Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Pretty… Pretty What Yara?

Yara bit into a crisp red apple as she darted across the library to the cafeteria at the end of the hall. At least, she assumed it was a cafeteria. Thrown tables and trays, with only a familiar generator in the middle of the chaos. She slid over to the generator and turned on the light. It was time to get to work.

A scream could be heard across the asylum, however, there seemed to be no sign of the downed survivor. This is what worried Yara. Yara had seen survivors being hurt, but most of the time there was a “feeling” she knew where they were at all times. This was different. She couldn’t feel their “aura.” They had simply disappeared.

Yara had no time to waste. There were a bunch of generators left and there’s no way she was putting herself at risk. She quickly opened up the compartment, took a second bite of her apple, and began connecting wires.

Yara heard a stumble behind her and quickly turned around to see a girl running to the generator. Yara couldn’t see her from a distance, but her most notable feature was her neon red jacket, which gave a hard indicator of where the girl was when she saw the generator and walked over to it. The girl sat beside Yara and grabbed a pair of yellow wires.

Yara took no mind to her, but then she felt a chill down her spine. She hated that chill. It was something that somehow gave an indicator of where she was at all times. She did her best to hold her voice as it passed, but it gave no help as she quickly let out a groan. The other girl took a glance at her but didn’t give a noise in return. She didn’t seem uncomfortable at all.

“...You alright?” The girl in the red jacket asked.

“Yea… I hate that chill.” Yara replied, rubbing her back with her free arm.

The red jacket girl didn’t continue the conversation, but she did grab Yara’s wires as Yara waited for the chill to pass. Took a few seconds, but she felt like she would go back to work.

As Yara grabbed another set of wires, another scream was heard, which caused the red jacket girl to flinch and drop her wires. She took a look to her left at the concrete wall, but like before, there was no “feeling.”

“Pretty Annoying huh?” Yara said, but when she turned to the girl, she saw her visible frozen in fear.

“I… I can’t feel them. You know what I’m talking about right? I can’t feel their presence. I can’t go help them…” The red jacket girl said. “What if they’re hurt… or even worse…” The girl’s voice was trembling.

“Hey don’t worry about it!” Yara said happily, wrapping her arm around the girl. “I’m sure they’re fine, and we can go help them soon enough! I promise you, nothing bad will happen!”

“Promise?” the girl asked.

“Promise.” Yara confirmed.

Yara removed her arm to better focus on the generator as she realized that most of the wires looked pretty connected. The rest were deeper into the gen, which caused Yara to curse under her breath as she threw her hand inside to grab the remaining wires.

“So… what do you do for a living?” Yara asked, cursing again when she got shocked by an open wire. The high voltage doesn’t kill her if it’s caused by a generator.

“I’m… omg it’s so embarrassing…” The girl replied, her words being said so fast the Oh my god sounded like one word.

“I won’t judge,” Yara said. “I’m a college track member. I can run for miles.” Yara said, pulling out a white wire and beginning to look for its partner.

“Ok fine. I consider myself an influencer, but I’m just a girl that does makeup videos.” The girl said, chuckling to herself. “I had just reached my 100K milestone before I got taken, which bums me out because I had a whole Livestream planned.”

That sounded familiar… in fact, she sounded familiar too…

“Adri… Adriana Penn?” Yara asked.

“Yep, in the flesh. Wait let’s not use the word flesh in this case. Uhm.. yea it’s me.” The girl in the red jacket said, smiling softly as she looked up to Yara.

“O…M…G… THE ADRIANA PENN?” Yara exclaimed, turning to Adriana.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you…?” Adriana said, waiting for some indicator of a name.

“Oh! I’m Yara Valle. It’s such an honor to meet you!” Yara replied.

“Likewise,” Adriana said, smiling even brighter than before.

Yara’s heart skipped a beat, perhaps even two.

Adriana stuck her hand into the generator and pulled out a red wire, but that seemed to be it.

“Wait, where’s the other wire?” Adriana worried, sticking her hand in once more to look for a wire with the same color, but nothing came out.

“No idea, I couldn’t find a white wire either.” Yara pulled out the white wire. Those seemed to be the only two wires available. “Do you think…?”

