Attached [Rewritten Version]

17. Glowing

Tuesday, October 11th, 2016

After getting permission from their parents to spend the night at the Bray's residence, Sid had picked Cory up at home to guide him towards their home. Cory was understandably nervous, but Davy's confident attitude made him feel slightly better. He had been silent for most of the evening, obviously not knowing how to act around Janet and Carlo—Annika and Davy's parents. Sid had told himself he needed to invite Cory over more often, to show him that he was just as much welcome as the rest of his friends.

But it wasn't important in that moment. Because that evening, they had been looking further into the woods and its history, and Davy and Cory would try to aim for a stronger connection with Angie, hopefully enabling them to see her during the day as well.

Sid himself was nervous too, and that hadn't been solved by Davy's confidence. He still clearly remembered how he felt when Angie had left him briefly, to show him what to look out for. He didn't ever want to feel like that again.

And now Angie wouldn't be present to protect him for at least a couple of hours. Hours in which he would be vulnerable.

But it was important. The more people Angie had to share information with, the bigger the chance was that they would find out what was going on, and how to stop it from haunting Sid. Besides, it would be a lot easier if he didn't constantly have to pass on her words to everyone; Cory and Davy could do the same once they managed to make a strong enough connection.

When they eventually settled for the night, Sid was slightly trembling with nerves, and Annika was doing her best to comfort him. It just wasn't helping at all, since Sid still didn't understand how Annika was going to keep the shadow away. But he tried pushing it to the back of his mind, pulled her in his arms, and tried to catch some sleep, knowing it was going to be a challenge to fall asleep.

As expected, Annika fell asleep before he did, leaving him more nervous than he already had been.

He didn't know how much time had passed before he did manage to fall asleep, but when he did, his dream was weird from the beginning. For starters, Angie wasn't there and after so many nights in a row of dreaming with her, it felt lonely.

He did dream about the woods, but he didn't recognize the place he was at from when they had been in the woods. By now, he knew enough to know there were some cabins spread throughout the woods, and he was standing in front of one of them. There was no way of telling which one, Lake Ranger Cabin, or Hunters Lodge. The rest of the cabins—The Devlin Cabins—were grouped alongside the lake, and that wasn't where he was at.

It felt as if he wasn't dreaming his own dream, as he watched a man get out of the cabin in the dark, with a riffle in hand. Without having a choice, he was forced to follow along as the man walked away from the cabin, down a path that led slightly uphill.

It felt like hours as he was forced to follow him through the woods, until the man went off path, walked for another few minutes, and settled close by a river. His vision blurred, until it went dark, and he suddenly stood in a different part of the forest. The man was hiding behind a tree, when his vision blurred again, and he saw quick flashes of the man in different places of the woods, until he heard a shot being fired. Everything he saw turned red, as if washed over by blood, while his vision focused on a different man, on the ground, with a single shot wound through his chest.

Sid wanted to scream, yell, call out for help, when darkness started to creep up from all sides. Another collection of images from the first man flashed in front of his eyes, the guy now covered in blood as he stared at him with glowing red eyes, laughing like a maniac.

He had no way of getting away from the darkness, as the black smoke rolled over the ground, closer towards him, engulfing the man in its path. It swallowed the guy who was shot, and Sid felt his chest tighten, as breathing became more difficult every second. An immense sense of hatred and anger washed over him, followed by the worst sadness he could imagine. One that made him want to jump of a cliff to just end everything right there and then.