Welcome to Nightmare Land |Complete|

Chapter twenty-two

"She's made so much progress." Dr. Thurlow smiles and the wrinkles hug the corners of her eyes. "I'm happy to see her able to go home to be with friends and family today. Ms. Victor, we have some release papers for you to sign and I'd like to go over her medications."

Ms. Victor nods and kisses Demi's head once more, causing her hair to shift slightly. It was odd to see her usually short hair grown out. She trails behind the psychiatrist and out the door. Our eyes turn back to Demi, who's been sitting quietly. Her hands firmly grasp each side of the arm rest. Her breathing is slow and her eyes look a bit tired. 

"So." Dylan begins, after a while of silence. He inches closer to nudge her. "How does it feel to finally be free?"

Demi smiles a bit as she thinks. I grin too, happy to see her looking normal again. The heavy bags under her eyes have depleted and she's put on more weight.  

For so long, I didn't know if we would have our old Demi back. 

It has been about five months since our last night at Nightmare Land. It still hurts to remember all of the events that occurred. Sometimes I try to pretend that it never happened. But every day I remember and I will always remember.

Every time I look down, I still see the faint markings etched into my chest. All of our markings are still there. We still have the picture that we took too. The picture we took when we made the biggest mistake of our lives. In the picture, all of us; Demi, Dem, Dylan, Mad, and myself has a mark. All of us except Kellan.

 His whole body is tinted red. 

"A crimson x above your heart means you're marked. But once you turn red, you're dead."

Emily's words still ring in my ears. My eyes linger on Kellan's face for a moment longer. This is the last photo he ever took. He looks bewildered but still happy. Always happy and positive. I still find it hard to believe that he is truly gone.

I feel as if our group is incomplete. With Demi being in the hospital for the last five months, the four of us has done a poor job of pretending none of this happened.

But it did happen.

We did go to Nightmare Land. We did witness two deaths at the hands of some demon-like being. We did see Demi's struggle to regain her sanity after we found her in the park.

Everything feels so bizarre as I try to recall what exactly happened to us a few months ago. It sounds like nonsense when I think about it. 

We woke up back in Markus' kitchen. We were on the floor with Emily's insomnia medication sprawled out around us. Our minds were groggy as we tried to figure out what was going on. For a moment, I felt that maybe we had dreamed or hallucinated everything collectively. For a moment, I thought that we were fine. 

But we couldn't find Kellan. 

We searched all over the house and called his phone countless times until we came to terms that he might be at Nightmare Land.