Collab between
@Cartoonicat and
@Fox of Spades
Worry cut across her features, sharp and sudden, the same way she'd collided into Corey and Kenna. However, the feelings were short-lived and went away as soon as she realized that the blonde was perfectly fine. She exhaled then, trying her darndest to calm her nerves.
They were in the other place again. Everything around them was crazy, and yet, there was no longer any way to deny the truth. Standing, Joane wrapped her arms around herself and pursed her lips. In a way, the world seemed to be caving inward.
Pull yourself together.
Wild eyes focused on Kenna and Corey, purposely avoiding the surreal landscape in favor of familiar faces. They were just as terrified as her, even if Kenna did a better job of holding things together. She brought up Abel's name just as their other stepped out from the hollow of a tree.
Abel was looking at them, but the scorn in his eyes made it seem as if he wished they were never there in the first place. He avoided looking at Corey all together, opting to set his sights on the girls standing beside him.
In her peripheral vision, she noted Corey standing up with a sigh. Cross his arms, body shaking. He'd never been good with chilly weather and part of her felt guilty for treating him so coldly when he obviously wanted attention. That was her fault, wasn't it? His need for validation and care?
Their fault.
Your fault, she thought, eyes catching on Abel's familiar face as he stepped from the center of a hollow tree. An odd mix of relief and disdain filled her; she was glad to have tabs on him in such an unorthodox, potentially dangerous place, but the look on his face gave her the itch to slap it off. Especially with the way he blatantly avoided Corey's gaze, which had done nothing but seek his like a lost puppy.
That boy would never learn.
Thankfully, she practiced composure on a daily. Be it annoying classmates, teachers, doctors, or people in general, Kenna often bit her tongue in conversations. She knew how to play the game.
Sort of.
She wasn't going to lie and say she had the best control over her emotions recently. Her old friends' presence made her raw, vulnerable, and the weird stuff happening with Sammie did not help whatsoever. Part of her wondered if she'd never actually woken up after her fainting spell. That her body still lay in a hospital bed, her mind subject to one long, awful dream.
A dream - rather, nightmare - would be far better an explanation than the ghost of Sammie dragging their souls through spiritual planes, though.
"And we're all here," she said. Regardless of where they were, she wanted out. "Again. Aside from Corey-"
"-Hey, my theory isn't bad-" The blonde protested.
"-Anyone wonder why?" Maybe if they knew why this kept happening, they could find a way out. Find a way to prevent it from happening again.
Kenna's words brought him stumbling back to reality. Everything always went back to Sammie, and Abel genuinely didn't know what to feel. The thought of her - he knew it wasn't her of course, he was as gullible as Corey, but still, the idea of their dead best friend coming back from the afterlife didn't sit well with him. It left him sad and confused, and just plain angry. It were as if all his emotions didn't know what to do or where to go, so they left him tired and furious.
He noticed the way Kenna was staring at him, Corey too. Abel wasn't stupid, he knew she was upset. He ignored Corey rather cruelly and locked eyes with Kenna. She could glower at him all she wanted, it wouldn't make him apologize and it wouldn't make things right.
Annoyed, he sucked on the back of his teeth.
Considering their current circumstances, the logical thing to do was play along and try to get to the bottom of things, but he was still seething with anger. "Maybe we're in hell because we've been shitty people. Sammie feels betrayed and wants us to suffer."
When no one answered Abel scoffed.
"I don't know why we're here Kenna. I doubt anyone else knows either."
Sensing the growing tension, Joane hesitantly decided to join in. The way Abel and Kenna were staring at each other didn't bode well for the group. The last thing they needed was another Espresso Express fiasco. "Maybe Corey is right, maybe Sammie wants us to make things right. It's what she's been telling us since she first appeared."
At this point Joane was grasping at straws. It was the only thing they had to go on.
Abel continued to frown before he cut into the conversation once more. He didn't seem to care about being rude or hurting anyone's feelings. "You two really believe that? Listen to yourselves, you're saying Sammie came back from the dead because friendship is magic and all that bullshit. Kenna, you can't seriously be buying this. You're too smart to believe this."
