Nothing But Trouble(Aris Jones x Reader)

12) I Can't Leave You

For the rest of the night we all cowered in fear. The Shades didn't let up on their screeching or their search for other Icers. At one point there was silence, and that was scarier than anything else.

Eventually, a few girls had fallen asleep. I refused to, and even if I wanted to that wouldn't be an option. I physically wouldn't even be able to close my eyes without wanting to scratch my face up all over again. There was that same awful itching feeling, but it was on a level close to being unbearable, almost painful. Still, I refused to move a muscle. I couldn't if I wanted to live to see another day.

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At some point I thought I'd started hallucinating because above us the sun was shining again. Why would they bring it back? What was the point of putting us all through this?

"Do you think we should look?"Sonya whispered. I hesitantly nodded. We slowly stood up and pulled the cell door open. Once we were sure there wasn't anything there we stepped out.

For a second I didn't think this was real. Every building was crumbled to the ground. The garden we had spent so long figuring out how to use was nothing more than dirty snow. The kitchen, the eating area, even the place for the Blondie celebrations was in shambles. Our own trees had withered and broken in on themselves. It was an unrecognizable disaster that couldn't be fixed if we tried.

"Our home is gone,"Sonya mumbled.

"It is,"I said, almost silently.

"Everything we've built is destroyed. Our years of hard work and suffering, and for what? For one night of panic and destruction. It's gone. It's all gone!"She yelled, angrily kicking at the snow. It sat there as cold and frozen as ever.

"We can't sit around any longer. If everything is that unpredictable then we need to leave. Go gather what you can from the list. Meet me out here in an hour,"Harriet ordered. A few girls were still in shock at just how bad it was.

"This is going to be the worst skate ever,"Minnie mumbled from next to me. I looked at my friend. She was already up and making comments. Then again she would treat almost dying like a joke.
I gently hugged her. She seemed surprised at my burst of affection but hugged me back.

"I thought I lost you,"I whispered.

"It'll take more than a Shade to get rid of me. Go get your stuff now, and don't worry to much about direction. There's a few things we haven't told you."

"Besides the dead Shade,"I blurted without thinking.

"Uh, yeah. That explains what Harriet heard in the forest now. Work on your sleuthing skills. They're no good right now,"She teased. I rolled my eyes before affectionately patting my friends shoulder. "Wow. Two forms of touch in one day. I should risk dying more often."

I gave her a look, and she put her hands up in surrender. She walked away with a small limp. It wasn't as bad as it could be, but it still worried me. Anything that could slow you down was. "Don't worry so much Y/N. Everything will be just fine. You've got this. You were the Keeper of Skaters for a reason,"She reassured me, looking back and grinning.

I nodded my head but didn't tell her that wasn't what I was worried about. I was concerned about whether or not my friends would make it out.

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I was relieved that our stuff went untouched. I held my journal close to me and opened its pages one last time. There were so many good memories I hadn't looked back on.