The Ivy Walls

Chapter 12

The image at the top is a monster I'm gonna introduce later. I drew her. Her name is Sarah O'Neil. She is an original character. This is what she looks like. (:

As the group was packing up the camp, the energy was light and happy. Mickey nodded at Dale when he saw him pull his sleeves down and flashed him a sweet smile. Dale felt safer just at the sight. He looked over at Jesse and ran over to him

"Morning!" He said with a smile. Jesse looked at him and stopped moving for a moment. He's been crying. Jesse knew just by the look in Dale's eyes, that he had been crying last night. "You were crying last night weren't you." Jesse stated more then asked. Dale was shocked. He had in fact been crying the previous night. Talking with Mickey and showing him his scars had brought back memories he'd much rather forget. It became too much for him and he cried silently and added new scars to his 'collection'.

"Did you sleep at all last night?" Jesse asked, placing his index finger and thumb on Dale's chin and examining the dark bags forming under his eyes. "Yeah. Of course I did. And to answer your question before, no I wasn't crying last night, just allergies." Dale replied, obviously lying through his teeth. Jesse eyed him for a moment but decided to just drop it for now and ask him about it later. "Ok."

~

"Ugh! I'm sick of this whole, turning right, thing! It feels like we're just walking in circles!" Fin shouted in annoyances. "I hate to agree with him but I agree." Teddi sighed. "Ok let's go straight for the next one, then left after that. We can take a break after that." Gwen suggested, more stated though as she just started walking before anyone could object. Everyone kept walking until they realised Owen hadn't moved an inch. 

"Owen? What's wrong?" Mickey asked, walking over to him. Owen stood still, seemingly in a daze. "Owen?" Mickey waved his hand in front of his face. No reaction. He tapped his shoulder to see if that would do anything. Owen practically jumped the height of Mickey. "Gah! OH my gosh, you scared me!' He exclaimed. "You ok? You kinda zoned out there." Mickey rubbed his shoulder assuringly. "I thought I heard something, like a whisper or something. It was probably nothing. I just got scared since I felt like we were being followed before. Sorry." He explained with an apologetic smile and walked up to Fin so they could continue walking.

"You're such a weirdo Owen, ya know that?" Fin scowled. "Oh, thank you!" Owen thanked with a genuine smile. "That wasn't a compliment.", "I took it as a compliment. Weird doesn't have to be a bad thing!" Owen said, annoyingly optimistically, according to Fin. "Whatever." Fin was in a bad mood for some reason, probably his hair wasn't styled how he wanted or something petty like that. 

The group sat down in a circle to take a break and eat some food. The topic of conversation had changed to everyones goals now. "So, if you had a goal in mind for while you're in this maze, what would it be?" Teddi asked the group, "And don't say 'to get out of here' cuz that's lame". she added. "Gwen first." Teddi was going to make her way around the circle. "Uhh, I guess my goal would be to kick that Linwood guy's ass." Gwen said with a grin. 

"Dale what would yours be?", "Mine would be to kill as many monsters we come across." Everyone looked at Dale with confusion, since he was always the nice one, never willing to hurt a fly. "Ok, Owen, what wpuld yours be?", "Um, my goal isn't as violent as yours since I don't like hurting people, so I would want to just get out of here.  I know my mum would be really worried and I want to see my sister before she passes on, ya know?". 

Everyone was shocked. "I'm so sorry about your sister. How long does she have left?" Fin asked in a surprisingly soft tone as he walked over to give Owen a hug. Owen sniffed as tears welled in his eyes, "Five months is what the doctors said.", "Then we'll get out of here before then, I'll make sure of it.". No one spoke for a moment. They were all stunned. No one knew Owen was dealing with that. And no one knew Fin could be nice.

"Well shit. I didn't realise Finny here could be so nice." Teddi said sarcastically, punching Fin's arm. "Yeah whatever Ted.", "So, Fin, what would your goal be?" Owen asked curiously. "To get us outta here and get you to your sister within five months.", "How long have we been here anyways?" Dale asked. "About 6 months." Jesse replied. "Also my goal would be to just survive this hell hole." He mentioned before anyone could ask. "Ok, Mickey how about you?" Gwen turned to Mickey. "My goal is to keep you all safe until we get out of here." He said with a reasurring smile. "Ew, why so sweet and motherly for?" Fin asked, disgusted at the pure kindness from Mickey.

The group laughed and continued their break. "Hey guys? Did you hear that?" Owen asked, putting down his water bottle to focus on whatever he had just heard. "I think I just heard a girl giggling." Jesse said. They all quietened to hear the supposed giggles. They waited a few more minutes. A sudden chill ran through the whole group. A high pitched girl's giggle echoed throughout the walls. The hairs on the backs of their necks stood on end. Everyone packed up their bags and began creeping towards the source of the noise.

They slowly turned a corner and stopped. In the middle of the corridor stood a little girl, roughly 8 years old, wearing a dirty nightgown with messy hair and blood and dirt smeared across her face, arms and legs. Most of the blood didn't look to be hers. She had large eyes with cat-like pupils. She wa holding something behind her back. No one moved. The girl didn't move either, yet a high pitched cackle emanated from her. Her mouth didn't even move, yet they knew it was coming from her.

"Hello? Little girl? Are you ok?" Dale asked, taking a step forward. Just like the other tentacle monster they encountered, dark black tentacles emerged from her back and headed directly for Dale. "DALE! NOT AGAIN!" Teddi shouted as she lurched forward and shoved him out of the way. The tentacle missed and hit the wall next to them. "Again!?! What do you mean again!?" Jesse yelled as he ran to help them up. 

"We ran into a monster like this before. He had slimy black tentacles just like this monster. He injured Dale really bad last time." Teddi replied as quickly as she could while helping Dale up. A trickle of blood was running from his scalp somewhere to his eyebrow. 

The little devil girl grinned and let out a piercing shriek, once again, without moving her doll-like lips. This fight wasn't going to be easy.

Ok so I know this took ages for me to upload, I've been working on this since I uploaded the last chapter but motivation has been out the window recently. I was planning on making this a long chapter (2500 - 3000 words) but I knew that would take a long time to achieve and I felt bad for making you guys waiting. So sorry for the long wait, I'm gonna start working on chapter 13 as soon as I publish this one. Hope you enjoyed.

Word count: 1301