The words left a silence through the house that lasted way longer than it should’ve, especially since Ash looked about ready to kill him.

  Dead.

  “What in heaven's name are you talking about?!” Nicolas asked, his voice sounding like he was talking in the world's quietest room. “I’m not dead!”

  “And I’m not stupid,” Ash hissed, stepping forward, his phone's flashlight shining onto their face.

  Ash looked quite a bit different since the last time they talked, which Nicolas expected. Their hair looked shorter, and black earrings that looked kind of like tiny arrows dangled from their ears. “Why don’t you show me what you really look like?”

  Their eyes were red, and glossy rivers of tears were beginning to dry off their face.

  “I’m Nicolas Starwood,” Nicolas said, hoping that adding his last name might prevent Ash from bashing his head in. “And I have no idea what you’re talking about. What do you mean ‘what I really look like’?”

  Ash didn’t move for a long time, and the silence became suffocating real quick.

  “I know your kind.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re one of them, aren’t you? You somehow learned to transform into dead people?”

  “Have you lost your mind?!” Nicolas demanded, trying to make sense of the strange words coming out of his old best friend's mouth. “I’m just Nicolas, I’m not dead, and I’m not whatever you think I am.”

  “Prove it,” Ash spat, their voice sounding almost like a whisper. It reminded Nicolas of how he first sounded when Sam died. “If you really are Nicolas, tell me something only he would know.”

  “We used to come here all the time,” Nicolas began. “We called it the ‘crowhouse.’ You used to have a pet parakeet named Silace, and he bit me every time I went to your house.” It felt like every single memory he and Ash had together seemed to be coming back to the surface. Maybe seeing their face again reminded him of all the times they had together: Or maybe it was the bat that could strike him out at any moment. “We always walked together after school; sometimes we went to your parents' house, sometimes we went to the library, sometimes we went here.”

  “This doesn’t make sense,” Ash breathed, surely sounding confused.

  “You think you aren’t making sense of things?” Nicolas snapped. “First Sam dies, then I’m climbing through a mirror, and now my childhood best friend is assaulting me and telling me that I’m dead!” Nicolas wanted everything to go back to normal, but he wasn’t sure if that was possible anymore.

  Reality died with Sam.

  “I gave you proof,” Nicolas told them. “Now prove I’m dead.”

  Ash’s face showed fear and confusion, like they really were speaking to someone who had just recently died.

  Then, at last, they lowered the baseball bat and took in a deep breath. The next few moments felt like hours, until Ash turned toward the front door, stepping away from the light.

  “Where are you going?” Nicolas called out, sitting up.

  Ash turned around as they got to the door, but all Nicolas could see was the dark, shadowy silhouette. “You said you wanted proof, didn’t you?”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  ***

  The rain had stopped, but now it was replaced with a foreshadowing wind. Lightning flashed in the clouds above, not enough to light up the forest, but enough to see the dark, stormy clouds that had formed above.

  “So, where exactly is this proof?” Nicolas asked.

  “The cemetery.”

  “Are you serious?” Nicolas couldn’t believe such delusion. But then again, he did just step through a mirror, after all: Maybe Ash wasn’t the crazy one; maybe it was him.

  Ash isn’t really here. I’m just losing my mind.

  An ice-cold air blew around the crowhouse like a hurricane of frost. The air wasn’t like normal air; It didn’t blow through his hair, didn’t blow through his clothes; he couldn’t even feel it blowing at all: It was like a pure coldness waving in circles around them.

  The light in Nicolas’ hand only reached so far, and he had almost completely lost Ash already, seeing no more than just a shadowy smudge about six feet ahead of him.

  Then, the coldness grew stronger, and somehow, Nicolas knew that they weren’t alone anymore, even before Ash’s warning came.

  “Run!”

  The words took a second to register in his mind, but once he understood what Ash said, the fear hit him like a bus, no, a train.

  Nicolas ran as fast as he could, unsure of where, or even why: But he had a feeling the cold typhoon of air was to blame. The sound of movement inside the building made Nicolas run even harder.

  “Wait for me!” he called to Ash, yet there was no answer. Ash had completely disappeared into the darkness ahead now, and Nicolas ran wildly through the overgrown path until his foot suddenly kicked something hard, and large hidden in the grass below.

  Nicolas’ gravestone.

  He fell into the cold, wet grass, his face crashing into what seemed like pure darkness. With panic still surging through his body, he forced his head up, looking back toward the house.

  A bright flash of lightning lit up the whole forest for a few seconds.

  And during those few, strobe-light flashes, Nicolas could see it standing through the doorway of the crowhouse.

  At first Nicolas thought it was a person, but then he noticed the long, tentacle arms that rose from behind the dark silhouette; the coldness now seemed to vibrate through the air, radiating off the dark figure.

  “Welcome to Charimone, Eklek boy.” The voice was louder than what a human could scream, even though it didn’t seem to be screaming. It sounded as fake as the coldness felt, like it was from a dream. The voice was loud enough to hurt his ears, but it didn’t hurt: It didn’t echo in his head or make his ears ring like loud noises usually did.

  Nicolas had no idea what the demonic-sounding voice said, and later couldn’t repeat it if he tried: The words didn’t even seem to even be real words.

  “Nicolas!” He somehow heard Ash’s scream among the sound of the wind blowing wildly through the treetops, this time the wind feeling warm and real. He crawled, panicked on the grass for a split-second, as if his legs started trying to run before the rest of his body got the message.

  Then, he was on his feet again, running wildly through the dark forest, unsure of what he just saw.

  Finally, he noticed Ash ahead, turning left sharply.

  Thankfully, Nicolas’ reflexes were pretty on point.

  He turned, following Ash in what seemed like a random direction.

  But if Nicolas knew anything about these woods, he knew it wasn't random. He remembered what he thought about an outsider, watching him travel to the crowhouse. To them, the path looked random, even when it wasn't.

  But Nicolas was the outsider this time, because Ash was heading in a direction Nicolas had never been before.

  He thought about turning behind him, to take another look at the strange, dark creature, but worried that if he did, he would lose sight of Ash. Even in the light radiating from the swinging smartphone in his hand, Nicolas could barely see anything. Sticks and bramble, vines and bushes, brushed against his arm, his face, his legs, and he was probably getting all kinds of ticks and bugs in his clothes.

  This is no time to worry about bugs.

  Nicolas ducked under a particularly thick branch, coming seconds away from being close lined by mother nature herself. He couldn’t hear anything chasing them, but that didn’t stop the panic and adrenaline that pumped through his body.

  Ash turned sharply left, and seemed to stop before ducking down, disappearing into the ground.

  It was a perfectly circular tunnel of concrete and metal, traveling deep into the earth.

  The cold air seemed to be following them: The waves of coldness beginning to get stronger, and Nicolas knew that whatever he saw standing in the crowhouse was heading right toward him.

  He stepped into the hole, his foot landing on the top step of the ladder that Ash had climbed down.

  It’s now or never, he thought to himself as he stepped down into the dark, cold manhole, hoping they’d lost whatever that thing was.

  Thank You so much for reading! <3