Serena

I gasp and draw the icy air into my lungs. I'm alive. I quickly examine myself. Cuts and bruises cover almost every available inch of my skin but I barely feel them. I stand up and brush the mud from my jacket. The once comforting stars overhead feel like spotlights, screaming to Slender as to where I am. I anxiously brush the hair out of my face. Where am I?! Trees surround me like a wall of wood and leaves. On the trunk across the clearing, someone pinned a slip of paper to it. Blank on both sides. It had to be part of a bigger collection because it had torn edges. I stuff the slip into my pocket and attempt to push my way through the leafy fortress. Kathryn's knife would be extremely helpful right about now. Kathryn. Where are the others?!

"TRENTON!" I call into the night. "ALY?! ERIC?!" His name catches in my throat. Eric. I need him. Why did I push him away?! I want him with me until the end. That settles it. I pound off into the forest, dirt flying and the air slicing at my skin. The night seems to go on forever, but I don't stop running. I continue on until I feel something tugging at me to turn another way and a faint voice in my head. Am I insane yet?

"Serena?" Trenton's voice asks. Momentary relief washes over me.

"Trenton! Have you seem Eric anywhere?" I bite my lip nervously.

"No sorry. We can meet up and then we’ll look for him. I could only see you, but that may just be because we have similar abilities. I think this forest is dampening our power. Where are you?"

I look around. "I'm by a big –no, a massive tree. Shouldn't be too hard to miss.” A memory flickered in the back of my mind. “Trenton! It’s the tree from the game!”

“Yeah… I’m still trying to figure that part out…” he replied. "Stick tight Serena. We’ll be there soon.”

I severed the connection and sat down on a stump.  Where in this hell of a forest is my boyfriend?! I try to connect with Eric, but I get nothing. Fear grips me and my breaths shudder. The worst-case scenario pops into my mind. I find myself slapping myself.

"No," I say sternly. "Don't think like that. He's alive. He has to be."

I think I've finally gone insane.

I twirl a piece of my hair between my fingers nervously. I need to keep myself busy. I search around the tree until I find a worn out noose dangling from a lower branch. I shiver, imagining what could've been in this rope. I quickly undo the knot and smooth it out. I take it back to my stump and begin to make complicated knots to keep my hands moving and my mind off the wait.

"And so it begins," a raspy voice says inside my head. I jump and look up. Slender stands a couple yards from the tree, tentacles writhing, skin a ghostly white, and a suit darker than midnight. It actually seemed to suck in all the light around it.

"What do you want?!" I ask, my temper taking over. I stand to my feet.  "You-you just come waltzing in like nothing happened?!"

"It was for your own good," he says sternly, almost like a scolding father.

"GOOD?! YOU THINK THIS IS GOOD?!" I yell at him.

"You were one of my favorites, dear girl. I kept you alive to the end out of favoritism. The others were useless to me. I want you to join me."

"What happens if I say yes?"

"We could destroy together. Take over the world. You and me forever. "

"What if I said no?"

He chuckles in my mind. "Then I guess I get to kill you. Your choice."

I pretended to consider my options. Either spend eternity with this psycho or face almost certain death. I smile.

"Nah, I think Ill just stay here. Thanks."

The air suddenly turns three times as cold.

"Oh, how I wished you would live to see your friends go. I have so many great ideas." He sounds like a complaining child. But Mommy! I was going to sever their heads or drown them in lava! Not fair!

“Too bad." I drop my rope. "Go ahead. Kill me. I dare you."

He's silent for a moment before taking steps towards me, a skeletal hand reaching to my heart. I close my eyes. Which time is this dying? I've lost count. I wait for the impact, but it never comes. I open my eyes right as a hooded figure bolts out of the forest. Trenton. He sprints to me, eyes blazing. He catches my eye for a millisecond, but in that one second I see everything. Every memory. The time we went to the beach when he tumbled down the dunes, sandy hair and a wide smile. When we went camping and pushed each other off the lake dock. The day he first introduced me to Kylie, pleading for my approval. Memories raced by until we came to the last. The day we first met.

