Twenty-two

The rest of the night was spent of me becoming close friends with Iris, we stayed up most of the night getting into deep conversations, I found out that she enjoys gaming too but doesn’t want to stream because she’s either to busy with school or has anxiety.

I woke up being carried by tommy off the floor of Iris and Ranboo’s room. He carefully placed me into the bed and kissed my forehead before crawling into my side and falling asleep.

I woke up the next morning to hear a clatter coming from downstairs.

“what in the hell is going on” I shot up, startling tommy.

“shh go back to bed” I patted him to sleep again, and crept out the room and down the stairs, to see Dream and George on the floor.

“it is 7 in the morning!” I whisper yell to them.

“sorry” dream winces getting up from the floor.

“what were you even doing?” I ask scanning the room to see Sapnap laying on the other side of the room.

“well—Sapnap may have said he was gonna play manhunt in real life—so we ran around until we all fell on the rug” George rubs the back of his neck. Schlatt had just come down the stairs,

“hey, aren’t you leaving today?” I ask him pouting.

“yeah tonight why?” he saunters into the kitchen and I follow.

“well I’ll miss you! How’s minx?” I ask winking.

“good” he blushes, and I giggle before leaving the room. I check my phone for the first time today,

***Unknown***

Last warning :)

I wait for Wilbur to get up before I do anything, I knew that people did this all the time, Dream had explained how he would get those type of things all the time, so I didn’t think anything of the cryptic message.

“oi Wilbur im getting those messages again” I said as he grabbed something from the fridge.

“lemme see” I hand him the phone and he feverishly types something into the message bar.

“there, keep updating me”

I look at the message that was sent,

***I’ve blocked and reported this number twice now, message me again and the authorities will be called.***

“Thanks Wilbur”

“just the brotherly thing to do” he pats my shoulder and walks out.

╔═══\*.·:·.★ ✦ ★･:･:\*═══╗

***Chapter 20***

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Soon everyone is awake, and we sit on the couch lounging for an hour before anyone speaks up.

“do we have any plans for today?” Tubbo asks.

“Schlatt’s leaving, and the snow is getting pretty bad, so I don’t wanna risk getting stuck out there. Why don’t we just watch movies all day?” Dream proposes.

“yeah I think that’s our best bet” Will says looking out the window to see the blizzard getting heavier.

We spend the entire day lounging or editing videos, whilst watching the entire Harry Potter series, we don’t feel like doing anything, and the snow keeps us confined to the cabin.

Hours pass, and its around 8, we all ate leftover soup for dinner. The sky is pitch black, but you can still see the snow falling.

“I should probably call a cab to catch my plane, it leaves at like 11, and it takes a couple hours to get to the airport alone” says Schlatt, he grabs his suitcases, and we gather at the door. We say our goodbyes and as he hugs me, I whisper,

“I’m waiting for the shlinx date” he laughs, and we notice the uber honking outside.

“I’ll talk to you all later, thanks for letting me come Wilbur” he waves

“anytime” Will smiles.

I check my phone just as the door closes and my eyes widen at the newest messages.

***Unknown***

say goodbye to your parents, there gone now ;)

***Mother dearest***

I love you so much and me and your father are very proud of you and what you’ve done for this world. Keep doing great things. Love you.

“what the—” a shiver is sent down my spine, and I drop the phone.

“don’t break your phone” Tommy jokes, he swoops down and picks it up, looking over at the notifications, and back at me.

“holy—”

“what are you guys freaking out about” Ranboo leans over Tommy’s shoulder.

“oh” he looks at me, staring blankly “that’s not good”

“I have to get on that plane” I whisper.

“Molly—” tommy comes toward me, but I sprint towards the door, swinging it open. bare feet, I run out to Schlatt’s car, pounding on the door before he opens it.

“gee kid I knew you were gonna miss me but—” he looks at me, tears streaming down my face.

“you ok?” he gets cut off by Wilbur shout.

“Ollie, we need to talk to you first before you hop on a plane—”

“let me in” I ignore the shouts; the thick snow soaks my clothes. Before Schlatt can say anything, else Wilbur comes and lifts me up.

“NO” I scream.

“what the hell is happening will?” Schlatt asks.

