"I swear, if I'm dying tonight because of you, I'm gonna haunt your ass so hard, Harrington!"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah! I'm gonna go full Poltergeist and shit!"
"Then bring it, Graveswood."
"Challenge accepted."
***
In which after years of suppressing their...
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Chapter Eight: Dreams Of Horror And Despair
(Holly, Jolly)
***
Rowan sucked in a gasp as she sat bolt upright on... concrete?
She frowned. When she had gotten on concrete? The last thing she remembered, she was sleeping in Robin's bed with Robin and Chrissy...
Then her hand landed on something slimy, something that writhed and screeched.
A scream in her throat, Rowan scrambled back as she saw a vine, fleshy and ropy, laying across the concrete. Heart thumping against her chest, Rowan whirled around, saw that she was... in a pool?
A coughing came, and Rowan saw... Barb?
"Barb?" she whispered, half in shock, half in confusion. Why was her Chemistry partner here? And where the hell were they?
Barb was still coughing, but she heard her. She squinted; she'd lost her glasses, Rowan noticed. "Rowan? How..."
"I don't know either. I just woke up right now," Rowan said, or at least she thinks she woke up. It... it reminds her of her previous nightmares, but this is new. She's never woken up in an empty pool covered in weird, writhing vines that screeched—or, now that she's realising it, hums with a strange energy that feels wrong to her, like the world's electric current has been distorted and has ashy flakes drifting through the air like some twisted version of snow. She's still convinced she's still dreaming.
And in all her previous nightmares, no one else had seen her, had recognised her presence. She had always been a spectator, a silent ghost. This was a new development.
And terrifying in its implications.
Shaking her head, she said to the normally glasses-wearing redhead, "Let's just... figure a way out of here."
Barb nodded shakily and stood up, Rowan following her lead. Once they were both on their feet, Barb looked around and shouted, "Nancy! Where are you?! NANCY!"
Of course she was shouting for Nancy; Rowan didn't blame her. If she was in Barb's place, she'd be shouting for her aunt and brother, for Eddie and Chrissy and Robin. Maybe she was shouting to see if Nancy heard, to help, but Rowan knew the shoutings more out of fear than an actual cry for help, especially when Rowan had the creeping, nauseating feeling Nancy couldn't hear them no matter how loud Barb screamed her name. And while Barb shouted Nancy's name, Rowan looked around, searching for a way to climb out of the pool. Maybe if they used the vines...
