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Crimson Day {Unfriended: Dark Web Oneshot}

Requested by: Anonymous Wordcount: 4292 Summary: The aftermath after the events of the movie. Warnings: Mentions of death.

Trauma is hell on earth. Trauma resolved is a gift from the gods. - Peter A. Lavine.

You knew a thing or two about trauma. You’ve been living through it for months now. Looking over your shoulder at every turn, avoiding all electronics, living off of the grid and in hiding. Four months ago, life had been absolutely normal. Almost dream-like compared to now. You were just a regular twenty-something year old, living in the city. Your main concerns, like many other people your age, were finding your purposes, and having enough money to cover the essentials and maybe some treats every once in a while. A University graduate, but you had to work two jobs in order to keep affording rent in your small studio apartment over a convenience store. Working, working, working, job searching for something better, keeping your space clean, and once in a while, hanging out with friends. Up until Damon moved to London, anyway. Then it was a mix of seeing your friends around and hanging out with them online. Video chats. Game nights. The worst part was supposed to be maybe the internet lagging or someone not being able to make it or missing your friend who was ‘across the pond’. It wasn’t supposed to come to this. It was someone else’s plan but it certainly hadn’t been yours.

That dreadful night when you lost five of your friends in one foul sweep. A secret organization that was kidnapping people, killing them. Setting up other people to take the fall. You were supposed to be dead. The organization tried hard enough. You barely escaped with your life. A concussion and different scrapes was getting off dreadfully light compared to your friends.

Amara had been shot. It had been a bad one, but it just managed to miss her heart. It dug into her shoulder, and it stayed there. Luckily, a security guard had heard the gunshot and called it in. The security guard didn’t survive when he went in to see what the noise was, but the police that came after arrested the shooter, and Amaya was taken in an ambulance to the hospital. It took hours of surgery to get all of the bullet fragments out. To remove the pieces of shattered bone, put the arm back into it’s socket, and stitch the wound shut.

Matthias had it worse than that. He had been hit hard by a car on an otherwise empty road. Many broken bones. Fractures. A concussion. The ambulance, taking a shortcut to the hospital with Amaya on the back, almost ran him over for the second time, but they managed to stop in time. Called in a second ambulance. The car that hit him was gone. His cellphone was gone. They had a hard time bringing him back, the damage was so extensive. It took a couple of days for him to be lucid enough to get visitors.

Not that he was allowed any.

But you were there nonetheless. Every single day, you sat in a waiting lounge of the hospital, warm drink from the cafeteria in your hands though you hardly drank it. The police questioned you, questioned Amaya, questioned Matthias over and over and over. They didn’t believe you. Who would? All traces of the conversations, the videos, the entire Skype call, was gone from your computer. Matthias’s was never recovered. There was a kidnapped girl in Matthias’s apartment. Damon’s fake confession about what they had done to all of those missing and murdered girls. Matthias was handcuffed to his bed at all times. He had an officer with him if he wanted to get up and use the bathroom once he was able to get onto his feet.

The police wanted to take you to the station but you protested, panic attacks coming in waves. “There’s too many cameras there, I can’t,” You said, shaking your head. The Circle - they must have heard that you had survived. They were probably watching you. A hospital had cameras, but not as many, it wasn’t as heavily watched as the police station would be.

Your heart raced to the point where the doctors advised that they keep you, despite not having any external injuries. They had you on a heart monitor. The police had you in handcuffs nonetheless, but you accepted this without argument. You just wanted to get your story told and then get out of there. In prison, you might be safer, if they didn’t listen and did choose to arrest you.

There was a single detective that took you seriously. You, Matthias, Amaya and your friends all had verifiable alibis during Erica’s abduction. The Circle couldn’t wipe that away. And it reminded him of another case, a few years back. Almost identical details - except no one survived. The ‘murderer’ had committed suicide by jumping in front of a train. There were two witnesses that said he had been pushed, but the police ignored that. The evidence being on computers, the friends of the murderer dying under strange circumstances.

Detective White was the only one that was on your side. While the police wanted to officially arrest you and bring you in, he’s the one that hunted down your alibis, got statements that showed you were nowhere near Erica’s home when she was abducted, and secured at least some freedom for you. It was far from over. It felt like a hollow victory getting those handcuffs taken off of you. But at least it was a victory.

Detective White was the one that wheeled Matthias out of the hospital. Policy, they insisted. He could walk with a limp, but they still made sure to treat him like a victim until they reached the detective’s personal vehicle. He had taken the GPS out, at your urging. It could be easily hacked, or tracked. Since he was taking you to the safe house, the only place that you, Matthias and Amaya could agree on, you couldn’t risk a damn thing.

