Attached [Rewritten Version]

12. Patterns

Thursday, October 6th, 2016

After a few days of research, it was hard for Sid to focus on anything other than the woods, and the fact they were haunted by the ghost of a nine-year-old girl who went missing exactly 54 years before, to the day. Sid couldn't help but feeling sad for the fact that it was probably the exact date she died, and all they had done for days, was scaring her off with knifes to get some decent sleep.

It worked, since Sid knew what to expect if he would show her a knife, but she hadn't shown herself ever since he stayed with the Bray family. In fact, the problem had shifted back to Cory as soon as Davy had started sleeping in the same room too. The boy was able to handle it quite alright—he had done it for two years after all—but it didn't feel fair at all.

But Sid didn't say anything about it since he was dealing with hearing her throughout the day more and more often. She seemed ever so present in school, following him around class. For the most part, Sid was scared her influence on him would grow, the stronger their connection got. But a tiny part of him didn't exactly mind hearing a ghost; she had on separate occasions helped him out by telling him the right answer to a question. Once when a teacher noticed he wasn't paying attention, and it prevented him from getting sent out of class, and once during a test.

Sid wasn't so much scared of the nine-year-old any longer. If she wanted to harm them purposefully, wouldn't she have done it already? No, in fact, Sid genuinely felt like she just wanted to be found, like Amber had suggested. She had left him alone once he had made it clear he couldn't help her.

Still, the least they could do, was try and find as much information about her case—or other cases—as possible, and perhaps offer an answer to the pranging question: who killed her? Maybe finding her killer would give her enough peace to help her pass over.

"Where's Ed?" Sid asked, as he walked up to Cory, Amber and Annika focusing on printed articles about disappearances throughout the past 350 years. "Ed's classes finished an hour ago."

"Yeah, he went home," Amber replied, rolling her eyes, "and so did Amara. I don't know what crawled up their asses, but they've been ruining my vibe all week already."

"Why though?" Sid frowned as he sat down in between Cory and Annika, "not being haunted by a ghost? Or us not having time to play his lame videogames right now, because of said infestation?" He had noticed they both hadn't sat with them during lunch for two days, but that day they did join. Though they had been silently texting each other for the biggest part.

Both, probably.

Sid had to stop himself from smirking when he heard Angela reply to his questions. He really didn't want to acknowledge her presence in any way. That would probably only strengthen her connection and she was still a ghost trying to send him on a suicide mission. It was best to ignore her and maintain his distance.

Well, except when she saved his ass in class, maybe.

"Whatever the reason, it isn't important right now," Annika said, holding up her hand to ask for attention. "I waited until Sid and Davy were present, but Davy is stuck in detention, so I'll fill him in later. We've looked into more disappearances for the past hour, and I've noticed two things."

Sid couldn't help but love her slightly more than he already did for her mind. She was the Hermione in their group, and he was glad she was on their side.

"We already established it seems like there were always six children who went missing, and it shows up in more years. There're indeed always six children. They're never over the age of eighteen."

"Patterns are interesting," Amber mumbled, "I found hints that suggest there have been devil's worshippers in the woods for decades already. Sounds like some sort of ritual."