Ambrose wakes up cold. His hand shoots up, reaching the air. He realizes he is buried, face down, somewhere. Using all the upper body strength he can muster, he pulls himself out of the dirt, shaking it off him. It remains in his hair, a thick layer of soil. His clothes are dirty too, surely they will be stained.

He thinks back to his last seconds. He must've fallen asleep in the car ride, but he doesn't remember much. How did he end up out here, buried under the dirt? This must be another prank that Leander has pulled. That asshole.

Standing, Ambrose looks around. He is in a forest. The trees look like the knobby fingers of a witch shooting out from the earth. They surround him too, and he isn't sure what to do about it.

A few feet away, he hears a shout.

Barry wonders what has happened to them. They lied down on her grave for peace. They must have fallen asleep. Were they buried in the graveyard by someone thinking they were a corpse?

Ambrose rushes over, leaping over roots that reach protrude out of the dirt even though his body aches. He gets to the stranger and helps uncover him from the dirt, pulling him out. Ambrose remembers the strength it took him to pull out, but this man is buried deeper.

The man coughs, trying to stand but stumbling on his feet. His joints hurt, and he hasn't felt this kind of pain in his muscles in a long time.

"Fuck," Barry says, trying to catch their breath. The dirt compressed their lungs. They look up at Ambrose and grab the young man by the collar of his shirt, pressing him up against a tree. "Did you do this to me?"

Ambrose flinches, closes his eyes tightly. He can feel himself shaking, "no."

"No?" Barry says. His grip loosens on Ambrose but he doesn't let go. "Who did?"

"I don't know," Ambrose finally dares to peek at Barry with one eye.

Barry lets him go.

The pair hear a voice screaming for help, somewhere deeper.

Ambrose's eyes widen, "we need to break out and search for more people. Now."

Barry nods, and the two split off, running through the forest.

Barry heads for the voice, while Ambrose looks for soil that might be disturbed. It is dark, nearly impossible to see, and leaves litter the ground. He kicks at the leaves, trying to feel for something, anything.

When Barry arrives at the screaming voice, he digs out her shoulders and pulls her. The woman slowly rolls out of the ground, and she coughs up dirt that entered her mouth while she screamed. She wipes it out of her eyes, smearing it across her face. Her hands are still in Barry's.

"Where are we?" Audrey asks, holding on to him. Then, Audrey recoils. How did they get here? One minute, they were being beaten in chess by that old man, and now, they are just saved from being buried underground.

"There are others buried," Barry explains to the woman. "We need to split up. Some other guy found me."

Clare never knew what to do if they found themselves buried alive. They aren't sure which way is up. There is a cavern where their face is, and so they can breathe, and they don't want it to cave in. They squirm and feel the dirt shift above her. They realize that they aren't buried that deeply. They begin to pull themselves up, but their bullet-proof vest is far too heavy.

Audrey catches a glimpse of the dirt moving. She claws at the body with her sharp fingernails until she hits the bullet-proof vest. Together, the two of them stand up.

"What's going on?" Clare must've been attacked from behind and knocked unconscious, then buried here. It's the only thing that makes any sense.

"I don't know!" Audrey says. She is sure her heart is beating irregularly. It's too quick, it almost skips a beat. It is impossible to keep up with. "You're a cop. Shouldn't you know?"

Clare looks around the forest, trying to decide if she can trust them. Audrey runs away before Clare can ask them any more questions.

Ambrose finds a pile of dirt, peeking above the surface. It is a different texture than the rest of the dirt. He digs at it, feeling for the body of the person buried below.

Lydia knows better than to scream, even in disaster. She must save her throat for the opera. She is a young ingenue, only 20, and she needs her voice to last her a lifetime. Still, she gasps at the feeling of air entering her lungs. She wraps her arms around the person who has helped her reach the surface.

"Thank you," she manages. Then, the panic begins to set in. Where is she? How did she get here? The last thing she remembers is her father asking her about her album, and now her body feels like it might never be limber again.

Barry continues to wander. He is only a few metres away when he hears a grunt coming out from under the ground. Leo is buried nearly as deep as he was, causing Barry to dig and dig until he grabs a hold of the man and pulls him out.

Leo gets up off the ground and reaches for his gun, but it is not in his holster. He must've had an episode of RAS, and now the killer is free and has his gun. Not just awful, but horrifying.

Barry doesn't bother to explain. They simply dart away, checking to see if there are any other bodies. They can hear the other people searching around him, other calls for help. There are half a dozen shadows in the woods now, searching. How many more of them could there be? Will they be trapped here forever? Searching for all of purgatory?

Kaia's hand is at the surface, digging into the dirt. She has just awoken, and she feels someone take her hand. She pulls and pulls herself up until she is at the surface and can breathe again. She has swum enough to know how to hold her breath for long periods, but the air is still a relief.

"Do you know how we got here?" Clare asks.

Kaia shakes her head, "what do you mean?"

"We've pulled around five other people out of the ground," they continue. "Some buried deeper than others. Do you know how you got here?"

The only thing Kaia remembers, after kissing Rory, is a bubble of anger. It was there in the diner, and it only grew more. Kaia has no idea what happened after that, "no. Sorry, who are you?"

