Summary: The Naturals wake up in a strange maze and have to get out without dying. It's all fun in games Michael had said.
Word Count: 1720
a/n: This didn't turn out the way I wanted, but oh well. First time doing mixed povs too. Welp day 2 of naturals week complete! @thenaturalshq
Dean’s POV:
It’s dark here. Dark and very ominous. Where is ‘here’ though? Where is everyone else?? Why are there such high freaking walls?
Everyone was probably thinking effectively the same things, after all this was not what Michael said was gonna happen. They were supposed to be together and it was supposed to not be so…eerie.
I got up and looked around. Near me, on the floor, I found a walkie talkie and a note attached. The only words scribbled out on the note was “get out and don’t get caught.”
Where is this?? It’s so hard to see.
“Hello? Anyone nearby?” The walkie talkie crackled with Celine’s voice.
I held down the button to reply, “If the walkie’s ranged then I’m somewhere by you.”
A few moments of shouting out to each other and a few confusing turns I make it to Celine. We piece together that we’re in a maze and that we have no clue how to navigate it. Great.
We wander to what I believe is the center when the most visceral growl rumbles our surroundings.
“So uhm, we should run.” Celine states the obvious, what wasn’t so obvious however was:
“Yeah, no. One problem, which way?”
The current choices were straight, left, right and turn around and go back. The direction the noise came from? Not a single clue. The best part was the loud growling was getting louder.
“Well nothing was around us originally so let’s head back.” I decide as we turn and start to jog away. Just then, the walkie talkies screech and-
“DEAN WATCH OUT!”
Celine’s POV:
FREAK FREAK FREAK FREAK FREAK.
OH HELL NAH GET ME OUT!!
I was not going to stick around to see what exactly just got Dean. I heard it before him though, the walkie talkies picking up frequencies as we retraced our steps. What I didn’t realize is that it meant we were walking right into the freaking thing of- HOLY NONONONONO
I’m just sprinting and taking different turns, yelling out for anyone to be close. The ground slowly stopped rumbling as I ran further. Good. I didn’t realize how low my stamina was.
“Heyo, I almost died, I think. Dean is dead, probably. Anyone nearby?” I use the walkie talkie.
An instant reply from Cassie and Sloane, “Cassie and I together. We’re heading towards you right now as we saw you running.”
“Is the thing nearby?”
“We didn’t see anything, we just thought you were running around.” Cassie replied this time.
I see a flashlight round the corner, “Woah Blondie, where’d you find that?”
“It was on a table when I hit a dead end. Statistically, we shouldn’t be far from the exit if we are where I think we are.”
Cassie explained, “We woke up at a corner, so we headed towards the center to find everyone.”
“Oh nice. Dean and I were…yeah I have no clue anymore. Did you hear what I said earlier by the way?” I hesitated, feeling a little bad I left her boyfriend to die. Well not really, but still.
“I did. It’s okay, we have to focus on getting out right now.” A deep sigh escaped from her, but she seemed okay.
“Right, so I learned the walkie’s go up a frequency as the shadow thingy gets closer. I’m going to assume that’s how we don’t get caught.” I share my findings as Sloane leads the way.
We take a left, another left, go straight for a while, and then right. There’s still more paths, but another flashlight is found. I take it and we continue looking for Lia and Michael.
The walkies start to get louder and then,
“MICHAEL MOVE FASTER IT’S LITERALLY SNIFFING MY BUTT RIGHT NOW!”
“I’M OUT OF STAMINA, JUST GO!”
The three of us, Sloane, Cassie and I, hide by the table as we watch Lia and Michael run for their life.
“Been there, done that.” I joke. Something is bothering me though, the walkie is still ringing, but the thing should’ve chased Michael and Lia away from here.
I watch Cassie and Sloane pop up and sprint, I follow suit. If people run, I run too and ask questions later.
I glance back and see Michael led it back around to us by accident, this freaking imbecile.
“CELINE RUN! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” He shouted out at me.
“I am going?” I face forward and freak. I was sprinting into the table, I watched as Michael zoomed past me. I cannot believe I’m dying before Michael. Sorry Blondie.
Michael’s POV:
This girl. She’s so gonna kill me for bringing it her way, oh well she distracted it.
I take a right and find the rest of the gang: Cassie, Lia, and Sloane.
“Dean died or something?” I asked, but I was joking until I found out he was actually dead. Yikes.
