The sound of Panic Room by Au/Ra and CamelPhat blasted from the speakers, the warehouse filled with students that had gathered for the Prom after party. Strobe lights flashed in time with the beat, the bass thumped against the chests of those pressed close together to dance in front of the DJ booth.

Candice and Fei danced with a few of their other friends from Summerland High, their feelings from earlier that night now drowned with vodka. Candice danced with her eyes closed, as if trying to ignore the nagging feeling in the back of her mind that continued to ask about Alice... where was she? Was she upset? Would they ever be friends again? She was angry and hurt... but even then she couldn't help the guilt that clung to her neck as tight as the sparkly choker she was wearing.

Beside her, Fei danced more unsurely... she didn't know the people they were hanging out with that well, and was more wary of her surroundings in comparison to Candice. Thoughts of Alice infected her mind also... she hadn't been in Summerland for that long, and so far she'd had a rollercoaster of a ride with enough adrenaline and fear to last her a life time... but she felt disappointment creep through her veins too... was it all over now?

Fei glanced around herself several times, wondering if Alice would turn up to the after party, for she began to feel bad about how things had been left. Although she wondered why she would expect Alice to come... especially with the way that the evening went.

As her eyes glanced around the warehouse, her gaze scanning over the dancing bodies, it eventually landed on the gaze of someone who made her skin crawl a little bit with fear. Magnus was staring at them from where he was stood at the edge of the room. Her breaths became shallow and she looked away quickly, feeling slightly off balance now that she was aware he was here.

Magnus could see that Alice wasn't with them now. He'd been waiting for a while for her to show up, watching her friends on and off, checking his phone even though he had hers with him, he hoped she'd find some way to tell him where she was... but there had been no sign of her for just over two hours now...

"Have you seen her yet?" Trey asked, speaking loudly over the music so Magnus could hear him just as Charlie and himself approached.

"No," Magnus replied, his expression calm but Trey could see what was happening in his head, he could see it in his eyes as he watched Magnus check his phone again. It surprised him that Magnus was, in his own way, worried about Alice Murphy's whereabouts, considering he thought they hadn't been talking... but apparently Magnus was still capable of sneaking around without Trey finding out even after all the years they'd known each other.

"I'm sure she'll turn up," Charlie said, glancing into the crowd and letting his eyes linger on someone dancing before looking away.

"Maybe she just went home." Trey suggested, seeing Magnus glance down at his phone again. "Dude." he said again, wanting to get his attention.

"She wouldn't just walk off." Magnus replied, although he didn't actually know if she would or not. He assumed she wouldn't, at leastnot without coming back for her phone and her coat.

"Bro, you know how girls are... Friendship break-ups are hard, maybe she just... went to calm down, I don't know." Charlie said, knowing he was making no sense at all since he had no idea what he was talking about... he didn't know Alice and he had limited friends that were girls and they all behaved differently. But they hadn't dealt with a worried Magnus before... it was uncharted territory for all of them. Charlie glanced at Trey for back up, only to see him staring at him with furrowed eyebrows, "What? I'm trying to help."

"Have you checked that thing you gave her?" Trey asked, folding his arms as they stood against the wall of the warehouse still, the music still thumping vibrantly around them.

"Yeah, but I think it's frozen," Magnus said, turning away from them to head outside so he could get a better signal on his phone. They followed him out into the parking lot, where the music grew quiet and muffled as soon as the large wooden doors to the warehouse closed. They were on the edge of town where out buildings like this were common and where the police wouldn't come sniffing for kids out after hours. The venue was littered with drunk teenagers, with some gathered outside to smoke or exchange drugs between them... no one lived around here, so they could be as loud or behave as badly as they wanted.

Magnus opened up an app on his phone and reloaded it several times, dragging the screen down with his finger as his eyebrows furrowed together... "This shit is so fucking faulty." he spat angrily as Trey looked at his phone screen, seeing a little red dot flickering on the screen placed on what looked like a map. It faded away then appeared again in the same spot, as if wherever that was, was a bad spot for the signal.