You gave him handwritten directions to your parents place. It was outside of the city. A long drive. He took a couple of backways when he could, going past farmlands and through small towns, rather than the major highways, for even they had cameras on them. Neither you nor your two friends dared to get out of the car during the one and only gas stop, opting for hoods up and heads down. Even though Marrhias had to pee, he didn’t dare, just in case a camera caught his face while going in to use the bathroom.

It was a quiet ride. Detective White kept asking questions, and he even knew a little sign language so was able to somewhat understand Amaya when she would answer. But mostly, it was just the forced silence. Any little noise made you and Matthias jump, causing Amaya to worry. Anytime that a car seemed to follow for longer than ten minutes, your heart started to beat quickly again, and you couldn’t breathe until it finally made a turn, or you did. A dark van in a driveway nearly sent Matthias into hysterics. He had to lay his head down on Amaya’s lap, be comforted until the panic attack passed. You dug your nails so deep into your palms that they started to bleed.

The traffic grew more and more sparse, until it was just Detective White’s car on the road. That’s when you felt like you could relax for the first time. You rolled your window down - actually having to use the crank because the car was an older model, and let yourself enjoy fresh air for the first time since all of this happened. It blew in, caressing your face, drying out your eyes. It smelt of trees - evergreen and pine.

The reason why this was a safe house was because it wasn’t actually under your parent’s name. They had an apartment in the city that was, where they’d spend time when they had to come in for work, usually just on the weekdays. But this - this house, the place that they poured love into, turned into a home - it technically belonged to one of your father’s friend’s from college. He had inherited it but it was too far from the city, so he just let his friends take it over. It was all paid off, and your parents would send money to pay the property tax and other bills.

It was as off the grid as it was possible to be. Your father was one of those doomsday preppers. It was coming, he always said. The apocalypse, the robot uprising, the government shutting down, whatever it was, he was prepared. You used to be embarrassed about it. The teenager that followed him through Costo as he bought stacks of Cream of Mushroom soup. But now you were thankful for it. This was as off the grid as it was possible to get these days.

There were a few technological appliances, thankfully. A microwave, a fridge, an oven, and a working bathroom with plumbing so you didn’t have to go the old fashioned way, out to an outhouse. But apart from that? There was no computer, no laptops, no gaming systems, no internet for you to connect to. You didn’t get service on your phone out here, but there was a landline that worked if the weather was clear enough. There was a small TV with rabbit ears that got a news station and a cartoon chanel - as long as the weather was clear enough, again. Bored? There were decks of cards. There were books. Go for a walk. There were a few Disney films on VHS that you could watch over and over for the nostalgia.

It wasn’t ideal. But at least it was safe. After Detective White left, you went around checking all of the windows and the doors to make sure that their locks worked. Matthias double checked after you did, holding onto Amaya’s hand throughout it all. The two were inseparable since the hospital. She had slept on his shoulder for most of the drive. He hadn’t complained once about it. There was still love in these traumatic times. Their relationship was closer than ever. You were the odd one out. The lonely one out of the bunch. But at least you were with your old friends. You weren’t totally alone in this.

Amaya brought a book about ASL. She taught you and Matthias so that there was no miscommunication anymore. Matthias was more eager to learn now than he used to be. Now that there was no program that he could make to try to make it easier for her to understand him. Now he could understand her. You all could understand one another, bringing you closer, as if sharing the same house didn’t do that for you.

It was a beautiful day. The sort of day where it’s all that people could talk about. They’d greet each other in the shops with a nod, a smile, and a ‘Beautiful day isn’t it?’ The kind of day where bosses panicked because people called in sick, but they knew full well that their employees were going to take a fishing trip that morning or take their families down lakeside for a bit of fun. The dog parks filled up and the air was filled with the sound of happy yips and barks.

However, you, Matthias and Amaya weren’t a part of that. The windows were closed, the white and gauzy curtains pulled over, blocking out the light breeze and the sunlight. It was stiflingly warm inside but the anxiety caused you to triple check the windows every time you got up, despite not unlocking them since the day that you got there. No, the three of you were sitting on the ground in front of the couch, the television on the news channel, playing The Game of Life.

You were laughing at how corny Mattias was being throughout it. It was only in the last week that you were able to start finding things funny again - after a couple of months being here. To start smiling and start laughing. You attention span, thanks to the lack of social media, was growing longer and longer, so these games had become one of the most fun things you could do together. Matthias was making a big show of naming the pegs when he was putting them inside of his ‘car’. He signed Amaya’s name when he stopped and got married, carefully picking a pink peg and putting it inside of the car. He was in the lead, already having a son, whom he would consult Amaya on what to name, before either you or Amaya made it to the marriage piece.

