Nipan

Chapter 2

Arriving there he gets out of the car and walks to the middle of the bridge. He looks around but sees absolutely nothing. He jumps in the air when his phone rings. It's his mom. ''why did the school just call me and say you left class and have yet to return? Where are you?'' she says sternly. ''Mom please, I am ok, there is no need to worry or come look for me. I'm just going through some personal stuff right now.'', it doesn't stop his mother from worrying but she agrees for now and says they will talk about it first chance they get then proceeds to hang up. Evan sighs, now what? What do I do?

Jessie, who is still at school, hasn't heard of the incident yet. He gets through the school day and goes to his locker. Looking at what he now considered the books of lies and make-believe. He sees Adam and Evans other friend Oliver, they look his way and walk up to him. ''We don't know what you did with Evan, but you did something for sure.'' Oliver says angrily. 'Did something happen after all?' Jessie thinks to himself, ''What happened?'' he asks to make sure. ''After we talked to him in the cafeteria he was seen storming out of the school, the guy said he looked like he was about to pass out.'', ''Sorry guys I have no idea, during the bet last night nothing out of the ordinary happened, and I don't know if Evan takes drugs but I promise you when I was with him nothing happened.'' Jessie tries to explain. Adam believes him and tells him Evan has never taken drugs, to which Oliver nods confirming they have never seen him take any either. They talk for a while, thinking about what could be up with Evan. ''It's been nearly an hour since school ended, what are you still doing here?'' Miss Grumm asks. ''Sorry miss Grumm,'' Oliver speaks up since the rest stayed quiet, ''We were just worried about Evan since he left so suddenly''. Miss Grumm nods understandingly. ''To be fair, he has never missed a single day of class and probably still has a lot going on outside of school'' Miss Grumm tells them, ''Maybe last night just became very late for him and he didn't get enough sleep.''. They agree with her and they walk out of the school. ''Bullshit'' Adam says, ''Agreed'' Adam comments. ''Once Evan went 2 full days without sleeping, one night wouldn't do him anything.'' Oliver explains. ''So, what is going on with Evan?'' Jessie silently says to himself.

Meanwhile Evan is still at the bridge, trying to figure out why this is happening. But his train of thought comes back to Jessie. Should Evan tell him what happened? Or should he get his price first? Evan chose the latter and grabs his phone, knowing what he is going to ask of Jessie. He dials his number and waits. ''Evan? Where are you? We are all worried about you, Adam and Oliver as well.'' Jessie says as soon as he picks up the phone. ''Sorry about that, just didn't feel well, I guess. But that is not why I called, I decided your punishment for losing the bet. -'' but before Evan could continue Jessie interrupts. ''Evan, are you one hundred percent sure I lost the bet?'', ''Of course I am, now for your punishment, from everybody at school I know something others don't, except you. So, what is your biggest secret?'' Evan asks Jessie with a slight smile on his face. ''Fine, I'll tell you'' Jessie says ''but not now, I want to tell you face to face.'', to which Evan agrees.

Evan stays at the bridge, thinking about his next move. After a lot of thinking he decides to keep his hood on and cover the pointy things on his head with his hair and hide the tail as much as possible. But that seems to be difficult for him as it keeps going in every direction. It takes quite a while, but he seems to have figured out how to control the tail and he wraps around his torso under his shirt. He gets in his car and drives home. In the car he still struggles a little bit to control his tail, but he makes it work. Arriving there he sees his mother left for work. He looks down with a frown, ''I'm sorry mom'' he says to himself silently. He texts Jessie that he is now home and he should feel free to come over to tell him his secret. Jessie texts back the he is on his way, knowing where to go thanks to all the projects they had to work on together. Adam and Oliver want to come along but Jessie doesn't know them enough to trust them with his secret, this could be also be a good way to find out what is wrong with Evan. Making his way over he keeps thinking, 'what could be wrong with him? He didn't look sick'.

