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Dream had been acting weird ever since they had taken a break. George knew what his best friend (maybe more? They haven’t talked about it yet) was like. He was loud, but in a good way. He always showed too much concern on more dangerous occasions like this one. He was a leader who kept them all safe, assertive and confident. He was Dream.
He hadn’t been acting like himself since that break. He had been quiet. He was way more reserved than he usually was in front of any of his friends. It seemed like he was angry and on edge each time they made him answer. It wasn’t like him.
George had tried to talk to him, but Dream had just shrugged him off, rolling his eyes. Dream hardly ever actually got annoyed with him. Yeah, if it was Sapnap, it would make more sense. But him? It never really happened that often.
George had tried to shake it off. Dream was just nervous. He was just worried about the state of the building they were in.
There had been a lot of demonic activity tonight. From equipment completely freaking out, to hearing disembodied voices, there had been a lot going on. George has had his fair share of heart attacks tonight so far. A particularly creepy session with the Estes method had left him on edge for a while. There had been a lot of shit in that conversation that had just completely rubbed him the wrong way.
It just seemed really evil in his opinion. Nothing about the spirits that they were speaking to seemed nice at all. George really didn’t like this place. He would be happy when they finally called it a night. To his annoyance though, they were staying the night in this building.
George had the EMF reader in his right hand. He was fiddling with it, trying to get rid of the nerves. They had just set up for another investigation in the bathroom.
The story behind this background was pretty dark. When they had been telling it to the camera, George had shivered thinking about it. It was terrible. A man and a woman stayed here together. They were apparently boyfriend and girlfriend, but there wasn’t enough information on the situation to be positive. She had been showering when he came in with a knife. She had been stabbed six times and her body was only found four days later when people came looking for her.
George tried to shake off another shiver as he thought about it. This whole place went way farther back than that one murder. An ancient mansion in the middle of the forest was likely to have a lot of backstory, and this one certainly did. This murder was just one of the more recent cases. Not that recent though, renting this place out had been stopped decades ago now.
George cracked his neck softly, trying to rid his body of some of the tension inside of it. Sapnap was crouched down beside him, trying to set up the camera at a decent angle. Sam and Bad were messing with the flashlights that they had set out. Sam moved to the backpack to grab the rem pod out of it, placing it in the doorway. The room beyond this one was dark. George shivered again softly. He really wasn’t much of a fear and adrenaline person. He did this because of curiosity and for the sake of his friends. It was also nice to be rich.
George looked over at Dream who was standing with his foot tapping against the floor rapidly. He was staring out the door into the darkness. It was almost as if he could see something that George couldn’t. It put the older on edge as he again glanced through the doorway at the darkness. There was nothing there. Why was Dream so transfixed on it?
George walked over to Dream, lightly knocking him with his shoulder trying to pull him out of whatever trance he was in. Dream blinked. The tension in his body flooded out immediately. Dream looked at him.
“What?”
George frowned.
“Are you okay?” George asked softly.
“Why would I not be okay?”
The passive aggression was back. George’s frown deepened on his face. Dream was never this short tempered with him, even when he actually deserved it. Let alone when he was just asking him if he was alright.
“You were staring,” George told him, “do you see something.”
Dream looked back out at the darkness, something flickering in his eyes that George couldn’t recognize. Dream’s gaze hardened.
“No,” He scoffed slightly with the answer, “it’s nothing. Just zoning out a bit.”
George nodded at the seemingly normal answer. Dream didn’t typically zone out while they were filming. While editing? Sure. While hanging out off camera? Sure. But he was always in highest attention during these videos trying to look out for them. It was weird.
Dream shook his head beside him, blinking his eyes again. George frowned. He looked wrong. He looked like something was off.
“Dream are you sure-“
“Okay are we ready to start this investigation?” Dream interrupted him, stepping away from George and closer to the camera and the rest of the group. Sapnap looked up with a grin.
“Yeah, let's go!”
George sat down on the side of the bathtub. The room wasn’t very big, but it was enough for all five of them to have a comfortable amount of space. Not that they weren’t all pushed together trying to keep their fears at bay. They would never be able to do this alone. It was too horrifying. At least to George it was.
Dream sat down on the opposite side as him. It was about as far away from George that he could manage to get. George felt a small bit of hurt in his chest along with the confusion. Why was Dream acting like this? Did he do something to bother him? Was Dream mad at him?
The camera was clicked on as Sapnap went over to sit by Dream. The younger began talking about what they were going to do. They had the flashlights set up on the sink. The rem pod set up in the door. They were going to put Sam under.
George didn’t know why something felt so off this time. They had done so much like this before. It was never a big deal. Something was wrong though. Something wasn’t right and it was making his stomach uneasy.
“You ready?” He heard Bad ask Sam. Sam nodded, pulling his blindfold into his face and putting the headphones on. George watched Bad press his thigh against Sam in a comforting manner. A small reminder that they were right here. That he wasn’t alone.
None of them were alone. It would be okay. George tried to take a deep breath, calming the nerves crawling through him. Something still felt so wrong. He lightly picked the edge of his fingernail watching Sam as he began to speak.
“Danger.”
Well that wasn’t good. That was not what you wanted to hear as you started a session. He made eye contact with Sapnap. The other looked at him with slight concern in his eyes before asking a question.
“Are we in danger?”
It was very direct. A scary question, but one they had to ask to gauge the situation.
“..yes? Kinda?”
George furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. How was the answer kind of? That wasn’t enough. They needed to know more.
“Is everyone here kind of in danger?”
George asked the next question. He wondered if the spirit meant that only one of them was in danger. His eyes fell back upon Dream. The younger boy was staring again and George huffed slightly.
“Yes.”
