THURSDAY

Lucas sat up feeling blurry eyed. He looked outside, still dark. He picked up his phone and blinked hard at the bright light. It was only five in the morning. He lay in bed for a few minutes, wide awake despite the fact of barely getting an hour of sleep. Finally, he got out of bed and dressed. He slouched, sitting flopped down at his desk. He absentmindedly began to draw., barely aware of what he was doing. 

Finally, he set down his pencil. He had drawn the monster. Every tiny attribute was rendered in expert detail. He sat staring at it for an hour. He heard his dad leave for work. He had probably just assumed he was still asleep. His phone vibrated. And then again. He picked it up and through blurry eyes read the texts. 

It was a group chat between Penny, Roxanne, and himself. They seemed to have been texting late into the night. Lucas didn't bother reading the older texts but saw they wanted to meet ASAP. Roxanne suggested Dana’s Dinner. It was agreed they were to meet there in an hour. Lucas sent a thumbs up. 

He threw his sketchbook into a backpack and decided he would leave earlier so he could bike around a little to clear his thoughts. He ate a piece of toast before leaving, but mostly his appetite had seemed to abandon him. 

It was a cool, damp morning, which seemed oddly quiet for a city. The school had received a good deal of damage. They were getting a week off while there was a search for a place large enough and appropriate to be used in the meantime. Lucas had been biking for about twenty minutes. He pulled off to an alley, planning to rest a bit before heading to the diner.

He sat in the quiet. He had the feeling one gets when a rat runs over one's bare feet in the dark, completely unnerved. He sat listening to his own breathing. He closed his eyes and tried not to think. He forced on nothing. Thinking of dripping water. Black ink falling into an infinite pool of ink. Lucas sighed and got back on his bike. But before he peddled off he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. A tingling spread throughout his body.  He looked around but saw no one there. He got on his bike and peddled away in a cold sweat. 

Lucas arrived at the diner first and went over to their normal booth.

“Hey Lucas! The normal?” the woman behind the counter yelled with a grin.

“Yah. Sure,” he said, waving and forcing a smile.

He sat down and sighed. What was going on? I mean this was crazy. Like was he really just about to sit down and talk about a monster? It just felt so unexplainable. And what would talking about it even do? He laid his head in his hands with a sigh, feeling defeated. He heard the bell ding as someone else entered the door. He looked up. It was Penny. She saw Lucas and gave a little smile walking over. She looked very nice. She was wearing a new pair of glasses. They were a light purple. She was wearing a blue skirt and a sweatshirt. Her strawberry blond hair looked nice. Lucas had never noticed before. 

“Hey,” Penny said, sitting down. 

“Hey.”

They sat in silence for a short while. Eventually the waitress came over and handed Lucas his usual. It was just fries and a shake, nothing too unique. 

“Oh, you've got a lady friend there,” she said grinning, looking from Lucas to Penny. 

Both of them blushed. 

“And my gosh she's pretty. What can I get for you?” she asked, smiling.

“Um, same as him,” she said, smiling.

“Perfect,” she said, winking at Lucas before walking back.

Penny looked at Lucas and laughed. He grinned back a little.

“So… What know?” Lucas said after a moment of silence. 

“I don't know,” she said, looking at the table.

“How are we going to tell Roxanne?” Lucas asked after another moment of silence.

“I guess we just tell her the truth,” Penny said.

“About everything? I mean Jasper?” Lucas said not able to finish.

“We tell her everything,” Penny repeated.

“What if she tells other people?” 

“Do you think she would? You know her better than I do?” 

Lucas thought for a moment before answering.

“No. I don't think she would. At least not yet. I mean we don’t know if we want to bring this to the public.” 

The bell dinged again and Roxanne walked in. She looked exhausted, but so did the others. Even Penny. It showed in her eyes. 

Roxanne walked over and sat down.  They all greeted each other. There was something like a cloud of doom that hung over the trio. 

“Well?” Roxanne finally said, breaking the painful silence. 

“There's something we have to tell you about Jasper.” Lucas said, looking up, catching her gaze.

“He hasn't been texting back. Have you heard from him?” Roxanne asked. 

Her words of unknowing seemed to kick him in the gut. “Well, Roxanne. I'm really sorry and I don't know exactly how to tell you-” He stopped, how could he say it. How could he voice that his friend was dead? Her friend, their friend that they had known since they were little. 

Penny interrupted his thoughts. “Roxanne, I'm sorry. Jasper is dead.”

There was a long silence, no one dared to speak. It was such a blunt way of putting it. Such a dead thing to say no other way of saying it. Jasper was dead. 

“Wha? H-How?” Roxanne stuttered, tears coming to her eyes. She tried to wipe them away but nothing could stop them. They spilled from her eyes and slid down falling onto the table. 

“H-How?” Roxanne said again.

“The thing. The creature we saw yesterday. Me and Penny have seen it before.” 

“What?” Roxanne said, staring dead into Lucas’ eyes, tears still flowing from hers.

“Jasper wanted to kill his dad, he called him and me to the bridge. I got there and the monster had eaten him. It ain't him, Roxanne,” he said flatly.

Roxanne half choked. She hugged her knees and buried her face in them. They all sat in silence. Eventually the waitress came over and gave Penny her food. She glanced at Roxanne. 

“Do you want anything?” she asked.

“No, thank you,” she said through tears. 

It was quiet except for the silent crying of Roxanne. After more time had passed she finally pulled herself together enough to speak again.

“What in heck was that thing?” her voice was shaking, but it was strong.

“We don't know,” Penny said quietly.

“But you've seen it before?” her voice sounded cold.

“Only once. The other day. Tuesday,” Lucas said, "looking somewhere far off.” 

Finally Penny spoke up, “So… Um, what now?” 

“We tell others?” Roxanne asked curiously.

“I don't think that's a good idea,” Lucas said.

“Why not?” both girls seemed to ask simultaneously. 

“They’ll think we're crazy.”

 “But we have proof,” Roxanne said 

“How so?” Lucas said, rubbing his eyes.

“J-Jasper. If we can find it...” she trailed off. 

The others understood her meaning.

“Could that work?” Penny asked, looking at Lucas.

“No. I dont-I dont think there's anything left to find. And honestly guys even if they did find his body what do you think they'd think? Option one: they actually think there's a monster, in which case I have no idea what would happen and that's incredibly unlikely. Option two: they find nothing and think we're lying or insane. Option three: they find the body or blood or something and they see us and think, man this is the worst cover story for a murder I've ever seen. Or they just tell us what we saw was some animal or something. They’d never believe us.” Lucas said finally.

“But-” Penny started. always the positive one.

“No, he's right. We just keep it to ourselves.”

“But what do we do?” she asked exasperated.

“Nothing. We try to forget, maybe don't go into the woods. Stay home at night,” Lucas said, rubbing his eyes. He felt completely exhausted.

So it was agreed that the trio would say nothing and forget about it.

FRIDAY 

Nothing happened, life went by.

SATURDAY

Again nothing. He went and watched a movie with Roxanne.

SUNDAY

Police came and asked about Jasper. He said he knew nothing. Apparently his dad was missing.

MONDAY

No school. It was said that Jasper and his dad were both killed due to a bear attack.

TUESDAY

The school put on a memorial for Jasper's family. None of the trio said anything about what really happened.