To Survive without the Guardians

Chapter 8: The Sources

A couple of days later, Matt half-listened to his Junior English teacher while he thought about what had happened on Wednesday. Another person was attacked by the demons? He was still ecstatic, no matter how irritating one of her "friends" was. How many more of their kind were out there?

The bell soon rang, interrupting his thoughts, and he put his things away, got up from his seat, and began walking down the hall toward lunch. He sighed, however, when he saw a plastic table propped up in a corner and a familiar annoying person sitting at it with a stack of papers in front of her. He didn't even care what was on them this time.

"Hey!" Beth Howard said as he and a few others tried to walk past her, her brown eyes scanning the area with fire for victims. She jumped in front of them, blocking their path. "I'm..." She saw Matt and locked eyes with him as the ferocity from her gaze dimmed. "Do I know you from somewhere?"

"No," Matt replied. "Can you please move? I'm pretty hungry, and I..."

"Like, did you and I ever talk over the summer?" She looked him over.

"No."

"Are you sure?"

Her hand flew up to her head as she gasped in pain. "Because I think we did. I don't remember what happened over the summer, but I feel like you have something to do with it."

"Um...yeah, I'm sure...?" Matt said, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

Beth's eyes suddenly glazed over, and her body began to shake. "So, I guess we've found you. You've been gone and forgotten almost since the beginning of the summer."

Everyone backed up as she let out another cry of pain and almost tripped over her own feet as she stepped closer to him. Someone said they were going to go get the nurse. Matt just stood there staring, not sure if he should run or listen, be terrified or curious. Something about what she was saying was catching his attention.

"Gone?" Beth continued, this time in a lower voice. "What do you mean, 'gone'?" 

Just then, May or Cynthia- Matt didn't see them often enough to tell which- entered the hallway and caught Beth just as she fell. The black-haired girl's eyes suddenly focused again, and she began breathing hard, looking stunned and confused.

"What happened?" she asked, her voice resuming its normal pitch. "What happened?"

"I don't know," Matt said as people cleared a path for the school nurse, and he darted off towards the cafeteria.

*}{/*}{/*}{/*

"Hey, did you hear what happened to Beth Howard?" Lauryn asked after school that day, taking a sip of her milkshake at McDonald's. "She went all, like, possessed or something."

"Possessed?" Johnsie asked. "Did she, like, grow three heads?"

Lauryn shook her head. "No. She thought she knew this one guy from somewhere, and then she started acting real funny and saying stuff in different voices."

"Didn't you say she got a concussion and forgot her summer break or something?" Haven asked.

"Yeah, that's right!" Lauryn said. "She thought she might have talked to him during the summer, and then she went insane, saying stuff about people being gone and nobody remembering them."

"Do you know who triggered her?" Allison asked.

"Some tall Asian dude," Lauryn responded. This caught Haven's attention.

"What was his name?" she asked. "Was it 'Matt' by any chance?"

Lauryn shrugged. "I don't know. No, wait...I think it was. Yeah, that sounds familiar."