#i got home on NEW YEARS DAY and went into a 3 hour fugue state and banged this out

[charaznablescanontoyota]

when does a ripple become a tidal wave?

[julia-highstorms]

If Jane Was Here (Noah’s POV) - Ch. 06

Summary: ILITW by Noah’s point of view. Read Chapter 5 here!

Note: F!MC! The chapters are getting longer and longer... Tell me if you think it would be better if I divided them in parts. Also, I'd like to thank @klaudiana-beaumontkk, @yertletheturtle04, @miragemeister and @melisa-kirkland for commenting! <3 Without your support I'd take even more time to write it down!  Don't worry, I'll write the whole book, I just am lazy af lol

Rating: PG-13 (swear words, dead sisters, mental health and shadowy monsters)

Pairing: Noah x MC

Word count: 3416

Chapter 6 – A Bitter Pill to Swallow

When he woke up the next day, Noah still was shaken by the dream.

It felt so real. She was so real.

If Jane was here...

He went to school unaware of his surroundings, his mind racing of memories.

Memories of him, Jane, MC and the whole gang playing together. In the woods. With Mr. Red.

...That bastard.

“...Noah! Earth to Noah!” – he snapped out of his thoughts.

He was at school, standing right in front of his locker, in the middle of the hallway. And MC was talking to him.

“Hey! You okay?” – she asked with a worried expression on his face.

He could have lied. He could have shrugged it off and pretended that everything was fine.

Like he’d been doing for ten years.

But he felt like... He could tell the true. Be true to himself and to her. She deserved it. She wouldn’t walk away anymore. She was his friend now. Like how they used to be.

He trusted her.

“I... I dreamt about her.” – his voice was just a whisper, but she heard him.

“And... Was it bad?”

“No... It was good, actually. Really good. Like... as if she was here, you know? With us. All grown up. She was a cheerleader like Stacy. And I guess she had a crush on Lucas...” – he stopped talking suddenly and she waited. – “It’s stupid, I know.”

“It’s not stupid, Noah.”

“No, it is. I mean, we’re all very aware that she’s dead. We were there. So why do I feel so touched by a stupid dream?!”

“It was not a stupid dream.” – she said again, softly.

“It was. And I am stupid too.”

“No! It wasn’t a stupid dream! And you’re not stupid, Noah!” – MC raised her voice. –  “It makes sense. You miss her. I—“ – she interrupted herself for a second: “...Sometimes I dream about her too.”

“...Really? About what?”

“They’re more like memories. Of all of us playing. Sometimes it turns into a nightmare. And I remember... you know. That day.” – Noah nodded. He knew pretty well what she was talking about. – “Anyway... nothing is stupid, remember it. And... I’m glad that you told me.”

“Why?”

“Because this means that you’re opening up to me.” – he could see a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. – “And this makes me happy.”

He rolled his eyes and MC saw his cheeks turning pink.

“You make such a deal over nothing...”

“You know it’s not ‘nothing’.” – she answered before pulling him for a hug.

The boy didn’t know what to do, so he tapped her on the head. She released him laughing.

“Anyway, how was the game?” – he asked with his face still red.

“We won! Andy was spectacular! You lost a great game.”

“Did it finish too late? I guess I wouldn’t be brave enough to walk home alone if I was you...”

“Oh, Connor came to watch the game too and he gave me a ride.”

“Really?” – she nodded. – “Uh. Just... the two of you?”

“Yes.” – MC looked at him as if he had a third eye. – “...Don’t tell me you’re jealous, Beanie Boy.”

“I’m not jealous.”

“Yes, you are! You were jealous the other night when we went at the hardware store and I talked to him! C’mon, confess that you’re jealous of Connor Green!”

“Why would I be jealous of him?”

“You tell me!” – she answered playfully.

They were still arguing – actually, MC was still teasing him – when their phones buzzed.

Stacy texted the group that Mayor Green told her which hospital Dan was and that they were going to see him after school.

Anf then, the school bell rang.

After class, Noah went to the parking lot to meet his friends. They were all there, minus Stacy and MC.

The cheerleader appeared a few minutes later with Britney.

“What the fuck is she doing here?” – Noah said right away.

“Did she suffer a major concussion? That’s why she’s here?” – Ava asked.

“Don’t worry, I don’t want to be here either, weirdos.”

“Is everyone here?” – Stacy asked, looking around.

“MC is not here yet.” – Lucas answered, feeling little comfortable with the unwelcome addition.

“Hey, Britney.” – Lily said. Britney smiled back at her.

“Hey, Lil.”

“Uh... Why is she here?” – Andy asked Stacy again, but MC showed up before she could answer.

“What the hell took you so long, MC?” – Britney snapped.

“What’s she doing here?”