“Okay, my bad. Anyone have an extra flashlight? Lia and I had one until she dropped it.”
“It was slowing me down!” Lia argued.
“So freaking what! We need that!” I shouted back.
“You’re literally lying!”
“Yeah, just wanted to get on your nerves.”
It’s very rare I get to ragebait her, I had to use the fact that she has less of a clue than I for once.
“If that’s over, I believe the most optimal route will be returning to the edges. However, if we run into the thing, or I guess for us we should call it an UNSUB, the UNSUB will most likely be able to catch us as there are less turns.”
“Ehh it’ll be fine, we just got to be quick.”
As we wander throughout the maze I feel like I forgot to say something.
“That’s odd, this was where Cassie and I picked up our flashlight and there was a dead end here. It’s open now though?” Sloane inspected the table and where I assume a tall bush was.
Ohhh that’s what I forgot. “The maze shifts and moves each time someone gets got.”
“I’m sorry, you’re only telling us this now?” Cassie is upset. Not really, more inconvenience than upset. I can tell because of the way she scrunched her nose.
“Oops? Now you know.”
Out of nowhere the walkies ring out. I just run, I pick a direction and move. I’m not even going to check behind me to see if they’re following. My walkie quiets down and I bump into Sloane.
“Are the other two okay?” I asked her.
“We all went different ways, so I’m not sure. I believe Cassie ran into the UNSUB though as I heard her scream.
Almost on cue, Cassie runs past Sloane and I.
Cassie’s POV.
LIA. WHEN I CATCH YOU LIA. When the walkies went off Lia and I went the same way, but she freaking pushed me the other way!
Now I’m low on stamina, I can tell it’s close by how much everything is shaking. Why’d I agree to this? Never letting Michael choose activities again because what is this???
I see Sloane and Michael together, but I’m not as much of a jerk as Michael, so I go a different direction. That’s what decent friends do Michael, we don’t lead our friends into their death!
I’m getting so dizzy and I think my stamina is almost out- Freak. I am out.
Lia’s POV
Why of all places did Cassie have to die in front of me?? Now I feel a little bad for pushing her away. Only a little. I could probably back away slowly and reconvene with the other two I think.
Ha ha. Apparently not.
The walkie cries out and I book it. It’s up my butt again. I know I’m the hottest one here, but can it go chase someone else? How is Sloane navigating? I swear this wasn’t a dead end.
Right. The maze changes when someone dies. Cassie even in death have you annoyed me somehow.
I wonder if I can just…OH HOLY CRAP THAT WORKED!
I somehow juked the UNSUB and I saw Michael in the distance. My stamina is sorta low though, I don’t think I’m going to make it. Actually screw it, I’m taking the boy blunder down with me!
I slow down slightly to a jog, letting it seem like I’m just trying to catch up with him. Unfortunately his walkie goes off and he starts running. Fortunately for me, I’m able to pull him back.
“Nuh uh sucker.”
“Lia I swear-”
Sloane’s POV:
Wow. I should run, but wow. I cannot believe I was a witness to that double kill.
It truly does suck that they died right there. The gate was right here. If only Lia took a left instead of going after Michael.
I ran up to the exit only for my walkie to go off. The gate wasn’t opening. WHAT?
I started rushing to see if there was something I needed to do to open it. There it was, a big red button. I have to hold it down to get out I think. First, I need to lose the UNSUB.
I noticed I can jog and sprint so I mixed between the two. I used a few corners to just go in a circle wondering if it’ll go away after being in chase for a little bit. That wasn’t true.
So I just go by the button, sprinting a little and pressing it for a sec or two and then leaving to circle back around. The progress was slow, but it works.
After 14.5 loops the gates open and I escape!
“Good job Blondie. That was quite close wasn’t it?” Celine congratulates, her head in my lap. She came up to my room when she died.
I look over to Cassie’s laptop and the indent where she was sitting in our shared room.
“What are the other four doing?” I ask, exiting out of the horror game Michael had us play.
“Uhmm…I think Dean was spectating you, Cassie went to push Lia into the pool, Lia is taunting Cassie and Michael has been duck taped to a chair.”
“We should play again, it was fun.” I play with Celine’s curls. She’s so pretty.
“I’m down if you are Blondie.” She kisses my knuckles before sitting up, “c’mon. Let’s go join the festivities down stairs.”
Summary: Cassie does a tarot card reading for Dean, but it goes a little wrong.
