Chapter 3

Note: This fanfiction does not follow the timeline of the TFIL videos.

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Francine

All of them jumped up as I peeked over to their spot. The girl even screamed a bit. "Uh, sorry for scaring you but I overheard your conversation and thought maybe I could help?" Everyone sighed in relief upon seeing me, or probably the Colby Brock merch that I was wearing. "I didn't mean to scare you."

Elton, the man holding up the camera, pointed his light on my face and everyone gasped at how bad my face looks. My scratched-up cheek had a gauze on and the surrounding skin was bruised. The cut on my eyebrow was still there but thankfully, my lips were not swelling anymore.

"What happened to you?" Colby Brock was the first one to ask. I gave him a pained smile and shook my head, taking the hood off and revealing my jet-black hair.

"Sorry, not a good story to tell. I'm Francine, great to finally meet you guys. Well, it would be better to not meet in a place like this but, I'll take what I can get." I gave a small smile and offered a hand to all of them to shake.

"Are you a fan?" Sam asked as he shook my hand with a polite smile, but I could tell that he was still cautious of me.

"Yeah, if the XPLR merch is not enough, I'm subscribed to you guys, well except for Amanda. I do follow her on Instagram though." One by one, I shook hands with all of them. Sam, Amanda, and Elton dropped their guards around me, but Corey was still cautious, which I understand. Colby, on the other hand, had his eyes on the gauze on my cheek with a worried look. "Uh, back to the situation. So, you guys are filming another overnight in this mall, right?"

"Yeah, but we kept hearing noises down there and the others are getting scared." Elton explained.

"Yeah, about the noises, some were probably me trying to get up here. My ankle's a bit sprained so I had a hard time being quiet." I gave them an apologetic look. "But yeah, there are probably other people than us here, like cops and other trespassers."

"Yeah, we heard sirens earlier and they stopped so we ran up here. I figured that they're already here." Elton said.

"You guys should really be careful. I remember in your last video in this place that Elton was almost caught by the cops." I said, remembering that nerve wrecking video of Elton running around with a camera on hand to grab his SD card. "And yes, they probably have been alerted as soon as you stepped foot into the property."

"How about you? You look like you've been here a bit longer than us." Corey said. It made me realize how it was probably my fault that they were spotted early in this mall, especially with the cops watching me in the shadows.

"Uh, the cops may or may not be watching me in the shadows." They all looked at me in confusion before taking a step back. I realized how bad my own sentence made me look. "I promise I'm not on their watch list because I did something bad. They are watching over me to ensure my safety from possible murderers lurking here or from myself." As soon as I said it, I immediately regretted it.

I slipped.

I slipped big time.

This is bad.

"From yourself? You a psychopath or something?" Elton asked, curious of my mental state. However, Colby and Sam looked a bit worried, more from the former than the latter.

"...No." Out of habit, my right hand clutched onto my left wrist with my thumb rubbing a patch of smooth skin. One that I would probably cut once I get home. "...Just a danger to myself."

"So, you're not going to hurt us?" Corey asked for reassurance. I shook my head and gave them a painful smile.

"I know how pain feels like and I don't want anyone to go through that." Silence filled the air as they process the meaning of my words but before anyone could say anything about it, I beat them to it. "Please don't ask. I don't feel comfortable on talking about it, I've said too much." I practically begged them to keep their mouths shut. If they start recognizing me, they might do something that might cause harm not only to me, but also to them and their families. I can't do that to them.

I'd rather endure all the pain than destroy someone else's life.

They might have noticed how my voice cracked and how my eyes were filled with tears, so they kept their questions to themselves. "Thank you." I wiped the tears that were threatening to fall with my sleeves before fixing myself and taking a deep breath. "So, back to the problem at hand. They're not really allowed to come near me unless the sheriff himself is here or I am in immediate danger, so you guys are good. At least while he's still not here. And judging from what you heard earlier, the sirens coming towards the mall, he's probably on his way here or he is waiting for you guys to come out by the entrance."

"So... what do we do?" Colby asked.

"Let's wait out here for a bit and when we hear no one, let's go do your things. Like penny boards or football." They looked at me like I was out of my mind. "If I get you guys out right now, you won't have any content for this overnight video." They slowly nodded their heads when they understood.

Around 1:15 am, we decided to head down to go have some fun since we heard nothing. I was also able to tell them to blur out my face if I was in their video. I didn't tell them the reason, but I could potentially lose my life by joining them in their video.

We all headed downstairs with me limping in front of them, much to my embarrassment, with flash lights in our hands. Cautiously, we all looked around to make sure that there was no one with us. Thankfully, I saw none of the shadows lurking around me before. Maybe they regrouped back outside and waited for the guys there.

