Alt+f4+u || Ben Drowned X Reader

by Romin_Ghost

Summary:

When your friends wrangle you into your first camping trip in who knows how long, you draw the short end of the stick and end up going early to set-up. Things seem peaceful, if not a bit boring. You pass the time arranging the camp site for a full day of fun activities. Once it starts to get dark, and there isn't much time left in the day, you finish it off with dinner and by watching the campfire. Everything is fine until you see something move in the corner of your eye. You're all alone, and now all of a sudden you start to feel a lot less safe in your surroundings. [A Ben drowned x F reader]

Notes:

Hellooo tis the author here, this is my very first fanfic ever so I can't guarantee it will be very good. Anywayyyys, please enjoy this stupid fic of mine hehehe
I am also on primarily on Quotev, you can find me at Romin_Ghost. I will be posting there first.

Chapter 1: TRUST FALL

It had been a long time since the last time you went camping, but not long enough to forget how to set everything up properly. Of course, you wouldn't need to remember everything all by yourself if you weren't the lucky duck that had the honor of going to camp early and prepare the site before everyone else got there. 'yay you!.. -_-'. 

Your friends thought it would be good for you to get out of the house since you seem to hole yourself up in there any time you weren't working your minimum wage fast food job, and it had been too long since you all got to spend some quality time together. You honestly couldn't care less, you would rather be in your room playing games or reading all the comics and books you had already caught up with. You put up a little fight, but your friends pulled the guilt trip card and its hard to fight back when they do that so you gave in, and besides, it was just for one night.. at least it was supposed to be.

With how many people were going, someone needed to head up earlier to start with the set up so they weren't wasting half the day just putting tents up and gathering all the necessities. Problem, half of the group couldn't get off work until the day everyone was scheduled to go so it was up to the other half. Nobody was volunteering so the group decided to pull sticks and low and behold, you were the chosen one. There were no excuses to be given. They all knew that you were off of work for the rest of the weekend and clearly you didn't have any urgent plans to tend to unless they considered a new comic update to be urgent, but you doubt it. 

Now you're here, in the woods, alone with no internet, setting up tents and gathering firewood and tying up the hammocks. Normally that would be a little worrying. Not having any signal to call for help, being isolated in the middle of the woods where it would be hard to find you if something were to happen, not to mention being a young woman all by herself in the forest. Honestly though, you were more concerned with the lack of internet, leaving you with no entertainment for the rest of the night. 

Everyone had decided that whoever was setting up would need a decent amount of time to prepare before the rest of the group got there, which would be early morning. No one wanted to waste this golden opportunity so they were going to make a full day out of it. With that being said, it was agreed that everyone else who wasn't setting up early would split the pay for an extra night giving the one person a full evening and night to get everything set up. That meant the rest of the night was yours to do whatever you wanted.

By the time you were done and all the tents were up, you'd brought all your things inside your tent, hung up the hammocks, gathered everything you would need to make a fire, and all that was left was to make dinner for yourself. It was getting to be sundown now, and you'd just finished everything up. So you headed to your car to grab the sad little packet of cup noodles you brought for dinner as well as the camp kettle to heat up the water over the fire. The fire wasn't as hard to light as you thought it would've been, which was a pleasant surprise. The kettle was suspended just over the fire to boil. In the mean time, you went back to your tent to get changed into something more comfy. 

You made sure to slip off your shoes before getting into the small one person tent so you don't track any dirt inside. As you step through the thin plastic opening, you swear you hear something move farther in the trees. You instinctively glance towards that general area, but nothing seems out of the ordinary. You decide to shrug it off for now and continue inside the tent. Your borrowed cot is set up in the corner with an orange sleeping bag and a small pillow at the end of the cot. There was a portable heater that one of your friends advised you to buy in the opposite corner. The tent bag is left up front next to the door, and your flip flops are thrown on top for easy access for whenever you would need to go take a shower. And of course, your suitcase is sitting open just out from under the cot.  

You turn and zip up the tent so that no bugs would follow you in. Even though there was no one around for miles, you still don't want to run the risk of having anyone see you changing. You flick on the small LED lantern hanging from a hook at the center of the tent's ceiling, then kneel down to rummage through your suitcase to look for something to wear.

There wasn't a whole lot you packed since it was just a one day trip, or you guess a two night trip for you. Even so, you still brought a few too many clothes than what was necessary. You never know what you might want to wear in the moment so there was a small selection of long sleeves, T-shirts, tank tops, sweat pants, jeans, and shorts. You chose a pair of sweat pants, a T-shirt with an image of a pizza slice and a pint of beer with "Pizza Pimps Ho-Made Pies" and in small lettering beneath it, "Pimping, Piping, HOT & FRESH", as well as a tattered zip up jacket to keep warm in the early fall weather. There wasn't anyone around and you were going to sleep soon anyways, so you don't really see a problem in wearing something like this. Plus, what was the point of buying a slightly inappropriate and overpriced shirt in the middle of nowhere Chicago if you weren't gonna wear it at least once?

