No Longer Dead

10

"YOU BASTARD!" I scream. I stand up and pounce on the man with the glasses; grabbing his gun and yanking it from his hand. We topple to the ground and I grab the man's glasses and snap them in half. I take one of the lenses and break it in half and start to stab and carve into the man; his shouts and screams becoming music to my ears. I jab one of the broken pieces of glass into his left eye and force it deeper with my fist. He screams and tries to tear me off him. He grabs his gun from my hand and blindly shoots, the bullet burying into my shoulder. I feel the impact, but no pain. I continue to beat him as I reach for his gun, but Hoodie beats me to it and grabs it from the man.

I look down at him, left eye spurting with blood and tears, and I stand up and ask Hoodie for the gun. Someone from behind wraps their arm around my neck and pulls me backwards and I shout and tear at the arm. Hoodie points the gun at the person behind me and pulls the trigger. The grip on my neck slacks and the person drops to the floor. I look down at the floor where the man with the glasses was, but he's gone.

"SHIT!" I scream.

"We can't worry about that man right now! Masky is dying!" Hoodie shouts. I quickly turn around back to Masky who looks paler than ever. We run over to him and I scoop him up in my arms and we run full speed back to camp.

"Hang o-on, Masky. W-we're almo-ost there." I say. When we break into the clearing, Hoodie shouts for help and Clockwork comes running toward us with Jane and Slender. Jeff watches as I set Masky down on the ground and approaches me afterwards.

"What happened?!" He asks.

"Masky was shot by the man with the glasses." I say. Jeff takes notice of the gun in Hoodie's hands and the blood all over mine.

"Did you kill him?" He asks.

"Almost." I say. "He had someone with him who tried to strangle me."

"Toby, you're not stuttering." Jeff points out.

"Is that really important right now?!" I holler.

"I need someone to go into town and get some medical stuff for me." Clockwork says. "I know it's risky, but unless we want Masky to die, we have to."

"Are you insane?!" Ben snarls. "That could lead to more of us dead!"

"I'll do i-it." I say.

Everyone turns to me and gawks.

"I-I'm the m-most normal l-looking out of everyone h-h-here." I say. "I-I'll wear o-one of th-those medical m-masks."

"That's a good idea." LJ says. "While you're at it, get killed!"

"LJ!" Jeff snarls.

"Think about it, Jeff! He's probably the most wanted and looked for out of all of us at the moment! His mother is looking for him, the man with the glasses is looking for him, the police are looking for him, hell, probably the military is looking for him! We can't let him do that!" LJ snaps.

"I'll risk my life if it means Masky will live!" I shout over LJ and Jeff bickering. They look at me and Clockwork places her hand on my shoulder.

"Toby, you're shot." She says.

"So?!" I snap.

"I need to take care of it before you go into town, you're bleeding out." She says. I sigh and nod my head. She has me take off my shirt and she pulls out some medical tweezers from her current medical kit that is just about empty. I notice there's already a bloody bullet in there.

"D-did you take o-out Masky's a-a-already?" I ask.

"While everyone was bickering, yes." She says. I stare at her as she digs the tweezers into my shoulder and pulls out the bullet. I don't flinch once as she does so, and I can tell she feels grateful I can't feel pain. She quickly stitches up my would and places a bandage over it and looks into my eyes. "I'm sorry about what I said the other day."

"I-I-its okay." I say. She smiles and kisses my cheek before taking a wipe and wiping off the blood on my face and hands.

"You'll need this." She pulls out a medical mask and I take off my scarf and put the mask on. "And a new shirt. Yours is bloody."

"I have an extra hoodie I never wear." Jeff says. "It's too clean."

~~~

I shove my hands into the white hoodie's pockets and I make my way out of the forest. I look everywhere before I step out of the forest and I hurry away from the trees and into town. People don't stare at me, which is different, as I walk passed them and I enter a nearby Walmart.

I hurry through the store to the medicine isle and I gather everything on the list Clockwork gave me. I head to the cash register and pay for everything before hurrying out of the store and back towards the forest.

On my way, I spot a poster on a telephone pole with my face on it.

MISSING:
Tobias Erin Rogers
25 years of age
Dark brown hair, brown eyes, Caucasian male.
Went missing 8/7/16

I glare at the poster and rip it from the pole before crumpling it up and tossing it into the trash.

~~~

I hurry back into the forest and back to camp where I hand Clockwork the bag of medical items. I take the mask off and pull off Jeff's spare hoodie and put my normal clothes back on. Masky is even paler and he coughs; blood spurting from his mouth.

Hoodie is sitting by him, gripping his hand, and telling him, "It's all going to be okay, you're going to live. Just hold on longer."

Clockwork gets to work fixing up Masky and I can't bring myself to watch him as he suffers through it all.