“Good question.” – Lucas said.

“She didn’t suffer a major concussion and wander here in a semi-concious fugue. I already asked.”

Britney rolled her eyes to Ava.

“What I’m doing here is leaving, don’t worry. I just came by to...” – she paused, but Stacy nudged her with her foot. She scowled, continuing through clenched teeth: “...to invite you to my party at my house this Saturday.”

“Wow. Did not expect that.” – Noah said, in shook.

“You sure about that concussion?” – Andy asked calmly to the cheerleader.

“You’re inviting us to your party? Sounds awesome! You know, I don’t think I’ve ever been over to your house before!”

“Wow, imagine that.” – Britney answered MC ironically.

“Come on, guys! Britney told me she’s trying to turn over a new leaf and stop being such a jerk to people. Right, Brit?” – Stacy turned to her.

“Yeah. Totally.”

“Well, this is more weird to add to the weird pile. Are we sure this isn’t Mr. Re—“ –Andy nudged Ava hard in the ribs, jerking his head at Britney. Ava crossed her arms, glaring at him. – “Okay, but we’re gonna have a talk about all this later.”

“Yeah! We’ll talk about that, uh, school project. For that class we have. That Britney isn’t in.” – Noah desperately tried to change the subject.

“Okay, whatever you’re talking about? Yeah, I super don’t care.”

“We’re... really all invited to your party?” – Lily asked with a glow in her face.

Britney looked at Lily, her expression softening a little:

“Yeah, really. Does that mean you’re coming?”

“O-of course! I would love to!”

“Great! Make sure you save me a dance.”

With a final glare at Stacy, Britney stalked away toward the bus stop. MC pulled the cheerleader aside and they started exchanging a few rushed whispers.

“Not to break up this fun whispering thing you’ve got going on, but visit hours are over in, like, ninety minutes.”

“Yeah, we gonna go see Dan or what?” – Noah agreed with Ava.

“Sorry! We’re coming.” – MC said.

“I can fit five in my car... Lucas, can you drive someone?” – Stacy asked him, which startled at the sound of his name. He looked around.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure.”

Stacy unlocked her car, letting Ava, Andy, Lily and Noah pile inside.

“Yo, Ava, lemme trade you for the front. These shoulders don’t like the backseat.”

“Fight me, Kang.”

In the end, Andy sat on the backseat, with Noah between him and Lily.

The ride was good and not weird as Noah thought it would be. They talked mostly about the game and the classes they had. It was like they were all friends again.

Stacy pulled off and they made their way to the hospital. Dan was in a small room at the back of the building. They met Dan’s mom as she was leaving the room; she smiled at them, but she seemed busy talking to the phone.

“MC and Lucas are late...” – Lily said, before they entered the room.

“I’ll go see if they didn’t lose theirselves on the way here.” – Ava said and walked away.

Andy, Lily, Noah and Stacy entered Dan’s room.

“Jeez...” – Noah whispered, seeing his friend surrounded by medical equipments.

They all sat in silence, clustering around the bed where the boy lied still and quiet. The only thing they could hear was the heart rate monitor beeping out a soft, regular rhythm.

A nurse appeared to check Dan and they talked a little with him, before he left to see another patient.

Ava was back a few minutes later, with the MC and Lucas.

“Oh, Dan...” – MC muttered. Andy gave her his chair.

“Jeez... he looks so... it’s like something drained the life out of him.” – Ava commented.

“Can he... I mean, does he know we’re here?”

“Dunno. Nurse was here a minute ago. He said Dan’s in a ‘vegetative state’.” – Andy said.

“It is... do they know what caused it?”

“They have no idea. He just... he just won’t wake up.” – Lily answered Lucas.

Stacy sniffled, hugging herself and looking up at the ceiling to try and hold the tears back:

“Guys... what if he never wakes up?”

Lucas moved to stand by Stacy, putting an arm around her shoulders. Lily squeezed Stacy’s hand:

“Th-the nurse also said we should talk to him, though. He said that Dan might be able to hear us.”

“It’s probably crap. They always say that to make you feel better.” – Noah said.

“Does it work?” – Ava asked him.

“...Yeah, kinda.” – he admitted.

MC stood up and squeezed Dan’s hand in hers. She started talking softly with him, and Noah could swear that Dan seemed to relax ever so slightly, as if he knew that they were all there for him.

“Uh... MC? Your backpack is angry.” – Andy said, as a tiny black paw stuck out of the top of the bag, swimping blindly at his leg.

And then, MC revealed that she had a cat (Luna) inside her backpack.

“Whoah! Is that your cat, MC? It seems kinda... feral.” – Noah startled. The kitten didn’t look very friendly.

“Naw, Luna talks tough, but inside she’s a li’l love muffin.”

