xp_logs | Something Slender || Rescue (Paige; Rictor)

And finally, Jono, Mel, Emily, and Ashley find Paige.

It's not that Jono didn't like children. He believed they should be protected, and he often found them pretty funny. But he had spent enough time in the music scene to have a visceral reaction to seeing a man dressed like himself with a teenage girl clung to him, and he was not a fan. But Emily was scared, and he was least likely to get hurt by her on-fire hair, so he tried to mostly keep her at a safe and respectable distance as they looked for more of their fellow hikers.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of blonde hair and felt dread settle into his gut, as he wrenched himself away from Emily's grip. He hastily swatted at Mel's arm as he rushed to push the lower branches of the bush away from Paige.

“Hey! What the-" Mel exclaimed, before she noticed who Jono had found. “Oh shit, Paige.” Her older sister had been mercifully absent from her nightmare, so she didn’t hesitate to rush over and kneel on Paige’s other side.

Jono's hands shook, making small aborted movements as if he were thinking about brushing Paige's hair out of her face. She hated having her hair in her face, had complained about it on more than one occasion in the library. But he couldn't bring himself to touch her, not when his own nightmare was so fresh in his mind. He hopelessly looked to Mel. "Please- I- I can't-"

Mel carefully shook Paige by the shoulder, an absolute contrast to the way she’d woken Jono. “C’mon Paigey, ya gotta wake up. We gotta get outta here.”

When that didn’t work, she focused her efforts on the spot on Paige’s neck that’d left her in fits whenever they wrestled when they were younger. “Paigey, c’mon now.”

Jerking awake, Paige slapped Mel’s hand away before realizing where she was. She blinked a few times before nervously reaching for her hand to check that her ring was there. It was, calming her down a bit. Looking up and seeing Jono and Mel, it took some effort to keep from cringing. “Mel? Jono? Please tell me you know who I am.”

Relief flooded over Jono until he felt like he was drowning. Jono nodded, and squeezed her left hand tightly, until the metal of their rings clinked together and it had to hurt, but he couldn't be bothered to care. She wasn't burned to a crisp. She wasn't on fire. She wasn't begging him to stop. She was scared, but intact, and not afraid of him. ~~She should be, though.~~

Paige choked back a sob as she gripped Jono’s hand back and pulled Mel into a hug. It was just a dream, they were all fine, they hadn’t forgotten her. She clung to the two of them, showing no sign of letting go.

Mel held her tight and rubbed her back soothingly, blinking back tears of her own. “Yer alright Paigey, yer alright. ‘Course we know who you are, we could never forget you darlin’.” She took a few breaths to calm down. This wasn’t the place to break into pieces.

Emily had come along when the rest took off but she stood back as the others reunited, keeping an eye on their surroundings. Mel had been there to take out the Slender who had attacked her, but she was busy helping her sister right now.

Ashley swiped the tears of relief off her face, one more person they'd found, and gave Emily a very gentle bump on the shoulder. "Give them a minute, they're being adorable. This place could use a little adorable. You watch left, I'll watch right." She patted her rock. "Yell if you see anything creepy." And then took a breath, projecting her voice. "You've got thirty seconds to be mushy and then we need to go!"

Paige jumped at the sound of another voice and turned around to see the other two people there. “Right, sorry,” she said, swiping tears off her face. “I’m ready, we can go.”

Shatterstar finds Rictor.

He did not have a rosary with him, but let that be one more transgression to ask for God's forgiveness. Huddled behind a massive oak tree, Rictor held his hands together, rubbing one thumb against the other as if he were passing the beads between his fingers. "Creo en Dios, Padre todopoderos . . ." he whispered to himself. Please, Lord, absolve this young man of his cowardice that condemned the people he loved most to gruesome deaths at the hands of monsters while he panicked and ran. Please do not condemn him to the same fate.

Shatterstar recognised the kneeling form of his dearest friend and broke off from Madin and Liam. He could trust Madin to protect Liam and themself. But who was protecting Rictor? It didn't matter he didn't have much to protect him with against these monsters. He would not leave him behind.

He knelt next to Rictor to try to haul him up, get him out of that huddled position and get him moving. "Rictor, Rictor we have to move."

Rictor looked up and started at the ghost before him, but that expression melted into a relieved smile. "You are taking me to Xibalba? I don't want to go, but if that's where you are now, maybe . . . maybe it will be okay. I'm so sorry, Star."

Shatterstar grabbed Rictor by the forearms and hauled him up. Did... Did Rictor think him dead? Maybe Rictor could be able to feel his powers and feel him alive. "Feel the Earth. We have to go, now. Liam and Madin are waiting and we have to find everyone else."

"They're dead, too?" So this was not actually Shatterstar, was it? Just a psychopomp taking his form, to make it easier for Rictor to pass on. What had he done to earn this kindness, though? Or was it a trick to make his arrival in Hell all the more traumatic? Start his well-deserved eternal torture with a bang. Rictor sighed. If this was his fate, he could at least be a man about it, for once in his life (afterlife?). "Fine. I'm ready..."

Shatterstar scowled. "We aren't dead yet." He moved grabbed Rictor's hand and placed it over his heart, hoping the other would feel his heart beat. "We are still living and I would like to stay that way."

Always sensitive to even the most minute vibrations, the beat of Shatterstar's heart reverberated in Rictor's own. That was not the heartbeat of a dead man. "Star?" Before Rictor knew what he was doing, he wrapped his arms tightly around his friend, pressing his head against Shatterstar's chest to once again feel life pumping through him. "I'm sorry. I saw you and I . . . I didn't help you. I ran away. I'm so sorry."

Shatterstar hugged Rictor back, holding him back and feeling his heart. "That was not me. It was not the real me. Come with the real me and we will escape."

"I believe you." Rictor slowly let go and nodded, then followed Shatterstar back to the others.