“her parents—we don’t know anything—she’s in shock” he could barely talk through the thrashing of my limbs, desperately trying to get in the car, on the plane, and to my parents.

“WILBUR PLEASE!” I scream. Just then Iris comes by my side and cups my face.

“shhhhh its ok, Ollie listen I want you to breathe in” she waits for me to take a shaky breath.

“and out” she finishes with me. But that doesn’t stop my panic attack, soon I start hyperventilating, and thrashing in Wilbur’s arms again, he’s stronger and holds my arms against my chest, taking away my punching ability. My vision is blurry from all the tears. I sink down to the ground with Wilbur and I close my eyes as hard as I can.

“can you just wait a minute—” Schlatt says to the uber driver.

“ok Ollie, were gonna get you inside and figure this all out ok?” Iris reassures me.

“i—need—to—go” I say in between shaky breaths.

“no, you’re staying here until we get a plan” Wilbur affirmed. I give up and let my limbs go numb, I don’t know if it’s from the cold or my panic attack. I feel Wilbur lift me and take me back inside the cabin, Schlatt quickly shutting the door behind them.

“Wilbur—” Alex starts.

“not the time” he brings me over to tommy.

“Take her,” he says sternly and hands me over. Tommy buries his face into my wet hair. Wilbur quickly takes my phone and calls the emergency number for my parents.

“DAMMIT,” he yells. He tries again, and again. No answer.

“Clay, call the police and tell them,” he says in between typing my parents number for what seems like the thousandth time. Dream picks up his phone and goes into another room.

“yeah we think my friends parents may have just been murdered or kidnapped we don’t know—“ is all I heard before he shut the door. That’s when my senses come back, I shoot up in tommy’s arms, and all heads turn towards me. Wilbur is trying the phone again, un-patiently tapping his foot and biting his nails.

“Ollie—” Niki starts before I start hyperventilating again, I notice that she is crying too.

“no please-” I sputter, sprawling out Tommy’s arms. I run towards the door again but Schlatt has blocked it off.

“Schlatt please I swear to god—” hot tears edge down my face as i feel tommy’s arms snake around me again.

“We’re gonna go sit on the couch” Tommy directs me towards the sofa, making sure i don’t make a run for it. I lay down a curl up into a ball, resting my head in his lap, my body shaking like a leaf. Tommy rakes through my hair slightly, making me calmer. I look around at everyone, Tubbo is sitting on the ground against the couch with his head in his hands, Ranboo sitting next to him, George and Sapnap sit on the chair opposite of us, staring into space, Iris is sitting on the opposite side of the couch of tommy and I, Quackity is feverishly typing something on his phone, no one dare’s to speak a word, all you hear is the muffled words of dream on the phone with the police, and Niki trying to console Wilbur who has broken down trying to get my parents to pick up. I shut my eyes trying to block out the world, but I can’t seem to do so. I end up picking at my hangnails, which seemed to ground myself, except for the fact that they started bleeding after some time. I notice the small blood streaming down my fingers, but don’t care. Dream finally come out of the room, everyone looks up to him for some sort of answer, except for me. i stare at the same spot, fidgeting with my hands.

“they’re going to go check on Ollie’s house right now, and will call back for updates” Dream explains, slightly out of breath. Some let go of sighs they didn’t know they were holding In. Wilbur had completely given up on trying my parents cell, he now sat leaning against the wall, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his fore fingers. Niki leaning against him. I could hear small chatter blooming between people, but the air was tense. I was still closing my eyes, so people assumed I was asleep.

“How did you do that—thing outside?” Tommy asked Iris, not taking his eyes off me.

“I’m studying to become a therapist; I’ve also been in her spot during situations like this” she sighed.

“Oh” he hummed before going back to brushing his fingers through my hair.

“do we know—anything?” Quackity asked. There was a long silence before Wilbur spoke,

“its just the waiting game at this point, we don’t even know if this whole thing is real” he sighed.

“her mom—sent her a message, saying how much she loves her, its seems pretty legit to me” Ranboo commented.

I felt everyone looking pitifully towards me, who they assumed was asleep. They couldn’t see me picking at the edge of my fingers in the pockets of my hoodie. The stinging pain distracted me from the worrying fear my parents were probably dead. My head plotted different ways I could still get on a plane and save them, but it was useless.