Corey opened his mouth to thank Joane for being the only one thus far to actually give his theory a chance, but Abel cut him off with more negativity. Every word that came out of his mouth was so nasty, so cruel, and Corey's patience was growing thin.
If only he didn't care about Abel so much, things would be easier. He'd be able to confidently put that asshole in his place. But, no. Abel's words only silenced him.
Thankfully Kenna was there to deal with his attitude.
"I don't know what to believe," she told Abel. The look on her face indicated her thinning patience, yet something else flickered in her eyes. Corey didn't know what to name it. A waver in confidence? Concern? Neither description seemed to do what he saw justice, but the emotion was gone as quickly as it came. He wondered if anyone else noticed it, too. "But something is definitely going on and whatever it is has to do with Sammie."
Corey pinched the bridge of his nose with irritation. "How many times does Sammie have to say 'talk to the others' for you guys to realize she wants us to be friends again?" He understood Abel's stance - his old friend had made it his personal mission to be as difficult as possible - but Kenna had always been a smart girl. Surely she'd picked up on the meaning of all this from the very beginning.
So why… "Why are you pretending that's not the case?"
There it was, that flash of indiscernible emotion in Kenna's eyes. She looked like she wanted to say something - Corey recognized the way she sucked in a breath and held it - but eventually her shoulders dropped and she looked away. She didn't have an answer.
That's what he thought.
Tension ran high and Kenna feared, if she voiced her concerns, it would only make things worse. What if that's not our Sammie? What if it's all a trick? She didn't believe Abel's suggestion about Hell; The Other Place was not the Hell her Bible depicted and she highly doubted Sammie hated them enough for their negligence, no matter how cruel, to damn them.
Abel was just being a smart-ass.
Joane and Corey were being naive.
"We should try finding a way out," she said after a time. Kenna would keep her doubts private for now. There was no need to stir an already boiling pot of bad vibes. "How did-"
Corey shook his head vigorously. "No, no! We need to find Sammie. She keeps bringing us here for a reason, so why don't we just ask her?"
"Corey," Kenna started. She didn't like being interrupted and it took everything in her not to slam him with the idea that this Sammie might not have the best of intentions. Kenna had always been practical despite her superstitious upbringing; she didn't feel like having that thrown in her face by someone who was too quick to trust. "We don't know this place. It could be dangerous."
He nodded, "Which is exactly why we need to find Sammie, not get lost trying to find a way out. Sammie can help us. She's the one who brought us here."
Inhaling sharply, Kenna considered their options. A vote wouldn't work; Abel and Kenna had made their opinions of the situation clear, as had Joane and Corey. It'd end up a tie with no breaker.
"Fine," she relented. "Fine, we'll do it your way. But we stick together." Kenna glanced pointedly at Abel for the last statement. She didn't trust him to stay without complaint and the prospect of the group separating in The Other Place gripped her with more anxiety than following Corey's plan.
Abel was far from happy, and when Kenna – the most responsible and reliable person in their group – agreed to do things Corey's way, something inside of him snapped. "Seriously?" His voice was practically seething with loathing. "You're doing it again. Humoring him because… because you feel sorry for him." Abel threw out his arms, eyebrows furrowed together in utmost irritation. "Kenna, what the fuck?"
The Other Place and everything around them screamed madness, but even in the midst of it all, Abel found it difficult to believe that Sammie would come back from the dead just because she wanted to mend their friendship. Even the idea of her haunting them was more believable.
Or maybe he'd grown far too cynical for his own good.
"Hey," Corey took a step in front of Kenna to act as a shield against Abel's words, "Don't speak to her like that." He knew she didn't need protecting - Kenna knew how to take care of herself just fine - yet it didn't stop his feet from acting of their own accord, didn't stop his chest from beating with indignant confidence.
