Warped, My Vision

Chapter Four

A/N: More unrevised shit for you guys to read~

Aaron's mom pulls the car into a small, mostly empty, parking lot. We silently pull our bags out of the trunk and walk into the dimly lit lobby. There's a glossy-eyed hotel worker standing behind the desk, glancing vacantly into space.

"Excuse me, sir?" Ambre Light asks, timidly. He blinks and shakes his head, refocusing his gaze on the short asian lady.

"Sorry. How may I help you?"

"We'd like two rooms..." I zoned out as the two exchanged information and key cards. Eventually, We were shuffling back outside, up the stairs, and into our rooms. Carrie shoved a key card into my hands, and unlocked the door, shepherding me through.

"You alright?" she asks.

"No." I collapse onto the bed furthest from the door, already knowing that Carrie wants the one closest to the exit.

"Can I help?"

"I don't think so. Are you okay?"

"No."

"Can I help?"

"I don't know anymore." She sits down on her bed, and drops her bags, unlacing her boots with callused fingers. "I'm going to take a shower," she says, hesitating, waiting for me to get up and say that I need the bathroom before she showers. Carrie shuffles towards the bathroom, then disappears.

xXx

When she gets out of the shower, now wearing a pair of sweats and a hoodie, I'm still lying faceup on my bed, trying not to think too hard. She silently gets into the other bed and plugs her phone in.

"Zach...What did you say to your parents?"

"I left them a note, and sent them a text an hour after we hit the road, apologizing."

"Apologizing, huh? Just like Aaron..." she trailed off, almost not sure to regret what she said. I sighed. It's funny, though. He's done nothing but apologize for what he's done, but when he up and leaves, he the onlys words he leaves for us to find are some kind of clues in some hellish version of a scavenger hunt.

"I guess so. They called me while you were in the shower."

"What'd they say?"

"They mostly yelled at me in Spanish. Then my mom calmed down and grudgingly told me to come home safe by the end of the break."

"That's...not bad."

"Yeah, I expected them to be a lot more pissed." I roll off my bed and quietly stumble into the bathroom, locking the door.

xXx

The next morning we sleepily pile back into the car and pick up a pitiful breakfast at McDonalds. Another hour of humming silence passes, and Miss Light pulls over to the side of the road next to a slightly less dilapidated house than the first. There are woods surrounding the house. Aaron was right, the bark of the trees is an eerie bone white in the light of the sunrise.

None of the tree have any leaves, giving the impression of skeletons against the bloody light on the horizon.

We get out and silently follow Miss Light. She walks straight into the woods. Every hundred feet or so, she stops for a moment, hesitating. Glistening dew clings to the plant life under our feet. For a moment, I forget where I am and suddenly find myself walking through a field of blood and bone where the twigs crunch under my shoes. Eventually, after walking for what felt like a singular eternity, we find a tree that looks older than the rest. It's significantly wider and taller than the others, and has a short, but large enough for a human, especially a child, hole near the bottom of the trunk.

I glance at it for a moment, then stoop, and push myself through wordlessly. The inside of the trunk is smooth and firm, not soft from decay, but there are small divots in the flesh of the dead tree, and I use them to pull myself up.

I get to the top, and and sit on the edge, careful not to fall. There is a piece of paper stapled to branch a few inches from my head. I carefully remove it as it flutters in the silent wind.

"But still you wake and know the truth, no one's there." Another line from the same song. How many times am I going to have to chase your cryptic-ass messages, Aaron?I get back down to the forest floor. Carrie and Aaron's mom don't look up from what they're studying on the bark of a different tree. I walk over, and nearly drop my slip of paper.

Written in what looks like blood, are the words "What is this warped illusion my reality has become?"

"Is-Is that blood?" I ask, making Carrie and Miss Light turn around.

"I...I think so," Carrie says quietly, trying not to disturb anything with her words. I numbly hand her the slip of paper. Is this what we've come this far for? He's dead. That's his blood on the tree, and this is just some hellish scavenger hunt to find his body. Who the hell am I kidding? The last note doesn't lead anywhere. It's just a note to tell us he's finally gone. He's gone. He slipped away, and I can't reach out anymore. All I can do is follow him.

Somewhere above us, the wind rushes through the bare tree branches.

xXx

We're back in the car. No one's talking. Where are we going to go? Ambre Light doesn't seem to know. She hasn't even turned on the car yet.

"What do we do?" Carrie says. Her voice sounds small and vulnerable.

"We have to find him." I don't want to say anything to Aaron's mom. He's probably dead. What are we looking for? The body? I don't know if I would be strong enough to do that.

"We don't know that that was his blood. We're still looking, and I know where we have to go next."

"Where?" I ask.

"The note you found. Did Aaron tell you about when he would wake up in the middle of the night and walk around outside?" The way she put it, it took me a moment to realize that he had told me that story. It sounded almost trivial.

"The barn?"

"The barn." She turns the key in the ignition. Carrie's face in the mirror looks completely lost. I'm not sure if it's because she didn't understand our conversation, or if she's just lost.

I think we're all lost, now, and just following words we can't trust.