all a cloudy haze

6

Liam's P.O.V

'Hey Will, is Shelby with u rn?'

sent 10:30am

'Ur, yeah, duh, we're at her house, why?'

sent 10:30am

'Meghan and I need to chat with you, em and graser. It's urgent, and it's about Shelby'

sent 10:30am

'she did say she had a few errands to run today. i just asked her and she said she's heading out in like 10-15 mins. she said we can stay here. I'll text u when she leaves.'

sent 10:32am

'Ok, i'll tell Meghan.'

sent 10:32am

'Shelby's just headed off now'

sent 10:49am

'Okay, be there in 5'

sent 10:50am

I knocked on the door. It opened, and Em poked her head out. "Hi," she greeted, pushing the door out wider for Meghan and I to come in.

"Okay, so first," I began as the door shut and we all sat in the lounge, "I feel that Em and Meghan should probably get introduced to each other. Meghan, this is Em, Will's girlfriend."

"You're the girlfriend?" Meghan smiled. "You did well, Will."

"And Em, this is Meghan, a close friend from the Cube."

"Hey, I know you," Em realised. "Strawburry17, right?"

"That's me!" Meghan grinned. "Also, I was apart of the main cast in season one of Kollok 1991, which is on every Monday at 6pm PT on twitch.tv/hyperrpg."

"Okay."

"Author's tryna plug Hyper's Twitch whenever convenient."

"Oh."

"Oops, there goes the fourth wall."

"Yep."

"Anyway, back to the topic we came here about."

I cleared my throat. "Thank you," I said. "So, you all watched last night's Kollok episode, you were in the Hive, Mind, Rewind, correct?"

"Yeah..?" Graser replied.

"And you know Shelby's character, Mickey Jones, how she acted, who she was, what she did?"

"Yes."

"Well... all of the cast have been hearing their characters in their heads, and we're 99% sure Shelby has been hearing Mickey. And we all know Mickey's both powerful and mentally unstable."

"Oh crap."

"This isn't to say you're in any immediate danger," Meghan butted in. "But you still should be careful."

"You put extra emphasis on you're."

"Why I did that is not of your concern."

I could see the sadness in Em's eyes as she looked up at my, the reality of the situation obviously kicking in. "So that's... not Shelby?" she asked.

"Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't," I told her. "Although over time, she may be Shelby less... and less... and less..."

Em cuddled into Will. Will wrapped an arm around her as he shook his head. "What do we do?" he frowned.

"Well, at the moment, we don't know," Meghan replied. "However, the Kollok Crew is onto trying to figure out a solution. For now, all we can do is hope. And in the meantime, while they do try and find a way to put things back to how they were, we need to be careful around Shelby. Don't provoke her, and don't trust her. Don't tell her what we told you. We'd all be doomed if any of this got to Mickey. She could be hoping to use you."

"We need to stay strong," I continued. "We're all losing someone, Shelby's special to all of us, but afterwards, she could be even more stronger. We'll keep you updated on everything, and please, do trust everyone else who's involved in this; Aabria, Zac, Lucas, Matt and Mika I mean. They know more than what we do. And they're doing everything in their power to set things right."

"We want to help, if we can, in any way," Will said. "Can you tell them that?"

"Why don't you tell them yourself?"

Zac's P.O.V

'I'm so sorry you have to put up with all this.'

"Tibby, stop apologising!" I exclaimed out loud. The crew looked at me. "Sorry. Tibby's just..."

"Too pure for his own good?" Aabria smiled. "Yeah we know."

'Mickey really started helping with that problem.'

"Anyway," I said, "I don't think we should be obvious about trying to get Mickey's power lower in-game. She can easily interject, and leave, only making things worse. We need to be clever about this."

There was a knock on the door. Liam poked his head in. "Hey," Matt greeted.

Meghan and the rest of their little friend group appeared. "Meghan and Liam told you about... Shelby?" I enquired.

Em, Graser and Will all nodded. Em almost looked like she wanted to cry. "I know it must be hurting you. Trust me when I say it's hurting us too," I continued. 

Em looked down and shook her head. "We were so close..." she whimpered.

"We'll fix this," Lucas smiled with determination. "If it's the last thing we do."

"And if we can, we want to help," Will said.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Shelby almost feels like a sister to me... to the whole Salt Squad. We're willing to do whatever it takes to bring back the kind girl we've always known."

'It is good to have helping hands... maybe they know how Shelby's been going mentally? They are very close apparently.'

"Come sit down," I said. They joined us at the table. "So... how's Shelby been, mentally I mean, before all of this? She may not have spoken to us about issues, but possibly to you."

"She's got anxiety, that's the first thing that springs to mind," Graser answered.

"I know she had some friendship issues in high school, but she's over that," Will added.

"Other than that... she's been fine," Em shrugged.

'Hmm... I don't get how Mickey could've weakened her in that way, by the sounds of things, Shelby's pretty strong.'

"I think... I think we need to play another episode of Kollok. If we can weaken Mickey in-game, maybe we can weaken her here," I decided.

"Let's just hope our logic is right," Mika sighed. "Because I really don't wanna die."