XPLR | Colby Brock

~2~

"I'm Colby, this is Sam, Elton, and Corey," he said, pointing to the guys respectively. Colby held out his hand to me for a handshake. I looked at it, then back at his eyes, and gave him my hand which he shook twice. "Nice to meet you, Rose," he said as I let go. Elton turned towards Elena and Hayden, who had suddenly become very protective of Elena. All of these guys were very good looking, you could expect Hayden to feel inferior.

I looked at Elena, who was smiling wide and standing on her toes. "TFIL! You guys are from TFIL!" she yelled. "Who?" I asked quietly, too quietly, no one heard me. "Yeah. You said you were filming a video," Elton said, pointing to the camera in Elena's hands. "Huh? Oh, yeah. I'm just a little starstruck, sorry," she apologized and Elton chuckled. "Don't worry about it. Tell us about your channel."

"Who is TFIL?" I asked again, and this time both Colby and Sam heard me. "You don't know who we are?" Sam asked. "No?"

"Figuring your her friend we thought you knew," Colby pointed to Elena, who was excitedly speaking to Elton and Corey. "No. I... I don't."

"Well then. I guess that's a change," Colby laughed, "I thought you and your friends must've saw Instagram or something and knew where we were."

"Yeah. I don't watch as many urban exploration videos as her. That's all she watches," I said as I watched Elena excitedly talk about her growing popularity. Sam chuckled a little. "What are you filming?" Colby asked. "Elena is filming an overnight video. A lot of time I'm being dragged along to this kind of thing," I put my hands in my pockets. I am very uncomfortable.

"Are you guys finishing up your video?" I asked, not looking at either one of them, instead watching Elena and Hayden. "No. We were just filming our intro. Well, Elton's intro. This is going on TFIL."

Dammit.

"Well, since you guys are here, we can go ahead and just explore together," Elton said, scanning all three of us. Hayden cut his eyes at Elton. "No, it's-" Hayden and I started to say together. "Yeah! That'd be amazing. Plus, it looks like you know this place a little bit better," Elena said.

I almost groaned out loud. I don't know these guys. Maybe I've heard their names or of their channel before... but I don't recognize their face. It's just like meeting a normal stranger while out here. And we wouldn't stay with a normal stranger, we'd leave and go the next night. So it just means I'm going to have to make awkward small talk.

"Well then. We better go get started," Hayden said, stepping between Elton and Corey and continuing to the Silo. Corey laughed a little and said something to Elton and Elton chuckled. "He does have a large stick up his ass," I said, walking around them and towards the Silo. "We're out of here at four in the morning, right, Elena? Like usual?"

"Yeah...," she rolls her eyes and follows me, then the guys from "TFIL" followed in after us. "What's your problem, Rose?" she asked quietly. "What do you mean "what's my problem"?"

"There are four hot ass guys with millions of subscribers combined! Aren't you the slightest bit excited?" she asked, subtly pointing to the guys in front of a camera. "I don't know them. They're completely normal to me!" I said, whispering back. "Can you lighten up a little bit and not be so awkward?" she pleaded.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll try. I thought I was lightened a little bit..." I look around, pretending to look at something. "Maybe you had... but try harder?"

I sighed. "Alright, fine. You're asking a lot of me, so this better be worth it."

"Trust me, it is."

"Rose! Elena! Come look at this!" Hayden called to us. It echoed in the silo. I walked over to him with Elena, catching the eye of Colby accidentally. He turned to me then started walking as well. "What is it?" He asked.

"Some satanist shit, I think," Hayden said. I stepped past him and shone my flashlight around, and it landed on Elton, who was pulling a ouija board from his backpack. Corey shook his head. "No. No way!"

"Well I can't play alone," he said. His voice was so loud in the silence. Then it went quiet again, until I said something. "I'll play."

Elena looked at me like I was insane. I looked at her and shrugged. "Think about the title of this video. 'Exploring an abandoned solo with TFIL, plus playing a ouija board in a satanist ritual!' All capital letters."

"I wouldn't do that for a video, though," she said, crossing her arms. "Well, I'm doing this for me. I just want to see what happens," I said as I knelt down across from Elton. He smiled, "See, I told you they were cool."

I looked between the four guys, then sat down. "I'll play too," Sam said, sitting next to Elton. "So will I. What's to lose? Our house is already has a poltergeist," Colby said, sitting beside me. "Don't do this Rose. I don't want a poltergeist in our apartment."

"I'm going to do it. Wouldn't it make for even more good videos?" I joked. "You're insane," Colby laughed with me. "I've always wanted to do this. But obviously Elena won't let me," I smile as I turn back to the board. "Well then, shall we get started?" Elton asked, looking at the planchet.

"Let's do it," I smile. Elton flicked on the camera. "Hey guys, today we are going to playing the ouija board in this haunted silo. And look at this, look where we're playing!"

After he showed the camera around the room he turned back to me, the flash light shining in my eyes. "This is Rose, that's Elena, and Hayden. Our new friends we ran into out here."

The word "friend" scared me a little. That makes me nervous. The only reason I became friends with Elena was because she was in my dorm for six months before we moved into an apartment together. But that was because I was forced to sleep in the same room until I became friends with her. I'd left all my high school friends hours away in Oregon to follow my dream of playing piano professionally. My only "friends" now are the people I've met in Orchestra, like Kai and James, then there's people like Elena and Hayden. But I always considered us friends before they considered me a friend.

"Alright then. Here we go."

He opened the game and we began to play.