‘What about Steve?’ Matthias asked, spelling out the name with his fingers. You wrinkled your nose and stuck your hand out, giving it a thumbs down. Amaya shook her head, her ponytail flying wildly behind her. Matthias thought, tapping the top of the blue peg. ‘Matthias Jr?’

‘In your dreams’ Amaya said, making you really start to laugh. Matthias grinned goofily and nudged her with his elbow.

‘I’m putting my foot down,’ He signed, and made a show of it, tapping his against the ground. ‘Our son is named ... Elliot.’

‘That’s way better than Steve’, you signed, and Amaya nodded showing that she agreed. The game went on. Your little car stopped at the marriage spot, and Matthias and Amaya bugged until you finally gave your husband a name, just throwing out one of the last person that you had a crush on. Amaya reached the spot last, and to the surprise of both you and Matthias, she gave you both a mischievous grin.

‘Zac Efron’ she signed, coyly.

Matthias jumped up to his feet, his words moving quickly with shock and outrage. You wrapped your arms around your stomach, falling to the ground with laughter coming out of you. A deep one from your stomach that felt like the greatest release. Tears came into your eyes and you couldn’t see what Matthias and Amaya were signing to one another again but it didn’t matter because it ended up with the three of you all laughing and grinning at one another. Even Matthias, who signed that he would let this slide just the one time, but she better name his kid Matthias or there was going to be a car crash. You never expected him to say the last bit, considering what had happened but that felt like letting go of the past too. It was just a good feeling all around.

Once the laughter died down and the game continued, the sound of the television caught your attention. You left it on for background noise, just for you and Matthias, just a little something to get rid of the overwhelming silence, but some of the words actually made you pause and stare at the small and fuzzy screen. It wasn’t one hundred percent clear, but the reception was better today than it usually was. You tapped on Matthias’s shoulder and motioned towards the television. Amaya stopped moving her red car and turned to look at it too, reading the lips of the newscaster.

“- and we are recommending that if you have any children, to ask them to leave the room or to change the channel. What we have to show you is very disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised.”

You felt your stomach rising to your throat. What was on the screen was pulled right out of your memories, a sight that you could not forget, never, as long as you live. The choice that Serena had to make. Your face on the screen, Matthias’s face on the screen. Amaya watched with rapt horror, for this was her first time actually seeing this footage. She hadn’t been in that skype call. She only heard what had happened afterwards. You didn’t know what was worse, seeing it for the first time or for the second, both of it a surprise. An assault.

Your friends cries. The machine beeping as the heart monitor came to a stop. Lexx being pushed in front of the train. You couldn’t look anymore. You turned your eyes downcast, but that didn’t stop you from hearing it. The next, you assumed, was Damon being hung. It was a quiet one, and when you thought that it might be over, you turned your eyes back. No, there was an open word document and it was typing. Exactly like you had seen that night.

‘Why are they showing this?’ Amaya asked, not being able to look any longer. You were wondering the same thing. Was it actually on the news or did The Circle manage to hack this small TV? Could they do it through the small rabbit ears?

The screen went back to the news anchor who looked unsettled to say the least. It actually took a couple of seconds for her to regain control of herself. “Those are the videos that lead to the arrest of an underground group that call themselves The Circle. It’s an organization with surprising members from parliament, the entertainment industry, and corporate leaders, that play so-called games with innocent people using hacking skills, and in-person violence-”

Matthias was signing all of this to Amaya as the words were being spoken, since it was hard to read the lips during those long words. The landline started to ring, making both you and Matthias jump. You excused yourself to get it, hoping that it was who you thought it was. Only four people knew the number to this house. You didn’t even get spam calls or telemarketers here. If the phone rang, it meant that someone important was trying to get ahold of you. Your parents, Your parents friend, or Detective White.

You answered the phone with a little hmm, trying not to give away the fact that you were shaking. Please - please - please let this be real - you never wanted anything more -

“Is this you, y/n?” Detective White’s familiar and tired voice came from the headset.

“Yes - I’m watching the news. Is this real? Or are they hacking us somehow?” You asked, your voice rushed. Panicky.

“I’m pleased to say that it’s real,” He said. Matthias and Amaya were both staring at you, and you signed the good news, and who it was on the phone. Neither of them could move. Truth be told, neither could you. “I didn’t want them to play the footage that we got from one of their laptops, but the media specialist suggested it, something about making sure that the public was turned against them.”

“What, because hearing that they’re a bunch of kidnappers and murderers wasn’t enough to do that?” You asked, pinching the bridge of your nose. For the last while, you managed to escape from the past. You were still looking over your shoulder but not actually expecting to see them. “And you couldn’t have called to give us a warning? We just saw that on the television and-”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Detective White cut you off. “I’ve been dealing with tracking down the others, but we got the leaders, including the ones that had physically attacked you and your friends. It’s a lot of paperwork as you can understand.”

