CRYBABY -

- (1)

"HI THERE, ASH." HAZEL GREETED Ashlyn as she sat next to her on the school bus, making a rubber-band web.

"Hey, Ash." Aiden said from behind them. "Last night was rough, huh?" He unzipped his backpack and held out a paper sheet. "Finished the homework. Wanna copy?" He offered to the both of them, but Hazel shook her head and Ash took it.

"Hazel?" He silently questioned if she needed it.

"No, but thanks. I already finished the homework, like, a week ago." She hummed absentmindedly, still focused on the rubber-band web.

"I don't know how you do it." Ashlyn groaned, her eyes skimming through the paper Aiden gave her.

"Oh, it's not that hard. I'll help you next time, yeah?"

"Oh, oh, oh, me too." Aiden perked up. "There's this huge test on Friday, I think, can't even remember. You gotta help me."

"Yeah, okay. Ben, you too?" She called, but didn't see a nod or a phone with a message, Ben was out cold.

"Oh, good morning—" Mr. Thomas, their teacher, cut himself off when he saw the teenagers by the door, who looked completely dead.

Tyler and Logan looked like just as dead as the standing teenagers did, and Taylor was face-planted on her desk.

"Everyone, get your homework out, please." Mr. Thomas sighed.

By the time the bell rang, Hazel almost fell out of her chair. Aiden stood above her and poked at her forehead. "We're all eating lunch together, to talk about 'stuff.' You're coming." He decided.

"Yeah." Hazel groaned, stretching and cracking her back. "Let's go."

Everybody sat around in silence, a few of them picking at their food uncomfortably. "I think we should go back to Savannah." Tyler cut off the silence.

"I thought everyone agreed it was too dangerous...?" Logan hesitated.

"So what? We're just supposed to let things stay the way they are?" The brunet pointed out.

"I'd rather be semi-stuck than permanently stuck." Ashlyn argued.

"Well, maybe if you would have told us from the beginning, we wouldn't be stuck at all!" Tyler practically shouted.

Ashlyn scoffed. "I already explained why I didn't—"

"Tyler, frankly, I don't think any of us would have believed her if she said something." Hazel, for once, spoke up and defended her red haired friend.

"Whether I believed it or not, she should have said something!" Tyler yelled and stood up abruptly, making Hazel flinch at the sudden change of tone.

"Now we're stuck in some demonic dimension, running away from flesh-eating monsters, I've lost count how many near-death experiences I've had, none of us have slept in days, we can't tell our parents or any—"

BAM! Ben slammed his fist against the table to make Tyler shut up, which he succeeded. They were getting a lot of unwanted attention, and Logan and Hazel were most likely about to cry (they cry when the other cries, it's complicated).

He put a finger on his lips to basically say, "shut the fuck up," which made Tyler offended, but he did as he was told. "If we don't go back to Savannah where this cycle began..." He sat back down and calmed down. "What else are we supposed to do?"

Everybody got quiet again, Hazel wiping the tiny tear drops from her eyes before they fell.

TWO WEEKS AGO

"When's Mom coming home?" Hazel's little brother, Leo, took a bite of his bagel and asked. Natalia Novak was...a very busy woman, she wasn't home often.

"Mom's got two more weeks in California, Leo." She replied, slipping a few books into her bag. "Dad's gonna be home around 5:00, maybe 5:30, so you'll have to ask Mrs. Henderson to take you and Elios home, okay?"

"Uh-huh." Leo hummed.

After a moment of silence, Hazel could tell something didn't feel right. It was too silent. "Leo."

"Huh?"

"Where's Elios?" She asked quietly.

Before Leo could answer, a brunet twelve year old boy — one who looked almost identical to Leo, just with more freckles — came down the stairs. "I didn't leave this time, calm down for once." Elios groaned.

Elios had...an odd tendency to run away for a certain amount of time, nobody would hear from him for a few days. He'd give Hazel and their father, Francis, complete heart attacks every time, so when he was constantly out of their eye sights, both of them would panic quickly.

"Good." Hazel instantly calmed down and sighed. Then, bells started ringing in her head. "I'm late. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck." She started scrambling throughout the house, putting books and things in hers and her brothers' bags.

"You have everything? You can get to school on your own, right?" She asked from the hallway, turning all the lights off.

"Yeah."

"Uh-huh."

"Good. Okay, uhm...." She ran her fingers through a section of her hair anxiously while thinking, asking herself if there was anything she'd forgotten. "Okay! My bus is outside, don't forget to lock the doors when you leave, don't forget to ask Mrs. Henderson for a ride home, and...there are snacks in the pantry in case you get hungry and Dad and I aren't home yet."

"Uh-huh." Elios said, looking completely bored, and Leo just nodded.

Hazel tapped them both on their heads twice before sprinting outside the house and running after the bus, a red haired girl doing the same from about a block away.