Kenna scowled. "Corey-"
So he did have a spine? For the first time since they'd arrived, he looked at Corey directly – acknowledged his existence with irritation. "I wasn't talking to you, but if want to have another go at me, say what you need to say." The Espresso Express Fiasco ended up with Corey snivelling like a baby. If he wanted a repeat of that, Abel was more than happy to accommodate him. "Listen to yourself," he practically snapped. "Don't you… you seriously don't hear how stupid you sound?" He wanted to grab Corey by the collar of his shirt and shake him until a semblance of sense knocked itself into the boy's naïve head. The tension in the air was palpable and Abel clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white.
Abel wasn't just angry, he was hurting too. Everything Corey did – the way he so blithely believed that things would be okay – picked at Abel's unhealed wounds, and perhaps, that was the reason it was so easy to be cruel, to hate.
"We're not going to find Sammie. Don't you get it? She's dead. She's dead because of us."
Joane had had enough. The more Abel spoke, the more things began to unravel. Their friendship was in shambles, held together by nothing more than the memory of a dead girl. And in the heat of the argument, it became painfully clear – they weren't friends anymore – they were just four strangers bound together by the tragedy that was Sammie's suicide.
"Abel! Stop! Just – please, just shut up for five seconds!"
"Don't pretend you're better than me!" Abel snapped back without so much as skipping a beat. "You left them too. The only difference is I tell them how I feel to their faces."
"I-" All the words Joane wanted to say died in her throat, and suddenly, the tears came. "You're terrible."
"At least I don't try to fix my problems by believing in ghosts."
The confidence turned false once Abel addressed him. Eye contact threatened to break the spell, but Corey knew if he looked away, it'd all shatter anyway. He'd taken that step forward; he'd protected Kenna after years of her playing guardian; he'd stood up to Abel.
Now it was time to stand his ground.
"Yeah," he said simply, "we fucked up." His bluntness surprised even himself, summoning a tightness in his throat that he had to swallow back, a burning in his eyes he blinked away. "We know that and we're all miserable."
"Corey, just-" Kenna tried to intervene again, but he barreled through.
"But at least the three of us aren't trying to drag people down to our level." Corey's voice rang steadier than he felt. "You're pretty fucking pathetic, Abel, so don't point fingers."
There was no more turning back.
This boy, who had once been his best friend, was dead to him. "I'm not the one trying to keep a sinking ship afloat. I walked out. You're the one who's still holding on." He'd tightened his jaw then, all taut muscle and restrained emotions. Corey wanted him to feel something, to soften his heart so everything would be okay. He knew how his ex-friend's mind worked, he knew Corey.
"Because Sammie is our friend!" Corey protested.
Instead of reacting the way his friend expected him to, Abel smiled mockingly. It was hurting him too, but he knew it would hurt Corey even more. "When will you get it through your thick skull Corey. I don't want to find Sammie. I don't want to be a part of this. Geez, not even your dad wants anything to do with you." If anger wouldn't work, he'd drown Corey in cruelty. He would hit his friend right where it hurt the most. "Who's more pathetic really?"
Not even your dad wants anything to do with you.
The words stopped Corey in his tracks. Derailed his mind like a twisted cartoon character pulling the lever, sending the train in the opposite direction.
Who's more pathetic, really?
A lifetime of memories and emotions passed through Corey's mind in the manner of seconds. Being snubbed, name-called, punished and shamed. The feeling of never being good enough, of hating himself. The desire to be someone else; to be someone worth loving. The hatred he felt towards his dad for making him that way.
He took that hatred and aimed it at Abel.
The impact of knuckles colliding with cheekbone sent a rush through Corey he didn't think he'd ever felt before. It was better than any scream, any cry, any violent slam of his bedroom door. Better than any high. A small weight had lifted from his shoulders and he craved more.
Rearing his arm back again, Kenna's voice cut through the haze:
"COREY!"
He stopped dead in his tracks, realizing too late what he'd done. His eyes widened. Corey had just punched Abel.
Oh, shit.
Pain erupted across his cheek and his ears rang loudly, but amid the noise, Abel had found a semblance of peace. There was a finality to the blow, something that quietly said that 'this was it' that 'eight years of friendship had finally come to an end.' It was almost freeing - a mishmash of guilt and release.
