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ATHENA LET OUT a deep breath as she finally processed everything she had just experienced.
Witnessing a vibrating tree wasn't anything compared to whatever Nancy had just experienced, but, connecting the dots between the horrifying, mangled creature she had witnessed days prior and the pulsating, blood-filled tree that Nancy was so paralysed with terror from, made Athena's heart sink to the bottom of her feet.
Her extreme apprehension was practically bordering on nauseating territory, at this point.
"That was..." Athena's, almost audible, voice trailed off shakily as she kept her blank stare on Nancy's bedroom wall, the girl currently lying on her stomach at the end of her best friend's bed, arms crossed in front of the other as her chin was comfortably resting on her wrists in front of her, a fluffy pink blanket draped over her back—her only source of comfort at the moment, apart from the fact that she had Nancy and Jonathan by her side, of course.
"Horrifying." Jonathan finished in a raspy whisper from his position sitting on the makeshift bed he made at the edge of Nancy's from a purple sleeping bag he found shoved at the back of her closet.
Nancy was currently showering, leaving Athena and Jonathan to try and visualise what Nancy could have possibly encountered in the woods.
Athena slowly nodded, eyebrows creasing inwards as she tried to find the right words to articulate her conceptualisation of the connection between the tree and the monster, her eyes still heavily set on the wall. "What the hell is going on?"
"I...don't know." Jonathan cluelessly muttered.
Athena just shifted her position, the girl moving upwards so she was now supporting her body weight with her forearms, hands lightly holding onto the curve of the mattress to hold her up and simultaneously keep her comfortable. "I didn't hallucinate the whole thing, right? I mean, you saw the tree glowing, and we actually pulled Nance from it?"
Jonathan briefly furrowed his eyebrows for a moment as he tried to reflect on the event before quickly nodding. "Yeah. Yeah, I saw it. We did."
"Okay, good." Athena blew out a sigh of reassurance as she sat up properly, the girl then standing up as she made her way to Nancy's bedroom door and gestured towards it with her thumb. "I'm gonna get some water, do you want a glass?"
"Yeah, sure, actually," Jonathan nodded, sending the girl a ghostly hint of a smile—it was the most either of them could muster at that stage—as he appreciatively continued, "Thanks."
