CHAPTER THREE
‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ 3 ☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

( my name is dark by grimes )
THE LIGHTHOUSE REEKED. Not enough for Darcy to feel compelled to plug her nose, but enough to notice. It was that smell of mothballs, similar to her house, but stronger from the humid air around her.

She held her phone flashlight out in front of her, dust flying by as she took each step. The van was parked too far away now, it's headlights didn't aid her much in getting around the dark building.

It was a strange feeling, entrusting your surroundings enough to walk through the dark alone. She wasn't sure why she wasn't more afraid, if anything, the darkness felt like a sort of blanket to keep her calm, like if it were easier to see- it'd be all the more scary.

She tilted her head upwards, bringing her flashlight with her, above her was the spiral staircase to the top, and beside her was an open door to another room.

Looking around, things were still enclosed in their glass cases, little signs next to them detailing what it was, and where they found it. They must've not been that important as they'd just left everything here.

It was then when her own shadow startled her, but not so much the fact that it was her own shadow, but because it sprang up out of nowhere, the result of someone else's flashlight on her.

She didn't process it quite at first, but jumped, slapping a hand to her mouth when she heard her name.

"Darcy?" They spoke, she turned her wide eyes to see Sloane in the doorway to the other room. "What are you doing here?"

Darcy's heart was thudding, mostly because she couldn't tell who it was at first because of their light in her eyes. She spoke, her hand now on her chest as she heaved out a sharp breath. "God, Sloane-" she let out a small laugh. "You scared me. What are you..." she realized she was asking her the same question she asked first.

"I was just-" And Sloane realizes it was a strange question for either of them to answer. "I was just leaving," she put her head down low, as she began to head past Darcy and towards the door out.

"No- no don't leave." Darcy says, turning around as Sloane swept past her. She wasn't sure if she was saying it out of kindness, or because she didn't want to be here alone anymore. "I got dared." She scoffed, knowing it sounded stupid. "By Cameron and Lucas. Ae you..." She started to ask Sloane if she was okay.

She clenched her jaw, looking around everywhere but Darcy's eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I was just- everyone started like- yelling at me, so I kind just wanted to come somewhere that would be empty." She shrugged. "Not sure why I came to this conclusion," she makes a joke, gesturing around to the building they were in, and squirming a bit at the sight.

Darcy nodded, smiling faintly. "Did you know about the-"

"The curfew?" Sloane shook her head. "No."

Darcy nods again, inhaling deeply, that familiar but fetid stench. The conversation fell quiet, Sloane never really was much of a talker.

Just as Darcy was about to ask if they wanted to go up the stairs, to get a good view of the ocean, the both of them heard something come from above.

They looked up quickly, then back down to each other. Sloane, wide eyed, spoke first. "What..."

"It sounded like voices?" Darcy whispered back, then tilted her head up. "Hello?" She yelled, and it echoed upward. Sloane was panicked at first, as she wasn't expecting Darcy to yell.

Giggles. Coming from two different people, but not the haunting kind. Not the giggles you'd hear in a horror movie. It was like someone was genuinely just laughing at them. Darcy squinted her eyes, trying to get a better look, to see who was up there.

"If you're trying to scare us, we can already hear you." Darcy yells, though the giggling did in fact, scare her.

Then someone leaned over the railing at the top floor, and they heard a shutter noise, and then a flash, then more laughter- clearer this time- like they weren't trying to hide it now, they were just erupting in laughter.

Darcy looked at Sloane with a narrowed eyebrows. "Did they just take a picture, or?" Sloane seemed more confused than afraid.

Darcy clenched her jaw, walking past Sloane and up the stairs. Sloane weighed her options, either stay down here by herself, or follow Darcy upstairs to the two potentially dangerous people waiting for them. She didn't know why, but she followed her.

"Hey!" Darcy shouted, glancing up every once in a while as the two of them thudded up the metal staircase.

It was probably best Sloane couldn't really see how high up they were getting, she kept her flashlight forward and tried not to think about it.

Darcy got to the top first, for a split second she was distracted by the view. All around her was window, and she got a panoramic view of the ocean which was still glowing a soft purple.

"Smile," someone spoke, and Darcy snapped her head in that direction as a camera flashed in her face. Her eyes squeezed shut, the bright light burning.

Sloane stayed a few stairs below, not comfortable being up that high in general, and definitely not with whoever was up there.

Darcy blinked a few times, two girls stood ahead of them. One was sat up on the iron railing that enclosed the now inoperable lamp, and the other stood closer- a camera in hand.