"Is that where it keeps saying she is?" Trey asked, seeing the map flickering again then say no signal in bright red letters. "Where did you put the device again?"

"In her necklace," Magnus replied, "The one I gave her for her birthday,"

"Maybe someone stole it." Charlie said and Magnus sighed heavily and angrily. "It wouldn't hurt to check though." he added as him and Trey exchanged glances, seeing the angered expression on Magnus's face. "It's like fifteen, twenty minutes tops from here." Charlie added, since he could read maps well and could see where they were in comparison. There was a moments silence before the decision was made, and no more words were exchanged as Magnus, Charlie and Trey made their way towards Trey's car...

And just as the car doors closed, Fei watched from the entrance to the warehouse through a gap, having seen the small discussion before the three boys left with Magnus looking pissed off. She'd grown curious after she'd first seen them all talking a few minutes ago, and nearly followed them outdoors before she realised that they would've seen her... she knew it had something to do with Alice. She could feel it in her stomach and wanted to know what was happening...

Seeing the way Magnus had been staring at his phone, the way he'd been watching the crowd, obviously searching for someone... Worry trickled into her alcohol drenched veins and she hurried back inside to tell Candice what she'd seen, pushing her way through drunken dancers and almost tripping over their legs as they jumped to the fast dance music... It only took her a few minutes to find her, only to see she was draped over a guy, evidently having drunk too much. "Candice," Fei rushed, grabbing her arm as she laughed and flirted with a guy in their grade who Fei couldn't remember the name of, "Candice, I think something happened. Magnus look really pissed off and just left with-"

"Who the fuck cares!" Candice snapped back, slurring her words as she pushed Fei away from her.

"Candice-" Fei replied in shock,

"They don't give a shit about us, why should we give a shit about what happens with them now?" Candice said, letting go of the guy and turning towards hers, pushing some curls out of her eyes as she swayed slightly. "Alice made it so fucking obvious she doesn't give a shit about me when she chose to fuck the psycho instead of being loyal. So who the fuck cares, Fei!"

"I care..." Murmured, not liking Candice's tone. She grasped Candice's arm and pulled her to one side and away from the lingering males that seemed to hang around drunk girls like vultures over a corpse. Candice pulled her arm from Fei's grip as they neared the edge of the warehouse, the music still loud and pounding against their ear drums. "Candice, I think we're being unfair on Alice. We knew that she really liked him! And he was just protecting his friends that night, like Alice was protecting us! And he hasn't been near us since. Don't you think if he wanted to hurt us, he would have done it anyway?" Fei said, staring into Candice's slightly vacant eyes. "What if this is all Alice's doing, and now that we've cut things off he's going to want to hurt us again? What if Alice has been the reason he hasn't touched us?"

"Listen to yourself," Candice scoffed, but Fei's words began to echo around her head as she thought about it more. What if Alice had been the reason Magnus hadn't hurt them... What if he hadn't been near them because he wanted to patch things up with Alice, and now that they'd broken their friendship... he would have no reason not to go after them... As Candice replayed what she'd said to Alice, she began to feel a little sick... "Oh god," she murmured, knowing she could have put a target on their backs because of how she'd lost her temper so quickly. Suddenly she turned away, and hurried out the closest exit, and over to a bush where she threw up most of what she'd drunk...

Fei followed, helpfully holding her hair back as some passersby cheered, thinking she was throwing up because of how drunk she got... when in reality, it had been the fear that she was now on Magnus's hit list...

~

... a hand emerged from the wet dirt, searching for something to grab on to moments before finding solid ground to dig their polished pale white nails into. More of an arm was revealed as the dirt rose and fell away from someone rising out of the ground, the residue dripping down their skin as they tugged and pulled their way out of a shallow grave.