Word Count: 1316
a/n: Day 1 of Naturals Week completed!! Locked in hard as I had only the first paragraph done this morning. @thenaturalshq
“This is just you profiling. There is absolutely no way that that’s what the cards mean.” Lia was fair to question it as Cassie has background info on her.
“You asked for a reading? Also you’d have been able to tell if I was lying.” Cassie couldn’t help but be amused by the cards Lia had drawn: two of swords, the fool, and the five of pentacles.
About ten or so minutes ago, Lia had asked Cassie to do a reading on a multitude of things, the more recent one was on Lia and Michael’s relationship. Bad idea.
Damage has been dealt and Lia would rather die than let anyone find out that she asked for a reading on the two of them together. Unluckily for her Dean had walked in on them.
Lia is nothing, but quick thinking and so she found her way out because luckily Dean had walked in on them.
Dragging him to take the seat across from Cassie, Lia rests her chin on his shoulder, “Cassie’s doing readings. Do one.”
“A reading on what? It’s not like they’re real or all that accurate.” Dean watches Cassie as she shuffles the tarot cards.
Upon noticing him staring, she throws in a few tricks, “It’s just for fun and on anything really. Your future, your career, you in the present, your relationships to name a few.”
Hearing the last option presented, Dean plays along for the amusement of the other two and chooses, “Do one on our relationship.”
“Alrighty then, choose three cards.” Cassie does a perfectly practiced card spread, mimicking her mom when she would do one for her clients. The set up was an r5 relationship spread.
He picks out the first five cards in front of him, watching Cassie in a way that makes Lia just a bit sick.
Purely for the dramatic effect, Cassie turns the cards over slowly. One by one are the cards revealed:
Position one: The Hermit. Position 2: The Fool (reversed). Position 3: The Two of Cups. Position 4: The Four of Cups. Position 5: The Five of Cups.
Cassie kept a poker face, wanting to be all dramatic and all, but the cards were a bit funny as they all had a twinge of accuracy to personal events.
“The Hermit being in first position is a sign that you may need to prioritize yourself for more. Also focusing on a relationship isn’t the best idea at the moment.” Cassie holds back a laugh as she does a simple explanation.
“...What’s the point of this again?” Wanting to do this reading less and less, Dean lets out a heavy sigh.
Lia, already intrigued, urges Cassie to continue, “The Fool Reversed essentially means that the connection of your relationship was rushed and jumped the gun due to being blinded by love.”
Jumped the gun because Cassie had to yk jump on top of a guy holding a gun and then promptly go into a relationship 5 (???) minutes after.
Listing on the rest, “The Two of Cups is telling you that the relationship is very well balanced and is good at supporting one another’s emotional health. The Four of Cups is signalling that someone in the relationship is starting to grow emotionally distant though and that they are mentally checking out. It may lead to them leaving the relationship due to closing themself off emotionally. Lastly, The Five of Cups tells us you or your partner is stuck in the past. You or they are trapped in a feeling of guilt and grief. This may be the cause of what the Four of Cups was revealing.”
Dean doesn’t know how to react. How does one react when their girlfriend does a reading that says their relationship is coming to an end? He looks back at Cassie who seems to be holding back a laugh, after all the reading was just for fun and isn’t fortune telling.
“So Cassie, are you planning on breaking up with Dean or…?” Lia, ever the instigator, prodded.
Cassie shook her head giving into the need to laugh, “Obviously I’m very biased in this reading so I just used the base meanings instead of going in depth.”
“ Yet, they all fit in a very twisted way. How mean of you Cassie, tsk tsk.” Lia pretended to scold.
Meanwhile Dean is very quiet in all this, even leaving the room while the two girls joked and started a new reading on Briggs and Sterling. He knows it was a silly party trick and not real, but it got him thinking. Overthinking. It’s only been a few months since Cassie had an unwilling hand in her mom’s death, so maybe she was stuck replaying those moments. Dean has been there for her for every nightmare, every panic attack, but what if that wasn’t enough?
Logically he knows Cassie won’t break up with him, she also hasn’t been distant like what the cards said. However, he still didn’t like the prospect of a fortune telling scam telling him that he was gonna break up with the girl he loves.
It was maybe a few hours later and Cassie hasn’t found Dean yet after he disappeared. She checked the pool, his room, and the garage, but still no Dean. She ran into Sloane as she touched base in the basement because maybe he’s there.
