Ready For It?

🤎Evermore🤎After everyone was picked up, we started heading towards the woods. It wasn't too far away, so we were able to start our search back up pretty quickly.

"So what do we wanna do? Two groups?" Folklore asked.

"As much as this might slow us down, I think we should all stay together. These woods aren't something to deal with." I said, causing multiple people to raise their eyebrow at me.

"And why is that?"

"There's been multiple cases of small groups of teenage girls going in these woods and by the next day, they're gone without a trace. People get kidnapped and murdered here all the time." I casually explained, raising concern in everyone else.

"Well good thing we aren't teenage girls, we're full grown adults." Midnights said sarcastically.

"I don't know, some weird things have happened here. I just wouldn't want something to happen. These woods are huge, if someone got hurt or something, it would be near impossible to find each other again and protect each other."

"Whatever you say" Rep rolled her eyes.

"Wait...you said people get kidnapped and murdered in here a lot?" Fearless widened her eyes.

"Yeah, it happens all the time. Especially to, like I said, teenage girls." As soon as I said that, I realized what I was implying, considering the reason we were here in the first place.

Everyone started freaking out, the younger ones crying that Debut was gone forever while the older ones tried to get everyone to settle down and start searching.

"Debut! Debut where are you? Debut!!!!" Everyone started frantically shouting her name, our screams getting more desperate by the second as we practically sprinted through the woods. Fearless and Speak Now voted on me being in the front because of how "familiar I was with the woods."

"Ow! Fuck" Lover cried out. I turned around and saw Lover on the ground, gripping her ankle next to a root sticking out of the ground.

"You okay?" Poets looked down at her.

Lover nodded, but we could all tell that she was biting her lip to fight back her tears.

Before thinking twice, Rep scooped Lover up into her arms and kissed her on the forehead.

"Stop it Rep, you aren't carrying me this whole time"

"I will until your ankle feels better. We don't have time to stop and argue about it."

"Rep no. I don't want you to carry me."

"Lover, you can be mad at me later, but please just let me help you for now."

"Fine" Lover pouted as we continued walking.

After a couple more minutes of going deeper in the woods, I held my arms out and told everyone to stop.

"There's footprints" I said, pointing to the area of ground where the grass turned into wet mud.

Fearless stepped closer before saying "Those are Debut's. I can tell by the unique print of her boots. They have to be hers."

We all started speeding up a bit as we followed the tracks.

"Oh shit." I mumbled quietly, I knew everyone heard me though.

"What now?" 1989 hesitated.

"Look" I said, and soon everybody else eyes went to the other set of footprints. The larger set of footprints that seem to have appeared out of nowhere.

The set of footprints right next to Debuts.

Everyone gasped at the sight of the messy line, and I could almost see everything that had happened just by looking at it. Someone had snuck up on her, then grabbed her and dragged her away as Debut thrusted and kicked her feet, causing the mark to be less like footprints and more like one wide line.

We picked up our pace as we sprinted through the woods, following the prints. Everyone was screaming Debuts name as mud splashed up from beneath our feet and onto everyone else's clothes and even faces. The humidity was spiking, no one knew if Debut was okay, and we all felt like shit. But we kept running until we hit the point where the grass started back up. The muddy mess stopped, and so did the prints.

"What now?" Speak Now's voice quivered.

"I...guess we just keep walking straight?" I answered, knowing damn well that they could've gone any direction.

🤍Poets🤍We started getting more and more hopeless as we kept striding through the forest. That is, until we saw a building. An old, abandoned building.

"She's gotta be in there" Red stated the obvious. Everyone nodded in agreement, walking closer to the large structure until I stopped them.

"Guys, we can't just go in there. We need some type of plan."

Everyone looked back at me, and I immediately felt judged.

"I mean look at us. We're out of breath, we have no weapons or any kind of protection, and Lover can't even stand up. This is gonna be super controversial, but I think we need to go back and come up with something. We need things to fight with or protect ourselves, and I'm not gonna lie, Lovers ankle is looking pretty bad" I winced as I looked at her swollen ankle. "Whoever took her, I'm sure they've done more before, considering everything Evermore said about these woods. We don't know who we're up against, and the last thing we need is anyone else getting hurt."

I stood there and breathed heavily for a second in silence before people started speaking up.

"I agree with Poets" "That's a good point""Okay yeah I agree."Everyone started agreeing. Everyone but Fearless.

"Guys Debut might not have long" she said, tears welling in her eyes.

"We will go fast, I promise" Folklore put a hand on her shoulder.

