Chapter 4

~Ollie~

       As soon as I woke up from my sleep, something felt off. It didn't even feel like I was sleeping on my very comfortable bed. Instead, it felt like I was sleeping on a wooden floor and it definitely wasn't the best feeling in the world.

       I opened my eyes, waiting for my sight to adjust before sitting up, feeling awfully confused as I looked around the room. 

       I wasn't even in my bedroom. I didn't even know why I was. It just looked like a very rundown place. The wallpaper had peeled off in so many places with all different sorts of graffiti adding decoration to the walls. Very old, musty paper was scattered all over the place. There wasn't any furniture at all.

       I carefully stood up from the ground, walking around the room to try to get some sense of where I was and how I ended up here.

       I caught sight of one window in the room which was slightly boarded up with two wooden planks nailed on an angle. I walked over to it and peered through the part of the window that wasn't boarded up, feeling complete and utter disbelief of the sight.

       Spruceworth was no longer the lively and beautiful village I had come to love. Instead, it looked almost as if it was a ghost town. All the buildings were dilapidated with shattered and boarded windows and some even had no doors.

       There were barely any plants in the village but the ones that were there were on the verge of dying.

       I didn't know what happened or what the cause of this was but it couldn't be good.

       I felt in my pockets for my cell phone but it wasn't there. It wasn't even anywhere in this room. And it didn't even look like there was anyone outside for me to talk to.

       If I was in this weird place alone, I had no idea what I was going to do.

       I left the room I was in, finally realizing that I was really in the city hall. However, the room I was in wasn't the only rundown place. The hallway looked the exact same; graffiti on the torn down wallpapers, scattered papers, and this time some random pieces of wood and rubble.

       Seriously, what happened. The last thing I remembered was literally falling asleep in my own bed.

       Even though it was light outside, there weren't any windows in the hallway so it was quite dark in here. It didn't help that all the lights were burnt out, except for the one at the very end of hallway which was constantly flickering.

       As I was making my way down the hallway, I was hearing some sort of noise far behind me. I didn't know why but I decided to stop in my tracks and turn around to see what was making the noise.

       The stupidest mistake I had ever made.

       On the other side of the hallway, all I could make out in the darkness was some sort of human-like figure, standing a bit askew.

       I couldn't even fully see what the figure was but I had a feeling it wasn't human.

       I didn't even move at all. I just stared at it, trying to figure out what it was and what was going on here.

       The figure suddenly started moving towards me, slowly at first with a clear limp. Then it started moving faster and faster up to the point where it was running as fast as it could with its limp.

       That was enough to get me to turn around and run towards the end of the hallway, hearing that things growl from close behind me.

       I got to a door with a staircase sign so I opened the door to make my way down the stairs, making sure the door closed behind me.

       That didn't help my case at all because I heard a few loud bangs against the door before I heard it burst open. I didn't look back as I continued making my way down the long flight of stairs.

       I got to the end and tried opening the door but it wouldn't budge. I could hear that thing getting closer and closer so I kept trying to open the door, even ramming my shoulder into it a few times before it finally opened.

       Unfortunately, I tripped as soon as I got out of the staircase and I didn't have time to get up before I felt something grab at my leg. I turned to see that thing grabbed my leg, making my heart nearly jump out of my chest.

       Despite the human-like figure I saw early, it didn't look anything like a human. It looked as if it had burnt skin and it didn't even have a face. No eyes, no nose, nothing, yet I could still here it growling.

       I noticed a plank of wood sitting nearby so I quickly grabbed it and tried swinging it towards the creature but its reaction was too fast for me as it grabbed the plank with the hand that wasn't holding onto my leg.

       And now, it decided to use it against me. It held it high above its head, ready to swing down. I shielded my face with my arms so I wouldn't see the impact.

       The impact that never came.

       I heard a loud thud and crack before I no longer felt the creatures hand gripping my leg.

       There was a lot of hesitation on my part before I slowly moved my arms away from my face, seeing the creature lying motionless on the ground in a deformed position, the plank of wood wedged into its chest.

       I then looked over and up, feeling very relieved to see someone else in here. And considering by the blood on his shirt, that wasn't the first creature he came across.

       "Are you alright, Ollie?" Shaw asked as he held out his hand to help me stand up.

       "Yeah," I said as I got to my foot, though they felt a bit wobbly after dealing with whatever that was. "I'm guessing that wasn't the only one you dealt with."

       "Only two others," Shaw said. "You?"

       "That was the first one," I said. "I just woke up and left the room I was in and it was there. And I have no idea what I'm doing here. The last thing I remember is going to sleep in my own bed but suddenly, I'm at the city hall and Spruceworth looks like it was abandoned years ago."

       "Yeah, same here," Shaw said. "I thought nobody else was here but then I heard running so I came here just in time. I haven't found a single phone or anything, so I'm freaking out because I have no idea where my husband or kids are."

       "We should go look for them," I said. "Or anyone else that might know what's going on."

       Shaw nodded so we started walking towards the exit of the city hall but right as I took a step, I felt a sharp pain throughout my leg and I was about to collapse to the ground but Shaw quickly caught me before gently placing me on the ground. The pain wasn't subsiding at all and if anything, it was getting worse by the minute.

       "It got you," Shaw said as he looked at my leg near my ankle. "That creature. There's a large scratch."

       "It held onto my leg but I didn't even feel it scratch me," I said.

       "Does it hurt?" Shaw asked.

       "Yeah," I said. "A lot."

       "Okay, let's get you to a safer room so we're not stuck in this hallway," Shaw said, helping me stand up again. Since he held onto me, I was able to walk to the closest room to where we were. By the looks of it, it was the mayor's office with paper yet again scattered everywhere, a desk turned upside down, a bookshelf with the books all over the floor and the shelves split into many pieces also lying on the floor, and a desk chair. There was one window facing the streets of Spruceworth and it was boarded up with only a small crack to look through.

       Shaw helped me sit down on the ground near the window before sitting the desk upright and pushing it up against the door. 

       "You should go look for Holden and your kids," I said.

       "What? No," Shaw said. "I can't leave you here alone."

       "You can't leave your kids alone either," I said.

       "We don't know if they're alone," Shaw said. "We don't even know if they're here, wherever here might be. I love them and it kills me not knowing if they're okay but I can't leave you here all defenseless. It will just be until that wound is healed and then we'll look for them."

       "Shaw..."

       "You can't convince me otherwise, Ollie. There has been three of those creatures in the building so far. If there's more, you can't be left on your own. I'm going to see if there's a first aid kit or anything here."

       There was nothing. Absolutely nothing he could use to patch up my leg.

       However, he turned out to be quite resourceful. He was able to rip off some fabric from the desk chair and used that to wrap around the wound on my leg just to at least subdue the bleeding and stop it from being prevented.

       Shaw then stood up and looked out the window. "It doesn't look like anyone is out there. Nobody's walking around."

       "What if we're the only two here?" I asked.

       "We'll find out sooner or later," Shaw said.

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ugh shaw and ollie, my favourite brothers-but-not-really-brothers relationship. they might as well be though. ollie is an only child and shaw only has sisters, and ollie looks up to shaw so much <3

also since i love it when you lovely readers guess, here is what's happening: every single person who has a cast in this story is teamed up with someone/multiple people and they're somewhere in this mysterious place. so anyone want to try guessing who is with who? there are:

2 groups with only 2 people

2 groups with 3 people 

and 2 groups with 4 people

but that's only anyone who is cast in this book. so as much as i love julian's girlfriend (wink wink) she's not in this mysterious place.