Darcy turned to Sloane with an annoyed face, "It's Ivy Purnell."

Sloane narrowed her eyebrows a bit. The name was familiar, but it took a second to match a face to it. She crept up another stair, getting a better look.

The girl looked at her, putting the camera back around her neck with a proud smirk. She was pale, but not the kind of pale that was caused by not being in the sun, she was meant to have such fair skin. It fit her. With her short black hair and bangs, she looked like Snow White.

"These are gonna turn out great." She says, holding her camera up and scoffing.

Darcy ran her tongue along her bottom row of teeth. Something about Ivy had always bothered her. She was confident, but too confident. Like she was invincible, which in some ways was enviable. But she held herself in such a stature that always bugged Darcy.

They'd had a few classes together, but never really spoke much. She knew she was on the soccer team with Kaia, and Kaia had the same opinion on her, which made Darcy feel less like a bitch and more of a rational bitch.

"What do you want?" Ivy raises her eyebrows. She didn't ask it in accusatory way, more like she was genuinely asking.

Darcy glances at Sloane and back to Ivy. "Want? We don't want anything we-" she cuts herself off as her eyes trail to the other girl, who kept pinching one of her nostrils and sniffling. "Oh." Darcy says, realizing what they'd walked in on.

"Oh," Sloane says almost at the same time, but was significantly more panicked than Darcy was. She looks at Ivy, who was still waiting for an answer, and then to the other girl who was sat on the railing.

"Wait-" Sloane says, finally coming up the stairs to the top. She shines her flashlight a bit towards the girl, who puts a hand up.

"Chill," she complains, squinting.

"Aren't you Celia Park's daughter?" Sloane asks.

"Celia Park as in the actress Celia Park?" Darcy says, trying to catch up to speed.

The girl looked around at each of them, her eyebrows slightly lifted in a worried look. "Please don't tell anyone that I-" she wipes her nose, shaking her head. "Just be cool." She pleaded.

Darcy wasn't sure if she was asking people to not spread that she was Celia Park's daughter, or the fact that she was snorting cocaine in the Southeil Lighthouse. Probably that, as everyone already knew who her mom was.

Sloane should've recognized her earlier. Her family had visited the Park's when they first moved to town a few months ago. They had a dinner at their house, and while her and Gwen didn't talk that much, they did sit across from each other for a good few hours.

Or maybe it should've been the way she dressed that clued her in. She wore a big, royal blue cropped fur coat, a big black chunky headband that assumedly read PRADA on the top, and a dress underneath that was covered up by the coat.

"Why are you guys here?" Ivy asks, glancing at the two of them.

Darcy shakes her head and rolls her eyes, not really sure anymore. "I got dared, and she-" she waves in Sloane's direction, then inhales sharply before speaking again. "Is there anyone else here that'd like to introduce themselves before I leave?" She raises her voice, making a joke.

Though she really wasn't expecting an answer.

A door slammed from downstairs.

All four of the girls jumped, Gwen hopped down from the railing and looked at the other girls with wide eyes, gaging their reactions.

Darcy slowly scanned the room. "What the fuck was that?" She whispered quietly.

She was about to accuse Ivy of doing something, somehow finding a way to scare them from up here, but she looked just as terrified as everyone else.

"It was the wind." Sloane said. She had heard that line so many times in movies, and never realized it would become a rational possibility for something in her own real life.

Darcy went to the stairs, "Hey!" She yelled. Everyone leaned forward, looking at her with wide, panicked eyes as they shushed her.

"What the fuck, Darcy! Be quiet!" Ivy whisper-yelled. "It could be a fucking serial killer."

"Well if they were here to kill us they already knew we were fucking up here!" Darcy whisper-yelled back.

"Shh!" Sloane shushed them harshly, and it was intimidating coming from her. Darcy shut her mouth.

Gwen swallowed harshly, she wasn't sure if she was tweaking, but because everyone else was acting scared she was sure she wasn't.

"Yeah, yeah. It was probably the wind." Ivy whispered.

Darcy stepped down one step back onto the stairs, and felt Sloane grab onto her arm. She turned around to see her shaking her head concernedly. "It could be Cameron trying to scare me-"

The lamp in the center of the lighthouse turned on, with a loud electric boom that all old technology made when it powered up. All four of the girls screamed, and while they were all completely running off of reflex now, they all started piling down the staircase.

The steps shook, and given that they didn't look like they could hold up one girl, let alone four, it probably wasn't smart that all of them were racing down them at once.

