Unraveling Shadows

Part 2: Chapter 14

Sometimes we need childish fantasies to survive the reality 

-Unknown

Myles and Liam came together to the Ethereals' clubroom. Carla and Leia came together. And Tyler and Rhyse came at the same time. They were all gathered at the sports clubhouse at 7 p.m. on Wednesday.

"Why were you two together?" Leia asks Rhyse.

"Ask your friend. Not me." He comments. "Are we getting started or not? I've got to get home early tonight. Ramona wants to have dinner outside."

"Tell her to eat with her friends," Liam adds.

"We need to talk about any updates or information we found," Myles says, standing up in front of everyone who sits on the couch and chairs.

"And surprisingly, everyone knows we're investigating this?" Leia asks.

"We all knew anyway. We just thought about keeping it a secret." Tyler adds.

Leia nods, "We're bringing out into the open then?" She sighs. "Hurry., I've got a date tonight with someone."

"We've ordered pizza," Liam says, tracking the order on his phone. "Myles is paying. Well, Myles, why don't you start us off before I snap my head open with my sense of profound risible impatience."

"We were supposed to do research?" Rhyse asks with confusion.

"Yes, dimwit. You were." Leia rolls her eyes.

"Exactly, tell him, Leia." Liam claps. "Rhyse, my brother, I guess you're the only lost case here."

"Did you do any research?" Rhyse asks Liam.

"Nope, nothing." Liam laughs. Rhyse laughs too. But no one knows what Liam had truly discovered. No one knows anything about Mathew, no one suspects Mathew of anything. Maybe it was Liam's imagining, something just unbelievably supernatural. Was he hallucinating? Was he imagining things?

"We actually went to the forest and-" Rhyse starts to tell the girls but is cut off by Myles immediately and naturally.

"We thought we could find something there. Turns out we didn't." Myles answers.

"Why did you go to the forest though?" Carla asks, crossing her arms over her chest. She was wondering why Myles never mentioned any of this to her.

"School. The boats. Where else do students often explore? Forests. We assumed they would go to the forest and perhaps we could find something there." Myles straightforwardly lies, with no hesitation or flaw in his big little lie.

"You're right. What if it isn't now, but there could be a murder in the forest? The places most likely to have students go to." Tyler says.

"Yeah." Leia agrees. "That would include the clubhouse we're in. The nightclub that they go to with fake IDs. But how will we even be able to prevent murders from happening?"

"They're playing mind tricks with us." Myles ponders, looking out at space. "The murderer. He's leading us into something knowing we can't do just nothing about it because of the potential consequences."

"Then what do we do?" Rhyse asks.

"Do we have any more leads?" He looks at Carla, then at Leia and Tyler.

"I didn't find anything," Tyler says confidently. Then, he glances at Rhyse. He slowly nods once so no one notices.

"Yeah, I didn't find anything out either. Except for the rape video we found. There was nothing else." Leia says.