To Survive without the Guardians

Chapter 5: The Exchange

The next couple weeks passed fairly uneventfully for Haven Avery. Her parents gave her phone back after one week with Matt's number deleted from it, but it appeared they also had teachers spying on her for a little while. The faculty would always make eye contact with her in the hallways whenever she passed them, a look on their faces that said, "You better stay clear of that boy." This wasn't the first time her mom had used the other staff in the building to watch her, but this was the first time she began to think of them almost as her enemies. They usually liked her and were often kind to her, but now the whole building gave off a prison-like vibe. She hadn't particularly enjoyed school aside from the socialization before now, despite what everyone seemed to think because of her high grades. The stalking made her not like it even more.

Fortunately, however, by the end of the second week, they had stopped, her parents probably satisfied that no more attempts at communicating with Matt had been made. But Micah was certainly not satisfied with the situation. The nine-year-old kept on asking her in private about Matt even though Haven refused to give her much information so that she wouldn't have much to spill or hide if questioned. Haven only told her that she couldn't text with him anymore, nothing else, and the repeated questioning got quite irritating.

When September 5th finally arrived, however, the teen's excitement for talking to someone who also saw the shadow ghost people was at its peak. She left her house once she got home, telling her dad she was meeting up with a friend. Hanging out with people wasn't an unusual occurrence for her, especially on a Friday like that day.

It took her about twenty-five minutes to walk to Matt's grandpa's house. The residence was near a gravel road through a forest, and anyone brought there with a blindfold over his or her eyes could easily be led to believe that it was in the middle of nowhere. That was perfect. People weren't very common in middle-of-nowhere places, and that meant no one would tell on her to her parents.

*\*\*\*

Matt was already waiting for her on a wooden rocking chair on the porch of the single-story structure, and he walked toward her once he saw her.

"Follow me," he called, and he gestured for her to go into the woods past the house with him. As soon as she ran over, he led the way into the forest, which was neither chokingly thick nor incredibly sparse.

They passed a variety of trees as they ventured further from the road and deeper into the wild. Once they could no longer see any man-made structures, Haven began talking.

"Where are we going?" she asked. "Will it take too much longer to get there?"

Matt shrugged. "I don't know, I just want to get a little farther away. Just to be sure."

"I doubt anyone will hear us back here," Haven said. "We're far enough already."

Matt shook his head. "No. People might still be able to spot us if they looked hard enough." Haven sighed, looking restless. "Don't worry. I know where we are."

"I never thought you didn't," Haven said. Matt then assumed that she was probably just excited.

For the next few minutes, they never spoke, the only sounds they could hear being the wind, the wildlife, and their own footsteps. It was peaceful, really. Matt liked to be back here where there was no one around to judge him for thinking the demons were real.

Soon, the two teens came to a steeply-sloped ravine-like thing that stretched across their path, a hundred feet long with a creek at the bottom. The formation wasn't more than twelve feet deep, though, but getting down it would be such a rough journey that Matt had never attempted it before. There was a sufficient enough space around the water that it wouldn't feel cramped, however.

Matt pointed at the hole. "Down there. No one will find us down there." He and Haven, nodding, walked over to it and started making their way down, steadying themselves by holding onto tree trunks, branches, and large rocks. It was tricky, however. Matt managed to make it unscathed aside from some soil on his hands and a scratch on his leg from a particularly sharp branch, but Haven tripped and fell the last few feet. Matt stifled a laugh as she stood up and brushed the dirt from her clothes, glaring at the ground.

"So, where should we begin?" she asked, sounding peeved.

"What all have you done to try to get rid of them?" Matt asked. "The demons? I've tried so many things- used any sort of weapon or anything I could get ahold of, even things that aren't exactly 'dangerous'. (I could go through a whole list if you want.) But none of them did anything but make the spirits split apart, and they just came back together again. I couldn't trap them, either." Haven gave him a shocked stare.

"I've only tried to fight them with a knife and my fists," she said slowly. "My parents won't let me touch anything more than a butter knife anymore." She paused for a second. "Have they ever hurt you? The shadow ghost people, or demons as you call them?" Matt lowered his gaze to the thin scab on his arm he had obtained the previous day before the girl corrected herself. "Anything that scarred?"

Matt shook his head. "No, you?"

Haven nodded and stuck out her right hand with her palm down, then pointed to a thin white line on her wrist. "They did this when I was nine and tried to prove that they weren't real by not running from them. They had started haunting me a year before."

Matt frowned. "They started chasing me when I was ten."

"Let's sit down somewhere," Haven said. "How about those rocks?" She pointed to two seat-sized cement-colored ones a little ways down the stream.

Matt shrugged. "I guess." They carefully made their way over, being wary of the uneven terrain. Fortunately, it wasn't too far.

"Well, what should we do now?" Haven asked. "We have to make our parents believe us that they're real, and they just can't see them like we can. When I was younger, some of the kids in my class said that they could see them, too, but then they stopped after about a year."

Matt gave her a curious look. "That never happened to me." He paused. "No one at school has ever even listened when I tried to tell them all the reasons why the demons are real, like how 'hallucinating' is the only symptom of psychosis I have. Most actual hallucinators have more than that."

"Yeah. And none of the medications they once tried to give me made me not do it as much," Haven added. Matt nodded. It was like that for him, too.

"The only person who will take me somewhat seriously is my Grandpa Sloan," he said. "Whenever I tell him about the demons, he just tells me to prove it. He doesn't try to convince me that they're just hallucinations. Maybe you seeing them too will make him believe me, and then he can help us convince other people."

Haven's eyes lit up. "Really? I'd love to get my parents off my back! And drive." 

Her gaze suddenly shifted to further down the creak. "Hey, what's in that cave over there?" She pointed to a person-sized hole in the side of the cliff that was closest to civilization. It looked like something was written inside it, from what Matt could see.

He shrugged. "I don't know. I've never been down here before."

Haven raised an eyebrow. "I thought you knew the place."

"I've never been here before. I never thought it would be worth the effort. We can just go see what it is right now."

The two teens stood up and walked over to the cave. It was an easier journey than the last one, for the ravine was wider here. In fact, right across from the cave was what looked like a not-so-treacherous way to ascend should they desire to go up on the side opposite the one they came down. It was jarringly less vertical than the way they had come, like someone had taken a giant shovel and scooped a huge chunk out of the cliff.

Haven reached the cave first, being a few feet ahead of Matt.

"What the heck?" she said, then turned on her phone's flashlight mode and leaped into the cave, its floor being only a couple feet lower than the ravine's approximate depth.

"What?" Matt said, jogging the remaining distance and looking down into the hole. "What the heck?" He joined her in the cave, also pulling out his phone for lighting.