The leaders, and the ones that physically attacked you. You were tunnel visioned on those words right now. Repeating them over and over inside of your head. You tucked the phone as best as you could between your chin, jaw and shoulder so that you could sign everything you were hearing towards your friends. Amaya started to hyperventilate. Her face was turning darker and Matthias put his hands on her shoulder to try to help her breathe. They stared at one another, breathing together. He was the only one who could touch her like that. She even flinched from you sometimes. But from Matthias? Never.

“It’s over. It’s really over.”

“We’re hoping so. We’ve already got a long list of names, connecting with police forces around the world to make sure we get these bastards.”

“The world?” You asked, turning your back on your friends to look at the wall. Matthias could still hear you, of course. But you didn’t want Amaya to read your lips. Not when she was already panicking like this. “They’re all around the world?”

“This is bigger than just America,” Detective White grunted. “Japan’s been trying to get these guys for years. The UK too. But we’ve got it. We’ve got them. That’s the good news. Now I have to give you the bad.”

“Oh god,” You gasped. “What’s the bad?”

“I’m not going to be able to expend anymore resources on keeping you three safe now that they’ve been caught. I tried arguing for it, that there could be retaliation though I don’t think that will be the case, they’ll all be busy running for the hills. So you’re going to have to get a legal address again, get back to normal.”

It was bad news. Detective White had been right about that. But it wasn’t as bad as you thought that it could be. You could still live here. You were sure your parents would let you. And your friends too. You’d break the news to them in time.

“Okay, that’s not too bad,” You sighed. “I think we can handle that. Is there anything else that we have to do? We don’t have to erm - come in and ... you know, testify?” The nerves started to shake up again at the idea of being in the same room as those monsters. At your friends getting attacked.

“No,” Detective White said, squashing all of that down. “We’ve got more than enough evidence. You can if you want to, but just from the video footage alone, the things found on their computers, they’re going to get life. At least. Probably multiple life sentences.”

“Good.” You said, and you meant it. They should spend the rest of their life in an uncomfortable jail cell. No, worse than that, they should have to spend their lives in the conditions that they put other people under. The fear. The small rooms where they kept their kidnapped victims until they were planted in someone innocent’s apartment. All of it. This didn’t feel like enough of a win. But you had to admit that it was a win nonetheless.

After a few short minutes more of conversation and a promise that you’d get back to him once you figured out what you were going to do, you hung up the phone and joined the group hug with your friends. Amaya seemed to have regressed a few steps back after seeing what had happened on the television. Even though they were caught, it was still a heavy trauma. The weight hadn’t been fully lifted from your shoulders quite yet. It wouldn’t be until after the trials. Who knew how long they would take though.

‘It’s all my fault that this happened in the first place’ Matthias signed, also seeming to have taken those steps backwards. You were holding strong in your position, shaking your head.

‘It’s not,’ You signed back shaking your head. ‘They made the choice. It would have been us or someone else, and they might not have gotten out alive like we had.’

It took a whole week for it to sink in. The news was playing the footage over and over again, so you had kept it off. You didn’t need the background noise anymore, you craved the silence. Your parents came back to see you, to promise to help you and your friends look for another place. Together. You’d been living with one another for so long, it felt wrong to be apart. You were bonded now, for life.

You made your first trip into the city after two weeks. You went straight to the police station to see Detective White in person, sunglasses covering your face, attempting to keep low-key but everyone inside of the precinct seemed to remember exactly who you are, all eyes on you the moment you walked through that door. It took time to get used to being around people again. To the attention. You were the first to brave it, then Amaya and Matthias came the second time, holding onto one another. Anyone so much as brushed by Amaya, she flinched, but that was going to take a lot of time to get over. If ever. Eventually though, eventually you might be able to make it to a normal life.

Eventually, Matthias and Amaya would get married. You acted as interpreter during the wedding, saying aloud the vows which the couple signed to one another. The crowd wasn’t as large as it should have been. Your friends should have been there, and it hurt so much that they weren’t. It was one of the most bittersweet days of yout entire life, and you were sure that your friends thought the exact same.

The tragedy was rounding out to a close. You had the scars. You had your traumas. But you survived. Nothing more than that, you survived through it and that meant that you were going to keep on living because there wasn’t much of a choice in the matter. Keep going for Nari, Serena, AJ, Damon and DJ. Getting back to where you had been before, settled in with friends, working, back in school - life continued, but not as if nothing ever happened. But because everything had happened. A new appreciation for every second, for every friend, for every new experience. That’s how you were living from then on. From now, until forever.

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