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“I’ll never get used to the rats.” Rayne groaned at her murk as they walked to their temporary base one evening.
“Well, you better get used to it soon, birds aren’t exactly easy to catch like rats.” The murk said. “You chose this, would you rather we died?” He asked.
“No, that doesn’t mean I’ll get used to this new lifestyle faster.” Rayne said, a bit fed up by the murk’s comments. “Let me take my time, I’m sure the day will come soon.”
They reached the base pretty quickly. Rayne was exhausted after hunting small animals all day. Soon they would have to move to another part of the city, it was getting harder to hunt. They had set base in one of the small houses in a small area in the outskirts of the city. The house they had chosen was still pretty homely, compared to other houses at least.
“I’m exhausted, good night.” That was all Rayne said before she collapsed on the sofa in the living room. She heard a faint “good night” from the murk before she was fast asleep.
***
The next time Rayne woke up she was laying on the grass in a forest under a red sky. She immediately sat up in confusion, where was she? She looked around. It was dark in the forest, the only light source was the big moon that stood high up in the sky. That was enough for her to see that there were three other people on the ground looking at her.
“No way,” said one of them. Rayne immediately saw that it was Tomoha, she had tears in her eyes. Beside her she had Samael and Kenny, they were all staring at her.
“Hi,” said Rayne, carefully. She had been scared of this moment. How could she talk to them normally after she had been away for one and a half months. They all seemed to be the same yet so different at the same time.
“That’s all you have to say after you’ve been gone all this time!?” Tomoha yelled, her voice a bit shaky. She hesitated for a second before she threw herself at Rayne to hug her.
Rayne flinched but hugged her back. “I’m sorry, Tommie, I had to.” She said as she patted Tomoha’s back while she cried in her arms. She looked at the other two, Samael looked like he was holding back tears while Kenny’s face was unreadable.
She was about to invite Samael to the hug as well when she saw a murk with a wide smile and white eyes a bit behind him and Kenny. The murk looked at Rayne in the eyes before it lounged for them.
“Run!” Rayne yelled. The trio reacted immediately and got up to start running. Rayne stayed still for a second and saw for that split second that it was lounging for her. Why was a murk trying to attack her? She got up and ran as fast as she could after the trio.
“It’s too fast!” Tomoha yelled. Rayne looked back at the murk and it was indeed slowly getting closer, it wasn’t as fast as a murk usually is but it was slightly faster than them.
They heard a car in the distance and all of them silently prayed that they were going to get rescued. They ran out on a road and saw the car drive towards them, the car stopped in front of them and the running behind them stopped. Why did it stop?
The car door opened and a dark brown haired girl popped out her head. “Hop in!” she yelled. The squad looked at each other before they ran to the car and hopped in. They all had silently agreed that it was no time for stranger danger.
“Sit in the back with the kid in glasses, there’s not much space but it’ll have to do, better than death right?” The girl said. The squad crowded in the back, it wasn’t comfortable at all but it had to do. They were shocked to see that there were six teenagers in the car, no adults. Not even the driver was an adult, but a ginger teenager. They all looked worn out.
“Who are you and how are you here?” Said a male version of the dark brown haired girl. Rayne guessed that they were twins. The girl glared at the boy.
“That’s not what we should find out first!” The girl scolded. “Are you four okay?” She asked the squad.
“We're okay, we got lucky to stumble across a very slow murk.” Kenny said. Rayne realized that was the first time Kenny talked since they got here.
Five of the six children looked at them like they said something weird. The one to speak first was the dark brown haired boy. “First of all, that phantom was not slow, that’s their normal speed and second, what the fuck is a ‘murk’?”
The blond kid in the front spoke next. “Maybe they just call it a murk, everyone’s not bound to think like us, the slow part is what I’m stuck on.” The light brown haired kid with glasses nodded in agreement. Rayne agreed with the glasses kid on the first part, but she still wondered how they hadn't heard of the word murk before.
“Even though I’m also curious, how about we introduce each other first, names could make talking easier.” The ginger haired girl said. “I’m Ashlyn, this smiling freak here is Aiden, the twins are Taylor and Tyler, the tall one is Ben and the one with glasses is Logan.”
“I’m Rayne, the other girl is Tomoha, the blond is Samael and the ginger is Kenny.” Rayne said. “We don’t know how we got here, we just kind of woke up in the forest.”
“So you didn’t fall asleep in the forest?” Logan said and the squad shook their heads. “That’s strange… You said something about murks?”
“Yeah, they are some type of monsters that started an apocalypse by eating and possessing humans, are you guys sure you have no idea what we’re talking about?” Kenny said.
The six teenagers looked like six question marks. “No?” Tyler said. “Have you been to some other dimension before this or something?”
“Other dimension? That’s some movie shit, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Kenny said.
“We only have the phantoms in the phantom realm that we wake up in every night at 12 am.” Logan said. “And in the real world there is no apocalypse or any murks”
“So we have to deal with both murks and phantoms from now on?” Samael said in a not so happy tone. “Just when I thought life couldn’t get more exhausting.”
