights look. The guy who had questioned me glared, but his eyes seemed to soften a little at me now that I was conscious.
“This is Dr. Alabaster, she’s a renowned medical… inventor. She… technically isn’t allowed to test out her medicines on us but we’re all still alive, right?” he chuckled, and someone who seemed to have a bad case of dry skin gave a so-so shake of their hand. “And she’s helped a lot. “ he explained, shuffling forward. The street lights and my returned vision let me take in the townsfolk. Tora had already started walking down the street, so I focused on looking around me and trying to figure out all these new folks. The people who must have been the ones to carry me seemed to be a group of high schoolers, all with a shock of bright ginger hair on their heads. Now that the weird girl who crashed a car into their town, the teens were messing around, while one who looked like a senior in age plugged in their earbuds to their phone. Their skin was milk white, and covered in freckles. Must be a family? The round guy cleared his throat again, and I returned my attention to him.
“A couple questions-”
“Oh right, insurance and stuff. Was there any damage? What do I need to pay for in repairs for the car? Was anyone hurt?” I cut in, already knowing the deal. Car accidents meant lots of questions, and questions meant lots of money. Not like a 19 year old college kid had much in the way of money.
“Uh, no? I don’t- nevermind.” he grunted. “Why did you come here?”
Why did I come here? I wasn’t planning on coming-”
“It- wasn’t planned? My professor, Barron, told me to clear my head and offered driving down the south road and then the crash happened.”
Round guy’s eyes bulged, and his mouth went into an “o” shape. I could hear the ginger teens’ hushed whispers, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.
Suddenly, a man came sprinting from around my car.
“Did you say you hit a bear while driving? One of my buddies said you said you hit a bear and- is she ok? Is the bear ok?” he spluttered, his eyes wide and frantic. He had curly brown hair that hung down to his chin, and had a small, scruffy beard.
“I- I swerved before I could hit it. It just ran onto the road and I swerved to miss it.”
He whipped towards the guy in front of me, his breathing becoming more steady.
“I told her I should have stayed with her- do you think she’s still close? I don’t want her getting lost and scared tomorrow when it’s morning and-”
“Excuse me, but… it’s a bear? They live in the wild? I’m sure it’ll be fine. Plus, it's freaking huge. I doubt anything could hurt it badly. And- confused? It lives in the woods.”
The slow turn of everyone’s head towards me, and the fact the guy’s eyes looked ready to murder me, was a good indicator I should have kept my mouth shut.
“Rufus, please- she didn’t mean it. She doesn’t know.” New guys stalked toward me, and if he was a dragon smoke would be coming out of his ears.
“Can it Sixer- she can’t just-” he paused again, taking in a deep inhale. His nose twitched, and he raised a hairy eyebrow. He took another whiff, and I could tell he was registering something I didn’t know. Rufus’s entire body went from rigid and slightly terrifying, to slumped and his face took on a look of understanding.
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh.” Sixer said, rubbing his neck. His face looked like he was constipated and I couldn’t tell if he was disgusted or nervous. Rufus sheepishly smiled and rubbed the back of his neck.
“I’m sorry- Hi. I’m Rufus, Rufus Marrom. Uh, um. He/they? Sorry not time for pronouns, so sorry for yelling at you. The bear… I raised her as a cub. She relies on me often, due to… an injury. We let her have free roam most of the time, but at night I normally stick with her along with my,” he paused again, biting his lip. “My dog. I was just worried.”. He shuffled aside, and briskly walked away, the back of his neck red from embarrassment. It made sense then, that he was protective of the bear, but now I had yet another concern. Everyone was passing along a whisper, and I could feel their stares boring into me. Sixer awkwardly coughed, does this guy have a cold or something?, before giving me a faux warm smile.
“So, not your regular welcome, but… welcome to Montruvalli! You mentioned a professor telling you to go down the road, so I take it you go to the college up in the mountain? It’s currently summer session, correct?”