After a 30 minute or so walk he arrives at Evans home. He rings the doorbell and Evan lets him in. They grab a drink and head upstairs to his room. They sit down on his bed and talk about school. Evan asks if he missed anything exciting or anything homework related. ''the only homework you missed is for English class, we have to write an essay about some writer that inspires you, if you don't read books it can also be a movie director'' Evan wastes no time noting it down for later. He doesn't want to fall behind. ''By the way,'' Evan starts, ''Mind telling me that secret?''. Jessie takes a deep breath. He tells his one and only secret. ''People say I have always been single but that's not true. I had a girlfriend once.'', ''ooh lala, was she pretty, smart, fun or all of the above?'' Evan interrupts. ''Pretty and smart. But not smart enough apparently. Six months of what I thought a happy relationship. She cheated on me''. Evan looks down feeling pretty sorry for him. His first relationship and that happens. ''I mean, sure, I'm not the best at being in a relationship but I really tried you know. The reason no one knows, is because we never announced or told anyone of our relationship so there'd be no point. People would just say I am accusing her of things and that I am targeting her'', the room fell silent. ''She clearly wasn't worth it, what you need is—'' Evan gets cut off by a sharp pain on his head on the same spot as the little pointy things. He gets off the bed grabbing his head in pain. ''Are you ok? Do you need anything?'' Jessie asks him not really knowing what else to do. ''yeah I'm fine. Just a headache'' Jessie wants to say something but decides against it. After all, they weren't friends, the only reason Jessie came to his house was to tell him his secret for losing the bet. He gets a text from his mother asking where he is. He sends her a text back he is on his way home but had to stop by a classmates house to drop off homework. ''I should go, my mom is getting impatient, call me or text me if you need anything.'' he says as he makes his way to the front door. Evan doesn't follow and stays in his room.

Jessie gets home, eats dinner with his family and goes to his room, ''now I know for sure there is something wrong.'' He goes to sleep and makes sure he does some more research tomorrow. While Evan is at home looking in the mirror, looking at the now fully grown horns on his head. How was he supposed to hide them? He feels very tired and decided to call in sick the next morning.

'Wednesday' Jessie thought, 'halfway through the week'. He gets up from bed and does his usual morning routine. Only this time he woke up an hour earlier to get to the library when it opens. Yet when he arrives at school Adam informs him Evan isn't going to show up again. Jessie nods and thinks for now it's for the best. He can't have Evan know he is on to him. He spends the day doing research and not paying attention in class. He doesn't realize that at lunch he sits with Evans friends and not Maggie, he looks over his shoulder to see Maggie give him a thumbs up, thinking he is making friends. ''You know I'm glad you're sitting with us.'' Adam says, ''Now you can tell us, did anything seem off about Evan last night?'', Jessie debated if he should tell them, for now he decides not to, ''He just had a headache, maybe he ate something bad, because other than his headache he seemed fine'' the others nod and it seemed to make sense since he wasn't present today and called in sick. Though it was safe to say they seemed a little confused about how eating something bad could cause a headache. In the meantime, Evan went to the bridge, tail around his torso, horns covered by the hood of his red sweater. He walks over the bridge to the other side and into the forest he was dragged into by the strange creatures. He walks passed a bunch of trees and searches for who knows what. 'All I want is some answers' he thinks to himself. He keeps walking until he sees a small structure, he walks towards it only to see it's a church, in the middle of the woods and completely abandoned. He walks in and looks around, seems normal for a church.

He walks towards the altar to see a small fireplace all the way behind it. In front of it laid a carpet, very old and probably from the 1800's. he tried to dust it off with his foot to see what it looked like, instead he accidently kicked it and sees a trapdoor. He opens it and discovers a staircase leading down. He walks down the stairs while simultaneously taking out his phone and turning on the flashlight. Looking around the hallways around the staircase he doesn't notice the wood in front of him and faceplants straight into it. He pushes the left side of it and it opens, 'this place really like hidden doors' he silently tells himself. He walks in and is greeted by a massive room, paths of carpet leading to the middle where a pentagram was drawn. Around the walls there were candles and bookshelves covered in books about demons, angels, spirits, religion and Satan. He looks around and sees how it has been abandoned for quite a long time. The books all had a very thick layer of dust on them, the books also seemed very old and were probably older than the building and everything in it. 'Did the church above know this was under it?' Evan thinks, but that is when he realized, the church was a cover for satanic rituals. Realizing this he remembers everything from Monday night after getting dragged into the forest. He was brought to a place similar to this, but that was in the forest itself, but where?