“Kinda like you?” – Andy teased Ava, who hissed at him, just like the cat.

“Has anyone been here to see him?” – MC asked, while the cat nestled against the side of Dan’s neck, curling into a tiny black ball.

“We ran into Dan’s mom on the way in, but she was on the phone with someone named Dr. Chambal.” – Noah answered her.

They explained to Lucas and MC that Dr. Chambal probably was Dan’s therapist, based on what they heard.

“Dan was seeing a therapist? Do you think she knows something about all this?”

“Who knows? He never told me about any of this. He wasn’t one for talking about feelings.” – Stacy told MC.

“Dan, buddy... I wish you could tell us what happened.” – Andy said, reaching out for their friend.

Dan’s head turned to the right... And they found his cellphone inside the pocket of his jeans. It looked like he really wanted that they went through his phone.

They discovered that Dr. Chambal was indeed his therapist and that he had PSTD. He would dream about Jane’s murder by Redfield ( “the incident”) frequently, just like Noah and MC.

By the end of the summer, he seemed to make some progress... until last week, when he went to the ruins to face his demons. And met Mr. Red.

After reading all of Dan’s texts, MC put down his phone:

“Oh Dan, I’m so sorry. I promise, we’re going to find a way to help you. And... and when you wake up, we’re going to be here for you. Whatever you need.”

“We’ll help more than that quack doctor. She told Dan it was all in his mind! She’s the reason he went to face Mr. Red!” – Noah shout, feeling anger raising inside him.

It was always like that. The adults never believed them. They were just a bunch of crazy and stupid kids to them.

Lily told him that he was being unfair, that Dr. Chambal was doing her best to help Dan and he seemed to get better, until Mr. Red ruined everything. Again.

“Everything that’s happened... it seems like it all started when Dan went inside the ruins.”

“That makes sense...” – Stacy agreed with MC. – “I mean, that’s how it all started ten years ago, right?”

“First one of us goes in, and it wakes him up. Then more of us show up, and his powers grows...”

“So, what... Mr. Red used Dan as bait to lure us into the woods? To increase his power?” – Noah asked, feeling the warmth leaving his body.

“That dirty monster did say I was supposed to bring everyone...”

“So we don’t give him what he wants. We all just stay out of the woods, and that way things don’t get any worse!” – Lily concluded, but MC and Lucas shared a worried look.

“I think things are already worse. I think... in his sick way, Mr. Red has been doing us favors. To get on our good side.”

“Huh? Favors like what?” – Andy asked the Student Body President.

“Like the bear attack, Andy. And the crows that attacked Cody and Jocelyn.” – MC explained to him.

“That could have been coincidences. When your town is surrounded by woods, animal attacks just happen sometimes.”

“Not... like this.” – Stacy said to Lily, before she told them about Britney’s blackmail and the tree creature that attacked her. – “And then it just... threw me the bag, and her phone fell right out.”

“It gave you Britney’s phone?! This proves everything! Mr. Red knew about the blackmail, and he helped you get to the video!”

“I don’t know how, but... yeah. Seems like.” – Stacy confessed.

“Okay, that explains why Britney invited us to a party, but it doesn’t explain why she suddenly decided to stop being a jerk to Lily.”

“Wait, do you think Mr. Red can affect people’s minds?” – MC asked Ava, but Lily interrupted:

“N-no way! There’s no proof that Mr. Red can do anything like that!”

“Okay, but you’ve gotta admit there’s something wrong there. She’s acting totally—“

“She’s just acting like she used to! Before she started hanging out with monsters like Jocelyn and Cody!”

Lily’s voice rose to a shout, and Dan seemed to flinch back from the sound, his brow furrowing as if in pain:

“Nnnnn... don’t...”

MC’s kitten suddenly jumped up, scampering to the foot of the bed. It turned, fur puffing up as it growled at Dan.

“Holy...” – Noah started muttering, but Lucas interrupted him:

“Dan?!”

“Dan... can you hear us? Are you there?”

The boy spoke again, his voice barely a whisper. MC leaned closer, straining to hear... when Dan’s hand suddenly clamped around her wrist! She tried to pull away, but his grip became tighter as the beeping from the heart rate monitor speeded up, the beat fast and irregular.

Andy lunged forward trying to free MC, but Dan’s free hand twitched, sending the other boy flying backward, slamming right into Noah and Ava:

“Whoa!”

“Aaahhh!”

“The hell?!” – Noah screamed as the three of them knocked down to the ground.

The lights flickered as Dan slowly sat up and started speaking with a voice that was not his own... but a terrible, cold whisper that seemed to fill the room:

“All... better now... everyone together...”

Noah, Ava and Andy still were struggling to stand up when the lights went out entirely. Suddenly, a wind howled from nowhere as, before their eyes, the room warped and stretched, the back wall falling away into darkness.

