•| Nefarious |•

14

"Oh- um right..."

Ashlyn said taking her attention off of Aiden and focusing on her parents.

"We...uh."

Ashlyn stumbled over what to say before she got up and stood in front of a lap, she held her braid up snd looked towards her parents.

"...notice anything weird about my shadow?"

Her parents gave her puzzled looks.

"Well- uh not particularly, no?"

We all looked down disappointed that they couldn't see the missing braids in the shadow.

"Are we supposed to notice something?"

Her mom asked us.

"Ah- no never mind. Forget about it."

Ashlyn rubbed the back of her neck.

"But, we do need your help. The thing is...Logan has been getting bullied. That's how he got the bruise on his cheek. I told him that you guys could probably teach him some self defense but, he's a little anxious to learn on his own, so we offered to learn with him. If you don't mind, could you teach them the basics."

She finished.

"I mean I don't mind."

Her dad looked towards his mom.

"Me neither...sounds pretty fun actually. But are all of your parents okay with that?"

She turned towards the group. We all looked at them dumbfounded, we forgot one of the most important parts of parent permission.

"Yeah- ask them first."

Her dad looked at our expression.

"I don't want any unnecessary drama from other parents when their kids start coming home with bruises."

"Got it, thanks dad."

Ashlyn responded to him.

"No problem trooper!"

We all went to the graveyard afterwards and started to work on filling supplies and getting ready for the night.

"Don't you think it's a tad ironic we chose this place as our shelter because of the high walls. Yet now we have to fortify those walls?"

Tyler poured more water into our big water container.

"Well we didn't exactly know that the phantoms would be able to climb them."

I said to him helping Ashlyn put different snacks into a container.

"And we didn't choose it just because of the walls. We have various tools and materials here, there's an electric generator, and we're able to bring items we need during the day because my dad owns it."

Ashlyn looked at the expiration dates.

"You voted the same as the rest of us did to use the graveyard, so stop whining."

Ashlyn remarked back to Tyler.

"I'm not whining, just pointing out the irony."

Tyler rested his chin on the empty jug of water.

"I'm still not sure it was worth the effort it took just to get here. Since we all woke up back at our homes, we were separated at first, so we needed a way to get everyone back together and to also find a safe place to stay."

He sat up and crossed his arms looking down.

"So you want all of us to desperately run through town to get to this graveyard place whereas you'll only have to cross your backyard."