Emerged In Darkness

Chapter 5

"Saran? Saran! Saran, please wake up!" A voice begged in her ear.

Saran startled awake and sat up, breathing hard. Everything was disorienting and confusing. This didn't look like the old house. Where was she? What was going on? And where was Ethan?

"Saran? Saran? Are you okay?" The voice spoke again, worried.

Sluggishly, she turned to look beside her.

The man was bruised and bloody. The first thing she noticed was how pale he was. She gathered it must have been from blood loss because the amount of blood on his clothes was exceedingly large. His dark brown hair was almost indistinguishable from the black goo that was in it. But there was something oddly familiar about his features. Almost like they were apart of her somehow.

Saran almost opened her mouth to say she didn't know him until she looked in his eyes.

They were a deep blue, like an ocean and so gorgeous. And the gentle, brotherly concern in them had looked at her so many times before.

Mason.

Tears dripped from her eyes as she sat up to hug him tightly.

"Oh my gosh, you're alive. You're really alive," She mumbled as she cried into his shoulder. Mason smiled and hugged her back.

"I missed you too kiddo. I missed you too."

They stayed that way for several minutes before Mason decided to pull back, frowning.

"Wait, what are you doing here? You shouldn't be here."

"I know but...I couldn't help it. I needed to find you. I searched and searched. You didn't leave anything behind when you left and it made it nearly impossible to find you. But I just, I couldn't give up. I had to find you. I had to. And I'm glad I was determined. If I hadn't read that article and remembered that you had talked about going down here and being by yourself, then I would have never found you," Saran breathed, tears streaking down her face.

Mason laughed softly.

"And how did you know that I'd be here, huh?" His deep voice took on an amused tone.

"It was only a guess to say that you were here and you were alive but it was right. I was right. And now that I found you, we can finally leave. I met this guy, he can help us leave. His name is Ethan and-"

As Saran rambled on and on, she completely missed the look on her brother's face. She didn't notice the pain, or the sadness, or the hurt. And by the time that she had finished talking, it was gone. Mason was just smiling softly at her, chuckling.

"Well, I should have known that my little sister wouldn't have just let it go. You always were stubborn, you know that?"

She smiled, tearfully. "And if I hadn't been stubborn, I would have never found out where you were."

Mason closed his eyes and chuckled under his breath before moving to help her up. As he helped her up from the bed that she was on, Saran got a good luck at her surroundings.

She was back in the Baker's house again. It sounded almost crazy for her to know exactly where she was, but the atmosphere was so familiar. It was filled with death, and anger, and insanity. And no matter how far she went, she could never forget that. Never.

But the room she was in wasn't one that she had been in before though.

The room looked as if, at one point, it had belonged to children.

It was spilt half and half in two different colors.

The left side, the side she was on, was green and looked as if a boy had been living there. Medals and trophies lined the walls and shelves. Puzzles lay scattered around the bed. The mess and disorganization were on a level that only a boy could achieve. The same could not be said for the right side.