His body pitched backward, but Abel caught himself and staggered forward instead, cheek a bright red from his friend's angry blow. Corey was a statue, hatred practically carved onto his usually soft features. He'd done this. He'd pushed Corey and finally gotten what he wanted.
"If you're gunna start something," Abel slurred. "At least finish it. You're a coward, Corey." And then Abel was throwing his weight forward, his own arm swinging blindly until his fist collided with the bridge of Corey's nose.
Everything came rushing out. Pain, guilt, hate.
Abel pulled his arm back and swung again, this time catching his friend in the stomach. Joane and Kenna were screaming, but all he could hear was the loud ringing in his ears and the judgmental voice that told him it was Corey's fault. Fucking Corey who wouldn't let the dead stay dead. "Hit back!" Abel screamed. "Hit back!"
The crunch of cartilage was the last thing Corey noticed before all hell broke loose. He hadn't the time to think about much else - not the blood dripping from his nose, not the fact that Abel had hit him, not what to do next - before another fist crashed into his stomach that sent his breath running.
Instead of back down; instead of apologizing or plead forgiveness; instead of continuing being Abel's figurative and literal punching bag, he snapped. White-hot rage drowned out the girls' voices, suffocated the guilt of hitting his childhood best friend.
"Fine!" Corey lunged forward, fingers digging into the shoulder of Abel's shirt-sleeve and pulling him into a punch that hurt his own wrist. He ignored it, though - adrenaline was a hell of a drug - and grabbed Abel's hair in an attempt to throw him to the ground.
The Other Place and everything else around him faded away, there was only Corey and the need to rid himself of all the negative emotions that threatened to tear him up from the inside. Corey's blows were nothing in comparison to the raw pain of seeing Sammie again. Abel welcomed the blows, screaming loudly as his own fingers reached for Corey's arms. It didn't take long for both boys to wind up on the ground, and soon enough, they were rolling in the dirt like savages.
"Corey! Abel! Stop!"
It was all useless, and Joane watched helplessly as the boys exchanged blow after blow after blow. "Kenna? What do we do?" In that moment, it was as if they were seven again. Kenna had the answers, Kenna could fix things. Joane though, she was a deer-in-headlights.
With their building hostility over the last year, Kenna should have known her screams and pleads wouldn't have stopped the fighting; this fight was a long time coming and wouldn't end on her account. What could she do, though? What could she-
"Shut up!" She snapped at Joane, the girl's voice constantly distracting her. Stressing her out. Kenna worked well under pressure, but the stress was a different story. It's why she threw herself into lacrosse and her studies instead of acknowledging how Sammie's death made her feel. She couldn't handle the stress, so she avoided it.
She couldn't avoid it now.
"I- They-" Her eyes flitted left and right, up and down, looking for answers as if they'd magically appear out of the soil, the sky, the water. "The-... the water." She looked down at herself, scrawnier than she'd ever been and soaking wet from landing in the pond.
Kenna's Grandmother had always warned her against getting between two fighting dogs. Told her that it was more likely she herself would get hurt than stop the battle. When it came to violence, it was best to just stay away. Protect yourself. Kenna had listened, until now.
"Abel, stop-" just as she grabbed him a sharp pain crackled across her nose, sending her backward with a yelp. Kenna's nose throbbed terribly, and so did her temper.
She liked to think herself a smart person. Someone who thinks before acting or speaking. Sure, she was prone to unhealthy levels of stress and poor stress management, but she had a good head on her shoulders.
Still, a smart person wouldn't try separating two dogs after getting bitten the first time.
"GET-" Kenna grabbed one of Abel's flailing hands and yanked the back of his shirt, "-OFF!"
Abel was so caught up in the chaos of it all, that he hadn't even noticed he'd hit Kenna. Everything around him seemed to be nonexistent, at least, until strong fingers wrapped themselves around his arms and held him back. Abel found himself being hauled off of Corey by a very angry Kenna. It cleared his head a little and lifted him from the haze of his hatred.
"Get off!" He snapped but she held firm and he stopped fighting.