“why would they do this to her? And not any of us?” Tubbo mumbled.

“she’s literally just a 16-year-old girl who streams Minecraft” I could hear his voice almost break as he finished. Everyone else hummed in agreement.

“they’re dead aren’t they” I whispered just loud enough for anyone to hear. Another tear fell down my cheek as I realized the true reality.

╔═══\*.·:·.★ ✦ ★･:･:\*═══╗

***Chapter 21***

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***“they’re dead, aren’t they?”***

“we don’t know that yet—” Schlatt started, but I quickly cut him off.

“no, I think we all know that my parents are dead” I sat up but continued to stare blankly into space.

“Molly we don’t have any proof that they’re dead—” Tommy chimed in

“but we don’t have any proof that they’re alive” I stammered. After my comment there was silence. The blizzard raging now, even if Schlatt wanted to leave his flight was bound to be canceled.

────── ⋆⋅✦⋅⋆ ──────

Everyone sat in the same spot for over an hour, when ever someone’s phone would get some sort of notification, we would look hopefully toward the source of the noise, but when they checked to see nothing important, we went back into a state of silence.

“I’m gonna call the operator again—to see if there’s anything else—” Clay got up and gestured towards the phone in his hand. Nobody said anything, Wilbur gave a numb nod. And we continued to sit in silence. after a couple minutes he came back out still on the phone,

“They wanted to talk to you—if your up for it” He gave me a pitiful look, I looked to my side and tommy rubbed my shoulder as I got up. I walked towards the doorway where Clay stood and once, I got in and he carefully shut the door, he turned around and hugged me. He was extremely tall, so it was almost as if he encased me in his warm arms.

“everything is going to be ok” he whispered. All I could do was nod into his hoodie. He broke off the hug and quickly left so I could have my privacy. I stared at the phone in my hands for a good 30 seconds before putting it to my ear and uttering,

“hello?”

“Are you Molly Montgomery?” I cringed a little at the women calling me by my real name, it felt weird for someone who was not tommy to call me that. After a split second I answered,

“yes”

“Can you explain what’s happened tonight?” The operator asked calmly.

────── ⋆⋅✦⋅⋆ ──────

***⋆⋅       3rd person        ⋆⋅***

“does anyone know anything about who—or why?” Clay said as he walked over to an empty chair in the room. Ollie had just gone not the other room to answer some questions.

“she got 2 messages before the one tonight, the one in the car ride in Seattle, and one this morning” Wilbur was obviously very troubled by this matter, after all, he was the one in charge of this trip, basically in charge of Ollie, he could have stopped this.

“they said they traced the number to a burner phone in Texas” clay rubbed his temple.

***a/n: they all just look at Sapnap like 😃✋***

“anything else?” Tommy asked, he didn’t have the motivation or willpower to make an American joke now.

“nothing”

They sat for another 20 minutes, asking questions every now and then. Eventually Ollie came out of the room, handed clay the phone, and sat back down next to Tommy and Iris.

────── ⋆⋅✦⋅⋆ ──────

***⋆⋅       Molly POV     ⋆⋅***

I sat back down in between tommy and iris and took a shaky breath.

“are you—ok?” tommy whispered.

Hesitantly I said, “I don’t know.”  He slowly nodded and laid back into the sofa. Another round of silence came onto the group. I didn’t have the energy to start crying, especially after my panic attack in front of everybody.

“I’m gonna go try to get some sleep” i said standing up, I knew that I wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight, and that I’d probably sit in the bed, waiting for some type of answer or information.

“do you need me to come—” Tommy started, but I quickly cut him off.

“no—I mean—I just want to be alone right now—I think” I trailed off and didn’t look back going up the stairs, turning the corner to my room, and closing the door. Just a couple hours ago, Wilbur had locked me and Tommy in here, and made it official that we were dating.

“time fly’s by when you’re having fun” I scoffed sarcastically, at this point It hadn’t hit me what was actually happening, I flopped down onto my bed. I picked up my phone hoping it would give me some type of escape or distraction from the current events happening downstairs. But after a couple aimless minutes of scrolling through social media i resorted to listening to music. I pressed the first playlist on Spotify and set my phone done. I laid against the soft duvet atop the bed and stared at the wooden ceilings. I didn’t realize what was playing until I started mumbling the words un-consciously***. (you can start playing Burning pile, By: Mother Mother, if you wanna sing along)***

***All my style***

***All my grace***

***All I tried to save my face.***

I raked my fingers through my hair and noticed my breathe quickening. Trying to ground myself, I focused on the lyrics to the song.

