♣

"The hell do you mean 'you did?'"

"We left," replied Sophie. The group of high schoolers searched their surroundings, as if looking for an explanation in the ear.

"You aren't funny, just go!" Caleb threw up his hands, tensing every muscle while fighting the need to punch the wall. Kal, instead, didn't fight that urge, and punched the counter. He didn't even flinch as blood started to pour out of his knuckles. Sawyer had never seen them like that.

"Listen! I don't know what's going on, but whatever it is has clearly fucked you guys up. And now we can't leave." Sawyer attempted to both sign and voice but his shakiness mixed with inexperience in sign language made that feat difficult.

"What do you mean you can't leave?" asked Caleb, anger still fueling his voice.

"We started to leave, then we blinked, and we were right back here," said Daniel. "It was like, straight out of that game Little Hope or something."

Caleb scoffed. "This can't be happening."

"They're not leaving," Kal interjected before Caleb could respond. "We couldn't throw them out if we wanted to."

Then, instead of screaming at them once again, Caleb fell down onto the nearest chair, and clutched his face as he would a football. Kal closed his eyes, running his hands through his hair as he tried to breathe. Sawyer approached him and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Talk to us," he signed.

"You won't believe us," responded Kal. When Sawyer didn't respond, Kal sighed. "Fine. Guess we don't have a choice."

Kal approached Caleb, gently tapping him on the back, and it was as if Kal's touch had some magical ability, because Caleb stopped crying immediately. He signed something to him that Sawyer didn't understand, and the two stood up.

"Guys," started Caleb. "Before you, freak out, you have to-"

A scream resembling one of a banshee cut Caleb off before he could say anymore. Caleb's expression changed to one of ferocity, and Kal, assuming what had happened, followed the switch.

"Theodore, grab the broom," Caleb ordered. "Everyone else, hide."

"Why me?" asked Theo quickly.

"You're tall."

Tall? they thought, but didn't express aloud. Once Theo grabbed the broom, Caleb took hold of their forearm and led them to the back of the shop.

Kal gathered the teenagers behind the counter. All of the teens listened, but none of them looked exactly comfortable with the situation.

"You're here, you've gotta help us," said Kal.

"That doesn't-"

"The slug," stated Kal plainly.

Sawyer's heart stopped. "What slug?" asked Oscar.

Kal rolled his eyes, for the last thing he wanted to do right now was to explain everything from the start. "Your genius friend Sawyer here decided to bring home a pet from school."

"What?!" Quinn exclaimed.

"Let me finish. A slug that he didn't recognize. I didn't either. But the weird part was that it didn't die. It didn't hurt. Nothing. And now-"

"Watch out!" A voice screamed. It was deeply grounded, supported, and projected to make sure that everyone in the shop could hear. That's when everyone realized that whatever Caleb was encountering, it was serious.

While the others had their heads tucked into their arms, Sawyer lifted his eyes slightly above the counter, unable to resist his curiosity. There in front of him was his slug–only it was so tall that its neck, or where its neck would be if it had one, was arched from hitting the ceiling. Theo, still clearly in shock, swung aimlessly at the beast, while Caleb tried to corral it back where it came from.

Sawyer wasn't sure how to respond, or even how he was responding at the moment. All that he could do was desperately attempt to process what was in front of him. He could feel his muscles tense up, with the exception of his jaw, which was wide open. His hands shook from the clenching, his eyes fixated on the creature but too preoccupied to remember to sting.

As soon as Kal noticed Sawyer's staring, he grabbed his wrist and flung him down.

"Stay," he signed and spoke aloud.

"What..." Sawyer attempted to catch his breath. "That's not... That's not possible."

Clearly that sparked everyone's attention, for when the monster let out a giant roar, none of the others hesitated to jump up to take a look.

"HOLY-"

"FUCK!"

At that moment, Kal completely lost control of the situation. Abigail jumped back down and pressed herself against the wall, as far from the creature as possible. Daniel ran out the door, only to run straight back in. He attempted this a few times, but was unsuccessful everytime. Sophie, Quinn, and Oscar all had a similar reaction to Sawyer, unsure about what was going on, and absolutely horrified.

