zach sat in the corner of the room next to vance–they only knew his name because, well, hes hard to forget–and sighed rather loudly. it's been a few months since vance died, and we couldnt fucking help him as per usual. now 'the grabber' is going to capture someone else and we wont be able to help him either.

"what?" asked vance,

"hm?"

"youre mumbling,"

"oh," i didnt know that "sorry,"

"whatever," he got up and walked to the door "see ya," he walked through the door leaving zach alone to his thoughts.

when alone, zach mainly thought about his old friends, he'd forgotten their faces by now but he still remembered their names: finney and gwen blake and robin arellano, they were his first and only friends in all his life. so everyday he'd take time to remember them, desperately grasping onto the remaining memories of them in hopes to still remember them the next day, which he did, but each passing day he remembered less and less, his memories became less detailed and he knew that sooner or later the only memories left would be those of his moments spent in this very basement, because as much as he tried, those were moments he would never be able to forget.

☏︎

"z–zach?" spoke one of the boys,

"yeah?"

"he got another one," zach shot up from the couch and ran through walls and down the stairs to find the rest of the ghost boys all surrounding the mattress, zach leaned over paperboy to get a closer look.

weird, he looks familiar.

''anyone know him?" asked one of the oldest of the group–they suspected his name to be bruce, but didnt know for certain–followed by a series of 'no's from the other boys,

"he looks familiar," said zach making all the boys turn to him, zach hardly ever remembered anything, after being dead so long.

"friend of yours?" vance asked while studying the anonymous boys face. zach shrugged and backed up to the wall oposite the mattress, leaning against the cold metal door,

"could be, i can't remember," he tried to sound calm and composed but he was the complete opposite, he hoped and begged this wasnt one of his beloved friends, he didnt want anyone he cared for to go through any of the horrible things he did. he sighed and burried his head in his hands trying to figure out who this boy was, and praying that he wasnt finn or robin.

but when has hope actually done me any good?

☏︎

zach watched as the nameless boy walked around the room, studying his surroundings with the dim light from the window. he still hadnt figured out who this boy was but he wasnt going to give up. he kept thinking back to his friends and all the people he vaguely remembered, but no matter how hard he tried, no faces came to mind.

he watched as the boy stared at the blank walls when suddenly he stopped in front of the one to his right,

"holy shit," he mumbled, zach confused walked closer to investigate only to find the boy had been staring at the spot where he'd signed his name.

"zee," the boys eyes began tearing a bit and thats when it hit him, this boy was robin arellano.

"no, no, no, no, no," zach began mumbling over and over again, he brought his hands to his face and stared in horror at his best friend now trapped in the same room he had been in,

"are you okay?" it was 'bruce',

"he–hes my f–friend," zach was on the verge of tears now, struggling hard to not let them drop,

"oh," whispered 'bruce', he didnt know what to say, so he just wrapped his arms around zach which startled the boy at first but he quickly melted into his touch and began softly crying on his shoulder.

"shhh its okay, its okay," he whispered comfortingly in his ear

why did it have to be robin? theres so many people in this fucking town why him?! WHY HIM?!?!!

he had to help him, he couldnt let his best friend go the same way he did, so he pushed 'bruce' away and ran over to that stupid fucking phone. he picked up, it started ringing but robin didnt hear it, he couldnt hear it.

zach stayed by the phone all day long, hanging it up and ringing it again, desperately trying to help his friend, it would all be in vain though as the next morning the grabber had decided to play his first round of naughty boy. he felt hopeless, robin was going to go upstairs and theres nothing he could do to stop him, to warn him of what this simple action could bring him.

☏︎

robin woke up roughly 6 hours later, it was about 6pm, he felt weird, he couldn't figure out why but it felt as if all the happiness had been sucked out of the world.

"guys hes up," whispered one of the boys, robin turned around only to be met with the sight of four of the grabbers previous victims,

"what the fuck?" robin exclaimed, this was probably the most confused he had ever been in his whole life,

"look, theres no easy way to out this but uh," the boy paused and began playing with his fingers "you died,"

"i what?" he was even more confused, how could he be dead? but then he remembered going up those stairs, the grabber, that fucking belt.

"oh," he whispered, he looked at his hands and saw them covered in dry blood,

"that happens, it wont come off, we tried,"

great

he thought, he was going to be covered in blood forever, just great.

"well, im done here, bye," said vance and he walked away, revealing another boy behind him, a boy robin recognized all too well,

"zach?"

"hey robin," zach gave him a sad smile before robin ran up to him and hugged him, the 3 remaining boys all looked at each other before following vance out of the room to give the other two some space

"im so sorry," zach whispered to him, he felt that this was all his fault, but deep down he knew he couldn't have done anything no matter how hard he tried,

"its not your fault,"

"i know, but still," he said before robin pulled away to get a better look at him. robin studied his face, he brought his hand up to his neck noticing the marks that were all over it,

"oh god,"

"yeah," he paused looking at the floor, he felt ashamed of what the grabber had done to him and he'd rather forget it all happened

"are they from–,"

"yeah," he didnt let him finish, he couldnt let him finish.

"i-im so sorry,"

"not your fault," zach smiled, while secretly searching for those same marks on robin, luckily he never found any. at the same time he searched robin, robin had been searching him, looking for any other marks or bruises,

"your wrists," robin said, barely a whisper but zach heard it,

"oh...yeah, that,"

"did you–uhm–"

"kill myself? yeah," he once again felt ashamed, he thought he'd be judged, he alwayd tried to hide his arms as best as possible,

"that too but its not what i meant," he paused, zach was confused, what more could he have seen on his arms?

robin grabbed his arm and ran a finger over his wrist,

oh, those

his self harm scars, he'd forgotten about those, he didnt really remember much from them, but he remembers always having them,

"you mean the scars?"

"yeah, did you i mean–i dont wanna sound rude but, when did you do that?"

"i dont really remember but," he paused, as he remembered the first time he'd ever cut himself. it had been after his first and only fight with robin, he didnt remember the reason for said fight but he remembered they almost got physical, finn and gwen had to pull him and robin apart, but even still, they continued yelling at eachother. when zach got home later that day, he ran to his room and shut the door, he began crying almost immediately, he cried for hours and hours. he didnt know what else to do, he felt as if robin hated him, he felt like a complete idiotic asshole. so he grabbed his pocket knife.

"but what?" robin had a feeling–no he knew at least one of those scars had been because of him, and he hated himself for that

"they were my fault werent they?" zach didnt know what to say, he was right, they had been his fault but he didnt want to tell him that, he knew robin felt guilty about that fight, and this certainly wouldnt help, but what else could he say?

"uhm...some of them," he pulled his arm back which robin had still been holding and looked at the ground,

"im an asshole,"

"no youre not,"

"but–,"

"youre not an asshole robin," zach raised his voice a bit, and frustratingly made his way to sit on the mattress. a few minutes pass with the boys just staring at each in silence

"i missed you,"

"i missed you too robbie," the two boys smiled at each other, because even though these werent the ideal circumstances the two were stil glad to be with one another.

☏ ° ☏ ° ☏ ° ☏ ° ☏ ° ☏ ° ☏ ° ☏ ° ☏ ° ☏ ° ☏ ° ☏

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