Well I Might Be a Bit Insane

Hiya, this story includes some mentions of self harm and suicide and implied DEATH so please enjoy!

The backpack is heavy on my back, my focus only on the phone in my hand.

Caster: Sorry Ali, have to drop out, my parents saw some article about a serial killer that lives close by. Have fun for me and please don't die

I stare at it for a moment before huffing indignantly. The nerve. Well, who knows? Maybe I will make new friends at whatever this summer camp is for. Music? Yeah, music. I know Caster only suggested it because he knows how much I love drumming. I don't actually like drumming. It just really pisses off Gamp and Gam.

I look up from the little glass reflecting my loneliness at the jolt of the bus. Looking around, there is an old lady, sitting, clutching her purse, a guy in a suit, staring at his phone, some dude with a suitcase and nervous energy, and a teenager about my age. She is wearing a Alice In Chains hoodie, smoky eyeliner like any good hot goth girl nowadays, staring at me. Who could blame her though? I look like a reject emo who is running away from home, which is true, so I can't complain.

I try smiling. I fail. Probably because I haven't smiled since I was five (gotta keep that depressed aesthetic babyyy). It probably looks like a grimace, She just stares harder. Oh well, not my problem. I just saved enough money to run, and I am not chickening out. I look back at my phone. No new texts. Probably due to a lack of friends, but I digress. I open Tik Tok. Some random porn star was killed, fun, a twelve year old drew some crappy Wings of Fire OC, I do not care, and the camp was shut down. I pause on that video.

"The young girl, assumed to be around fifteen, was spotted near camp Stichloke, and soon after, young counselor Wyatt Hansong, was found dead in the cabin with no definitive cause of death."

The words play on loop. I stare at the young man saying those words in a far to enthusiastic tone, as if he is talking about a new album, not a death. Dammit, why couldn't I have been the one to mysteriously die? I could've gotten some documentary made about my life or something. And also I would be dead. That would be nice. Maybe dad would finally acknowledge my existence. Ha. I am hilarious. As if.

"Last stop! Everyone must get out!" The bus driver hollers, pulling the automobile to the side of a small town. Stichloke.

I pull myself up from the weirdly patterned seat of the bus and shuffle out in line. I am aware of the pair of twin eyes behind me, smudged and judging. I don't care though. That's a lie. I care when hot girls judge me, but oh well. Hopefully I will be dead by the end of the day and won't have to deal with any more of this.

The cold air smacks like a good drop in a trapbeat song on band lab. The trees were pine, like they were back in Washington for the only happy years of my life. I am about to step forward towards the trail that hopefully leads to some hungry mountain lions or something, when I feel a shoulder come down hard on my hand.

"Where are your parents, young girl?" I turn, and I see it is the twitchy dude with a suitcase. Now, I know not to talk to strangers, especially ones who are on a bus to nowhere that only criminals and people looking to start new lives go, but I really, really do not care, in fact, I hope he will kill me. Saves me the effort.

"Dead or in school studying about the mitochondria or something. Why do you ask?" I deadpan.

"Oh, um, well, you can come with me? I have family here, and I don't think you should be here by yourself."

"I'm good." I turn to go on the trail, but his shoulder clamps harder, his tone dropping, no longer friendly, but almost a purr.

"I said, you can come with me." His eyes glint dangerously. Who does this dude think he is?

"She said no, dude. Fuck off, creep." The hot girl interrupts, and only now do I realize how short she is. I blink. So short. The guy backs off and laughs, though there is no humor.

"Fine, fine, I was just being friendly." He turns and walks toward the small town, covered quaintly in snow. Good riddance. The girl turns to me.

"You good?"

"No, thanks for asking." I once again turn to go on the trail and hopefully fulfill my fate of being an urban tale told to kids so they don't go into the woods alone when she grabs my wrist. I flinch, as she obviously grabbed right were I tried to slit it. It didn't work out, to put it shortly.

"Where are you going? You know there is nothing that way except broken dreams and dead bodies, right?"

"Yep, and I am hoping to join them." I try to tug my wrist away, but alas, the emo baddie is strong.

"Okay, so your one of those girls. Well, I think that you should NOT do that."

"Welp, I have nothing on earth, so I really do not care." I sigh, and she stops for a second, before letting go of my wrist.

"Follow me."

"I thought that you just called the dude who just said something like that a creep. What does that make you?" I say, face nuetral.

"Oh my god, I forgot how annoying humans are. Just follow me." I open my mouth to say something, probably about how I hate humans to, but she is already turning. towards the trail she just told me not to go on.

"Hypocrite." I mutter, but I follow her. She weaves through the trees like it is the most normal thing in the world, and does not turn even when I face plant because of a misplaced tree root. I hate nature. This girl better kill me in a good way. I mean, she looks fourteen, so maybe she is that killer girl that got the camp shut down. Out of the thickets of trees, a little cabin, almost as decrepit as me mental state, stands, if you can call it that.

"Do you expect me to enter that? It looks like it is about to fall over because there is minor wind. Not that I would mind."

The girl rolls her eyes hard.

"It won't, because you aren't going to get to go inside exactly. Just shut up, stop making suicidal comments, and enter after me, okay?"

"Okay.' I shrug. She glances around, before stepping forward, and opening the door, and oh my god. What the hell am I looking at. Before I can even have time to process the fact that there is a whole 'The Owl House' type world on the other side of the door, she is gone.

"Weirdo." I mutter, and turn to leave, when somehow, as if the universe itself decided to spit in my face one last time, I slip and fall backwards. Into the door. Because the world can't just let me leave at any time.