He was mad at her too, but Corey was the one he wanted to hurt. Just Corey. Abel was about to throw another slew of insults at his ex-friend, but the words died in his mouth as the world around them began to cave inward.
Just like the Sea World memory…
As reality folded in at the edges, Abel started to feel sick. Suddenly, they were back in familiar territory - Sammie's room.
It was the night of their first sleepover together. He could tell because he and Corey had brought matching walkie-talkies and had built a pillow fort in preparation for the late-night board games. Except in the memory before them, they weren't happy. Sammie and Corey were fighting about something. The words were muffled at first, but as the room materialized around them, the scene became clearer and clearer.
Kenna had been this close to smacking Abel upside the head. Boy, did she want to. Picking at each other's insecurities was one thing, but a full on fist fight? They both deserved an ass-whooping like no other.
"Back off!" Her nostrils flared as Corey came after Abel. His eyes went saucer-wide and he looked between the two before slowly taking a step back. Blood trickled from his nose, staining his lips and teeth red. Worry gnawed at her gut. Both of them were going to need patching up and the sudden throbbing of her nose reminded Kenna that an ice-pack would do her some good, too.
Grandma had been right - Kenna got bitten by the dogs - but the reward outweighed the consequences: The fight was over.
...But the war was not.
Around them, the Other Place began to shift inward. Her iron-grip loosened only to tighten again when the world folded in on itself. Abel's shoulder steadied her until they reappeared in Sammie's room. Again. Her temples pulsed with an oncoming headache.
The headache turned to nausea when she saw Sammie and Corey fighting. It felt odd, the scene before her. She'd never seen Corey and Sammie argue so openly before. "When was this…?"
A glance at her younger self in the corner of the room told her everything she needed to know: The sloppy, loose cornrows decorated with tacky barretts and Sammie's butterfly hair clips. Grandmother had never let her cut, dye, or style her hair… so Corey had offered to braid it for her at their first group sleepover.
"You said we could stay over, though!" Vision-Corey frowned, "Sammie, we've been planning this. Abel and I brought so much stuff and-"
"I know, Corey, but my parents said no..."
"Come on, Sammie. Can't you talk to them? Please?"
This was not how Kenna remembered that night at all.
Kenna's sharp reprimand was all it took to silence Joane. The girl recoiled instantly, as if she were someone who'd suddenly been burned by a hot stove. Why was she always so useless? Abel and Corey were beating each other senseless and she was crying. She knew it was stupid. She knew she ought to help Kenna and do something - anything, and yet, she couldn't stop. The tears continued to streak down her cheeks as she watched things unfold from the sidelines.
After Sammie died, something inside of her broke. It was the same for her friends, Joane understood that, but she couldn't bounce back like them - couldn't pretend to be okay like Kenna, or shrug things off with a grin the way Corey did. She just stopped, grew more and more detached from everyone and everything as the world continued to spin.
In fact, she'd spent the last year and a half just stumbling through her daily routine, a passive thing that life could shake around every now and then. It was fucking awful, and yet, she never did anything about it either. That was the thing Joane hated the most about herself.
It was a self-made hole she couldn't haul herself out of, so she watched - as always - as Corey and Sammie argued on the night of their first sleepover. The memory was odd, fuzzy in the way dreams often were, but it was so true-to-life that she didn't bother to question it.
"Our first sleepover?" Her voice was ghostly almost.
"Just another thing Corey messed up," Abel spat.
His mind was in shambled, ears still ringing and blood still rushing from the fight. It made him malleable and Abel believed everything that played out before them - the fight, Sammie getting into an argument with her parents, Corey whining like the baby he was.
Abel believed all of it and it only strengthened his hatred.
"But… I don't remember this," Joane continued.
Abel ignored her, instead going in for the kill. "If Sammie came back to fix our friendships, why the hell would she show us this?" Even the sea world memory had been far from encouraging. Corey's friendship was magic theory had been officially tossed out the window.
Seeing that the damage had been done, Sammie's room faded away once more. Once again, the four of them were back in the real world, to be specific, the park. It was three in the morning and the place was practically empty.