Warm august sun beat down on us as we walked to school. I never knew him before that. It was seventh grade then and eighth for him. Somehow the girl with the messy braid and braces became friends with the boy with the warm smile, who quickly shaped her life. From that day on, their friendship grew. Years passed until the present came. A junior and a senior now and they were off on a suicide mission.

I snap back to reality and I quickly realize what's coming. I scream as he flings himself in front of me, Slender's hand sinking into his chest. Slender laughs, an evil, psychotic laugh, before yanking out the skeletal hand and disappearing.  Trenton collapses on the ground and I'm momentarily paralyzed. I collapse to my knees. Trenton's breaths are shallow, but somehow he's alive.

"The... neck... lace," he murmurs. I snap back to reality and search all his pockets before the logical thing pops in my head. His neck.

"You need help." I attempt to keep my voice level and strong.

"That's...obvious." He slowly winks at me, probably fighting to keep conscious. I close my eyes and connect to everyone's mind, sending out a distress signal and location.

"Ok I'm going to examine your... injury. Alright?" I have no clue what I'm doing. He nods slightly. I set to work by first taking off his hoodie, then the shirt. I gasp. In the center of his chest is what looks like a black spider web of...poison? The necklace is seared into the center of it. It's small, but it's obviously growing, slowly killing him.

"It's bad, isn’t it," he groans. I blink back the tears that threaten to fall.

"No… you're going to be fine!" I try and make my voice cheery, but it just catches at the end. Where are the others?! I send out another signal.

"Serena..." he whispers. I know what he's thinking.

"No."

"You... have to…"

"No."

"I'm... useless... now."

"I’M NOT LEAVING YOU. I’M NEVER LEAVING YOU, OK?!" I yell at him. He glares at me.

"Get the... paper... out... of my... pocket," he commands weakly. I find it in the hoodies front pouch. It's blank. I take my slip out of my pocket and put it next to it on the dirt. A golden light surrounds it and the two small slips morph together to make one deformed one.

"What the-" I move back in surprise.

"Serena, the others... have slips… too. Bring them... here and have them… connect them. I... think it... will heal me," Trenton whispers. The black spot in his chest grew larger.

"SERENA?!" Kylie screams from not far off. "WHERE ARE YOU?!"

"OVER HERE!" I yell back. A minute later, Kylie, Dawson, and Aly break through the trees and into the clearing. Kylie screams and falls to Trenton's side, completely in hysterics. He tries to shush her, but she sobs louder.

"KYLIE SHUT UP!" An angry voice yells from behind me. Kathryn storms into the clearing, Eric trailing meekly behind her. Kylie falls silent. Kathryn kneels by Trenton's side.

"WHAT IN THE WORLD HAPPENED TO HIM?!" she yells at me.

"Slender and I had a little cat fight and he came barreling in as my rescuer and now he's gotten himself all poisoned but I think I know how I help." I hold out my hand. "I need the slips you guys found when you woke up."

"They’re useless," Kathryn hisses through clenched teeth.

"Just trust me," I say calmly. They all comply and place a mound of paper in my hand.

I quickly lay them out next to the combined one and it slowly morphs itself together, forming one almost complete page. It had to be the last note. But we were missing one. Despair rang in my ears.

“We’re missing one…” I whisper. We all look around, when Eric points to something on the ground just under the paper I’m holding. Faint silver letters glow on the grass. I look up and see the full moon. I hold up the paper, and as the moonlight passes through it, the letters become clearer, forming a sentence

"The circle must be broken," I read. We all look in unison at the necklace in the center of Trenton's chest. The small green circle glows brightly.

"There's our circle," Kathryn whispers.

"I'm sorry, Trenton, but this is going to hurt." And we set to work.