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(𝐒𝟏) 𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝟐𝟑

𝟏ˢᵗ 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐏𝐎𝐈𝐍𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐖.

𝐌𝐞, Ashlyn, Ben, Aiden, Taylor, and Tyler surrounded the phantom that now lost its figure and turned into a goo-like substance. I stare at in disgust.

"That's.. peculiar."

"Disgusting is more like it."

"Maybe we can turn it into stew and feed it to its buddies." I tell them as i chuckle dryly. They give me a concerned glance. I just shrug.

"What..?" I heard a familiar voice say in a questioning tone. Both me and Taylor turn to look. I smile relieved to see Logan awake, and he seemed well.

"Oh, you're up." I heard Ashlyn say. "Are feeling any better?" Taylor asked him. "..Not really-.." He trails off and his eyes widen in shock.

"What happened to it?!" He asks as he look at the phantom. "Turns out if these things are exposed to light for too long, they start to wig out and turn into goop." Aiden tells him as he chuckles before he continues on.

"Like their body starts to twist, and bubble. and spaz-.." He gets cut off by Tyler as he sees Logan start to get pale from the thought.

"Okay, stop. I think he gets the picture. Now, quit before you make him sick." He tells Aiden with disgust in his tone. "Now that he's awake.. let's talk about savannah."

"We can't keep hoping things will go back to normal on their own." Tyler tells Ashlyn sternly. "And we can't risk getting stuck here permanently." Ashlyn she says that both of the glare at each other. The rest of us just awkwardly look at them.

"Um.. going back doesn't mean we have to go to that house again, or interact with the phantoms, right? Maybe we can just search around for someone who might know something? The locals are bound to know something." Taylor tells us.

"We've been reading myths, lore, and have watched who know how many investigations about savannah these past two weeks, and still haven't found anything useful." I say as i rub my temple.

"I'll agree to avoiding that place and only searching for local information. That way we don't have to risk anything." Tyler tells us as he crosses his arms over his chest.

"I-if we don't go back to the Sorrel House, then i'm not against going to savannah." Logan tells us as he stutters slightly. Ashlyn stay quiet for a moment before looking at Ben.

"What about you, Ben?" She asks him. He starts to type on his phone before showing us. "𝐈'𝐥𝐥 𝐠𝐨 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐀𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐬." Is what he typed. Aiden then speaks up.

"Hm? I don't really care either way. Both options seem fun." We all deadpan. 'Not helpful at all..' Ashlyn then looks over at me.

"What about you (Your name)? What do you think?" She asks me. I think about it for a moment. "I say, we risk it. Though anything could go wrong we just need to be cautious and prepared." They all nod in agreement. Ashlyn then seems to go into thought before she speaks again.

"I don't think this was an accident. There's a possibility that the lady did this on purpose and we would run into her again. There might even be others like her." Tyler then interrupts her. "So you're still going against us?!" "No, I'll go but only if we wait a year." She tells him.

My eyes widen as she says that. "A year?! You want to be stuck here for a year?!" Tyler asks her shouting. "Calm down, there's no guarantee that even if we go back, we'll find a way out of here. None of us have a car or driver's license." They all stay quiet as she says that.

I raise an eyebrow at her and raise my hand. "May i remind you i have both of those." Ashlyn looks at me for a second. "You do?" "Yeah, you can ask Logan."

They then turn to look at Logan. He nods his head. "Yeah, she does. She's drove me to my grandparents flower shop." They all nod and smile. "Aside from that, i think that waiting a year will give us an advantage. So we can prepare for the worst outcome." Ashlyn tells us.

"Worst outcome..?" Logan asks her.

"Yeah, even with our precautions we could still somehow get stuck here, or have another encounter with that woman. So with a year we should train ourselves, research, and turn this place to a reliable stronghold to survive in." She explains the plan.

I nod at her reasoning. "Yeah, Ashlyn does have a point. Within a year we can complete a whole bunch of things of that sort." I say to them. She nods back. "It's about time we take this seriously." She tells us in a firm voice, that basically held authority.

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Word count; 777
April 19ᵗʰ, 2024
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EDIT;
Word count; 821
June 18ᵗʰ, 2024

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