“Adriana grabbed the wire and twisted both the white and red wire together. They seemed to be working fine. When Adriana closed the wiring compartment, the light seemed to ding even brighter, showing it had been finished.

Both of the girls stood up. That seemed to be the end of the generator. As Yara turned around, there seemed to be another person that arrived. They had white sunglasses on their head and were wearing a black and gold outfit. In their hand, had a closed-up parasol.

“Oh hey, new friend!” Yara said, holding a hand out high for the person. “It’s a pleasure to meetcha-”

Adriana grabbed Yara’s arm and pulled her back slowly. The person with the sunglasses followed at the same speed.

“Hey.. what are you doing?” Yara whispered to Adriana. “They seem nice.”

“No… No, they aren’t.” Adriana replied.

The person in yellow raised their umbrella high, as the lights above the cafeteria begin to flicker. Before both girls had time to react, a massive wave of colors attacked them, pushing Yara into a wall and Adriana into an open locker, shutting it close with force.

Yara hit the wall hard. She quickly came back to her senses, but before she had time to react, the person had hit her over the head with the umbrella.

It was like she was hit with a sledgehammer. She fell to the floor, as she saw her body begin to become transparent. The person turned their back as Yara completely disappeared.

But it wasn’t over.

Chapter Text

Yara felt grass on her face. She couldn’t feel her arms or her legs for some reason. Was the hit with the parasol that hard? Why… no how would that person even have the strength to hit with such force?

Yara looked up with her eyes to see another girl working on a generator. In her hand, had a small device she couldn’t see properly. The device’s screen turned green, and the girl turned behind her to look at Yara.

“Didn’t think you would appear right behind me. Girl, you sure are in luck today.” The girl in pink walked up to Yara and helped her stand up. Once Yara had the strength in her legs again, the other girl dragged her to the generator.

“Can you work on that real quick, I have to check something.” The girl sat down and pulled out her device, and Yara opened the wiring compartment to work. It was terrible inside, almost as if the girl in pink had never worked on them at all.

“...Who are you?” Yara asked, grabbing a set of wires and trying to connect them. The girl in pink jumped energetically, turning to Yara with a massive grin.

“It is I… Gabrielle Cole! Inventor Extraordinaire!” The girl said enthusiastically.

Yara stared at Gabrielle, mostly in confusion. Gabrielle coughed.

“...Soon to be Inventor Extraordinaire!” Gabrielle said again. “But look! I have a magnificent device!”

She pulled out the small device from before. The screen was green, and in the center had the number “347.”

“Is that a phone? Can you call the police?” Yara asked, and Gabrielle stared in confusion.

“No… Well I mean I CAN turn it into a phone… but that’s not important. This… This is a Ghost Tracker! It can detect all sorts of spooky things!” Gabrielle said confidently, and the device beeped again, displaying “402.”

“402 is good right?” Yara asked.

“Yep! It tracks where the ghost is based on studs! Nothing can escape this tracker!” Gabrielle exclaimed.

“Studs..?” Yara stared.

“Oh. Think of it as around a foot. So 402 is simply 402 feet away from us. Or more simply, 122.5 meters away!” Gabrielle said.

“Oh… that’s… that’s pretty cool. Yara went back to the generator.

Gabrielle grumbled. “Nothing understand my expertise…”

“Maybe actually finish the generator and I’ll consider it… Gabrielle.” Yara gave an angry expression at the so-called… inventor.

Gabrielle scoffed as she pushed Yara aside so she can get to the wiring compartment. She began handling wires pretty easily, even faster than Yara could ever.

“You understand these things?” Yara asked, looking over Gabrielle’s shoulder to see her lightning-fast matching.

“Yep! They aren’t that hard, compared to other models.” Gabrielle replied. “What’s your name again?”

“Yara. Yara Valle.” Yara replied.

Yara sat and watched Gabrielle do her thing, but then realized something.

“Oh god, Adriana!” Yara stood up to go after her, but Gabrielle stopped her.

“What do you think you’re doing? You aren’t leaving, you’ll die out there!” Gabrielle explained, pulling her back, but Yara pushed her off.

“She could be hurt,” Yara said.

“I doubt she isn’t. Have you heard a scream yet?” Gabrielle said back to her.