Kal rolled his eyes. "Don't move," he instructed. Before anyone had a chance to respond, Kal was up and sprinting straight towards the slug.

Sawyer wanted to curl up into a ball, to squeeze his knees to his stomach so tight that he could no longer breathe–though his breath was already escaping him. He pictured the slug the day he had first encountered it. It had been less than half the size of his tennis shoe. It didn't try to crawl away when he got near it. It didn't even look at him. That last statement wouldn't have seemed unusual if he hadn't locked eyes with the monstrous creature, but he had now. And he could not get the image out of his head.

Suddenly, Sawyer heard the door shove the air around them, so fast it almost whistled. A girl with dark, curly hair had burst into the shop, wearing athletic attire and a concerned expression. Daniel dove towards the door as it closed, but was unable to grab it before it once again shut on them, sealing any chance of escape. "Hey, I heard screaming and I thought-" In only a few seconds, her confused look shifted into one you would see straight out of a horror movie. "OH MY GOD!"

If the girl was auditioning to play the next scream queen, she had just got the part. "Get down!" Quinn tugged the girl's wrist until her knees smacked the wooden panels of the floor. They attempted to guide the girl's breathing, but not even the girl had control of it anymore. The chaos forced Sawyer to retreat into his mind, shutting his eyes and focusing his thoughts on anything besides what was happening. He grazed his fingers over the cracks in his skin, his nails uneven from excessive picking. He needed to keep calm. He couldn't think about the giant–goddammit.

Before he could scold himself for thinking about the slug again, he felt a hand on his shoulder. "Sawyer, it's gone," said Sophie. Sawyer wanted to respond, but he could not get his voice to work. By the shaking that was occurring in Sophie's hand, Sawyer assumed that she understood.

Immediately, the new girl ran towards the door and flung it open. She ran outside, only to disappear for a split second and wind up right back inside. "Wha..."

"See?" Daniel gestured, but neither Kal nor Caleb were paying attention. In fact, only Kal was in the room, and he left right after the question. Caleb only appeared a few seconds after, followed by Theo. Kal was relatively unharmed, but both Caleb and Theo were covered head to toe with slime. Theo seemed to have gotten the worst of it, their usually loose hair slicked back until it was barely protruding the top of their head.

"It's... in there," Theo heaved, pointing to the back of the store.

Suddenly, it clicked in their brains why Caleb was seemingly fighting with the wall earlier. It wasn't a wall at all.

"You locked it in a supply closet?!" Daniel yelled.

"If you were in this stressful of a situation, you would have, too," Caleb reasoned, finding it difficult to catch his breath.

"Won't it break down the door?" asked Sophie.

"I fucking hope not."

"Excuse me," the girl who just arrived interjected. "Is... anyone going to explain what just happened? Because, um, I, I don't, I-"

"Sawyer brought an evil slug back from school and now I guess it's trying to eat us or something," Daniel explained.

"Oh, yeah. Yeah. Just one thing. Who is Sawyer and why the fuck can I not leave?"

Sophie leaned towards Daniel and whispered, "Is that..."

"Yep. That's AJ."

"Geez. She can't catch a break."

"We don't exactly know what's going on," Caleb reasoned. Kal showed up by his side with two small towels, handing them off to Theo and Caleb.

Theo inspected the cloth. "Do you have any bigger ones?"

"They're in there," Kal answered, pointing to the closet behind them. "You get these."

"I... don't even know what to say after that," said Quinn.

"I think my brain just exploded," replied Oscar.

Kal ran his hand through his hair, revealing a cut on the bottom side of his forearm. Now that Sawyer was really looking, he saw a large array of small cuts on Kal's body. It's possible those had been there before, but now that he saw them, he could not stop looking at them. What had happened while he was hiding. "I think," Kal started. "I think we should all just take a deep breath and calm down."

Daniel nodded mockingly. "Okay, yeah, calm down. Sounds good."