They all huddled together against the wind, and the monitor’s beeps continued to quicken, until they blended into an unsteady keening sound. MC begged Dan to let her go, but he wouldn’t, claiming that everything was “better now”.

“Better?! How the hell are things better?!”

“No... I helped... all better now...” – he whispered.

“Yeah, this is not my idea of ‘better’! So how about you get the hell away from us!”

Ava gestured wildly and the chair beside her flied toward Dan. He growled, and the chair deflected, shattering as it tumbled down the black tunnel behind his bed. MC convinced Ava to use her powers to pull her over.

As soon as MC was freed from Dan’s grip, the light suddenly flooded the room, blinding them.

By the time their eyes had adjusted, the hospital room had returnet to normal, as if nothing supernatural and terrifying has happened there just seconds before. Dan let out a long, shuddering sigh before his body went limp, and he fell back onto the mattress.

“Is... is it over?” – Lily asked as Lucas edged forward to check the monitors beside Dan’s bed:

“Looks like it... for now.”

“Is anyone hurt?” – Stacy asked, standing up.

“Only on my everywhere. Next time, I want a plan where no one bodyslams me onto dingy linoleum.”

“Sorry... at least it worked, right?”

“Yeah, so what the hell was...” – Noah started asking, but he paused as a nurse hurried in to look at Dan’s heart monitor. He looked from the monitor to Dan, his brow furrowing.

“We were, um, just leaving. Sorry.” – MC furtively scooped the cat back into her bag before the nurse saw it and everyone flied out the door.

They all gathered in the deserted hospital lobby.

“Okay... what the hell was all that?” – MC asked as they took turns signing out of the visitor log.

“Bad. It was bad.” – Lily muttered anxiously.

“Yeah, can we talk about that... thing? Was that...”

“It was him.” – MC answered Lucas.

“I never thought... I mean, it felt so real.”

“It was real.” – Noah told Stacy, while Andy started saying something:

“Also, uh... Ava has freaky mind powers now?”

“Apparently.”

Andy let out a sigh, cracking his knuckles nervously:

“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m gonna need about ten square feet of pizza to process all this. You guys in?”

“One sec. The rest of us need to sign out.”

Ava, Lily and MC walked up to the desk. Suddenly, Ava came back to them, saying that they were “breaking into the hospital’s private records” to discover more about the freaky and weird-ass coma cases and organized them into watch positions.

Noah looked nervously around his spot in one of the hallways, but no one came, thankfully. Lucas made their sign, but it took some time until the three girls rejoined the rest of them.

“I hope whatever you found was worth it. That was a close call.” – Lucas scolded them.

“Don’t worry, we got something.”

“Like, hey, how about the fact that all those other patients were also found around the woods?”

“Or that this isn’t the first time there’s been an epidemic of this kind...”

“I’d say that’s some pretty good info.” – Noah said.

“Not to mention...” – MC motioned everyone to come closer, and pulled the folder out of her shirt.

She fliped the file open and they all read it over together:

“It’s reports of the other epidemics. Looks like the doctor wrote some notes up top here...” – Andy started reading...

“...some cause for concern. In each past incident, the influx of coma patients is closely followed by a massacre.” – next to Stacy...

“It’s unclear how these events are related, and the deaths that follow are not always of such volume. (See article B, from November 3rd, 2007).”

Noah felt his heart stop.

“November 3rd...” – he muttered, his mouth suddenly dry.

It was the date of Jane’s death.

He felt Andy squeezing his shoulder, in a comforting gesture.

They finished reading the file and chatted about it, but Noah didn’t listen a thing. His mind was racing with memories of Jane.

If Jane was here...

No one spoke for a long time, everyone lost within their own fears.

“Guys...” – MC broke the silence. – “I know we can get through this. We just have to stick together. I’m more terrified than I’ve ever been in my life. I honestly don’t know if I have the strength to handle all of this... but I don’t have to be strong enoug... not on my own. Because I have all of you. Together, we’re stronger than any of us can be on our own. Together I know we can do this.”

The tension hung in the air for a minute longer, when...

“Okay, but I asked about pizza, like, forever ago... so can we take care of that first?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna need an entire pizza just for me.” – Ava agreed with Andy.

“Pizza Mega?” – Lucas asked, a smile tugging on the corner of his lips.

“Obviously.” – Stacy grinned back.

“We haven’t been there in ages... think they still have those little honey packets for the crust?” – Noah asked, his stomach growling just thinking about it.

“I wonder if anyone’s beaten my high score on the Meteor Madness cabinet...” – Lily commented.

With smiles on their faces, they all walked out the hospital building into the night, talking about memories of a happier time.

Together.