Chapter Text
04/16/XXXX
Prologue : Patrick
Y’know that feeling where you feel suffocated, but you aren't. You're totally fine. I wish I’d be given the ability to breathe, even though I can, perfectly fine. Well I never imagined myself in a journal before writing this now while my cousins are asleep.
My name is Patrick Mitchell. Me and Fiona Campbell are by blood, but my friends Gwen Evans, and Alec Theodore aren’t related to me, but they’ve been in my life long enough to be considered cousins. By my terms.
Fiona told me that journaling helps ‘deal with emotions’. I’ll just give it a go for once before I sleep.
Currently we are in a forest, all of them are in deep sleep. Fiona's head is dug into my shoulder on my left, while Alec is laying on Gwen's lap both drooling and snoring. Even though we are lost deep into the woods, the goosebumps on my skin by this chill that isn’t from the howling wind keeps me wide awake.
As i write this i think about what will happen. My parents are gone. I haven’t found them since Friday. My bento box with a ‘Do good in rehearsal, you rock kiddo! Love from mom,’ sticky note was sitting on the table in the morning, but I've took the note with me. My mom and I are super close, we did everything together, unlike my dad. I would tell her everything about anything, school, gossip, and the musicals I auditioned for. I felt like I’ve lost most of myself after she left.
Me and my dad were never close, he’d never tried to get close to me. My father hated what I liked, shutting me down constantly. When the instruments buzzed in my ears and the vocals flew around me in a flow of excitement and passion.Even though my father wouldn’t be pleased with me entirely, I still love him. At least I have this journal as the only trace of my father with me. So I’m grateful, at least.
Time feels slow with a week living here, ticks in the daytime and coyotes at night. The sunset here is vibrant, the color and aura swifting through trees into the sky in spirals pleases me, it's beautiful. Although it’s nice it reminds me of something I know; feels like déjà vu.
But then I don’t recognize this feeling. Of going back to what life used to be. I wanna go back. Seeing the stars with Fiona, Gwen, and Alec, I wanna see us grow now. We took that for granted. Could we have time to grow and sprout?
The truth is, we haven't grown since, well mentally. I felt as if my concern for them tripled in a short-span of time. I feel like I’m withering away, like a dead rose and the petals are falling onto the ground. When can I be fresh again, sun in my eyes in the summer, only once? If it was June again.
Now we are fighting to survive, whatever we could find, beans and plants to feast on. We were like animals deprived of their sources. Gwen always ate most of the food, every feast felt like I was truly living in hell. The tree’s bark pricked my neck while I slept, like a cat scratching me uncontrollably.
Alec kept telling me not to do this, and let him instead take the burning pain of dirt and tiny pieces of bark in my scars instead of me. The only reason I do is because I never do anything; it feels like I never try to, hell I don't even do anything right, maybe it's inner guilt. It's like my brain has lately been overshadowing my real emotions. Maybe If i just do something i could make it right?
I have an idea that we could find a place to stay for a little while? I’m not sure. I’ll try to find a way, and I promise those three to listen and believe in the way I did. Maybe I'm being dramatic. I am like father said 'It's that damn phone,' well not anymore. I’ll see if we can discover something soon.
I hope.
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04/18/XXXX
Prologue : Fiona Campbell’s diary
I’ve noticed that Pat has been dismissive lately. His hands flicking sticks and dirt, with drooping eye-bags you could visibly see, and his gaze is out of place. Maybe he’s just missing home. I guess we all do.
Pat and I are born 10 months apart, he's always been a best friend, cousin, and an older brother to me, making sure my chin is raised and I’m grinning. It's been rough for him after his parents went missing as well as Gwen and Alec too, nowhere to be found.
As if they got swept and flew through the wind trying to find us, I wish. I wish to understand him and his grief. My mother died from a cancer tumor in her brain when I was young so I haven’t gotten any chance to meet her. My dad was absent and left my mother alone with me while she was pregnant so nobody knows where he is now.
If I view this into his perspective and put myself in his shoes, I would definitely feel the same. I can’t, but I’ll try.
Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell treated me as their own, I still am nervous to talk to them even though I’ve known them my whole life. Mr. Mitchell was intimidating, each time visiting Pat would mean that I would have to communicate with them. If you didn’t know when I talk to people, I can't.
What I mean is that I’m nervous when I talk to people, even if I've known them for a while now like Pat’s parents. The only people I could never be ashamed to be weird around are Gwen, Alec, and Patrick. But besides, I’m just really worried for all of us.
The whole ‘Missing Guardian’ thing has happened with Alec’s aunt and Gwen’s dad aswell.
They’ve both been pretty bummed this whole time, Gwen isn’t rational as before. Persuading her to express what she thinks or how to get us out of here seems pointless. The only thing we get is ‘uhh I don't know,’ and it’s not an understatement If she talks about her father’s ‘Legendary pot pie,’ so often. Her way of showing her how much she misses her dad, that's at least nice.
Alec has been oppressive with his feelings unlike Gwen, since he’s usually open about anything he has on his mind. Now If anyone asks him we get a short answer from him “I’m fine, don’t worry about me,’ is alarming, he says that to anyone, but not us. He spills anything that's on his mind, his day, his mood, and all his gossip. I hope he's gonna be find as the most adaptive one here.
The air condition has a wave of heat and cool shots frequently, and with unpredictable lights that flicker on-and-off an unsettling wave of air and confusion shoots at me quickly with no warning, with a never ending cycle of possibilities flowing in my mind. We could have gone home by now, nope we can’t, we are too far gone with no sense of direction. And why are we here?
Ugh I’m in a spiraling fever dream I can't get out of, as if I was trapped in a cage with the key outside of it.
To be honest the shoe-printed tiles seem more appealing than writing, as blinking rapidly isn’t helping me, as I'm dozing off. I’m glad we are safe now, inside...not in the woods.
I hope Gwen doesn’t read this while I sleep, I’ll hide my diary beneath the register for now.