"Daniel-"

"No, it's okay! I'm calm. I'm totally safe! It's not like there's a ginormous fucking slug on the other side of this wall, I'm great!"

"If it could get out, it would by now," Oscar reasoned.

"Are you blind? It just escaped two seconds ago! And we can't get out, and we're going to get eaten alive, or at least stepped on by this giant slug-"

"Slugs don't have feet," remarked Abigail.

"Oh, shut up, smart ass."

Sawyer tried to build up the strength to say something, but it was as if his tongue had been glued to the bottom of his mouth. He had a million thoughts, but couldn't even express one. However, the group seemed to be expressing enough for all of them.

"We're going to be fine!" said Oscar.

"How can you even say that?" asked the new girl.

"Don't talk to Oscar like that!" fought Sophie.

"It was really fucking big, guys," told Theo.

"We just need to figure this all out," reasoned Abigail.

The only thing that broke apart the arguing was the sudden fall that catapulted the boy's crutches aside, the sound of bones hitting wood splitting everyone's eardrums in the room.

♣

As his hands hit the floor, Oscar braced himself for pain that never came. It was as if he had landed on a trampoline, catapulting all of his weight into the air and providing support for an unharmed fall. Usually, falling was the scariest thing that could happen to Oscar. Just something as simple as tripping created insane pain in his body, not to mention the fact that he was usually unable to get up on his own after that.

Yet, there he was, flat out on the floor without a single pain in his body.

Oscar lifted his head from the ground, searching for his crutches beside him. As he felt his fingertips on the ground, he took in the texture; tile, not the hardwood that was found along the floor of the antique shop. Revelation after revelation hit Oscar's mind. The tile was white and without a trace of the shop's dust. He didn't hear any voices. He didn't see those who had just been standing next to him. He was alone.

Oscar acquired his crutches, which assisted him to his feet with ease. Looking around, he realized that not only was he in a different room from before, but a setting that was foreign to him altogether. While the features certainly seemed familiar, the combination created a completely novel atmosphere. The walls were all painted in off-white colors, boxing a room that formed a perfect square. There were silver picture frames that held no pictures. Desks stacked with pristine printer paper scattered the room, and there was no door leading outside. It was as if he had walked into the lobby of a wedding venue that was completely devoid of interesting detail.

As he took his first step, Oscar noticed the feeling of his shoes against his toes differing from that of his usual tennis shoes. Oscar lowered his head, revealing to himself the two freshly-polished dress shoes adorned on his feet. In fact, he was wearing a full suit, finished with a black tie upon his white shirt.

Suddenly, the sound of muffled trumpets and saxophones filled Oscar's ears. He shifted his head toward the noise and a door that definitely had not been there a minute ago. It wasn't opened more than an inch, showing beams of light from behind it but nothing else. Oscar hesitated, but when looking at the dead end behind him, realized he had no other option.

As Oscar approached the door, the crack revealed the other side widened until he could see the full contents of the room. It was as if a prom was hosted with the budget of a wedding. The ballroom consisted completely of men in suits identical to his own, and tables with the same color off-white tablecloths as the paint used in the other room. A diamond chandelier hung from the ceiling, so close to the heads of the guests that with too large of a jump, one could knock it off of its wire.

Oscar stepped into the ballroom. He listened closer to the music. Al Bowlly. He couldn't remember the last time he had ever heard somebody play that outside of his own room.

"Drink?"

The man might as well have teleported next to Oscar. He was wearing his hair slicked back in a fashion that resembled a Ken doll, and he couldn't have been much older than Oscar himself. His bowtie, while the same color black as the rest of his suit, stuck out to Oscar, as it was almost smaller than his Adam's Apple. His smile showed every one of his teeth, but didn't come off as forced or disturbing. It was almost as if he had been waiting for Oscar to show up just to offer him a drink, and it was the highlight of his entire evening. Maybe he made every guest feel that way.

"I'm alright," Oscar replied, not yet having recovered his voice from the fall. The man nodded and immediately turned around, walking out of Oscar's sight. It had only been less than a minute before Oscar was greeted by another guest. This one had similar hair to the other one, the only difference being the darker shade of his skin and miniscule details about his face.