You zip up the suitcase and push it back under the cot before you leave. Slipping your shoes back on, you go back to the fire to make sure the water hasn't boiled out from under the lid of the kettle. Finding that the water is at the perfect boiling point, you carefully take it off the fire with oven mits you'd pulled out earlier, but you can still feel the heat from the kettle's handle through the mits. Your cup noodles are sitting on the picnic table a few feet away from the fire, close enough that the light of the fire is all you need to see what you're doing. You peel the paper lid back half way so you can pour the water in and let it sit for the recommended three minutes to soften the noodles just right. Once the water is poured you set the kettle on the picnic table, using one of the oven mits to cushion it.

While set a timer on your phone, you check it just to see if there was anything you can actually do with how little signal there is out here. Earlier in the evening while walking around, you'd apparently at some point found a sweet spot for service because there was a notification for a message from you and your friend's group chat, affectionately named "Camping Cunts".

It was from Lexie, "I can't wait for tomorrow!!! >:) I can't believe we get a full day of Y/N's undivided attention lolll-" you roll your eyes at that, "-speaking of, hope ur doing ok out there pookie, don't worry, we'll be there SUPER early so you don't get too lonely ;)"

The message makes you smile. Sure it is kinda boring being out here, and you would usually much rather just be at home, but it was a nice change to see your friends so excited to spend time with you rather than seeing them disappointed at your absence. 

You spend the rest of the three minutes scrolling through your saved videos. Once the timer goes off and you're sure the noodles are almost done, you open up the pack of wooden disposable chop sticks that you'd grabbed back when you went to the car. Walking back over to the fire, you sit down, peel the rest of the lid off of your noodles, and start to dig into your dinner. The forest ambience is nice, but it's a little too quiet for your liking. To remedy that, you start playing some music on your phone and just stare the fire. It was honestly pretty mesmerizing, it was kind of hard to look away at times, but you yourself looking up easily when you think you see something moving in your periphery. 

It was completely dark outside of the small radius of light the camp fire provided, so that made it incredibly difficult to spot anything at all, moving or not. Your heartrate picks up speed the longer you search. You hadn't really felt scared or freaked out during the evening prior to this moment, but maybe something about how dark it was now is starting to get to you. You know its a stupid move, but you call out, "Is anyone there?". If someone is there, they would have said something before or made a bit more noise unless they were intentionally trying to be a creep, so there was really no point in saying that. 

The silence was eerie. You put your noodles down on the half log you were sitting on to stand up and shine your phone flashlight in the direction that you think saw the movement come from. Still, you don't see anything which doesn't calm your nerves at all. You shift the direction of the light over just a little and you practically jump out of your skin when a deer popped it's head out of the bush you'd been looking at. It looks at you like you're the one disturbing it's peace. You hold your hand over your heart to calm your nerves and let out sigh of relief. You chuckle a little at how stupid that  whole ordeal makes you feel, and how much it had got you worked up. It was just a silly deer probably eating some berries or whatever the fuck actually deer eat.                                                                                                                                             

With that out of the way, you could get back to enjoying your crappy convenience store cup noodles. Your phone still playing music, which helped to lighten your mood again. You finish up the last bit of your food and throw it away in the metal dumpster that was provided to every camp site. You don't want any other animals being tempted by the smell of your trash and sneaking up on you.

It was late before you had eaten, but you've been up for quite a while since then. Your sleep schedule is already pretty fucked up though, so you aren't exactly very tired yet. You decide to keep sitting out by the fire. It's a lot chillier now this late at night, specially with the slight breeze that came through every once in a while. The fire was a welcome warmth for the time being. You weren't planning on staying out here for too much longer so you let the fire die down, but you would enjoy it's heat up to it's last dying breath. Your phone was now playing "Timber" by Pitbull and Kesha at a low volume, just loud enough to hear it over the crackling of the campfire. You start to hum along while you poke at the slowly dying fire with a stick.

Within a split second, you see a cloth strip lowering from above your head. "WHAT THE DONG-A-LONG?!" You shoot up from where you were seated, but you aren't quick enough to turn around- or to do anything else really. Your head was kept forward as the cloth was very quickly tied around your mouth, you couldn't even get out another sound, a sack is thrown over your head, and your hands and feet are secured in what sound like zip ties. It was hard to keep up with how fast everything was happening, there was hardly any time to think! Still, you had to do something, you couldn't just let this happen without putting up any sort of fight. 