So it wasn’t only one of them. Interesting. George tried to shake his worry for Dream away. He was just tired. Maybe sick. It wasn’t like he was in anymore danger than anyone here. For some reason the fact that all of them were fucked was easier to take than one of them being fucked.
“Why are we in danger?”
It was Bad who asked the next question. He was still pressed against Sam. He was slightly shivering now. Whether it was from the fear, or the chill in this room, George didn’t know.
“Evil.”
George felt a shiver run down his spine. He knew that they were working with something bad, but every time that he heard it made him want to be sick. He heard Sapnap suck in a small breath.
“Can this evil actually hurt us? Or is it just trying to scare us?”
It was a fair question. One that made sense. A lot of the time all these darker spirits just tried to feed off of the fear they caused. They would try and scare people for fear. They didn’t really actually hurt people. Cases like that weren’t as likely, although not impossible. Take the conjuring house for example.
“Hurt. Run.”
George flinched as there was a crash from outside the room. It wasn’t that loud, but it was definitely something. It was almost as if something was knocked off a desk. His heart started pounding in his chest as he looked back at Sapnap. The younger's eyes were blown wide in fear.
“Too late. Too late.”
Sam repeated. His leg was tapping against the floor rapidly. George looked from Sapnap and Bad to the door and back. His heart was still pounding against his ribs. What the hell did ‘too late’ mean? What the fuck does that mean?
“What does that mean?”
George asked. He didn’t really want to know. He wanted to just ignore it, but he couldn’t. It wasn’t safe. This wasn’t safe. George pressed himself closer to Bad.
“Already done. Damage done.”
Sam’s words make him feel slightly sick. He still didn’t understand. He still didn’t understand what exactly whoever was talking to them meant. None of them seemed hurt right now. Nothing was wrong.
George paused. He shot his head up to look at Dream. Dream who hadn’t said a word the whole investigation, even though he usually led them. Dream who was staring into where the noise came from. Dream who was shaking rapidly beside Sapnap.
His eyes were blown wide and George couldn’t see him breathing from where he was. Oh fuck. His body was so tense, yet trembling at the same time.
“Dream?”
At his question, both Sapnap and Bad turned their heads to Dream. Immediately Bad was tapping Sam out of the Estes method and Sapnap was worriedly moving closer to Dream. Dream wasn’t responding to any of them. He was staring into the darkness again.
George cursed instantly turning the flashlights on trying to light up the room. He slammed the door to the room shut and almost all of them in the room jumped.
Dream eyes glazed over. George watched his gaze become far away. Without warning, Dream’s body jerked violently. He crumpled backwards from where he was sitting against the tub. Sapnap jumped forward, trying to catch his body before his head hit the hard tile. Luckily, Sapnap caught him in time. He pulled Dream’s body forward and set him down on the floor.
“What’s happening?” Sapnap gasped with fear. Dream was shaking uncontrollably. His body violently trembled on the floor. Dreams face twisted, his jaw clenching in an unnatural grimace.
“I don’t know,” George replied, calling beside Dream on the floor.
A low guttural sound escaped Dream, like a choked gasp, his chest rising and falling with labored breaths. He looked pale and his breaths were too short.
“It looks like a seizure,” Bad whispered out, his voice thick with fear.
Bad moved down beside them, pulling off his hoodie and placing it beneath Dream’s head, trying to make sure we wouldn’t hit it against the floor.
Sam was standing over them still. George could see the fear written onto all of their faces. Dream still wasn’t responding to him. George felt terror clawing at his heart as he watched Dream jerk on the floor.
A thin line of drool slipped from the corner of Dream's mouth, unnoticed as his body trembled.
“What do we do?” Sapnap’s voice trembled. He looked up at Bad, a silent ask for help from the older man.
“We wait,” Bad sighed, “we can’t do anything until he stops seizing.”
Bad moved forward. He pushed Dream over to lay on his side before pulling Dream’s body closer to him. He cradled Dream’s head in his lap, softly brushing his bangs out of his face.
Each second dragged on, the jerking movements relentless. It felt like hours were passing, but it was only moments.
Eventually the jerking and trembles seemed to slow down. Dream lay still now, chest rising and falling with ragged breaths. His eyes fluttered open, unfocused, as though he had just woken up from a terrible nightmare.
George hovered over him. He called Dream’s name softly, but the other just looked at him with confusion. There was slight relief in his heart at the seizures' end. He didn’t know if it would start again though. He didn’t know what caused the seizure in the first place. George looked around them.
They needed to get out of here. It wasn’t safe for any of them here. George breathed.
“We need to leave,” he breathed out. Sapnap looked at him with concern and confusion.
“This happened right after the Estes stuff. I don’t want him here. I don’t want any of us here,” George gasped out, grabbing the backpack as he stood up, “Bad can you carry him?” The older man looked down at Dream and back up to him, nodding. Bad pulled Dream up into his arms, a hand under his shoulder and under his knees.
Sapnap grabbed the camera. Sam grabbed the rest of the equipment and their flashlight. George grabbed the other.
He opened the door, as much as he was scared that he would find something he didn’t want to. He shined the flashlight around the room and walked into it, the team following quickly behind him.
They didn’t hesitate getting themselves to the car. They hadn’t gotten their bags out of the vehicle anyway. Dream still wasn’t speaking, they laid him along the backseat. George and Bad sat by him, while Sapnap and Sam took the front.
They got to a hotel late that night. It wasn’t too nice, but it would do. They all piled up into one bed, holding each other close. Dream was talking again now. He may have cried a little, unable to remember the majority of the night, but they all held him through it.
George was scared. They all were. But they would get out of this. They would get through this together. He knew they would.
And if they had fallen asleep crammed in the same bed all together, as they had so many times before, then that was for them to know.