Chapter Text
October 26th 2018
Alice sat cross legged on her bed, tangled hair plastered to her face with a cold sweat. Her breath, shaky and loud, quickened as she continued to scroll through her phone, frantic. A white light beamed onto her paling face, changing from the yellow of a sunset to the blue of an ocean to the green of a forest. Her everyday Instagram feed, a perfect blend of soft natural views and wild, unfiltered moments of friendship, and, the further down she scrolled, love. The sight that once calmed the teen just upped the tension in her skull. Finally, her ever swiping thumb paused and she furrowed her brows in pain, staring at the image. The one that would haunt her forever.
A girl, her shoulder length, light brown hair scraped into a barely held together ponytail, her forehead obscured by a yellow beanie and her oversized flannel that reached her blackened fingernails draped over a friend, or so she told Alice, stood there, smiling wide and careless, mid laugh. The friend, their head tilted back while they cackled just enough to see a pink hickey planted on their lower neck, was holding one hand with the girl. It wasn’t something she and Alice would do in middle school, innocent and sweet, walking around and giggling in the playground. No, this was something else. There was something romantic about the way Deb’s cheeks grew redder at the sight of their left hand on her thigh. Something weird, something that her mother certainly wouldn’t approve of, that’s for sure. But, come to think of it, there were many things, especially her and Deb’s relationship, that her mother wouldn’t approve of. Still, Alice longed for it to be her hand clasped over Deb’s instead of Ziggs’, for it to be her smile making the usual calm and casual Deb flustered, for it to be her neck with a blossoming kiss on display for all to see.
Her phone buzzed in her hands, which were pressed against her chest, and she glanced down, unfurling from her awkward, panicked position. A text message from ‘Dad’ popped up from above the Instagram app.
‘Are you up yet, sweetie? Last day today, so I have a special surprise for you after school!!1! Lots of love, Dad’ she read aloud, breath slowing at the sight of Bill Woodward’s familiar phone number on the screen. Alice read it once more before wiping away the sweat from her forehead and hesitantly hitting the home button, sending Instagram and the memories that that photo brought with it away.
She smiled at herself, almost reassuring herself, as she pulled the hot pink cardigan Deb had given her as a birthday present. She said it had been a gift from her parents, but it hadn’t fit her style. Coincidentally, the black buttoned jacket fit hers. Alice had gratefully accepted, and wore it all day until her dad picked her up, then all evening and to bed. Even as she straightened it out, she hadn’t taken it off for more than a few hours in the wash or to sleep in years. She brushed out her unfortunately now damp hair and sighed, turning back to the phone on her bed.
Alice typed in her message slowly.
‘I’m ready, Dad. Sure it’ll be great. x’
She just had to make the rest of the day great too.
~
Lex Foster sat on the steps to her mother’s trailer, a cigarette between their teeth. The sun began to rise above the trees, flooding the whole park with a soft light. Bitter morning air clung to her tongue and she fumbled with the lighter. They watched the smoke pour out of their mouth as the heat of the lighter warmed her hands. Footsteps pattered behind her and soon her sister, only twelve years old, was crouched next to her.
Lex tossed the cigarette onto the gravel and stamped on the dying embers.
Hannah was quiet, and in most cases nonverbal. Though she barely spoke to anyone but Lex, and a select few of her sibing’s friends, the little girl’s expressions told her everything. The younger’s head fell onto the eldest Foster child’s shoulder, slumping down and curling against her, mouth in a slight frown. Lex pushed her closer, indulging in the moments they would get alone with her sister – there definitely weren’t many.
It was early, but when the school was miles from her, and the nearest tolerable friend (so that excluded Danny and Sof; however chill they were after school, both were just festering balls of angst and repressed horniness before break) with a ride is atleast thirty minutes away, the best she could do to keep sane for seven hours was to get up before the rest of that godforsaken town woke up. Plus, it had the benefit of evading her mother’s rage and being able to spend a few extra minutes with Hannah, and Lex would wake up at two if it meant that she and Hannah could be together safe.
With a sigh, they smoothed her mousy plaits out and tentatively walked off, the last moments of peace fading away, along with the sounds of her sister calling goodbye.
~
Deb woke up far later than she hoped. Surrounded by a mass of blankets, pillows and crumpled sheets, she read the neon green numbers of the digital clock to her left, head drowsy and vision blurry. As everything came into focus, another sense did too. The alarm blared and her confusion turned to dread as she read 7:50, the time she was usually heading to school.