“The question now is just how you got here and why your real world is different from ours.” Ashlyn said. “You can stay with our group, we have experience with phantoms and I can hear them, but if any of you even try to harm us, you’re all phantom food.”
The squad all nodded in thanks and understanding.
That explained why Rayne couldn’t hear any sound from the phantom, it was apparently not normal to hear those things. “Could you tell us more about this ‘phantom realm’ and the phantoms?” Rayne asked.
***
The squad was all kinda speechless knowing what these teenagers managed to do on their own in this realm. Rayne was thinking hard about the way death in this world works, it didn’t feel like it made sense and how did these people know how it worked. She had her suspicions and she wanted to ask once they got inside the base.
“We’re here. Aiden, go and open the door, actually, just so you don’t take that literally, run and open the door.” Ashlyn said when they stopped outside a wall with big bright lights on top. Rayne guessued that was their base, and it was honestly impressive.
“Roger that,” Aiden said before he ran out of the car.
“Is it really that smart to make your base a big neon light?” Samael asked.
“It keeps the phantoms from actually getting inside our base, that was what we were after, I have to admit that the whole ‘being a neon sign’ thing certainly sucks.” Ashlyn said.
The door opened and Ashlyn drove inside. The door closed as soon as the car was inside. Ashlyn deflated in her seat when she turned off the car. “Alright, let's get out.” She said.
Once everyone was out of the car and sitting around the base Rayne cleared her throat to speak. All eyes turned to look at her. “Uhm, I’ve been thinking and I wonder how you guys know how death works in this realm?” she said.
The kids froze and looked uncertain. The first one to move was Tyler, he moved to grab the hem of his shirt. “Wait, don’t!-” Taylor tried to stop her brother but it was already too late, Tyler had already dragged up his shirt to show a blood soaked bandage around his stomach.
Rayne had been correct with her suspicion. The squad looked at each other with horrified looks. “I fell out of the car once when we were chased by a centipede and fell off a cliff onto a tree, the rest explains itself.” Tyler said. “Now it just gives me really bad stomach aches.”
“Has anyone else died?” Kenny asked. Tomoha hit him hard in the side with her elbow and hissed something at him.
Aiden raised a hand. “A roof collapsed onto my head and now I can’t stand for too long without fainting.” He said with a smile. As if on cue he wobbled and fell just a second after his sentence. Ben, who stood next to him, managed to catch him before he hit the ground.
Rayne felt lightheaded from all the information, so she excused herself and walked behind a bus a bit further away. “This is insane,” she muttered to herself. “Hey, are you there?” She asked her murk. He appeared in front of her.
“Yup, seems like it’s your mind I can’t leave.” He said. “What do you plan on doing, stay with the group or go on your own, your little ex-group might have a lot of questions for you.” He crossed his arms.
“I’ll be staying with the group, I don’t know if we’ll be able to handle phantoms on our own, the kids also said that they don’t know what happens if a phantom kills them.” Rayne said.
She heard footsteps getting closer to where she sat. “Hey Rayne.” Said Tomoha as she rounded the corner with Kenny and Samael at her heel. Of course they would follow. The murk gave her a look that said, ‘see, I told you’.
“Hey,” was all she managed to say.
“Where have you been?” It was Samael who spoke. “Why did you leave when you promised to stay by my side?” Samael’s words broke something in Rayne’s heart, she had left him and broken their promise.
“I’ve been in the city, and I have my reasons, it was for you guy’s best, I swear.” Rayne said, not looking any of them in the eye.
“Isn’t it just better to tell them the truth now that you have to work with them again?” The murk said. Rayne ignored him.
“Aren’t we supposed to be in this together, working as a team?” Tomoha said with a serious tone. “A team that’ll do anything for each other, never leave anyone behind, and even risk our lives for each other? Or did I read our team wrong?”
Rayne looked away and bit her lip trying to find out something to say. Luckily she didn’t have to say anything because Tayler walked around the corner. “We need to gather around together again, time is almost up.” She said.
The squad followed her inside one of the buses where the rest of the kids all sat.
“We need to discuss our next plan with you in case you end up here next night as well.” Ashlyn said once everyone was inside the bus. “Next night we plan to try to take out one of the centipedes.”
“What!? Why!?” The squad shouted in unison. Ashlyn slightly flinched at the loud volume.
“That’s what most of us thought at first, but this is important for another plan we have, you’ll have to help us, don’t forget that we can just kick you out of our base.” Ashlyn said. These teenagers certainly knew how to risk their lives, and how to make people cooperate.
“Alright, we’ll help you.” Rayne said. Everyone sat in silence after that, it was kinda awkward but it didn't last long before an alarm went off on Logan's wrist watch.
***
Rayne found herself laying on her couch in the dark. Had all that been a dream? It all had felt so real. “Hey, are you there?” she asked her murk.
“Yes, and I do think that was real, I don’t think I can see your dreams.” The murk said. Rayne sighed and closed her eyes, thinking.
“This is insane."