| 𝙿𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚌𝚎𝚜𝚜 | 𝙹.𝙼𝚘𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚊 | 𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚝𝚎𝚍

3 | WEIRD DARK ROOM

     HAYDEN HELD ONTO Alex's hand for dear life. Well that's what it was. She was hanging onto the little life she had left. Reggie really jinxed it when he said the street dogs had yet to kill them. The girl looked to her side, Luke was already gone and Reggie was slipping away. Just as she heard his flat line, she looked back at Alex.

"It's gonna be okay." She said in a whisper but luckily he heard.

Alex began to cry when he saw her eyes close and heard her heart monitor flat line. He was alone and had no idea if he would survive and if he did, he would lose most of his chosen family. Sure he had Bobby, but he was closer to the three friends that had just passed in front of him.

When Hayden opened her eyes again, she saw Luke and Reggie looking down at her. But everything around them was black. She sat up, with Reggie's help, and looked around.

"Are we in hell?"

A sob was heard and the three band members turned to see Alex curled up in a ball, crying. They all ran over to him, Hayden reaching him first. His eyes lit up slightly when he saw her but he ended up crying more now realizing he was also dead. Hayden hugged the boy tightly as Reggie and Luke looked around, they had no idea where they were and Luke was wondering if they would still be able to play The Orpheum, typical Luke.

Alex pulled away from Hayden, his sobbing had turned into hiccuping. "You said everything would be alright."

"I know..." She trailed off, she said that just to calm him down and well, it didn't work.

"I thought I was gonna be alone." Alex mumbled, wiping his eyes.

Hayden shook her head. "You know that's never gonna happen. I would never leave you. I'm like the glue of best friends."

Luke and Reggie suddenly shushed them. "Do you hear that?"

"Take off. Last stop." It was faint but it was their song.

Hayden stood up, helping Alex too. The four stood, looking around for the source of their music, but it stopped when they suddenly fell through a hole in the ground and landed with a thud.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph! That hurt!" Hayden groaned, slowly standing up along with the boys.

"Whoa." Luke said, realizing they were back in the studio. "How did we get back here?"

A scream made the band focus on a teenage girl stood in their studio. The band, in return, screamed too. Luke hopped into Hayden's arms while Alex and Reggie huddled towards the female. The unknown teenage girl then ran out of the studio, still screaming.

After a second, Hayden dropped Luke to the floor and shook herself slightly. Whatever just happened to them was weird but they were back home. The girl looked around, things were different.

"Are we in the right place?"

Luke nodded. "This is definitely our studio."

Reggie nudged the pair. "The girl is coming back and she's holding a cross."

The four ghosts disapeared just as the girl came into the studio, holding a bedazzled cross in front of her threateningly. She scanned around the studio.

"Are you still here..whatever you are?" She asked, still looking around. "I know I saw something. I'm not crazy."

The ghosts then decided to show themselves to the girl again. "Well we're all a little crazy." Luke spoke, making the girl spin around, hold the cross out again and scream.

Hayden quickly covered her ears. "Please stop screaming!"

That seemed to do it as the girl stopped screaming but still looked extremely frightened. "Who are you and what are you doing in my mom's studio?"

Luke stepped forward. "Your mom's studio? This is our studio. Trust me, fine...the grand piano is new." Hayden couldn't help but smile when Luke backed away from the girl and her cross and slid across the piano. "And..and...Hayden! Our couch!" He smiled, jumping onto the leather pull out couch that they shared.

Then Luke actually looked around. "That is definitely not my six-string. Can you give me jut one second? Just...give me a second. Thank you." He climbed over to his band mates and pulled them into a huddle. "Guys, what is going on? How did she get her stuff in here so fast?"

"Maybe...maybe she's a witch." Reggie suggested. "There's chairs floating on the ceiling."

Hayden looked up. "So there is. Weird."

Alex hit her arm. "There is no such thing as witches."

"You sure? I used to think there were no such thing as ghosts." Hayden pointed to herself.

"That's fair." He mumbled.

Luke glanced at his friends. "Okay, so we're going with witch?"

Alex then hit Luke's arm. "No, we are not going with witch. She's not a witch. Okay, look. She's just scared. Okay? Let someone with a softer touch, handle this."

Hayden went to face the girl but it seemed Alex was talking about himself. Hayden crossed her arms. "Okay, so Mr. Sensitive thinks he has the soft touch."

"Why are you in our studio?" He asked rather loudly.

The girl thrusted the cross forward but of course it went straight through Alex. "Oh my gosh! How did you do that?"

"Clearly, you're not understanding..." Alex turned to his friends. "She doesn't get it. Okay, look. We're ghosts, alright? We're just four ghosts and we're really happy to be home. So, thank you for the flowers. They really brighten up he room."

Luke stepped forward. "We're actually in a band called Sunset Curve."

"Tell your friends." Reggie added on.

Hayden finally joined us. "Last night was supposed to be a really big night for us. It was gonna change our lives."

"I'm uh, pretty sure it did." Alex whispered.

"This is freaking me out." The girl spoke, grabbing something from her pocket.

"What is that?" Hayden asked, pointing at the object and tilting her head. "What are you doing?"

"It's my phone." The girl answered before cutting herself off. "No, stop talking to them. They aren't real. There's no such thing as cute ghosts."

Reggie smirked. "Oh, you think we're cute?"

"Thanks princess." Hayden winked at the girl and chuckled when she saw her cheeks tinted red.

Alex leaned forward. "Who you calling?"

"I'm Googling Sunset Swerve." She answered.

While the boys corrected the girl, Hayden wondered what on earth Googling meant. It seemed like something you could use to search for things but the girl brushed it off for now.

"Whoa." The girl muttered. "There is a Sunset Curve. You did die. But not last night. Twenty-five years ago?"

Hayden looked at the girl in shock while Reggie shook his head. "What? No, no, no, no. That's impossible. After we floated out of the ambulance, all we did was go to that weird dark room where Alex cried."

Alex turned to him, his voice going up about three octaves. "Well...I don't think...I think we were all pretty upset. Okay."

"But that was just for like an hour." Luke said. "We just showed up here."

The girl showed the band her phone, where Hayden saw their picture. Luke was leaning on Alex and Bobby, Reggie was off to the side and Hayden stood behind all of them. It was a pretty good picture of her.

"Look, I'm just telling you what my phones says. See? You died in 1995. When you were 17. It's now 2020."

Hayden looked around and then at the girl. "So this is the future?"

"Wait. So...so, it has been 25 years? I have been crying for 25 years? How is that possible?"

"You're a very emotional person." Hayden shrugged.

Alex turned to her. "I am not!"