No. He didn't. He couldn't have… could he? Corey knew himself to be pushy sometimes, but never like that. Never with Sammie. It wasn't how he remembered that night at all, but if Sammie had shown it to them, it must have been true.
They were her memories, after all.
"I-..." he hadn't a chance to speak before Abel was coming at him with painful words and a logic Corey wished didn't seem so valid. He swallowed thickly, throat burning. The wake-up call hurt worse than the throbbing of his left eye and busted lower lip combined.
Abel was right.
How could Corey argue now?
The room began to melt away and with it Corey's confidence. Trees and grass and flowered shrubs materialized around him along with a wind that whipped his hair unkempt. He felt hollow. "I don't understand," he said. "What does she want, then?"
Ghost. Haunting. Hates us.
As wild as his Friendship is Magic theory seemed now, Corey shook his head; Sammie was their friend. She loved them.
… Right?
Shifting between worlds left Kenna's stomach churning - or had that been the memory's doing? If I can call it that… Kenna recalled that night as fun, uplifting. Not… that. Yet, she still could not bring herself to say anything. Could not comfort Corey, could not assuage the fear in her own gut that maybe Abel had been right all along.
Kenna had always been observant. She noticed things and retained information that others did not. She had also been stifled, caged like a bird yearning to stretch her wings, and that night had offered her something she'd never quite tasted before: Freedom. Perhaps she'd been too caught up in the feeling of flight to notice what had gone on around her.
She hadn't noticed Sammie's pain at the amusement park.
She hadn't noticed her struggle at the sleepover.
The weight on her shoulders gained several pounds as Corey asked a question they all wanted answers to. Why?
Ding! Ding! Ding! The park clock chimed three in the morning and Kenna's heart dropped further.
"It's late." Her grandmother was going to kill her, and to think she didn't know Kenna had been gone all this time would be too optimistic, even for Corey. "We should head home."
"But-"
Kenna held up a hand to silence him. She didn't want to hear anymore. Not tonight. "I have to get home," she emphasized. Pushed the curls out of her eyes, wind aggressive, only to falter. "Corey, you're face-"
He shot a glare in the direction of Abel's feet.
"-Is healed," Kenna said.
Corey's brows shot to his hairline; his head whipped upwards; his eyes met Abel's. Scanned his face only to find that the black eye Corey was certain Abel'd be sporting the next day looked perfectly fine. Come to think of it… Corey touched his own face.
His eyes widened: "It doesn't hurt."
It were as if nothing had happened.
Abel's lips pulled into a tight frown. The Other place was illogical from the beginning, but this was the first time they'd noticed how it affected them physically. All traces of the fight he had with Corey were gone, and his ex-friend was right, it didn't hurt. At least, not physically.
They were all still reeling from the memory ghost Sammie had decided to show them. Why? It was a question they all wanted answers to. Was Sammie mad? Was it to spite them? Nothing positive had come out of her return, in fact, all Sammie had done was reopen old wounds. They were hurting now more than ever, and the only thing that made sense was Kenna's advice to go home.
Abel bit down on his lip and tried to calm the storm raging in his chest.
"She's right. We should go. Sammie hates us, and Corey is a fuck-up. That's clear enough."
Abel didn't wait for anyone to say anything, and just like that, he stormed off.
Joane wiped away at her tears as Abel stormed off without them. There was no point in trying to stop Abel. If anything, it would only lead to another Espresso Express Fiasco. They'd already seen enough chaos tonight. Instead, she reached for Corey's arm and gave him what she hoped was a comforting gesture.
I'm sorry, it said.
The memory Sammie had shown to them left a bitter taste in her mouth, and she could only imagine how awful it must have been for Corey. Joane still found the series of events difficult to believe, but they'd seen it play out before their own eyes.
"Corey…"
Don't ask him if he's okay, idiot. He's obviously not.
"We should… we should go. It's late, Corey."
Joane kept her hand on his arm, because it was far easier to do that than to ask him how he felt. She didn't think she could deal with the rawness of his emotions. It was selfish, but it was also self-preservation. "Kenna's right. It's really late."
