hadriel_logs | I think I’ve been praying the lights won't go out

[Chris doesn't know if he believes her that it isn't his fault--how can it not be when they're his decisions?--but... She's right in that he did what he thought he had to. That's part of what scares him, but at the same time, there's nothing else he could've done.

But that she's proud of him is what makes his vision blur with tears that he tries to blink away; that Ashley's here, and that she believes in him, isn't that the most important thing? If it all came down to it, it's Ashley that matters the most.

He doesn't think he can form words--even if he could think of any good ones--without ending up crying, so instead he hesitates just a moment before leaning sideways to rest his head against her shoulder. There's silence a few moments before he does manage to find his voice, offering a shaky but slightly lighter response than before.]

Th-this sucks. We deserve a better vacation than this.

[ The moment his head touches her shoulder, she moves closer, twisting slightly to let her lips press against his messy hair before letting her head rest gently on top of his. She's all right with the moments of silence, all right with just hearing him breath and knowing he's there.

When he finally speaks, it's not so much funny as it is true, but she can't help the quiet bubble of laughter in her chest. ]

Yeah, it totally does. [ It's one of the worst vacations in history. ] Next time, I'm voting for a staycation.

[ No mountains. No cold. No going anywhere. ]

[The questions and thoughts are still swimming in his head, but he's feeling calmer the longer he stays there with her; it's always been that way, her simple presence more reassuring than words could ever be.]

Yeah. Movies and pizza sounds about my speed for the next foreseeable forever.

[Something quiet, with very little chance of anyone dying as long as someone knows how to do the Heimlich.

He's silent again several seconds, feeling a lot more exhausted than really makes sense, but a thought strikes him--not for the first time--and he speaks up again quietly.]

Ash? What do you think will... When we get home, everything's going to be... Different. H-Have you like... Thought about it?

[He hadn't at first, but as time had gone on and everything started to sink it more he began to wonder. But what really prompted this thought to stick in his mind is that he realized when people asked him what he does back home, he'd answered in past tense. He was a college student. He was majoring in computer science.

And it isn't just because he's here, and so not doing any of those things currently, but because that life seems so far gone already.]

[ It's strange how good movies and pizza sounds. It was safe, and familiar, and something they haven't had for months now. Ashley misses the normal, boring things they would do back home; the hours in the library, books between them, and the late night texting. She misses being able to talk about new video game releases, even though her interest in video games lay in the older generations of consoles.

She just misses home, and the everything Before.

At the question, she stills beside him. She's been thinking about it a lot. Too much, at times. Her thoughts don't linger on her schooling, or her career, but rather the hours before dawn, the hours she still has to go through—hours she may be able to change. ]

A little. [ She admits, and finds one of his hands with her own, looping their fingers together. She watches their hands as she speaks, and admires how they fit. ] It's sometimes hard to imagine how everything will change for us because of this.

[He's still sort of getting used to the idea that he can just hold hands with her, and that makes it a little unexpected but special at the same time. He curls his fingers around her hand, sinking a little more against her out of a combination of being more comfortable with doing so and general exhaustion.]

Yeah. It's... It still doesn't seem real sometimes, I guess. Like lining up what we saw with, you know. Normal life, I guess.

[It still seems sort of like a dream that he'd gotten off the mountain at all; that he'd talked with police officers back at sort-of civilization, and had been about to head out to a hospital before arriving here. What happened to them on the mountain is just so incongruous with life as it was that the idea of trying to just return to it seems... Strange. Awkward.

Everything will change, for certain. But how it'll change he's not totally sure.]

[ He sinks in against her, and Ashley presses her lips again to his scalp. It feels good to sit here with him, to talk and soak in each others company, even with such a dark topic at hand. ]

...Will people believe us? Back home.

[ Will they have to pretend to be normal? If it still doesn't seem real to them, how will anyone else swallow it? ]

[He sighs quietly, closing his eyes at the feeling of her lips and quiet a few moments before answering her question.]

They didn't. Believe me, I mean. But like, there were five of us all telling the exact same story, and depending how bad the fire was there might've been some sort of evidence left.

[He knows from his late-night television binges that it takes a lot to actually burn bones, so the bodies of the wendigos would probably be found in the lodge. An addition there's the mines, and in the basement Josh's tapes of the prank probably survived; there might be evidence of the wendigos on them as well.]

[ Ashley didn't figure the police would buy a single word out of their mouths, not when she'd had trouble believing it all when Chris, Sam, and Mike ran her through the details. They'll just see it as another elaborate prank gone wrong, especially with all the details Josh left laying around.

It makes her stomach twist.

They're going to think they're lying. That's what is going to happen. Sure, some people will say that it's trauma, and they'd imagined it, but most people will think liars. No, their life will never be normal after all this. ]

You don't think that... that they'll lock us up, do you? [ First, Hannah and Beth Washington disappear, and then a year later this? It's suspect, that's for sure. ]

[Her question makes a cold feeling settle in his stomach, because he'd be lying if he said he hadn't thought about the possibility. It's a terrifying thought, the idea that they might be arrested and blamed for what happened and for Josh's--and possibly Jess' and Matt's--death's, but it could happen. After everything they'd been through, it might only be the beginning.

He thinks back on the questions he'd been asked, on the things the police officer had said, and he just... Isn't sure. She hadn't seemed to be blaming him, but she'd wanted him to implicate one of his friends for the stranger's death; he doesn't know if she wanted to do so just to pin it on someone or simply as an explanation that didn't involve monsters. He isn't sure it matters.