“Uh, yeah. Look- I was just trying to figure out a place to stay for summer.” I felt a wave of guilt crash onto me as I fully realized what happened this night. Some poor small town had a car roll into it’s main street, with an unconscious girl in the driver’s seat, who managed to insult someone and had been fairly sharp. Despite all that, they patched up her car, gave her medicine, and were staying kind with her. Aside from round guy who seemed insulted by my very presence. Of course there’d be whispers and questions of how I didn’t fit in. School, it was finally over. I didn’t want to be angry or sharp, but it just poked out of me like needles on a cactus.
“Look, I just- I’m sorry for being rude to Rufus. I’m not normally that snide, I’m just frustrated and tired. And really, y’all seem like amazing people who are just, so kind.” Sixer just chuckled and put his hands into his pants. He was dressed in a button-up business shirt, tan khakis, and had on black leather shoes. “It’s really no big deal. We don’t get many outsiders, and so when Alabaster told us she saw a car totaled while out on a walk, I managed to round up some of our mechanics and since our gang of… teens,” he nodded his head to the redheads who were attempting to climb up a lampost, “were stretching their legs, we had them help pull you out.” Sixer smiled, his yellowed teeth shining in the moonlight. His cap lifted a bit, letting me see his face a bit better. He had to be around 5’8”, and thus gave him a good height advantage.
CURSE YOU SHORT GENES WHY AM I FIVE INCHES SHORTER WE’RE THE SAME SPECIES-
“Do you.. Uh… have the time? I was supposed to drive back up to campus but firstly I don’t see a road back up and it’s also night so- like is there a hotel around here? I just need a night’s rest and a map and-”
Rufus interrupted me, suddenly looming over my shoulder, thrusting a map into my hands. He gave a wide smile, as if he was looking at a puppy. I’m not THAT short.
“Here! Your college is over here-” he pointed at a dot, and drug his hand about a quarter of an inch over., “and this is Montruvalli! It’s really close! You didn’t fall down the mountain really, there’s just a little dip between the college and a neighboring mountain and you fell into that dip.” he explained, excited. I blinked owlishly at it, and looked up at the two guys.
“Thank you? I think? Thanks Rufus, and Sixer.” I barely managed to stutter out, feeling incredibly awkward. What. The. Hell. I mean I’m definitely terrified out of my mind, I’m alone with two guys in a nearly empty town at night. This is like the start of those murder channel shows that make you distrust everyone for a couple hours and you feel like a detective for guessing the killer correctly. Even though it’s always the friend or the spouse. Sixer snorted, rolling his eyes.
“What? Oh god you’re not about to kill me are you holy-”
“I’m,” he seemed slightly flustered, but the nerves were beaten down by his irateness, “my name isn’t Sixer. Did Rufus- oh my goodness you thought- Rufus you’re dead to me.” he said, pointing at him accusingly. Now, he truly sounded like he was torn between still appearing tough and laughing. He settled for slapping Rufus on the back. Rufus’s face was red and his shoulders were shaking from holding back laughter. I could feel my neck turning red. “Hey, I just survived a massive car crash, give me a-”
“I’m the mayor, Mayor Rykker. And you will call me such.” He looked at me with slight distrust. “ This is Rufus. He likes to give… affectionate names to his friends.” Rykker explained sourly. I don’t know what it was about the whole scenario, but I was torn between terror and utter internal peace.
“To answer your previous question, well questions, it is,” Rykker raised his wrist and looked at his watch. I’m no watchmaker, but dang, it was a pretty cool looking watch. It had a wooden band, and the watch face was nestled in dark, stained wood. It looked like someone had grown a little tree around his wrist and attached a clock to it. “Nearly two in the morning. Secondly, Meddy might have a room you can sleep in for now, until we figure out how to get you to the main road.”
“ Two am? I’ve studied at two am, I can handle a drive up at night.” I snorted, turning around to walk back to my car. “Just point me in the direction of the exit, and I’ll be out of your hair.” There was yet another awkward cough, but the source of it came from atop a light post.
“Ma’am, well… How do I say this? There’s no exit. You crashed through our fence.” He said fence like how a drowning person would call a lifeguard their savoir, with utter devotion. “Other than that, no cars enter or exit.”
