Under the Floorboards

Chapter 16: The end.

I roll over onto a bed of leaves, my eyes flutter open to the morning sun. To my surprise, I find Nina, Zane, Alaska, and Damon sound asleep in a neat line. I gasp, sitting up in pain. I'm still covered in scrapes and bruises, my insides twist as I find that it isn't a dream after all. "Nina! Zane! Alaska! Damon! Wake up, guys! Wake up!" I scramble over to them, breathless and alarmed.

A few groans let out as they roll around for a few moments. Soon, they are all gasping and sitting up quickly. Nina covers her mouth as she begins to sob. I glance around, finding that we are still in the middle of the woods, just outside of the house property line. I stare at the old house in horror, knowing that my friends are somehow stuck in there while we are out here. Alive.

"We're out?" Zane observes quickly, pain etched in his voice.

"Yeah," Alaska whispers, curling her knees to her chest.

"Oh no. But they're still in there..." Damon whimpers, sniffling as he stands up. He scoops up a rock, bawling his fist around it before swinging his arm back and chucking it into the remainder of a window of the house. The grass shatters quickly, stabbing my eardrums, bringing back memories of mirrors and monsters. They'll haunt me until death, that I am sure of.

Nina charges at the house, screaming and crying as she flails her arms. Then she says his name. My heart skips a beat, my body tenses up. "Chase," is the name she's screaming. Zane scrambles to his feet, Damon follows him as they book it after Nina.

Alaska and I wince as they grab ahold of her. "Hey. Shh. It's okay. We will get them back," yhe both of them repeat rapidly towards Nina. I bury my face into my hands, thinking of all of my friends inside. Thinking of my boyfriend. Mark. My uncle. Cole. My best friends. Almost all of them. Trapped.

After a few moments, Nina's flailing body is motionless. Her sobs run away into the trees, being lost from anyone outside of them.

After some convincing, Zane and Damon get the rest of us to begin walking home. We don't bring up what happened inside, don't even acknowledge thoughts about it. We just plan. Plan on how we'll get our friends back. And once we do, we'll burn the house. Burn it to the ground.

"We'll come back for them. We will go back inside and we will save them. We just need to find out more, before we go back inside," I direct, explaining my theories. Nina and I take turns explaining what we had figured out inside, the fact that they aren't gone, only trapped. They are still alive. Somehow, somewhere.

I think about him. Mark. I think about how he is probably thinking about me. I think about the first time I met him, the first time our lips touched. I think about his hobbies, his secrets, everything I know that no one else does. I imagine him beside me, somehow taking some of my pain away. I think about his hair, his eyes, his lips. Everything about him, I imagine the slightest detail. Everything I remember, I will go home and write down so I'll never forget. I'll never forget the way his lips curve in just the right angle when he smiles. The way his brown eyes reach into mine, telling me things his mouth can't. The way his hands are soft, even when sweaty. I remember everything. I remember seeing him for the last time. 

Once out of the woods, reality strikes us. We'll go home tonight. We'll drown away the pain with sleep and tears, enough tears to fill an ocean, an ocean I imagine floating away in. Away from this place, away from the nothingness inside of me. We'll go home and we'll live our lives, missing some of the things we love most. And we'll plan. We'll research. We'll figure out every last thing we can about the house. Every person who ever disappeared inside, every person who made it out. We'll find the survivors, we'll save everyone stuck. We'll burn it to the ground for good. We'll end the suffering and the pain, we'll take back what is rightfully ours.

Life buzzes around us, cars drive and people walk. It hurts inside, to see the normality. Nothing changes around us. We are unnoticed to the world. No one knows that the kids that don't show up to school the next day might never show up again. No one knows that the few that do, are slowly dying inside. Like a ticking time bomb, destined to go off at any given moment.

Everything hurts. Physically and mentally I feel as though I am already dead, the hope inside of me is the only thing that keeps me going. "Go home. Google everything. Research everything you can. We will go back soon, we will get them back," Zane nods as he speaks quietly.

So we go home, crash onto our beds. Wait for the bomb inside of us to stop ticking.

    Until next time,
        THE END.