Yara looked out onto the street, hoping for any sign of noise. Nothing.

“That’s what I thought. Now hurry and sit back down.

Yara wanted to protest, but that would just make more noise. She quietly grumbled as she sat back down.

Yara kept looking out onto the street, so much in fact that Gabrielle had to look up in case her tracking device wasn’t working.

“Girl you’re making me paranoid. Who is this Adriana you are worrying about?” Gabrielle asked.

“Oh! Well… she’s an influencer, who does makeup videos. She had just gotten to 100K subscribers and was planning on doing a Livestream to congratulate the milestone before she ended up here. She’s pretty cool, pretty talented too, and pretty…” Yara began to ramble, but as soon as she got to the last pretty she began to turn a bit red.

“Pretty..? Pretty what!? Spit it out Yara!” Gabrielle said, turning to Yara in anticipation.

“Pretty…” Yara lost her train of thought, but before she can catch herself, however, Gabrielle had continued talking.

“Pretty? Just pretty? Oh, so you like her?” Gabrielle asked.

“NO NO, I SWEAR I DON’T LIKE HER LIKE THAT!” Yara tried to defend herself, but the secret was already out.

“It’s not my business to see who you like or dislike,” Gabrielle said. “I’m just surprised someone you like is in a place like this...”

Yara was even redder than before. How embarrassing…

“Ok, we’re finished,” Gabrielle said, closing the generator, and the light dinged.

“Wait, already?” Yara exclaimed.

“Nah, I finished minutes ago, I was just waiting for my device to beep before finishing.” Gabrielle laughed, standing up and whipping out her device.

The device beeped, but it wasn’t light like before. There was an unnerving feeling when it dinged. Gabrielle looked down at it, and when Yara peeked around her shoulder to see, the number read “120.”

“They’re coming,” Gabrielle stated, looking out onto the street.

Chapter Text

A final generator ding was heard. The doorway behind the two girls began to glow white. The exit was open.

“Come on! Let’s go before they come here!” Gabrielle ran to the exit, but Yara wasn’t moving an inch. “Come on!”

“No… Adriana is still out there.” Yara said, looking out onto the street, waiting for a familiar red jacket.

Gabrielle stared at the gate, and then back at Yara. She grumbled as she threw her device at Yara, which she caught.

“Don’t break it!” Gabrielle yelled at her, before exiting through the gate. Yara stood around 5-8 studs away from the said exit, looking down at the device Gabrielle handed to her. 

The number took time to load, but it was surprising when the number went from 120 down to 60 almost instantly. Yara looked up and saw nothing on the street. Simply thrown over cars.

“Come on… where are you…” Yara thought to herself as she considered the idea of running down the street, but the last thing she needed was to get hit again.

“HELP!” A voice yelled. Yara quickly looked up to see who had said it, and before long she saw Adriana running to the exit, the person in yellow in close pursuit.

The person in yellow held their umbrella up high, and Yara acted fast and threw the device at the person’s face. Yara heard the hit, and the person held their nose tightly as they wasted a second to crack the device, giving Adriana some time to run.

Adriana had almost made it to Yara, but almost as if by magic, she tripped over nothing and fell into Yara’s arms, causing both of the girls to fall through the exit.

Both girls tumbled into tall grass and dirt. 

“You alright?” Yara quickly stood up and helped Adriana.

“Yea I’m alright… you completely ditched me though!” Adriana replied.

“I didn’t ditch you! The person in yellow made me magically disappear!” Yara explained, pointing at her forehead, which still had a slight bruise.

“Oh my god… you need like medical help with that,” Adriana said, going into her jacket to grab some tissues. She placed them on Yara’s head to stop the small amount of bleeding, and Yara held them herself so Adriana wouldn't have to stand on her toes.

“Come on, let’s see if we can go get some help. I saw some nurse that was in the game, he can probably help you.” Adriana smiled as she grabbed Yara’s hand, leading them further into the tall grass.

Yara complied. However, the mist just seemed to get thicker and thicker the longer they walked… and soon enough they wouldn’t be able to find any help. Left in their place, however, were two red orbs, right next to each other, almost as if they were holding hands themselves.