“You need something Cassie?” Sloane looked up from a recreated murder scene.
Cassie continued to glance around the room, “Have you seen Dean?”
“I haven’t. I saw him in the garage an hour ago, there should be 82% chance of him still being there. If not there’s a 34% chance he’s by the fireplace, 18% chance he’s in his room, and a 48% chance he went to the bathroom when you looked into the garage.”
“Right. Thanks. I’ll go check again.” Cassie waves to a not-paying-attention Sloane and circles back to the garage.
Lo and behold, there Dean is. Bench pressing weights with his face that screams he’s overthinking.
“You okay Dean?” Cassie asked, not really because she couldn’t tell if he was upset or not, but to more or less announce her presence.
“Fine.” Dean grunts out.
Walking to take a seat beside him, Cassie prompted, “Is this about the reading from earlier?”
A bit too quickly Dean replied, “No.”
“Uh huh. You know I’m doing much better and that we’re okay right?” Cassie bites down her smile, trying to take his worries seriously.
Placing the weights back onto their rack, Dean sat up and wiped his sweat, “I know. I said I’m fine.”
“So you’re not sulking and hiding down here?” Cassie handed Dean his water bottle.
Dean took it and didn’t respond.
After some silence, “The reading was stupid.” Dean stated, “I know it’s not real. I don’t know why I’m treating it like it is. It’s stupid- I feel stupid.”
“You know that’s not true for one. Another thing is that I love you. A card reading is not going to make or break anything. Anything I can do to cheer you up?” Cassie comforted him.
“I’ll get over it.” Dean sighed, tired from the unnecessary emotional weight he put on himself, “though I wouldn’t mind watching something with you right now. Maybe that one movie you’ve been talking about nonstop?”
“Sounds like a plan. I’ll make some popcorn, you go freshen up.” Cassie placed a kiss on Dean’s cheek before leaving the room.
“Yes ma’am.” Dean replied with a smitten smile. Wow, he is whipped for his girl.
And so the day comes to an end, Cassie and Dean are cuddled up under the covers. The most perfectly popped popcorn and freshly brewed tea to accompany them as they watch The Amazing Spiderman 2.
Just because Dean and Cassie’s relationship is going smoothly doesn't mean watching a heartbreaking, gut-retching scene of someone losing their love isn’t guiltily comforting.
i wish i was pooping you about the end of crooked kingdom but unfortunately it seems that before leigh was an author she tortured people professionally and took those skills into her writing #imisshim
I’m in such bad denial, he can’t be!! And Nina, please Nina you can help right?? Right??? 😭
Heyo! (about to melt from nerves but I got a dare)
What're five songs you really like right now? My friend sent me this ask game, feel free to send to ten other people ;)
whoo boy…uh…
I listen to a LOT of music, but I’ll see if I can narrow it down a bit…
Phew.
Those are just the tip of the iceberg concerning my interests 😅 I will listen to Brandon Lake, Phil Wickham, JVKE, League of Legends, Stray Kids, Alex Warren, plus instrumentalists like Hans Zimmer, Harry Gregson-Williams, Thomas Bergersen, etc…you get the idea 😂 My tastes are very eclectic.
Thanks for the ask!
I’m not sure if I can think of ten people…but I’ll tag @redhoodisalive (for obvious reason LOL) @nerdynonnativenarnian, and @bug-lovers-island. (And you, @jesuswarriordaughter, since I’m curious about what music you listen to now!)
//Oh hey I was mentioned!! Huh… top five is pretty hard but this is what i listen to most of the time.. AND YES I USE YOUTUBE MUSIC. Im not allowed to use spotify but its fine-
@riotverse @theromanarchives @lawnmower56 @pete-my-beloved @anothertorturedpoetmarie @atsecretgardensinmymind @demographictransitionmodel @icarianprophet @prophecyhaunted @vinylfawn if you wanna and anyone else x
also i would literally rather go have a beach wedding in cuba with daniel redding and have to live the rest of my life with him than be within 10 feet of thatcher townsend EVER. icky
We should to a tier list and a would you rather, but make it the Natural's da editon.
I told people I'd release my Bluey presentation but forgot who asked, @inejsgirl I wanna say? Idk this is odd bc it heavily relies on a person presenting, but this was the set up!
Unsupported client – Canva
Edit: on mobile it doesn’t make you sign in so you’re anon! I’ll check on computer when I get back to mine :)