She practically threw on a twisted, partially stained blue flannel over yesterday’s shirt, and grabbed her phone and school bag. Thankfully, she had fallen asleep in jeans, and she payed no attention to the creases in the greying denim. Shoes were strewn on the floor and she was yanking them on and slipping out in seconds. Her phone vibrated, showing a message from Ziggs, her friend and, though she had only admitted it to one person, past crush. In her opinion, they were just too cute not to like. Their spiky hair, cut short. Their love of photography and music, and the way their whole face lit up when they spoke of them. Their fashion and the way the way they flaunted themself as if they didn’t care what anyone said or thought. It was almost impossible not to blush at their wild laugh or their glowy hazel eyes. And-
However amazing they were, there was a more brilliant light in her life. Someone she adored even more than she would ever love Ziggs. Alice, her one true love. She hurriedly checked the text, hoping that this would stop her from thinking about them too much.
‘I had fun yesterday, bae. Gotta do it again, sometime ;)’
She typed out a quick ‘yep, see you soon, ziggy’ before sighing and tucking her phone away. Her heart didn’t flutter anymore: she wished she could just prove that to Alice. Shaking her head, she placed a pair of earbuds in and allowed her playlist to take her over before the day really began. By the time she reached Oakly Park, she had a cigarette between her teeth and was fumbling with the lighter. She put it out underneath her foot as she waited for the door to open. It closed with a click behind Alice Woodward, her girlfriend.
Her eyes were visibly reddened underneath light makeup, and she didn’t speak, just declining the pack and tossing her hair over part of her face and crossing her arms. They walked in almost silence, Deb wrapping her arm around Alice as soon as they were past her father’s watchful eye. Quiet comfort enveloped the two, the kind only Deb could bring and only Alice could tolerate. Midway through, as they avoided ‘Death by Karen’ with Linda Monroe’s speeding Rolls Royce, the gentle breeze picked up, swaying Alice’s hair to one side, revealing a red nose and cheeks, and not just from the bitter cold. She glanced up, brown eyes laced with tears, and hung her head low. Deb pressed a kiss to her cheek, and even Alice noticed the blush adorning her face.
She didn’t see Alice again until second period, gazing into her English book with glassy eyes. The clock hands crept agonisingly slowly towards eleven; the words on the whiteboard blended together and concentrating on the analysis instead of Alice’s hidden face made her heart and head ache. As the second hand flickered past eleven, she practically leapt out of her seat to the pink clad girl.
“Ali, what’s up?” she kept walking through the flood of students. The doors burst open and she stopped at the field, their friend group’s usual meeting place. Alice stared up at her, eyes brimming. Wiping her face with her overhanging sleeve she said, voice hoarse and angry, “Are you cheating on me?”
Deb expected it, but her heart still shattered at the words and her expression turned crestfallen. Her girlfriend continued, fluctuating between rage and despair.
“Cause I saw the way you and Ziggy look at each other, and I-I just, I’ll never be good enough for you will I? They’ll always be smarter, or better looking or just better than me? You always promise you’re not, and you always lie,” Alice was sobbing by then, sinking into Deb’s arms by pure habit. She ran her fingers through her tangled hair. Her heart pulled in sympathy.
“I’m not, I swear, Al, and I never will,” she swore, tucking the girl’s hair behind her ear. Alice, clinging to the fabric of the flannel, lifted her head up, face pained, and whispered, “prove it.”
She smiled softly and pressed their mouths together, blushing into the kiss.
~
Ethan hit the brakes on his car, wincing at the screeching, and let Lex and their sister clambered in. They muttered under her breath something about ‘this stupid town’ and leaned back over their seat to see Hannah curled up against the window, mumbling what he thought was nonsense, probably to Webby. In the several years since he met Lex and her sister, Webby had only become more and more of a prominent figure in the little girl’s life, even if she was imaginary.
“Hey, Han,” Lex said, voice soft, as always with Hannah, “Is today a good day or a bad day?” she waited for an answer, watching Hannah’s face twist a bit in thought.
“Bad day,” Lex looked puzzled, and Ethan, glancing over, could see a hint of worry in her pale green eyes. They hadn’t often got a negative answer. Before either could question, Hannah said, tone flat and face blank, “blue blood, strike, apotheosis.”
Cryptic. The eldest Foster furrowed their eyebrows, wondering what that could mean. Knowing ‘Webby’, it was probably nothing. Probably. She nodded and mumbled “I’ll keep that in mind, Banana.”
The journey was normal, the people were normal, the whole fifteen minutes was normal, and the whole regularity of it was starting to get unnerving. But, while the car progressed through Hatchetfield, the eeriness grew like a storm, gathering and darkening.