CULT CULT CULT CULT CULT
Rufus seemed to sense my apprehension, and quickly cut in. “Because this is far out of any real towns. We try to preserve nature as much as possible, and most of us don’t drive cars. Not like cult-like cause like cults are bad and wow this is not convincing you we aren’t a cult we just are a bunch of people who like nature and chilling and-” he seemed nervous, and his foot tapped on the ground. It kinda reminded me of a rabbit thumping its foot when nervous. The ginger, a girl with twin braids, was currently dangling by her feet as the other kids tossed crumpled up paper. I drummed my fingers on the car hood, trying to come up with a plan, when I saw her leg slip and her eyes go wide. The leg came loose, and she was tensing up while the others started yelling
Oh crap
The teens might be reckless, but they definitely weren’t ready to die. I don’t know how the adrenaline managed to crash through me so quickly, but I sprinted across the road. Save her save her save her save her save her save- I dove under her before she hit the ground, and slammed into the sidewalk. However, nothing hit my back. I rolled over to see the girl standing an inch beside my head, holding her chest and being held by her family. Oh she’s… she’s fine. My face flushed red and I stood up, brushing dirt off my shirt. Obviously no one needed saving. She must have landed feet-down and I had overestimated where she’d go. “Sorry- I just- you looked scared and- look even if your just a kid you need to be more careful I don’t care if you think your invincible, hell even if you think your like a vampire that's immortal you need to stay safe and-” I was cut off by a hug as the girl wrapped her arms around me. “Thank you!” she whispered in my ear. I hugged tightly, wanting to just show this poor kid some love. Over her shoulder I saw her family exchanging looks. Rykker, well his eyes practically were bugging out of his head. You know in anime when their jaws drop onto the ground and their eyes go wide? Yeah that’s what it looked like.
“What? Did I do something wrong?”
Ginger hair girl peeled herself off me and looked me solemnly in the eyes.
“Stay.”
“The hell?”
She chuckled , before looking over at Rykker and nodding.
“She can stay, please let her stay! This girl here is gonna be under good care and I don’t think she’s gonna hurt anyone.”
“But don’t you remember that year when-”
“But she wasn’t one of the kids that did it, was she? And my senses are telling me she’s going to be very important to us.”
Rufus watched the conversation, swinging his head back and forth like watching a tennis ball. While Braids and Rykker argued, I slinked back to my car. As much of a hothead I was, I didn't want to get into a brawl were I was outnumbered and also on foriegn territory.
“Meddy has room! I know she does!”
“We can’t just force her to stay here!”
“What if you ask her yourself?”
“She won’t say yes!”
“You don’t know that you big pessimist!”
I found my phone sitting neatly on the dashboard and opened it.
Samantha: SO??? TOWN?
Samantha: JAY JAY JAY ANSWER ME
Samantha: AIGHT IMMA SPAM BLUEJAY CAUSE I KNOW YOU’LL RESPOND TO THAT SAYING DON’T CALL ME BLUEJAY YOU BLUEJAY
I scrolled through probably a billion “Bluejay” texts before they stopped at a “Guess you went to sleep, g’night roomie.”
I don’t know why these people didn’t want to be seen. Although, Braids had said something about a group of people a couple years back- maybe college kids would come down and vandalize? That made sense.
Jay: Yeah, I drove down, nothing there, drove back up and passed out. Closest thing to a “town” was an abandoned porta potty that had a raccoon hiding in it. It was probably just a joke to send freshmen looking for parties into the woods for a few hours.
Immediately my phone dinged back with a response
Samantha: hmm makes sense but something’s still bugging me. When I check satellite images it’s just a big green blur, you don’t even see individual trees. weird. Ttyl jay.
“Oh for crying out loud-” Rufus suddenly stormed over to me. I shut my phone off and shoved it back into my pocket. Something told me I shouldn’t be texting about the town right in front of its inhabitants. “Jay- would you like to like here in Monstruvalli? We could bargain with Meddy about a rent, we don’t charge much, and you seem to not be a giant pain in the back and don’t seem heartless. Plus like-” he paused, and a smirk appeared on his face. “I think you’d love to meet my sister.”
“...Average rent, and I could stay all summer?”
“How does… 50 dollars sound to you?”
“A week?”
“A month.”
….