Project: Neverbound (A Double Life AU fanfic)

13 - Deciding Fate and Colliding Stars

The living room was dark and moldy, the wood not having felt the human touch for what seemed like centuries. The girl's feet tapped across the boards, a heart pounding creak playing out with each step. The lantern she held in her hands flickered, as if any sudden breeze would put it out at any minute. That fear became reality, as her only light in the decaying house went with the wind, and, at the same time, she heard a knocking coming from the door to the outside.

"Who's there?" The girl asked, her voice quivering in an undying terror. She stared at the door, not daring to get any closer until she was met with an audible answer. She was not met with this, though, as the knocking just played out again.

She said not a word. Everything was quiet.

She waited.

And waited...

And-

"BOO!" Pearl suddenly shouted, her outburst receiving the exact reaction she hoped for: quick screams and yelps of pure shock value. On the other hand, Scott, Cleo, and surprisingly Etho were fully prepared for this trick of hers, and Pearl herself howled with laughter.

"Haha! Gets 'em every time! Oh, if only Martyn could see your faces right now!" The scarlet-hooded woman exclaimed, wiping a tear from her eye. Martyn had chose to stay home from the trip, purely because he didn't feel like going anywhere that day.

"Alright, Pearl, that's enough, you're scaring the kids," Scott said sarcastically, his spiteful gaze and comment clearly directed at Jimmy, who had obviously just jumped his way further into his bound's arms. The blonde gave him a quiet growl and a spiteful gaze back, but thankfully that was as far as their interactions ever got since the first day.

"Etho, how did that not get you?!" Bdubs asked, turning to the fox.

"Old friend used to pull that all the time," Etho explained. "It stops being scary after the third,"

"Agreed," Cleo said, having watched Pearl use the trick several times before.

"At least mine was actually scary," Pearl said proudly, turning to the zombie.

"We've been over this Pearl, just because people scream at it doesn't mean it's scary," Cleo said. "Besides, I thought the fear of imminent death was right up your ally?"

"Your's was about the moon crashing into a planet," Pearl argued. "The moon is literally in my name, I could totally survive that."

Cleo rolled her eyes and smiled, always amused by whatever batshit crazy thing would fly out of Pearl's mouth during any given conversation.

As the noise died down and the ambience of the crackling fire and humming of whatever bugs decided to be out that night returned, the group reduced themselves to small talk. Somehow, this ended up leading to a bigger conversation about the fountain.

"So we already know it's the 14 of us," Joel pointed out. "Why haven't we all gone to this thing yet?"

"It's not that I don't think it won't do anything significant," Cleo said, "it's just that I don't trust Watcher stuff... No offense Grian."

"None taken," Grian said. Although he never said it out loud, and wouldn't for a VERY long time, he never trusted the Watchers that much himself. Kicking him out of the sky was a very good reason for that, but he couldn't admit that to anyone anyway.

"But it said it would return something that we all lost," Tango said. "You don't just lose something on purpose, so it's not like it'll give us something bad, right?"

"You have to be careful with the way Watchers word things," Etho warned. "They'll tell you one thing and mean something completely different. I don't think that part's up to them, I think it's just because they have to speak in rhymes, so they can't say exactly what they mean all the time,"