To Survive without the Guardians

Chapter 4: The Other

Matt Sloan waited restlessly after obtaining another cut to his body, this time on his other hand, for the blond girl to return. He had never expected for someone else to be able to see the demons. He had thought that maybe they kept themselves only visible to him to torment him more, or that he had some sort of ability that allowed him to see what others couldn't. It was amazing to know that there was someone else out there who believed that they existed, if only because she could see them herself.

He saw the teenage girl, about a head shorter than he, turn a corner and stride up to him. The hallways were empty, void of others and their gossip. The bell had already rung for eighth hour to begin, but they would've been late without their meeting anyway because of the demons or "shadow ghost people" as she had called them.

Her gaze drifted down to his bleeding hand.

"You know, if you acted more afraid, they wouldn't hurt you as bad."

Matt crossed his arms and grinned. "I'd rather not give them the satisfaction."

She looked like she was about to protest but kept her mouth shut.

"Who are you, anyway?" Matt asked.

"I'm Haven. Haven Avery. And I already know who you are."

Matt gave a slight smile. "I'll pretend that's not creepy." Haven returned the expression. "What are your experiences with the demons?" the dark-haired boy then asked. "What all have you done to try to stop them?"

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a teacher in a nearby classroom cast nervous looks at the two of them. Haven glanced in the teacher's direction.

"We should talk later," she said. "After school. I don't think the faculty wants us to be with each other and encourage our 'hallucinations'." She made quotation marks in the air. "Give me your number, and I'll give you mine."

"Okay." They exchanged phones, typed in their numbers, and handed them back before parting to go to their classes.

*}{*}{*}{*

When Matt arrived home that day, he headed straight to his room. He then pulled out his homework and pencil out of his backpack and his phone out of his pocket. He frowned as he tried to think of how to start the conversation with Haven. Eventually, he just typed out "Hello" and pressed the send button.

He started on his math homework while he waited on a reply, but not very much time had passed before he heard his phone vibrate with a response.

"Hi!" was what Haven had said, the word accompanied by a grinning emoji. He almost cringed at such overfriendliness. However, she could see the demons, and that was what mattered. She hadn't acted too terribly earlier, anyway.

His fingers hovered over the virtual keys of his cell phone before typing, "What do you know about the demons?" Within a few seconds, he saw the three moving dots appear on her side of the screen. He decided that it might take a while for her to type it out, so he turned off his phone and continued to work on his homework. However, when he turned it back on again after about ten minutes to see if he had missed a text notification, she still hadn't replied, and the dots were gone. What was she doing? She had responded so enthusiastically the first time. Was she as fake as the others like her?

He pressed the power button again and soon finished the little homework he had that day. Afterward, he pulled up YouTube on his laptop and watched random videos. He did this until it was time for dinner, but he still hadn't gotten a response from Haven by then.

"Matt! Juliana! Stephen! Supper's ready!" his mom announced rather loudly down the hall, and eating passed without anything out of the usual. Twelve-year-old Stephen bolted back into his room as soon as he was finished to play more Minecraft. Fourteen-year-old Juliana spoke enthusiastically about art, her obsession of the month, and rehashed supposedly funny moments from school. Their parents nodded and smiled along with her and prompted some speech from their other two children.

Matt said nothing unless he was spoken to, and his mind kept wandering to Haven. He checked his phone several times throughout the meal, but there was still no sign of her. Maybe she really had just lied about the demons and was now uncomfortable since she had to make up an elaborate story about them. Ire burned in his chest as he left the table when he was finished and went back to his room.

Juliana marched up to him a couple hours later. "Matt! Look what I just made!" She held something out from behind her back, probably a drawing of some sort, and continued to ramble on, her speech slightly different than others' from her repaired cleft palate even after many years of therapy.

Matt didn't even bother to look up. "I really don't care, Juliana," he said, being less politely tolerant than usual because of his anger and sorrow. "You'll throw it away next month anyway." He sensed her frown.

"No, I think I might actually have a talent here!"

Matt made an incredulous expression. "You said that last month with cooking." He glanced back at Juliana to see her glaring at him with her dark eyes. Although she, Matt, and Stephen were all from China, they weren't related biologically, no matter how many times people thought so before seeing their Caucasian parents. That didn't mean Matt didn't think of them as his real family, however. And real siblings could be pretty annoying.

"But I'm serious this time."

"Of course you are."

*}{*}{*}{*

At school the next day, Matt was extra reclusive, shrinking away from all voluntary forms of social contact. He would recover from Haven's lies eventually, but today was not the day. He looked upon cheerful laughing girls with extra resentment. When would one of their kind try to lie to him again? Haven hadn't been the first, but he could usually tell. She, however, had actually had a reaction to the demons showing up and appeared to know a thing or two about them. She had been a surprise. He had actually believed her. But he knew better now.

On the way to his last class of the day, though, his brooding was halted by the traitor herself walking up to him with a guilty look in her eye, her gaze constantly shifting to everyone else around her.

"I'm sorry I couldn't reply to you," Haven said in a low voice before he could shove his way past her. "The other teachers told my mom (she teaches regular Senior English here) about what we had done. She texted my dad to take my phone away." Matt gave her a skeptical look, but her excuse made sense. His parents probably wouldn't be too thrilled about him talking to someone who "hallucinated" the same thing as he and believed her "hallucinations" were real, either. "We need to meet another time in person, away from everyone else, to talk. Do you know any good places?"

Matt nodded. "My Grandpa Sloan owns some forest territory over by Madison Ct. We could go there. But we should probably wait a week or two before we do it, you know, to cast off suspicion about us."

"I was just gonna say that last thing," Haven said, a hint of jealousy in her voice. He had stolen her idea. "But how will we get there? I don't want my parents to see you pick me up, and I can't drive because I 'hallucinate'."

"I can't drive, either," Matt said. "You'll have to walk like I usually do. His house is the one on the right of Graystone Road when you're going towards the cul-de-sac. He probably won't mind if you wait on his porch if you're there before I am."

"But what if he sees us together?" Haven asked, sounding worried.

Matt shrugged. "It doesn't matter. He won't care. He doesn't try to convince me that the demons are just hallucinations like everyone else in my family." He didn't believe Matt, but at least he didn't go out of his way to trump the boy's thoughts about his "hallucinations." "Besides, I doubt he knows about you. You'll be fine."

Haven relaxed. "So, how about September 5th?"

"Okay. Meet me then after school." Matt then ducked into his class, the number of people in the hall dwindling as it got closer to the time when the bell usually rang for eighth hour to begin.