***All my guts try to spill***

***All my holes, try to fill.***

***All my money been a long time spent***

***On my drugs, on my rent***

***On my saving philosophy***

***It goes, one in the bank, and the rest for me.***

I felt my pulse slow, so I calmed down a bit. Still mumbling the words, I closed my eyes and decided not to think of anything else. Not my parents. Not my worrying friends. Not tommy.

***It goes, all my troubles on a burning pile***

***All lit up and I start to smile***

***If I, catch fire then I change my aim***

***Throw my troubles at the pearly gates***

***Oh, oh-oh-oh***

***Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh***

I slowly started thinking of the words and their meaning, what purpose do they give.

***My mama, lonely maid***

***Got her buns in the oven, and she never got laid.***

***My papa, renaissance man***

***Sailed away and he never came back again.***

# Ineffable.

***All my troubles on a burning pile***

***All lit up and I start to smile***

***If I, catch fire then I change my aim***

***Throw my troubles at the pearly gates.***

***Oh, oh-oh-oh***

***Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh***

***All your woe bygones be gone***

***I said all your troubles, you don't need a thing.***

Ineffable. What’s happening right now is anything but ineffable.

***All my troubles on a burning pile***

***All lit up and I start to smile***

***If I, catch fire then I change my aim***

***Throw my troubles at the world again.***

“what’s the opposite of ineffable?” I mumble.

***It goes, all my troubles on a burning pile***

***All lit up and I start to smile***

***If I, catch fire then I'll take my turn***

Ineffable: to great to explain in words. So the opposite would be explainable.

But what’s happening isn’t explainable.

***To burn burn and burn, and burn and burn***

Nor explainable or Ineffable.

Deep in thoughts, I hear my door open.

“hey”

Iris.

“hey” I mumble, still laying on my bed. She sits on the end of the bed and crosses her legs.

“I don’t want your help” I say before she can start empathizing.

“technically, you would be helping me” she says scratching her neck.

“and how is that?” I snapped.

“well I study for this type of thing; you could use me as a human punching bag. That’s what I do” she raised an eyebrow as I sat up against the headboard.

“I don’t want to talk” I hug the pillow up my chest.

“that’s fine” she shrugged but stay put.

“I can talk if you want me to” she suggested. I recognized it would be a good source of distraction, so I nodded.

“what do you want me to talk about?”

“anything” I set my chin at the top of the pillow. She thought for a second before starting to speak,

“I have a cat; her name is Juniper.”

“comes from Latin origin, I think it means young” I cut in.

“it certainly does” she smiled.

“so you like naming things with meanings too?” I asked sheepishly.

“yeah, my parents did that with me, and I thought it was cool” she answered.

“what does Iris mean?”

“wisdom, hope, trust, and valor” she answered, tugging at her earrings, today they are mini-rubber ducks, I remember Quackity joking with her about how she was stealing his brand.

“That’s sweet, I don’t think Molly means anything, I never bothered to check.”

“It means star of the sea” Iris quickly answered knowingly.

“really?” I thought about it for a second before mumbling,

“ineffable”

“what?” She said confusingly.

“ineffable, the star of the sea, is ineffable—” It was a sudden realization, the star of the sea was ineffable, to great to explain in words.

For the first time this evening, I let out a small smile.

╔═══\*.·:·.★ ✦ ★･:･:\*═══╗

***Chapter 22***

╚═══\*.·:·.★ ✦ ★･:･:\*═══╝

“what about Jonathan?” I asked, Me and Iris were both laying on the bed, our hair fanned out around the pillows. We have been going through names and their meaning for over an hour.

“Jonathan?” Iris asked smiling.

“That’s Schlatt’s first name.”

“Really? It means Gift of God” she chuckled at the thought.

“Schlatt sure is a gift of god” scoffing, I had completely forgotten about tonight’s events, and Iris was doing a god job at distracting.

“What about William?” I asked curiously.

