Chapter Text
Kel absentmindedly twirls his pen around his fingers. With his head hung low, he stares down at the messy doodle of Sunny's face among the many papers scattered across his desk. He holds the scribbled gaze until the ink begins to warp and distort.
Find him.
The useless scribbles form words, framing a desire that has stood firmly at the forefront of his mind for the past two and a half years. He rubs his tired eyes and peers back down at the pages.
Find him. You’re wasting time, find him!
Ugh.
Through the amalgamation of black ink, he could see all the time he wasted smiling, chatting… waiting to get out of this damn town. His friends chastised him for sprinting through the final years of his adolescence with such a one-track mind, but none of them could understand each agonizing drag of his feet against the pavement, getting started, preparing, and never getting anywhere.
Even now, it’s not enough. Sunny’s still out there, trapped somewhere, and he still didn’t have a solid lead on his whereabouts, just a gun and a dream.
Frustrated, he sighs and tugs his fingers through his hair, pulling out a few stray strands on the way. Time spent beating himself up is also time spent not focused on finding Sunny. He absolutely couldn’t afford to spiral now.
He slaps at his cheeks until he feels tears stinging his eyes. When the feeling returns to his cheeks, his mind clears. Finally, he can get back to work until a loud knock from downstairs destroys such wishful thinking.
Kel jumps up from his chair so quickly, he barely manages to catch it before it clatters to the floor. He didn’t understand. Hadn’t his parents taken Sally somewhere for the holidays? They called it some kind of family vacation, he thinks. He can’t remember, actually. There wasn’t much reason for him to pay attention to something like that.
The stairs creak as he makes his way downwards. The house is still engulfed in darkness. He never bothered to turn the lights on when he let himself in. No point if he only needed a place to crash before he took off for good. He hadn’t told anyone he was stopping by either; he knew admitting to still being directionless at this point would’ve left him with a little bit more than despair. Whether it be friend, stranger, or the nosy neighbors, practically everyone in town knew he was supposed to be gone by now.
Still, that left his parents. Had they really come back early? The idea wasn’t completely far-fetched, but knocking in the dead of night when the house is supposed to be empty? No way.
There’s another knock then a bit of fiddling with the doorknob as he reaches for it.
“Yeah, yeah. I got it-” He swings the door open and freezes to the spot. His eyes widen at the ghosts standing just beyond the doorframe.
The ghost stares back almost shyly.
Kel says nothing, nor does he say anything as his eyes trail downward past that familiar mess of dark hair and towards the single piece of paper he holds in his hands. It’s a colorful piece of art with drawings he couldn’t quite make out through the sudden blurring of his eyes, but right in the middle, in that nostalgic, unskillful handwriting, it reads:
‘WE’RE BACK, SORRY'
There’s a sharp pang deep in his chest that ignites into a burning fire when he looks up from Sunny’s pale, trembling hands to find himself face to face with the monster that took him.