You throw yourself back in the opposite direction of the fire in hopes that you will knock whoever this is over and maybe pin them down long enough to try to get out of these restraints. Your plan immediately backfires as your back is met with something so incredibly solid, is doesn't even budge. Then an arm is wrapping around your middle with a strength you aren't sure is natural. You squirm around a little bit longer in a last-ditch effort, but you tire out pretty quickly. With a sigh, you just give up your struggle entirely. Whelp, that was really all you could do. You were never a person that had a whole lot of fight in you, mentally or physically, That was how you were wrapped up in this camp trip thing in the first place. All there was left to do was calm down and try to figure out what was happening. Get details and maybe plan from there. 

Once you settle down, you can hear a man's voice saying something. You can tell from the proximity that this is the one holding you still. "W-well that was fast, go-go-god we're goo-od."

Another voice responds to the first, "Save it, we aren't done yet. It could just be an act to get you off your guard. I don't need you screwing this up."

"Uuuuuggghhhh, you're such a buz-z-zzz kill, old ma-man."

"I'm not even that fucking old!"

You hear another man chime in, effectively cutting the first two off, "Hey, you two, knock it off. We still have a mission to complete. There's still a chance of someone showing up earlier than expected, we need to get out of here." Alright, so there are three men trying- well succeeding in kidnapping you right now. One sounded like he has a bad stutter, the "old man" sounded a bit gruff, and the last voice was a lot more calm and collected. Great, so that information really helped your situation. Now what? Not much you can do against three grown ass men. You would like to think that you were strong enough to be the independent woman you strived to be, but you were just some loser in your early twenties who spends all her free time staring at some kind of screen. 

The only logical thing you could do is cooperate as best you can and maybe they will slip some information that could be helpful later if you found an opportunity to escape. It isn't the best plan of action, but then again, you weren't really in the know of what you should be doing in this situation. This is honestly the best that you can do. You tune back in when they start to wrap up their chatter.

"Alright, we're done here, someone grab her and we can head out."

"I call d-dibs!" 

"Knock yourself out, kid."

Suddenly you were thrown over someone's shoulder with grace at all. How considerate. He is not a comfortable ride, he jerks and flinches every few seconds. It makes it a bit harder to concentrate on thinking, you'll manage though. You think anyway. As they start to walk off wherever it was that they were taking you, you could hear your music start to fade away. "It's goin down, I'm yellin' timber--" Kesha clearly couldn't read the room.

For now you try to think back on anything they might have said earlier than could tell you anything. They didn't give you much to go off of, but there was one thing that caught your attention. The third man said something about the possibility of someone still showing up early. Now that could have just been him being cautious, but to you it sounded like he knew you, one: were all alone despite the other tent sites being set up and the whole camp clearly being arranged for multiple people, and two, that you were expecting more people to be arriving soon. He talked like he knew you were there earlier than the rest of your group. Like this had been some premeditated venture based on the fact that you were here first and alone.

Could that mean that they'd been stalking you even before coming to this camp site? How long have they been watching you? What could be the reason that they were kidnapping you? You don't remember doing anything to upset anyone and you didn't think you had ever gotten involved with anything shady. It's not like any of your family or friends had a whole lot of money they could ransom you for either. It just doesn't make sense. What would they want with a stay-at-home girl like you? Maybe this was all just a prank arranged by your friends, a way to get back at you for blowing them off so many times? That didn't make sense though, they were the ones that wanted to go on this camping trip with you, the ones who said it would be good to get out of the house. You like to think your friends wouldn't just traumatize you for the bit, which would make it so you'd never want to go out with them again.

Nothing is lines up and it frustrates you to no end. You guess that isn't entirely correct though, because the one thing that is lining up is your gut to this guy's shoulder. God, what is he doing that would cause his handling of you to be so rough? You get out of your head enough to be conscious of what is happening around you. You hear the wind blowing through the trees and the crickets going to town with their usual nightly symphony. You can hear an owl somewhere off in the distance. What should be a lovely forest ambiance was ruined by the loud ass bickering of two of the men that were carrying you away to nowhere good.

"Can you take any goddamn thing seriously in your life?! How is it that you still can't seem to understand how important these missions are?"

"I-I know how imp-im-important missions are-re, I just chose not-t to make a d-d-drag out of them."

"These missions aren't supposed to be fun Toby. This is our job."

"This is the onl-ly thing we are al-l-loud to do! It's pretty mu-much our lively-ly hoods, get that st-st-stick out your ass-sssss and have some fun with it."

"God! You are just so insufferable! If you could die, I would fucking kill you right now."

Oh?

"You wanna t-test that ou-out? I'll go fir-fir-first!"