"There you are!" he exclaimed. "Come dance with me!" He didn't wait for a reply from Oscar before taking his arm and dragging him to the dance floor. Oscar gripped his crutches, struggling to keep up.

"Hey," he managed. "Can you slow down a-"

He felt a tug on his other arm.

"Where have you been?" The new man wasn't exactly a man at all. He was around Oscar's age, shorter than Oscar and those around them. Though, most guests were notably shorter than Oscar.

"I-"

"They're playing our song!" Suddenly, Oscar found himself face to face with the boy. His smile spread blush across his face, his arms rested on Oscar's shoulders. Due to the height difference, his arms were raised above his head. He stared so deeply into Oscar's eyes that he could feel some sort of connection, despite never having seen this boy before in his life.

"I'm sorry, I think you have the wrong person."

He felt yet another tug on his arm. Then his shoulder. Before he could say anything, he was hearing ten people address him, passing him along as if he were a toy being sent down an assembly line. He didn't stay with one boy for more than five seconds before going to the next. His feet tripped over each other, and he was struggling to keep his crutches in his grasp.

"Hold on," he attempted to call out. He felt the strain in his feet from trying to keep up with his hand-offs. The voices of the boys around him clouded his mind. He couldn't tell if more boys were joining the herd or if some were leaving, for all that was in his mind was finding a way to break free. Suddenly, Oscar was in the eye of the hurricane, the rest of the room spinning around his center.

"Oscar!"

The familiar voice sent a wave of relief down Oscar's body. He no longer felt anyone's touch on his arm, and his legs were able to stand straight up without dancing across the floor. Oscar's repose spread to his face.

"Sawyer," he breathed. "Thank God."

However, as Oscar turned his head, his smile faded. Instead of Sawyer, he saw a boy with straight hair, slicked down just as the others. He was taller than Sawyer was, almost at Oscar's height. His brown eyes cut into Oscar's–a feeling that Oscar had hoped he would never have to endure again.

"Are you okay?" Dewey asked.

Oscar's throat went dry. His stomach knots came back ten-fold, causing his torso to tremble.

"I..." he managed.

"I'm sorry about them. They don't know when to quit."

Oscar felt as if he had just been punched in the gut. "You...Dewey, what-"

"I think you should leave, Oscar."

"But... What?"

The next time Oscar blinked, instead of opening his eyes to find a ballroom full of boys, he found a deserted hallway that resembled something out of a hospital. However, instead of lines of doors on either side, it was two panels of solid concrete. No way out except for one door at the very end of the corridor.

Oscar's grip on his crutches tightened. He flipped his body around, only to be met with a similarly styled hallway. Except, instead of a door, there was a blob in the distance. It was hunched over, like a runner catching their breath after a race. The size of the thing was unable to be determined from such a far distance. Despite not knowing what it was he was facing, Oscar couldn't shake the feeling that he had encountered the figure before.

And he didn't like it.

If he had passed out and that was all a dream, that dream trumped any of his past dreams on account of realness, because he had never sweat so much in his life. The rate at which perspiration dripped down his face did not allow for any pools to form, instead falling to the ground a few seconds after they were formed. His suit turned sticky, his body temperature rising and turning his jacket into an oven.

Oscar felt the ground below his crutches and shoes become slippery, applying more pressure so that he wouldn't fall over. The blob didn't seem to be walking, but it was growing in size. No, it was getting closer.

Oscar took his first step back, and the blob sped up. Another step, and the blob's speed grew again. Soon, Oscar was as close to sprinting as he could. He prayed that he could coordinate both his crutches with his feet, and that the ever-increasing slippery consistency of the floor would subside. Unlike before, he could feel the pain in every step. His joints cursed him while his shoulders, knees, and legs prayed for him to stop. He took his eyes off of the figure, clenched them shut, and hoped that he was nearing the door.

"Oscar," the blob breathed. Its voice didn't enter his ears, but was instead comprehended by his brain immediately.

Please let this thing slow down, Oscar manifested. He finally opened his eyes, expecting the door to be right in front of him.