“William is a harder one, because Will is like the will or desire, and helm is used as the last part, which is helmet or protection. But if we were going for Wilbur, it would be an old German name, which means brilliant” she rambled, and I enjoyed listening because it gave me less time to sit in my thoughts.

“what about Niki?” I knew Iris had taken a particular liking to Niki.

“Goodness, or person of victory” she blushed.

“Oh, I was just wondering, are Wilbur and Niki dating?” she turned to me, her earrings jingling at the movement.

“no, they’re just best friends. Like you and Ranboo” I grinned, my suspicions were getting higher, but I brushed it off and decided to interrogate later.

“I have one always cracks me up” she started laughing.

“what is it?” I turn to her.

“R-Ranboo—is—its means” she was saying in between breathes.

“it’s means—tall man” she wheezed, similar to the famous dream laugh.

“no way’ I gasped, starting to laugh.

“yes way” she nodded still chuckling.

“was that intentional?”

“no idea, every time I bring it up, we end up laughing.”

***a/n: I don’t think this is legit, bc I got the info from the same site that says “Tommyinnit means child” but here are some other submissions that made me laugh:***

* ***According to a user from Virginia, U.S., the name Ranboo is of American origin and means "Giant man".***
* ***A submission from North Carolina, U.S. says the name Ranboo means "The tall and great" and is of english***
* ***A submission from Maryland, U.S. says the name Ranboo means "Ranboo means tall and lanky".***
* ***A user from Peru says the name Ranboo is of American origin and means "Lovely tall Enderman".***
* ***A submission from Poland says the name Ranboo means "Ranboo is definition of being tall.".***

After our fit of laughter I continued asking,

“what’s Toby mean?”

“God is good, or just God.”

“tommy’s gonna be so pissed when he finds out that Toby means god, and Thomas just means twin” I chuckled,

“Tommy means soldier, you can tell him that to boost his ego” Iris suggested.

“good idea” I snickered.

We continued laughing and talking until Dream opened the door,

“hey—um the police or whatever have some news or—something to tell you” he held up his phone, and with a quick sigh, I sat up from the bed. Before leaving, I turned around, and Iris gave a quick thumbs up and a hopeful smile, I returned with a more of a thoughtful grin.

I went back into the same room as before, and prepared myself for whatever happier, relaxed mood I had been in for the past hour to be shattered.

“Is this Molly Montgomery?” I once again winced at the name.

“yes” I paced the room once.

“we have some important news to tell you.”

“ok?” I was trying not to go into a full-blown panic attack.

“its about your parents” the lady continued.

“mhm” I could feel myself choking up. Waiting for some sort of communication. I heard a low beep, as if the call was ending. I looked at the phone skeptically, that’s when I heard a voice at the phone again. This time it was robotic, almost as if it were reading a donation message.

“your parents are alive. but breathe the wrong way and call them dead. Tell anyone about this and your parents and friends are dead. We know about you and Tommy; we won’t hesitate to take him too. We’re always watching. We’re always listening.” And the message was gone.

My jaw lay open, and tears were springing down my face, I couldn’t do anything. I was stuck in an endless mind trap.

“Miss?” I heard the same operator tone.

“y-yes” I barely choked out.

“We almost lost you for a second, we have some news about your parents” I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me.

“we haven’t found them, but police say there are things thrown about your house and windows were broken” The Operator said calmly.

“o-ok”

“we’re trying everything we can right now ok?”

“mhm” I took a shaky breath and ended the call before dropping to my knees and sobbing quietly into my sleeve. I expected them to be dead. I had already started mourning while they were out there somewhere, kidnapped.

After my quiet sob session, I came to my senses.

“we’re always watching.” The voice rang into my ears. I couldn’t slip up even in front of my own friends. I had to stay quiet. For my parents sake. For Tommy’s sake.

I made my way out of the room and back to the living space were everyone waited. They were more relaxed now. Small conversations and reassurance instead of dead silence. Their heads shot up at the sight of me. And I handed Clay his phone back,

“they’re alive” I uttered.

“what? Why-how?” Ranboo started.

“well I don’t know actually—they haven’t found them yet, but other than that nothing” I shrugged and headed for the couch. I set my head against tommy’s arm.

Tommy noticed my rigid state,

“you ok?”

“I’m fine” I muttered into his shoulder.