Long Way Home ~ Reggie Peters

Chapter 1: Back at Home (Edited)

(Zach's POV)

I anxiously pace around the pitch-black room that we've been stuck in for what seems like an hour, waiting for something to happen. Luke and Reggie were sitting on the ground while Alex had wrapped his arms around his knees, quietly sobbing.

I continue pacing until Luke broke the silence, "Zach, can you just relax? You're making me anxious."

"Relax?" I stopped pacing. "You're seriously telling me to relax when we're stuck in a dark room for who knows how long?" I snap at him. Luke just sighed.

"We just died, Luke! How can you be so calm about this?" I said, raising my voice even more. 

Luke stood up and walked towards me. "Because pacing around the room isn't gonna solve anything," he tells me.

"Yeah, but you know for a fact that I have very bad claustrophobia and this seems like a very claustrophobic room to me!" I snapped at him. "And to make matters worse, we don't even know how long we'll be stuck here for, so you can't tell me to just relax, alright?"

My gaze turned to Reggie and I immediately regretted raising my voice. Luke turns to where I was looking and he understood as his face softens.

Reggie was shaking and covering his ears. He hates it when someone fights or even raises their voice. His parents were always like that, so it makes sense.

"Reggie, I'm sorry," I say, changing the tone of my voice and walking towards him. I sat down in front of him and reached out to him, but he flinched at my touch.

"We didn't mean to," Luke adds, sitting right next to me.

"I'm sorry," Reggie whispers.

"Reggie, you have nothing to be sorry about, okay?" Luke assures him. "It was our fault. Simple as that."

Reggie hesitantly looked up to us.

I reached out for him again and grabbed both of his hands. This time, he relaxed at my touch. I uncover his ears and cooed him as I caressed his hands with my thumb.

"I'm sorry, Reggie. I was just... stressed by all of this, that's all," I explain in a whisper.

"It's okay," Reggie whispers and smiled softly, I smiled back. I was still holding Reggie's hands and we just sat there for a while.

Just then, we heard our song 'Now Or Never' being played. The ground below us started to shake. Reggie immediately reached to me, gripping onto my arm as we begin to fall. We screamed as we fall and suddenly, we crashed onto the ground and groaned in pain.

"Ow," I groaned. "That hurt."

I raise myself off the floor and we looked around to see that we were back in our studio.

"Woah, how did we get back here?" Luke asks.

Suddenly, an earsplitting scream caught our attention to a girl standing in front of the couch with a terrified look on her face. We all screamed in response, Reggie gripped onto my arm again as Luke huddled us together. The girl continues to scream and runs out of the garage.

"Seriously, how did we get back here?" Luke repeated his question. We all glanced at each other in response, not knowing what is going on.

I pried away from the guys and Reggie was still clinging onto me. I looked at him and he caught my gaze. He looked down onto my arm, and then he realized what he was doing. He slowly pulled away.

"Sorry," he mutters.

"It's okay," I say, then I looked around for a bit.

"What in the world is going on? We're dead, right?" I ask no one in particular.