Alice gasped for air as her head emerged from the dirt, her lungs expanding violently as she greedily breathed in and wiped her face with her dirty hands, her heart racing violently. She wasted not a moment more as she crawled out of the dirt and lay on more solid ground, lying on her back as her chest heaved and fell heavily.

Whimpering sobs left her lips as her mind replayed what had happened... one minute she was having her heart broken and the next she was pulling herself out of the dirt how many hours later. She cried out loud, deep rooted sobs that made her chest ache as she shivered intensely. The cold, wet earth clinging to her skin and her dress, reminding her again and again that she had been buried alive.

Silence echoed around her, although she could hear the rustling of the wind in the trees and the quiet sloshing of the lake water a few metres away from her. Her head ached violently on the left hand side, and she lifted her hand to touch where it hurt... only to cringe at the tenderness that made her feel a little nauseous. She didn't know what had happened, but it was obvious that she had lost a significant amount of time... her vision went in and out of focus, and she hummed and rubbed her eyes as she tried not to lose consciousness, like her mind was telling her it wanted to.

Alice sat up, unable to stop the sobs leaving her lips even though her mind was telling her to be quiet. She was alive, she was breathing, she was fine in a lot of ways... But it was the thought that she could have not been able to get herself out that scared her the most. She cried to relieve the stress that her body had been building up, although she was not sad, she was aware that if the grave had been much deeper, she wouldn't have been able to pull herself out and probably would have suffocated, and no one would have been able to find her.

She was also reluctantly aware that she may had not been alone in that hole either... whether it was a figment of her imagination or not, Alice remembered having been pressed up against what had felt like another body, she could still smell it... the metallic tang of blood in the air and the sickly sweet, putrid smell of decaying flesh... she couldn't bring herself to check to see if it was real or not... at least not yet. She was too fragile, she could feel it too, like her bones were made of glass and her mind of paper. She'd been pretty strong up until this moment, climbing out of a hole in the snow and walking home in her pyjamas, handling the sight of multiple dead bodies, being infatuated with a serial killer... none of that seemed to really scare her, but there was something about being buried and left to die in the ground, left to suffocate, that had got her.

It felt like it had all finally caught up with her, and she cried to try to release the tension in her chest as it gripped her lungs and throat in a vice and threatened to choke her. She was unsure of how long she sat there, letting the dirt dry against her skin as she took her time to attempt to calm herself down, her once loud sobs now quiet, shaky whimpers as she rubbed her arms to comfort herself... She was glad it wasn't raining, but it was still cold and her muscles had almost been starved of oxygen so she knew it wouldn't be long until things began to get serious, if it had not already started happening.

Carefully, she took a deep breath and held it in for a couple of seconds before exhaling, feeling her head throbbing violently as it ached... she repeated the action several times before she stood up, but still felt lightheaded and shaky still...

Slowly, Alice walked back over to where she'd crawled out, and glanced into the hole... the moonlight was bright enough to show her what she'd expected... and even though her vision was still a little blurred, she could see the edge of an arm poking out of the dirt. Her stomach turned with the realisation that she had been buried next to a dead body and her eyes watered again as she felt her paper mind tear. Her vision blurred even more and more dizziness took over, a low hum left her lips as she stumbled away from the hole and sat down again, rubbing her head where it hurt the most...

More pained whimpers left her lips and she wrapped her arms around herself, trying to find some source of comfort as it felt like she was on the edge of her own sanity, staring into the void that threatened to swallow her up for good. Her head throbbed and squeezed her brain, and the pressure seemed to sting her eyes along with the salty tears. She exhaled, and slumped again, falling to the right and back into unconsciousness... and although she was now able to breathe, it hadn't remedied the intense concussion she'd gotten from being hit directly over her temple...