A few scattered juniors started singing a song from the school musical. Beatrice Goldstein, the nature loving daughter of a local attorney (and, rumour has it, Linda Monroe) stroked the face of a hyper freshman. Lex snorted.
“Isn’t that your cousin, Eth?” Their boyfriend turned to the side to see Oliver Greene, getting passionately kissed by Bea. He immediately snapped back, cheeks red with second hand embarrassment and eyes looking like they wanted nothing more than to unsee that. She stifled a laugh at his face. Their worry was pushed to the back of their mind. Both relaxed into the worn seats.
At the sight of Hatchetfield Middle glowering in the distance, Ethan slowed the car and waved Hannah goodbye. She stood on the pavement, ‘stubborn as ever’ Ethan thought. Lex mouthed “sorry” and ushered her to the front gates, kissing her forehead before rushing back into the car and approached their school gates themselves, parting to get to their respective classes.
History first – she inwardly groaned.
First and second period dragged on eternally, and by the forty minute mark of science, she was slumped over at her desk, barely awake, wishing she had skipped. Grace Chastity’s optimistic smiles from beside them only made their eyes droop further downwards. For a split second, she closed her eyes, and her whole vision went blue. A little girl, an azure stained jacket spread across her thin frame and her eyes glowing a frightfully contrasting orange flashed by. A lanky figure with a mask moulded into their face, leaking…something stood before a sky lit up by lightning, branching off. Whatever the substance bleeding from their face was, it was luminous and spilled out from every hole in it. A group, surrounded by the same coloured lightning but instead of the bodies seemingly being in control of it, it was striking them in all directions and they were kneeling on the floor with their eyes flickering blue, then orange, their mouths stretched wide in silent screams. A row, no, a crowd of people watched in the distance with awaiting grins on their faces, the only visible feature being neon grins and eyes.
She awoke clutching her throbbing head. Blinking away whatever nightmare their mind had conjured up for not paying attention, they noticed the room fade back into its clinical grey self. With the returning vision, her hearing came back in time to hear a shriek of ‘Alexandra’ from the teacher. They just managed to suppress an eye roll.
~
Alice melted into Deb’s strong hold, basking in these moments of pure bliss that was her girlfriend’s embrace. Her whole word was tinted pink, like the colour of the cardigan she wore or the colour of the blush that dusted her cheeks whenever she and Deb were talking. She could have stayed right there forever, but something caught her attention. From her place tucked into Deb’s arms she had a clear view of the ugly overgrown field, decaying trees lining the pitch and damp grass planted to the ground with the hundreds of shoes that walked over it. The emptiness provided their group a perfect hangout. But this time it wasn’t empty.
Students were performing, high energy and loud (oh god, so loud, too loud). Their perfect pitched voices rang throughout the grounds, and Alice could swear she heard the same fast pace tinkling of keys from the school musical, but there was no piano and the audio was too real to be from a phone or CD player. A kid separated from the group. He was scrawny with platinum blond hair, and his pale face was only highlighted by his fear. He inched towards them, a quivering lip visible from the whole field away. She couldn’t hear him over a chorus of voices, all speaking in unison. The boy shook his head frantically and stepped backwards, but before he could get even a foot away they swarmed him, circling him closer and closer until she was sure he would suffocate- Alice gasped. They all screamed in satisfaction as the person in the centre lifted up the head of the boy. She could almost laugh at how fake it looked (right? Please let it be fake, pleasegodplease) but there was no sight of the child as they paraded off with his limbs leaving a trail of scarlet behind them.
Alice forced herself from the soft warmth of Deb and ran, vomiting into the nearest trash can. A hand swept her hair into a ponytail and muttered kind words to her. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve and let Lex pull her onto the bench next to it. They watched the clock for a moment and said “We’re gonna go down to the bleachers steada theatre, wanna come?”
She was too distracted by the imprint that the sight of them tearing the fragile freshman’s body apart like paper left that she said yes without hesitation.
They were met by Ethan Greene, the leather wearing softie, Deb, who must have ran there as soon as she saw, Sof and Danny, two of the worst people to ever exist, despite them being close friends, and Ziggs, someone she would rather leave in a ditch to rot than share a conversation with, despite them being one of the nicest members of the group.
She sat cross legged on the ground as they passed Deb’s cigarettes around. For a few minutes, she forgot about the blood and the guts and the death, and sat, the awkward position becoming more relaxed with time as she leaned her head on Deb’s shoulder.
That was when it all went to hell.