The railing gave out as Gwen held onto it, and it broke off and fell to the ground. She leaned up against the wall beside her with wide eyes, but the other girls didn't seem to notice. Or they did, and they were just trying to get off them as quickly as possible. She stayed pressed up against the wall, slowly descending the stairs after everyone else.

Darcy held her flashlight up as she was the first one down the stairs, she shined it around quickly, her hand shaking. "This isn't fucking funny anymore!" She yells, though she wasn't sure that it was a someone she was yelling to anymore. More of a something. "We could've gotten hurt." She says, confidence leaving her voice as she kept looking around.

Sloane went to the door, twisting the doorknob, it wasn't budging, so the twisting soon becoming pulling, and then pounding on the door.

"Stop, stop." Ivy says calmly, "There's another door."

Ivy steps past Darcy into the other room she hadn't been in yet. Ivy reaches into her back pocket, pulling out a small switch blade that looked like she got it straight from the 60s. She flicked it open, shining her light inside the other room before she stepped in.

"Come on." She says, as she walks in.

Darcy glanced behind her at Sloane and the girl who's name she still didn't know. "It's fine." She said, trying to be reassuring, but she wasn't sure how true that was.

"That light hasn't worked in decades." Sloane says, following after Darcy as Darcy followed Ivy.

"I know, I know that." Darcy says, unease in her voice. "We probably just hit something, people don't come up here that much."

"I come up here every weekend." Ivy says, leading the group towards the door, but still taking time to examine the old objects in cases with her lights. "That's never happened."

Gwen followed behind. She knew she was making a rash decision getting involved with a dealer in the first place, but she needed something. Anything. And now she felt like a visit from an exorcist was in order.

Darcy's eye caught some of the relics as she walked past them. Old books, items from ship wrecks and bottles found from the sea. There were old crates emptied, items that belonged to people who lived here centuries ago and now put out on display.

"Look," Ivy spoke, catching Darcy's attention. Darcy walked to where she was standing, here light held over a glass case that displayed four daggers. "These were found in the carnage after the massacre."

"Can we go, please?" Gwen spoke, hugging her blue fur coat to herself as not to let it touch any of the cobweb covered artifacts.

Sloane stepped past them, as Darcy and Ivy were too hung up on the sights to remember why they originally came in here. Sloane pulled on the handle to the door to the outside. "These shouldn't lock from the inside." Sloane says, shaking her head.

Ivy held up her camera and snapped a picture of the daggers.

Sloane let out a scoff. "Ivy, seriously? Not the time."

Darcy looked up, processing what Sloane said. "It's fine, we're fine." She says, thinking quickly. "Let me call Kaia, they're outside." She starts dialing the number.

"There's someone in here with us." Gwen spoke, her back turned to everyone, facing the doorway they just walked through to get into this room.

Everyone fell silent, turning to look at her. Darcy heard the call drop on the other line, her phone still to her ear.

Ivy tried to laugh, ease the tension to make herself feel less terrified. "Yeah, no shit." She said.

Gwen shook her head, still not turning around. "No, they're looking at us."

Darcy's blood ran cold, and as soon as she started to walk towards Gwen, to try and see what she was seeing, the front door was pushed open with a loud thud.

"Darcy! Darcy?" Familiar voices yelled, echoing as they filled the room.

Kaia and Dakota piled through, looking around frantically. Darcy rushed over to them, her eyes wide with panic. She opened her mouth to start telling them what just went down, but they looked concerned, more terrified than she did, and she shut her mouth.

Kaia looked at her worriedly, then to all of the girls who stood and watched in the other room. Dakota yelled outside to Cameron and Lucas, telling them they got the door open. He held a rusty crowbar in his hand.

"What the hell, Darcy?!" Kaia says. "We almost had to call our dad!"

She shook her head, swallowing hard. "It's fine- we're all fine. We-" Darcy turns to Gwen, who still looked a little shaken up.

Maybe it was the drugs, or maybe she really did see something.

"We're okay- the doors just got stuck." Darcy says.

"Stuck?" Dakota scoffed. "We've been trying to get them open for an hour."

Darcy whipped her head back around to the rest of the girls. "An hour?" Sloane spoke. "We haven't even been here for ten minutes."

Kaia looked at Sloane, then back to Darcy. "Darcy? What are you... We've been outside trying to get these doors open since your ten minutes was up? We would've called the police but you told us you were all okay-"

Gwen speaks up for the first time in a while. "I don't think you were talking to her."

a/n
🤭 hope ur enjoying!
( not edited )
- jane