#chapter: one.

[liaisonramirez]

WHERE: the woods.

TIME: 5:45 pm

OPEN TO: anyone.

The sun was disappearing and the daylight was fading, but the efforts of the search were still going strong. They’d go until there was no daylight left to protect them from the unwavering cold and one could only hope for a final Hail Mary of a miracle. It was human nature to wonder the obvious; to wonder if Brian was even in the woods or if whoever had taken him had thought better of it. After all, anyone who knew of the tragic ‘84 murder would know better than to fall back to the scene. Then again, what the hell did she know?

The cold was making itself comfortable within her stiffening body, but she refused to leave. She couldn’t walk away out of weakness, no, she’d faced worse than this in Vietnam. If she could survive that war, she could survive this. “Son of a bitch,” she mouthed, a cool, unexpected breeze rocking her to the core. No one would want to give up the search, but the odds were quickly stacking against them. They couldn’t search safely after dark and if they stayed out too long, they’d be useless in the days to come.

“Hey,” she called out, voice hoarse in comparison to what she’d expected. “Hey,” she repeated, this time a bit stronger than before. “How are you feeling? It’s getting colder out and I have to make sure no one is overdoing it.” Rich coming from someone who was doing just that.

[connieromano-blog]

@petesilverman // trapped.

Oh. Connie slows down her brisk pace, comes to a complete halt. Her eyes roam over her surroundings. She doesn’t recognise anything. She had lost her group a little bit earlier in the evening, splitting up to ‘cover more ground’ or whatever rubbish they’d all sprouted. Feeling uncomfortable she shifts from one foot to the next. There’s a crawling, itching sensation of panic slowly moving up inside of her chest. The sun is dropping in the background, the sky a sheen darker than it was before. She hasn’t grown up here, she doesn’t know the nooks and crannies with practiced ease like a local yet.

But she can hear the crunch and rustle of another body and she whips around as fast as she can to catch their attention. Connie is scared, she hates to say that but she is, just a little. It’s Pete Silverman. He’s in her class and she knows all the stories, they’ve orbited around each other without ever saying hello. She swallows down her pride and lifts her fingers up to wave at him. She wonders how he must be feeling about all this. Is he scared? Is he getting asked questions? Is he getting midnight flashbacks? Connie is, and she was never a missing child in Devil’s Knot. Does he feel connected to it all? Is he sick of all the attention? These are the burning questions she wants to ask, but she’s smart enough to keep her lips screwed tightly shut.

“Hi.” She says softly, moving forward. “I got split up from everyone and now I’m lost.” Connie laughs awkwardly, to fill the silence, to calm her nerves, to push away the rush of embarrassment she suddenly feels. She looks around their surroundings once more, “You wanna look together?” She asks. She half expects a venomous no, she’s quickly learned there are a lot of Devil Knot’s students who won’t give her the time of day because they don’t like her friends, and her and Pete Silverman aren’t friends, but there’s an inexplicable secret companionship she feels towards him - someone else who has been haunted by satanic tragedy, right?