The guys spotted some scary wet footprints on the floor, which I think was just from the police following me, then Sam noticed that his breath was creating small smokes under the light of his flashlight. Corey followed suit, trying to do a 'vape trick', which caused me to giggle lightly. At the corner of my eyes, I thought I saw Colby watching me as I giggle with a pleased smile, but I looked away too fast to confirm. We had a bit of fun there before heading down a floor again, this time with Sam right in front and me in between Elton and Colby.

When we headed down a broken escalator, Sam stopped at the bottom and looked at a certain direction, saying that he just heard someone.

"There's something here." Corey whispered, a little frightened. "They're coming this way."

"Sam, what the f*ck are you talking about, buddy?" Elton asked, also starting to get nervous.

"Go look, go look." Colby whispered to the people in front. In my case, I could just step out there and look, but for these people to go out and possibly get spotted by a cop? Really Colby? Amanda gave him a look saying that he was crazy to suggest that before following Sam and Corey to check out the noise.

"Sam, what are you talking about?" They all nervously looked around, trying to find the source of the noise.

And while looking around, Sam just had the guts to ask out loud, "Hello?" I almost facepalmed but I caught myself and just frowned at them. Amanda suggests that we should leave but Elton said that they were continuing. Then, after a few minutes of walking on water, we finally reached the big hole with an escalator heading down the next level of the mall.

"You stay up here, I go down there, you throw me the football." And so, momentarily, they forgot that they were being chased by cops in this mall and decided to have fun. Well, I'm not against it. Since I'm here, might as well help them get good content and get them out of trouble.

"Okay." Elton whisper-laughed with his camera pointing at Sam. The others chuckled, and Amanda said, "at least someone's having fun, because its most certainly not me."

Then they started throwing the football at each other with Sam on the floor below us. With the pain on my body making itself known to me, I knew I had to sit down. I headed to the edge and sat down with my feet dangling down once again. Colby noticed me sitting by myself, so he silently made his way to where I sat and sat beside me, his feet dangling down as well.

"You okay?" He asked.

I smiled at the thought of him caring for my well-being. "Yeah, I just need to rest my ankle." Lies. I needed to rest my body.

In a hospital.

With doctors.

But I can't just do that. No, they would kill me before I even step foot in a hospital with the purpose of getting cured.

"Are you sure you want to stick with us? We'll probably be here until they get tired or something. You should head home to rest that foot." Colby said.

"Oh no, I'd stick with you guys for a while. I mean, I've been watching you guys ever since vine, and this is the only chance that I could get to meet you guys. I want to maximize my luck." I smiled and looked towards Elton, Amanda, and Corey's direction, watching them film while playing a football in an abandoned mall.

"You know, if you need to talk to someone, I'm willing to listen. Even Sam, Elton and Corey. We all are worried you know." I chuckled at his words.

"It's funny how you can get worried for a person you just met but not care for someone who's been with you since you were a child." I said, spilling out more beans than I should have. "Sorry, that wasn't for you."

Colby gave me a reassuring smile and said, "hey, it's cool. We all need to get it off our chest at one point."

I simply gave him a sad smile.

"Colby? France?" Elton called for us before pointing the camera to our direction. Colby swiftly moved his head to cover my face, knowing that I wished to hide my face from their viewers. "Why is it that every time I look at you, you're dangling off something, nearly to your death?" We both chuckled and got off the edge to make 'Uncle Elton' less nervous, with Colby helping me up.

"Sorry, Elton!" I laughed as we moved closer to the group. "My sprain was hurting for a bit and I sat down to rest them, Colby just followed."

Then we continued our adventure. We went down another level and they started playing around with their penny boards and football. Due to my bad condition, I stayed seated on the place we laid out bags down and watched, sometimes laughing or commenting on their actions. Elton then screamed, testing out how loud they could get, followed by Amanda. I almost had a heart attack because of her scream. Then Elton just pranked everyone by hiding then jumping out while wearing a creepy looking mask on. Then we walked around again until we found the place they hid their things in their previous video about the same mall. Elton just decided to play drums with the buckets and sticks laying around with his creepy mask on and Corey just had to dance. Until the stick broke.

At 3 am, everyone was exhausted. I was extremely tired and everything that happened that night just made me feel very heavy. We decided to head back to the roof but the way there, we heard some pretty disturbing sounds. Like someone walking around, a bang that sounded like a gun shot, a scream, someone telling us to get out, and many other things. Everyone was scared.

Everyone but me. All I could think of was to not pass out. Thankfully, it was dark and their flashlights were on the path and not me. After the scary noises that we heard, we all decided to leave.

"Guys, the door is shut." Corey said in panic. He repeated the sentence again and again before he pushed it open and stepped out. But as soon as we stepped out, a blinding light hit us, making me dizzy.

"Oh my god." That was everyone's reaction as soon as they realized that they were from the Sheriff's department. And I would bet every penny I saved that they said the same thing as soon as my vision faded to black.

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Guuuuyyyyssssss! Word count: 2147! Twice longer than the previous chapter!~ So how's the story so far? Three chapters for one night! xD

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