WHO: Hope and Sally WHERE: The Beach WHEN: Backdated to Day 1 SUMMARY: The girls try to figure out what is going on. Sally's exit, Day 1. WARNINGS: None.
It was a dumb boy’s idea of a joke. Maybe the campfire turnout hadn’t been great so now seemed like a better opportunity for a spooky story. Even if it wasn’t a joke, it came from someone who’d been baking under the Caribbean sun for hours. Possibly baking too, based on one of the guys who made up their group.
Hope didn’t say anything while she listened to the group talk about heading back toward the hotel. She didn’t move for a few moments either. Her eyes stayed on the sand where Max and Jude were poking, trying to unearth what had, according to the story, already disintegrated.
Somehow, under all that sun, Hope shivered. Hope knew she shouldn’t let it rattle her. She shouldn’t even believe the boy. Instead, she folded her arms tight and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. Heading back to the hotel should have sounded appealing, but instead Hope felt a dread that she couldn’t explain.
She still didn’t know why she was on the beach. Every time she tried to summon the memory, her head got so cloudy and the thoughts drifted away. She tried again, for a couple seconds, and then scanned the area looking for something to either distract her or shine some light through that fog.
Her eyes found no focus until they saw Sally, standing a few feet away. She’d been with the group who’d gone back to the hotel earlier. She was also someone that Hope knew had spent the night on the beach. “Hey,” she said, to get the other girl’s attention.
Hope tried to smile, despite her unease. “You were here last night, right? Do you know how the rest of us got here?”
Sally looked up, tearing her gaze away from the sand for the first time since she'd heard Teddy's story. Unlike Hope, she couldn't call it a joke. She knew Teddy too well, and it wasn't like him to make up weird crap. Besides, she'd had weird crap happen too.
"Oh," she said. "You didn't come down for it?" But that made sense: she was one of the rich girls, they'd probably thought they were too good for sleeping outside.
Actually, they'd all woke up on the beach, hadn't they? Cassidy's whole giant young group. And it wasn't just the richies that hadn't come.
Something about that thought tickled at the unseen edge of the edge of her memory, but her mind twitched away from it. They had to have all come down to the beach one way or another. Did it really matter how?
Yes. Of course it mattered. It wasn't like her to forget any more than it was like Teddy to lie.
"Sorry, not sure," Sally admitted, more lightly than she felt. "Maybe it was the frat boys? They left me in a tree the other night so it wouldn't be the first time."
Hope shook her head. They hadn’t seen any point in wasting a hotel room when they could have come to the beach in the morning. Except that hadn’t been the plan. At least as far as Hope remembered. “So you didn’t see anything? Remember anything weird last night?” She stared out at the water with folded arms. Under her cardigan her fingers twitched. “Izzy’s freaked.” It was a little easier to say that than to say that Hope was.
She blinked as the words. “They put you in a tree?”
"Oh yeah," Sally said, rolling her eyes, but relieved that the other girl had gotten distracted. Of all the weird shenanigans that had happened so far, this was the one that bothered her least. This one had an obvious answer. "Fell asleep in our room, but woke up outside, up a tree. And it wasn't my friends, so…" She shrugged. Who else could it be? It was 100% mostly-harmless frat boy style, and the only option that really made sense. "If I didn't have such cat-like reflexes I could've fallen out and broken something, I guess."
"So, yeah, wouldn't be surprised if that was them too. They're the prankers, right? Wouldn't put a lot past them, honestly."
“Moving people against their will in the middle of the night isn't a prank, it's a kidnapping.” Anger laced her words as the information from Sally resonated. Hope looked in the direction of the frat brothers and thought about the one she'd been in the Grotto with last night. Had that all been a part of some fraternity ploy?
Hope shook her head. “I can't believe that.” But she obviously could. “I'll talk to them next.”. She bit her lip then. Realizing she had another question.
“You just got back from the hotel right? Was everything normal there?”
The word "kidnapping" felt odd and discordant, no less because as little as Sally wanted to discuss it, Hope wasn't wrong. Maybe kind of being a little too sensitive about something that hadn't even happened to her (and nothing had happened apart from the move, so it really was fine) but sometimes people were just like that.
But whatever else Hope might be, she was really on a roll with the uncomfortable subjects. Sally didn't want to talk about the hotel any more than she wanted to go back there, to meaningless buttons and doors like walls. Coming back to the sun and the warmth of the open sand had felt like an escape, even if it still wasn't as warm as she'd remembered, even if there was something off about it all that she couldn't quite put her finger on, something that kept slipping from her grasp.
"No," she said reluctantly. "Doors were weird. Acting up or something, I dunno. And the elevator. And the lights a bit. I don't know."
“Acting up?” Hope bit her lip. Nothing had been totally right since that morning. Hope had this sinking feeling in her chest again for a moment, but she shook it off, refusing to let her issues get in the way of another event for one of her friends. It took a truly special case to ruin a birthday party at a five star resort on a caribbean island just because her mind was letting her see shadows that weren’t there.
"Yeah," Sally said with a restless wave of her hand, gaze wandering away to the shining water. "Just - didn't wanna open, or whatever. Nothing serious."
But that was wrong, wasn't it? That wasn't why she'd needed to get outside: it was things not working, but just for them, and not knowing why, and no one acknowledging or noticing until it built into a sort of claustrophobia-isolation mashup. Why was she downplaying it? She didn't know Hope well enough to bother lying to make her feel better.
"It's no big deal," she said, puzzled, quieter, half to herself.
“So the doors were locked?” Hope wasn’t quite sure she understood. If they were locked, why didn’t the other girl just say locked? It worried her. It was just one more confusing piece to whatever was so off today.
"No," Sally said, as quick and sharp as an unexpected knife. The sudden response made her head reel like she'd jumped abruptly to her feet from a lying position, and she added a bit softer, but still reluctant, "Just… not working."
Hope still didn’t get it. But she could tell from Sally’s reaction that this was a touchy thing. Eventually, Hope would leave the beach. She’d run into the doors herself. Either they’d work and it didn’t matter, or she’d see what Sally meant. Hope experienced a chill any time she thought about going back to the hotel, though. Since the beach that morning, there was a feeling of foreboding that she couldn’t quite shake.
She looked over at the ocean and stared at the waves for a moment, trying to figure out what was wrong with her and why she felt that way. The water did nothing to calm her. If anything, it made Hope feel more scared.
Sally felt like she should say something more. To explain. Or justify her reaction. Or something. But when she opened her mouth her mind went fuzzy, and all her thoughts slid away, nerves numbing, gaze unfocusing until the beach, the sea, the people around seemed to fade like a dream.
“Do you…” Hope looked back toward Sally, but the question died before she finished it. There was no one there.