Paradise

Broken Confessions - Part 5

"C'mon, guys!" Hazel started to run. "We ha-have to set clues! We only have a day!"

"I don't want to." Kaye lowered her eyes. "I'm not feeling it, Hazel."

"Not feeling it?! Kaye, this isn't me telling you to go to the mall or something! This is life or death!" Hazel stopped in her tracks.

"I'm with her." Haru sighed. "I can't get myself motivated at all. Just... The thought of loosing Yushiro, even in our memories... I can't handle it."

Hazel looked at Will, hoping for some help with getting Haru up. 'I'm sorry.' Will mouthed and shook her head. She kneeled down to comfort Haru.

"Guys..." Joshua looked around at the team. Now, everyone else was started to look hopeless and upset. "We can do this!"

"There's no point. We'll just die in the end." Tracy frowned. "I just can't wait to forget about all of this."

"She's right. Let's just... forget the pain." Aniah started to walk away. "I'm gonna try to take a nap. Is anyone with me?"

'Haru and I are coming.' Will held up her notepad. She lightly hugged Haru and helped her stand. Haru, this time, was silent.

Tracy, Gabu, Kaye and Jessie also walked back to the safe room.

"They just abandoned us!" Hazel kicked one of the stairs.

"They can't be blamed..." Joshua frowned. "They're scared."

"Joshua, there's only two of us! What were they all thinking?! That monster killed Yushiro!" Hazel fumed.

"Hazel, shut up!" Joshua hissed as he heard more footsteps.

"Yo." The Mimic calmly walked by the foot of the stairs. It looked like Yushiro. "Havin' fun making as much noise as possible?"

"G-get away!" Hazel screamed and fell back.

"Eh, no point in killing you guys here. That's SUPER boring. However, I would suggest you don't let me catch you again." It smiled a big, teethy grin. "I might not be so nice."

Both Hazel and Joshua were speechless. Looking for a way to hide clues could be a game of life or death inside this already evolving and changing game.

"Future us,

Save yourselves! You idiots are gonna try to reason with the monster or find a way out. Though finding a way out would be ideal, that's probably not how it's gonna go. Someone's gonna die at least once a week. Think about that. Dead. I can't write too much or the monster will destroy this if he finds it immediately. I'm just giving you some advice from someone who just found their friend's dead body. Don't die.

Good luck, Hazel."

"Dear friends,

Hey. Hopefully you find this quickly. I need to tell you something. The monster, it can change into anyone it's touched. If you get separated with someone and then find them again, check both their eyes carefully. The monster seems to have much lighter, almost white irises. Watch out for that.

Be careful, Joshua."

Hazel looked over at Joshua after reading over each other's letters. They were in the library, hoping to hide the papers in the books so that the Mimic wouldn't find them.

"I think your letter looks fine." Joshua said.

"Same." Hazel said. "Wanna head back right after hiding these?"

"Yeah."

They arrived at the bottom of the latter to find a bit of hysteria. Tracy and Aniah had both started to freak out apparently. Willow was trying to calm them down, since that was something she was fairly good at, but her muteness had handicapped her. Trying to write things quickly enough so that they wouldn't start crying again was difficult. When the other two arrived in the room, she had already started crying from what she described as "the overwhelming amount of pressure that comes from having intense emotions in a supernatural setting and not being able to express them in spoken word" and "having a bubble that's impossible to burst that simply wells in your chest unable to explode until you do from pressure".

Sadie looked Willow straight in the eye and said, "I can't pretend to understand what this mansion has done to the rest of your life, but I can tell you that, more than anyone else in the world, I love you. I feel like I'm on Cloud 9 when I'm with you, and I hate to see you cry. Please, don't cry, okay?"

Willow smiled and kissed her. 'I really, really love you back.' She wrote and added a small smiley face.

"I'm glad." They hugged tightly.

The other's clapped and laughed. It was a pretty lame confession triggered by Willow's anxiety, but it was adorable and the others loved it.

Then they looked at the clock. To their horror, most of the day was gone. They only had an hour left.

'Haru, I don't wanna loose you!' She wrote on her notepad. It sounded a bit sappy, but they were both freaking out.

"It's okay." Haru smiled and patted her head. "Maybe this is all a dream." Willow was exhausted and eventually fell asleep on Haru's lap on the couch.

Too bad she wouldn't wake up like this.