"I'm with the police," Clare says, even though she too might be a victim.

Eva practically rolls out of the dirt. It is a thin layer over her, not enough to have even had the intent to keep her hidden. She rolls on her back and looks up at the trees above. She must've gone so high she wandered into the woods. Eva can hear people running around nearby, shouting out about the bodies they are finding.

She is not alone in the woods. The notion should be more comforting than unsettling. Unfortunately for Eva, her stomach aches.

Este isn't so deep that they aren't able to pull themselves up without help, but their scarf is stuck in the dirt, choking them. They rip it from their neck, leaving a clean mark along their otherwise dirty body. While disoriented, they have no doubt how they ended up buried in the woods. Jayce, as stupid as he is, must have tried to kill them and failed, only putting them under ten centimetres of dirt. He did a pisspoor job of burying them.

Nico also is a bit under the ground, but they manage to kick their way to the surface. They turn their head, looking around, "hello? Kye?"

"What?" Este turns her head, and sees Nico, a couple of metres away. Then, she sees shadows moving between the trees, darting through the darkness, tripping over logs hidden under piles of leaves. "What are you doing here?"

"I don't know," Nico says, pulling themselves into a standing position. "You don't seem surprised that you are here."

"I'm not," Este huffs, blowing at the hair that has fallen in her face.

Across the way, Ajay knows better than to scream to preserve oxygen. He says help, it trying to keep his voice and tone steady. He was trained on what to do if he was caught in an avalanche, but there was no ground to move on the streets he was walking in.

Ambrose gets to him and helps uncover him. He pulls Ajay up to his feet, and the newly surfaced man looks around.

"Where am I?" Ajay asks.

Fallon slips out of the ground, a layer of dirt covering her, lighter than sand at the beach. Almost like being jumping into a ball pit as a child. She sits on the ground, puzzled. A minute ago she was in her apartment. The pieces aren't falling into place to make any sense, unfortunately.

The others continue to search the ground. They bump into those that have freed themselves, and after another ten minutes of searching and finding no one, they gather together in the middle of the forest. It is next to impossible to see the faces of the others.

"Does anyone have a cellphone on them?" Clare asks. There is no telling if a signal would even pick up in these woods. Her walkie-talkie is gone, and so is her gun. She feels particularly vulnerable.

No one answers in the affirmative. Clare puts her hands on her hips, looking around. She has no idea how they are going to get out of here.

"Where are we?" Audrey asks. Her head hurts, a bit. There is an ache in her neck as if she slept at an awkward angle.

"The boreal forest," Ambrose answers.

"Unless they transferred us to BC, of course we are," Ajay says. Something like 80% of Canadian forest is boreal. "Not particularly helpful."

"The boreal forest in Chelster," Ambrose specifies. He used to come out here and bury animals that would die on his property. Never this far deep, however.

Everyone remembers being in Chelster. It seems they haven't moved particularly far.

"How do you know?" Leo says.

Ambrose looks down at his feet, "the trees are familiar."

Everyone waits for him to elaborate, but of course, he doesn't. It is not in the nature of trees to explain. Only once you cut them open can you tell their history, from the rings filling their trunk. Ambrose feels quite like a wood-cutter; he understands the dead better than the living. He imagines the others must feel the same.

"Are we sure there is no one else?" Clare says, looking around. She can count out twelve of them, but they could be missing at least one person. She doesn't understand how they were all abducted and brought to the woods, buried in the middle of the night.

Barry feels confident that their search was thorough. They searched the grounds, all of them, and didn't hear a peep, didn't feel the ground shift. Unless they are buried for acres upon acres, this is it. "If somebody else calls, we'll answer. For now, we should be safe."

"What now?" Nico says. He looks over at Clare. "You're a cop, right?"

"I'm RCMP," Leo offers, his voice sturdy and deep. "We need to get into town and then go to the police station. They'll have the resources to look for more bodies. Flashlights. Maybe dogs."

Chelster has no police dogs. Clare knows that they are lucky to have two dozen officers and a handful of detectives. Resources are spread thin out in Chelster, with funding for the police coming from municipal taxes, of which there are few.

"We just need to find our way back to the town," Clare continues, trying to make sure everyone stays calm. They can feel their own heart rate climbing, reaching taller than the forest around them. Their lungs shake like earthquakes with high magnitudes. Bringing down buildings, entire lives.

"How do we do that?" Lydia asks, keeping her voice meek. She is surrounded by strangers, after all.

Barry recognizes her voice. He knows it better than he knows the sight of her, with her face in shadows and stained with dirt. Her voice was more recognizable than his own. He listened to it for months, and then more months until it was no more.

"Lydia?" he asks, looking over her, "but... but you're dead!"

~~~~~

Sorry everyone wasn't featured particularly heavily. It's less of a chapter and more of an introduction if that makes sense. I hope you enjoyed it though. There isn't much to go off, but let me know if I'm getting your character right. They are under stress right now, so hopefully, things will mellow out.

Also, get in relationships. The next chapter cannot come out until they are done! I'm hopeful that they will be good. Best of luck!