~

"It's just up here." Trey said, pointing up ahead as Magnus drove his range rover, the car now silent as they began to drive down and empty dirt road that looked like it hadn't received any attention in years, if not decades... Trey glanced down at the map on Magnus's phone, seeing the little blinking light up ahead and sighed quietly, hoping it would be nothing but a mistake.

"I forgot this place existed," Charlie murmured from the back seat, seeing the old watersports house sign that seemed to partially fall off its hinges, "It went out of business like... eleven years ago, I think. No one ever bothered to do it back up."

"This is weird." Trey admitted, seeing the old boats lined up along the road side, rusting and crumbling away as the weather over the years ate away at their exteriors...

Carefully, Magnus turned off the headlights, letting the 4x4 crawl at a snail pace across the damp mud road since it had only recently stopped raining. They lowered the windows, listening to the quiet squishing of the tires against the mud as the road began to slope downwards... "How far?" Magnus asked, glancing up to see the old boat house, half rotten with its roof collapsed in... he hadn't heard of this place, but he suspected not many people had, although he could see the old beer cans and discarded tents lining the insides through a smashed window as they crawled past...

"Twenty yards." Trey murmured, staring ahead as they could see the reflection of the moonlight bouncing off the top of what looked like a vehicle by the waters edge... "What the fuck?" Trey whispered as Magnus stopped the car, hearing the large vehicles metallic insides whine quietly as he pulled up the handbrake.

"Whose car is that?"Charlie asked from the backseat as Magnus got out the car, his calculated gaze scanning the scene... it was ghostly quiet with a mist crawling in from the lake that was only a dozen or so metres away... Instantly Magnus knew this wasn't a mistake, the whole scene in front of him looked eerie and out of place, like something had happened here. He knew the feeling well, the way the air changed when a soul left its host body in violent death. He felt an eerie chill wash down his own body as he exhaled and swallowed, hoping that it wasn't what he was expecting.

The three of them were deadly silent as they moved towards the car, their muscles tensed, their footsteps barely audible. They were experts and moving around completely unheard, and took advantage of their skills as they examined the unlocked jeep in silence, picking through it and searching to find anything they could... Trey opened the glove compartment, and found insurance documents that registered the car to a Jasper Hunt. He cleared his throat, causing Magnus to look over at him as he made his way to look into the boot...

Trey lifted the papers, showing that he'd found something, which Magnus acknowledged, taking a tissue out of his back pocket as he opened the boot of the car... his eyes scanning the space expertly, picking things out in the darkness that would seem unnecessary to the untrained eye... he saw the strand of pink thread that had caught on an exposed nail in the back, and picked it off, knowing that it was the same material from Alice's dress instantly. "She was here." he murmured, twisting it around his finger. He was about to look away, until he saw it... The necklace, caught on a hook on the side of the car, the clasp broken like it had been ripped off.

His eyes widened suddenly, his heart beginning to thud hard against his chest as he reached for it and picked it off the metal. "The car is Jasper Hunt's." Trey whispered, coming to stand next to Magnus to see that he was holding the necklace. "Oh, fuck..." he murmured, seeing Magnus staring into space as his chest began to rise and fall heavily. The silent rage had set in, for he was now furious that he had no idea where Alice was or would be and Jasper Hunt had something to do with it... or so he thought.

"Guys." Charlie's voice whispered from behind them, and Trey turned to look at him, seeing him pointing at a slumped figure by the waters edge...

Magnus narrowed his eyes, putting his hand out for his phone from Trey, to then turn the flashlight on. He saw her blonde hair first, and immediately put his phone away, closing the space between himself and her within seconds. Although his expression was blank, his actions seemed to scream his intentions... "Alice?" he asked, holding her face as she lay with her eyes closed, feeling how her skin was cold and damp and looked almost lifeless. He felt her neck for a pulse, and felt relief as he felt the strong thudding against his finger tips. He watched his hands, now watching her neck throb for only a second, his thoughts whispering to him that he could almost feel it speeding up...