He hadn't moved.

Oscar looked down at his jogging feet, which no longer ached him. It was as if he was swimming through the air, not actually covering any distance. Before he could stop moving, his pupils became locked on the ground that he fell towards, the pattern of the wood nearing his eyes burned into his retinas.

♣

The room had plenty of space for ten people, but it was as if the walls were pressed right up against the group as they tried to get a peak at the boy on the ground. It had happened so suddenly that the only person who happened to catch a glimpse at the fall was Sophie, and she made sure to keep her distance.

"Is he passed out?"

"I think so."

"He's breathing!"

"Shit, he's bleeding."

Sawyer tried to take in what had happened, but one thing had caught his attention; blood surrounding Oscar's head. He had fallen onto his back, smacking his head against the wooden floor. He was breathing, sure, but the blood didn't stop. Kal noticed this shortly after Sawyer, and responded in a much more proactive way,

Oscar's eyelids darted from side to side. Either he was dreaming or this was his body's reaction to the blood loss. What was strange was the suddenness of it all. There was no indication of any dizziness before. In fact, he was contributing to the conversation just as much as anyone else. It could have been shock, but he didn't seem all that shocked.

"Sawyer? Do you know?"

Sawyer snapped his head upwards. Caleb was staring at him, waiting for an answer. "Huh?"

"Does this happen a lot?"

"Oh. I don't know."

Quinn had their hand on Oscar's, squeezing every few seconds. Sawyer could not tell if this was for Oscar's reassurance or for their own. Theo was cursing, trying to figure out a way to make themself more useful. The new girl was on the phone, speaking in a way that made Sawyer assume that she was contacting 911.

Between the conversations of confusion, Sawyer felt Oscar's breathing pattern change. Then, his eyes fluttered open. Soon after, the rest of the group noticed, speaking over each other.

"Are you okay?"

"What happened?"

"You're awake!"

Oscar's eyes widened. His hand fluttered up, but failed to rise more than an inch. "I... I can't move-"

Then, all the pain came at once, and Oscar let out a scream.

"I can't get up, I can't-" Oscar cried, flailing his legs. "I can't move!"

"Hey, Oscar, it's okay, we're going to get you up," assured Caleb.

Oscar yelled, scrunching up his eyes and nose. His free hand searched for the closest to his, which turned out to be Sawyer's. Sawyer took hold of him, with both palms, watching and cringing. Oscar was panicked, more panicked than Sawyer had ever seen before.

Kal supported his head while Sawyer, Quinn, Caleb, and Theo helped Oscar to sit up. That didn't help Oscar's pain. In fact, the movement made the pain come even more drastically. Oscar's face was drenched, his voice breaking as he continued to call out. Abigail moved the rolling chair towards Oscar, and Daniel brought pillows and a blanket.

"Okay, Oscar, we're going to pick you up now, okay?" said Caleb, nodding to the others holding Oscar.

"No!" The four lifted anyways, Kal continuing to support his head. If Sawyer thought the screams couldn't get worse, he was wrong. Instead of panic, Oscar's voice was now laced with confusion and pure torture. He didn't think he could ever unhear it.

Even after Oscar was seated, he didn't stop crying. It didn't seem to be pain anymore, but stress. Embarrassment. Shame. Fear.

Sawyer looked back to where Oscar had fallen. There was a pool of blood on the ground and sprawled on opposite sides were Oscar's crutches. Sawyer stepped towards them and picked them up. They weren't light. Sawyer had never broken a bone before, so he had never handled crutches before, but he didn't expect them to be so heavy. He rested them on the checkout counter, stopping one from falling before letting go.

As Sawyer spun around, he made eye contact with Sophie. He knew what she was thinking without her having to say a word.

Sawyer had really fucked up.

...

A/N 

Not going to lie, the major reason that this has taken so long to come out is cause college is making me think all of my writing is shit (i'm a creative writing student) so honestly any constructive criticism is more than appreciated. This is technically still a first draft so I'm looking for what can be improved :)

Also, this chapter was the first one to pass 4k words!