Elliana X Jason

Thirteen, Found In A Forest

Elliana and Cole walked for a long time, and Elliana could've sworn that they'd been walking in circles.

"We've seen that rock before." Cole said.

"Definitely." Elliana agreed.

They shared a look.

"Nope." They both said at the same time.

"What are we doing?" Cole asked.

Elliana laughed, for some reason. "I don't know. We're even more lost than before."

"Why is this forest so big?" Cole snickered.

"I don't know." Elliana said.

Their small moment of stupid laughter ended abruptly.

"We're screwed." Cole said.

"Definitely."

"So we haven't seen the rock before?" Cole asked.

"I don't know." Elliana shrugged.

"We haven't seen that before." Cole said, staring at something.

Elliana startled, jumping up as she noticed a shadow buried in the greens of leaves and bushes. As it stepped closer, Cole grabbed her hand, squeezing it so tight that both of their knuckles turned white. Elliana braced herself for a fight, and the figure emerged from the trees.

Ryan darted quickly to the side. "What in the name of Mother Goose is that!?" She screamed.

Jason scanned, although the figure was running from side to side, too fast for him to see. "I don't know." He said, moving towards Ryan. "You okay?"

"Fine, just a little scared. That was- BEHIND YOU!"

Jason turned to see the figure, so he ducked. It was stupid, and he braced himself, but he looked up to see the figure jumping over him with a weapon raised and a war cry. They turned around and noticed that they'd missed him. They snarled, and Jason noticed that they were wearing a mask that covered everything above their upper lip except their eyes. The mask was a gray-blue, with a shark fin on the top. Then the figure disappeared again.

"Thanks." Jason said to Ryan.

"Who was that?" She asked.

"I don't know." Jason said.

"It's not The Needler?"

"No- The Needler?"

"You call the weird possessing guy Frederick. The Needler isn't that weird."

"I mean- HEADS UP!" Jason yelled.

This time, they weren't fast enough. The masked person's weapon- which Jason now knew was a knife- dug into Ryan's shoulder.

Elliana tensed as the figure emerged from the trees. She slammed her eyes shut, until Cole laughed, running forward. She opened her eyes to see Emily and Rebecca.

Cole grabbed Emily and gave her a quick hug. She smiled, and turned to Elliana. Elliana hugged her in turn. She then turned to Rebecca, who rolled her eyes. Elliana laughed.

"Come here." She said, wrapping Rebecca in a hug.

Rebecca immediately stiffened, before awkwardly hugging Elliana back. Rebecca seemed like she didn't even know how to hug someone. Like she'd never been hugged before. Elliana couldn't help but feel sorry for the girl. She had a tough exterior, but really she barely had anyone. Jason, Ian, Alex. Maybe Emily too, but that was really it. It was sad, and Ellian found it even sadder that she'd never really thought about it before.