Butterfly

007- Monster Hunting

"Nancy! Jonathan!" Teddy screamed, running around the dark forest searching desperately for her friends and trying to get away from the lanky monster that stood before her.

"Teddy!" She heard her name in the distance.

As she ran her name seemed to grow louder and she could finally pick out the voices. It was the two friends she herself was calling desperately for. They seemed to be right on top of her, but they were nowhere to be seen. That's when she spotted the tree that she had come through.

"Teddy!"

Nancy ran towards it as quickly as possible, crawling through the slimy area as quickly as she had gone through it the first time. Two hands reached out for her, and she grabbed them. They pulled her out, and Teddy lay on the ground, not wanting to lift her head. She turned on her back, gasping for air, and letting sharp sobs leave her body. She'd made it, but she knew she could never be able to sleep again not by herself anyway. Whatever she had seen in there, there was no way anything it got ahold of would get out of there alive.

Nancy reached down for the girl, helping her sit up and holding her hand. Teddy leaned her head against the boy sitting next to her, slowly hearing her breathing begin to even out.

"We've got you," Nancy whispered. "You're okay."

When the group got back, Nancy and Jonathan stayed in the room in silence, fearful of the things that Teddy had described seeing. Teddy herself couldn't sit still. She excused herself to go outside and grabbed a pack of cigarettes from her backpack on the way out. She avoided the parents sitting in the living room, snuck out the back way, and stood under Nancy's window. She took a deep breath and lit the stick before taking a long draw. She lifted her head to the sky, closing her eyes as she blew out the smoke. She did this several more times, before finishing the first cigarette and moving on to another. As she blew out a man dropped down from the window ledge landing right in front of her.

"Steve?"

The boy looked up, meeting her eyes. "Dorthy? What the hell are you doing here?"

"Didn't want to go home. Nancy offered me a place to stay," Teddy shrugged, offering the boy a draw from her cigarette.

He waved her aside, and that's when Teddy noticed the glints of anger in his eye and how his fists were clenched to his side. He kept glancing off to the car, but he didn't seem to want to leave quite yet. "See she's offering that to everyone these days."

"What are you going on about, Harrington?"

Steve sighed, leaning against the wall next to Teddy. "Nothing. You wouldn't even care."

"Fine," the girl shrugged. "You're probably right."

Steve looked over at the blonde girl. He had always enjoyed her quietness, but now it bothered him. He wanted to tell someone about what he was feeling. That at the same time, he was both angry and relieved by the situation with Nancy, and he couldn't explain the latter feeling. But Teddy wasn't the one to explain this to. He knew that. She'd probably just make fun of him, and tell him that he was pulling a classic Steve because he never seemed to be able to stay in a committed relationship. It would be the same thing if he talked to Cleo about it.

Teddy looked back up at the boy and without saying a word offered her cigarette again to him. He didn't say anything, but he took her up on her offer this time. They stood there like that for a while until they finished off three cigarettes. Teddy could feel the tension that had been radiating off of Steve begin to evaporate, and she felt herself beginning to relax and forget the troubles of the day as well.

"Teddy!" Nancy called out the window.

Teddy pushed herself off the wall, stomping out the last of the cigarette. "That's my cue."