The whole thought is terrifying, but they can't do anything about it right now and worrying about it won't help anything.]

I don't know.

[It's quiet, honest, and he can't keep the hint of nervousness out of his voice.]

But like... They were done talking to me, and we were going to go to the hospital, so...

[They weren't going to arrest them immediately, at least.]

[ Ashley wants to tell him that that doesn't mean a thing; if you need to go to the hospital, they'll take you there, but that doesn't mean they're done with you. The amount of evidence on the property—whatever may have survived the lodge explosion—could certainly get the cops off their back if it ends up positively clear that it was all Josh's doing, but that could take weeks of sweeping the mines and secret parts of the lodge. ]

...They'll probably ask more questions again after that. [ They'll recheck their statements, and search for anything that differs, anything that proves they're really behind it all. Another elaborate prank by kids whose parents have more money than brains. They'll be in the news.

Her heart races as her mind spirals, and she squeezes his hand, much harder this time. The future is so much more terrifying than she thought it would be. ] We'll stick together through it, right?

[He tightens his fingers around hers as well, closing his eyes again; she's right, of course, there will doubtlessly be more questions. They're probably only letting them go to the hospital to avoid getting sued if one of them turns out to be seriously hurt, and the next few weeks--at the very least--are going to be full of questions and lawyers and therapists and who knows what else. Surviving the night hadn't been the end of everything. He shouldn't even be worrying about school at this point; they have so much to deal with before it's even an issue.

But thinking about that won't help. They can't do anything about it here, and they have enough to be afraid of and worried about without stressing about a world they're no longer even in.

Though deciding not to worry about it is far easier said than done.]

Yeah.

[At least that last part, her question, he's sure of.]

Yeah, we'll stick together. And the others will too, and as long as we all back each other up we'll be okay.

[And it isn't a totally hollow reassurance, either. There might be--there certainly will be--a lot to go through, but even if the police tried it would be very hard to come up with enough evidence that could even be spun to implicate them. And as much as Chris wishes the police were competent enough to have found Hannah while she was still alive, the fact that they seem to be terrible at their job might work in the teens' favor in this situation.]

You know lawyers are going to get involved, right? [ If Ashley can't change the course of the future, then the Washington's are going to want answers—they're going to want answers that they won't accept as true. There will be lawyers, and news crews. Her parents are going to become so much stricter; she's an adult—technically—but not in their eyes, she's still their baby. ]

It's going to be mess, Chris. [ A catastrophe—one so different than the one they're living now. She swallows back a lump in her throat. ] U-Unless the future can be changed—unless I can get back home and change it.

[Chris really doesn't want to think about this; the idea that after everything they went through at home and everything they're going through here, they'd have another fight--of a different sort--ahead of them at home instead of some time to rest. He just wants to sleep somewhere safe, and have a hamburger that he can be sure isn't made of human meat, and see his parents--

This isn't helping, and he's ready to ask her to drop the topic, but then she says that last part and it's enough to prompt him to raise his head so he can look at her.]

What do you mean, Ash?

Well, I... [ She feels a little put on the spot, despite the fact that she's the one that brought it up. ] I've been thinking about... about how I'm from before Josh... you know. [ reveals himself to be a total psychopath ]

And, uh... [ Where was she? Oh, right, trying to explain the craziest idea she's ever had that will probably never even work. But look at where they are. Look at what they've seen. Why not? Something in Ashley steels, something in her strong and determined despite her own doubts. ] What if I can just... just stop it all? What if I go back home, and change it all? I can... I could do something like that.

...With all that I know now, I can stop us from losing Josh, and that flamethrower guy. Everything could end up differently.

[He's quiet at that for several seconds, watching her face, and she seems so certain. So set on maybe having the chance to make things better.

And what if she can? What if it is possible? There's no reason it shouldn't be, provided she can return home, and that if she can she also remembers what she's learned here. He's read tons of books and seen countless movies about the idea of changing the future if you know what might happen, and considering things like wendigos and this place and the places and things that the other people here come from and have seen all exist, why shouldn't it be possible?

Logically, he knows it isn't that simple, that even if it did somehow work and Ashley could go home and change the future, that's still more limited than she might be thinking. Alternate universes, alternate timelines, alternate versions of themselves; all the crazy sci-fi stuff might just be real. If she could change the future, wouldn't she only be able to change it for herself and the friends from the one timeline?

But then again, wouldn't that be enough?]

Yeah. Yeah, maybe you can.

[There's no reason to explain the thoughts running through his head because they really don't matter, and he doesn't want to discourage her. If she can do this, she should. She could save Josh, and the stranger, and all of the rest of them. Maybe it'd be easier for her to recover from a good ending, too.]

It's worth a shot, right?

[ There is nothing simple about what she wants to do, and Ashley knows that. She knows that because she's had weeks upon weeks to think about it. She's considered the fact that maybe, just maybe, the future is already done and set and there's nothing she can do. Or she'll change her own future, creating a new timeline, leaving the friends from here behind her (and that makes her stomach roll with fear).

Or she'll make a mistake.

There are too many variables for her to worry over them all, though she will at one point in the future or another. ]

Exactly. I have to at least try. Even if nothing comes from it. [ Even if nothing changes. ]

I think I’ve been praying the lights won't go out

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