Chapter Text
Logan and Taylor found themselves in an alleyway, no phantoms spotted, finally they could take a break and catch their breath.
They sat in silence on the dusty floor, taking deep breaths in sync. Taylor’s body stiffened from worry and naturally, Logan noticed.
“Hey are you okay? Well- I mean it’s hard to be okay in this situation but, you know- I can tell you’re extra worried, so what’s worrying you?” Logan asked quietly to the girl,
She left out a sigh “It’s just.. last time I got separated from Tyler in the phantom dimension… he.. you know.? Died..” Logan didn’t know how to answer since she was.. kinda right?
“I’m sorry..”
“don’t be.”
The two would guess around 5 minutes had passed after their small talk ended, still sitting on the floor trying to reset their mind to have their thoughts ordered correctly.
The only sounds in their approximate alleyway were their own breaths and the new small swooshing sound as if a person was sprinting by them.
The silence was disrupted by a scream. Logan head immediately turned to see the tanned girl in absolute terror as there’s a random hand draped onto her shoulder.
Both of their heads instantly turned their hands, Logan’s hand grabbed onto a pocket knife and Taylor’s hands turned into tight fists.
There was a phantom staring back at them, it had a human appearance, black fluffy, but messy, hair, dark eyes with dark eye bags underneath, it had a appearance of someone a tad bit younger then they are, it wore a identical outfit to the ones the group wore in the phantom dimension, but thing that stuck out the most was that basically everything except the things that just got listed was identical to Aiden.
Logan threw his arm in front of the phantom holding his mini knife as a way to threaten the copycat monster, but in return it just stared at Taylor and suddenly wrapped his hand onto her neck in which she attempted to punch it’s face back.
Its head dodged the attack with its face being set in stone not moving a muscle, even when it got stabbed in the chest.
It was taken aback and it’s hand went loose letting Taylor move away from it’s grasp, she grabbed it’s backs of its hands, smashing them into the wall, and placed her feet onto its ankles, holding him against the brick wall.
Logan was right next to her holding the knife to his chest and having his foot on top of its legs to pin it down to the floor as well.
Although due to how high she was holding its hands, his black sleeve fell down revealing a third of its forearm. The two teens were taken aback from what was revealed.
On the wrists were clean, symmetrical, thin, red cuts placed way too neatly to be an accident. There were some faint thin scars under the newer ones as well.
Logan and Taylor exchanged similar looks of worry with a pinch of confusion. They were interrupted by the phantom squirming in which Logan stabbed its neck multiple times until he was sure it was dead.
Taylor and Logan released the copycat phantom, leaving it limp on the ground. The girl’s eyes were locked onto its arm, it felt rude and invasive but she just couldn’t stop staring.
The nerd was able to look away from its arm, awkwardly staring at the musky ground.
“Thinking back, it was so obvious Aiden was struggling in some type of way. I feel like a idiot for not noticing sooner and having to find out this way…” Logan sighed sadly,
Taylor was able to face away from the phantom’s arm to look at Logan, “we’re all idiots for not realizing.. but it wasn’t fully obvious, he was always smiling… what do we do now though.?”
“I don’t know.. maybe we should wait until this situation is more sorted out and we’re safe before talking.” Logan replied in which Taylor hummed and nodded in agreement.
A minute of silence passed before, as if one cue, a blonde teenage boy ran with a fake, worried, smile into the alley being faced with the two teens making them all flinch in sync.
“Oh my fuck! Finally I found y’all. Me and Tyler just got separated accidentally but yeah, so hey!” The psychotic teen spoke with confidence as fake as his usual maniac smile.
Taylor tried to speak something but was interrupted by a small “oh” that sprinted out of the boy’s mouth when he looked down and saw the limp copycat phantom.
He crouched down to move the body upright, his eyes widen out of fear when he saw the exposed arm, he looked up at the two who were nervously fidgeting.
“We didn’t mean to see them..” Logan state, not specifying what ‘them’ is as he assumed Aiden could tell what he meant.
When Taylor looked down at Aiden she was shocked to see he wasn’t wearing his iconic smile, his usual expression was replaced with a look of fear.
As if he had a switch on the back of his head that just got flipped his face turned into a smile, “dang, I wonder what scratched the phantom up!” He laughed, trying to play it off as if it’s nothing and just some wounds the phantoms has.
“Aiden… we know what those are..” Taylor sadly replied to his fake obliviousness, Aiden didn’t reply, instead he just stared depressingly into the copycat’s eyes, his eyes reflecting onto its.
“I don’t do it anymore…” he lied “just don’t tell the others.. please.?” He weakly begged.
Logan hasn’t ever have to handle something like this so he tried to tiptoe around it as if it was the most fragile thing in the world.
“When would you tell them then? They- we would never judge you, you can trust us with this kind of things.”
“I know. I- y’all just weren’t supposed to find out this way.”
Taylor spoke up “I assumed so..!” She awkwardly half-laughed, trying to light up the mood.
Her stiff posture relaxed sadly, “you don’t have to tell us anything. We just want you to be safe, if you don’t feel comfortable to talk about this yet then you don’t have to tell us anything.” She reassured him and Logan nodded to her statement.
“I kinda hoped I would never have to talk about it or have anyone find out about my problems but I was always unrealistic I guess. I’m gonna talk eventually just not yet, just please don’t see me differently.” Aiden replied.
“Don’t worry, we won’t. You’re always be the same Aiden to us no matter what.” Logan smiled.
“True that!” Taylor agreed.
Aiden gave a weak smile before almost fully turning to his normal insane smile before speaking,
“we should probably try to find the others now!”