Fearless looked at us hesitantly for a second, then gave in. "Fine, but I swear if you guys take forever-"

"This conversation is taking forever, let's go" Rep interrupted, looking incredibly impatient while still holding Lover.

We all sprinted back to the van. Evermore grabbed handfuls of mud and smeared it on every tree we passed as we ran back. When we looked at her, highly impressed, she replied with a "what? This is not my first rodeo. We need to know exactly where we're going when we come back so we can go as quickly as possible."

Once we started driving back, Folklore gently lifted up Lovers ankle.

"Ow!" She screamed.

"That bad?" Folklore asked, concerned by how little movement caused Lover so much pain.

Lover nodded as she fought back tears and bit her lip once again.

"Okay, we'll take care of you at home, don't worry" Folklore grabbed her hand as Rep rubbed circles around Lovers back.

Let's just get this straight. I came to the house yesterday. It's my first full day here, and this is what's happening. Everyone gathers in the living room before the sun has even risen, we're told that the youngest one is missing, then we go out and search for her in woods that people have been murdered in, Lover hurts her ankle, it honestly looks pretty broken, Lover and Rep are fighting for some reason, now we're going back home to get things so that we can break into an abandoned building in the middle of the woods, and we have no clue what to expect, including if Debut will even be alive.

I don't know what I was expecting when I joined, but it was definitely not this. Not even close.

🩶Folklore🩶

Once we got home, everyone started thinking about what we were gonna do and started getting supplies. Everyone except for me and Rep, who laid Lover down on the couch as I sat at her feet.

"Does it still hurt?" I asked her and she nodded in reply.

"Okay, Rep can you go grab me an ice pack and a bandage wrap?"

"Yeah" Rep said as she walked away. While she was getting those, I slowly picked up Lovers foot and put it on my knee so I could both elevate it and get a look at how swollen it really was.

"Owww" Lover winced as she grabbed the pillow in pain.

"I know I know I'm sorry" I apologized. I didn't want to cause her pain, but I knew I needed to check to see how bad it was.

"Here's the stuff" Rep walked back in and handed me the things.

"Thanks" I said as I pressed the ice pack against Lovers ankle. "Which side hurts Lover?"

I moved the ice pack to the side that Lover pointed to and she cried out in pain again.

"Shhh it's okay" Rep sat on the floor next to the couch and held Lovers hand.

"It hurts" Lover said in a quiet voice as the tears finally fell from her eyes.

"I know baby it's okay." Rep continued comforting her as I held the ice pack to her ankle while elevating it.

"Do you guys need anything?" Speak Now walked in.

"I think some pain medicine would be good"

"Okay"

"Thanks Speak" I smiled at her, and she smiled in return.

Once Lover took the medicine, Speak Now informed me that they had a plan and wanted to leave as soon as possible.

"Okay, just give me another minute or two" I said as Speak Now nodded and walked away. "Okay Lover once we get back we can see how you're doing, but for now I'm just gonna wrap it up, okay?"

"Okay" Lover responded, starting to cry a little less. That didn't last long though when I tried to move her foot to get it at the 90° angle that it should be at when wrapping it.

"OW!" she shouted before crying again. Rep wrapped her arms around Lover and kissed her.

"I'm so sorry Lover, I promise I'm not trying to hurt you" I said, feeling terrible about how much pain I was causing her.

"No it's okay I understand, I didn't mean to yell, it just really hurts."

"I get it" I nodded. I didn't want to hurt her anymore, so this would have to do. Her ankle wasn't as bent as much it probably should have been, but it was pretty close. I carefully wrapped her ankle before standing up and placing her foot on a stack of pillows.

"I'm staying here, aren't I?" She asked.

"Yeah, there's no way you're going back out there. Someone will stay with you, don't worry."

"No, you should all go. You need as many people as you can get."

"It's okay, I don't want you to be left alone. We'll be alright, don't worry."

Me and Rep walked into the kitchen where everyone was standing and talking. Once they informed us of the plan and gave us pocket knives, pepper spray, basically whatever they could find, we were just about ready to go.

"Okay, that all sounds great, we just need someone to stay back with Lover. I feel bad leaving her alone, and besides, having this many people might make things a little more complicated. It could create more noise or something. 8 people will be plenty."

Everyone nodded in agreement, and after figuring out who we needed to come with (based on if they could fight, be the brains, or be there for Debut - aka Fearless, plus if they would be able to take good care of Lover), we decided that Midnights should stay back and take care of Lover.

"Okay, Midnights, just call us if you or Lover need anything."

"Same goes for you guys. If you need backup I can come over. Good luck you guys."

And with that, we left.