All of a sudden you feel a strong jolt, and you're shifted slightly. Like the man holding you is about to to punch the gruff one's face. It feels like you weigh barely anything to him as he holds you up with only one arm. His movements were unbothered even with you being hauled over his shoulder. It feels like he had even forgotten he was holding you, because just as soon as you felt him move forwards, you could feel yourself falling for what seemed like ages, but was probably only seconds. Falling always feels like a much longer experience when you can't see how far away the ground is. You collide with the ground hard, back to the to the ground painfully. The collision knocks the wind out of you and it feels like you black out and lose consciousness momentarily. But just as soon as you were out, you came back to.

Everything in the forest seemed silent besides the loud ringing in your ears. It sounds like they all had stopped talking, you don't think you hear anything from them, and from the lack of gravel noises, you think they might've frozen in place too. Your head is spinning and you feel a massive headache coming on once the adrenaline wears off. God, your head hurt something fierce. It was like you smashed your head in on a rock or something.

You start to sit up, instinctively groaning and lifting your hand up to your head. "What the hell was that? You guys really don't know how to treat a lady." you say. Oh! You can talk now, and it feels like you could move your limbs freely. Maybe you had blacked out for longer than you thought and they undid all your restraints, feeling sorry for dropping you like that. Your head still hurt incredibly bad though, it had you squeezing your eyes shut in pain and rubbing your temples. A few seconds went by and there was still no sound. No one has responded to you, nor have they said anything about your lack of restraints. That was odd. Did they just leave you somewhere? You would think as a kidnapper, you would want to make sure that your kidnapee had no way of escaping.

You start to pry one of your eyes open to see what was going on. Your vision is blurry for a few seconds, but iyou blink away the remaining fuzziness and are greeted with the sight of three men frozen and staring right at you. The farthest one away looks like he is mid walk peering over his shoulder with wide eyes. He's wearing a light tan-ish yellow hoodie and a black blazer over top with denim jeans, boots, and black leather gloves. He's also holding a wadded up piece of black fabric. His hair is a sandy blond color, he has just the smallest bit of facial hair too. God, he looked insanely tall, maybe 6'4" or something in that range? A bit closer to you are the two other men looking like they were mid fight when they paused. 

The shorter one was around 5'11" maybe? Dark brown hair spilling over his forehead with thick side burns peaking out from a percaline white mask with painted with black feminine features, large black eyes pointed in your direction, and two thinly arched black eyebrows. He's wearing a tan pleather looking jacket, dark washed jeans with boots and black leather gloves. His fists are balled up, still looking ready to fight the other man standing next to him.

The last man is a lot scrawnier than the other two, He looks like a twig barely hanging onto it's branch. You can tell by how he is twitching that he was the one holding you. It's a bit hard to imagine that a tiny kid like him could carry you like that with ease, it's not like you are that heavy, but surely you weigh more than he does. If you'd tried harder, could you have maybe fought him off? He definitely makes up for the lack of body mass in height though. If he isn't as tall as the man in the hoodie, then he is just below his height. He has fluffy brown hair that's rather messy, bright orange goggles strapped over his eyes and a face mask that almost looks like a sort of muzzle over his mouth. He is wearing a light brown hoodie with striped sleeves and a blue hood that's probably a size or two too big for him. Dirty torn up jeans, a holster around his hips that holds two hatchets, boots, and black leather gloves that looks like they're falling apart at the finger tips. This guy is also mostly frozen- besides the occasional twitch- in a fighting stance staring directly at you.

Now you're confused. If they'd been standing there as if they'd been turned into statues the moment you were thrown off that guy's shoulders, then how could they have possibly set you free? It's hard to think about that or anything else right now with this awful headache though. You manage sit all the way up, moaning and groaning as you do. You fully open both your eyes blink a few more times before looking back at them.

"What's going on? You all look like you've seen a ghost."

Chapter 2: Dead Weight

Notes:

A little late on this upload, I got a little distracted, but it's here now. please enjoy!

The leaves rustling in the wind and the crickets are the only sounds in the deafening silence. All three guys are just staring at you like a pack of deer caught in the blinding headlights of a truck, and it seems a whole lot like you are said truck in this scenario. You're not sure what to do now, usually people respond by now, but this is just getting awkward. 

Finally they move, but still don't answer you. The group looks to each other in silence as if they can communicate through looks alone. Within seconds, they form some kind of team huddle around each other. You just sit there is confusion. You aren't addressed other than the glances they give you from over their shoulders. It's honestly a bit insulting really. You can't really force them to pay attention to you though so you decide to focus on other things for now, like the throbbing pain in your head.

You are still confused on how you ended up like this when it was only a few seconds ago that you were dangling off of some guy's shoulder with a bag over your head. You take a look around to see if you can make out where you might be. It's almost too dark to see much farther than the three men standing in front of you. You can still make out the outlines of the surrounding trees, but honestly that's about it. There is nothing else out here to really focus on, no defining landmarks, not even a single rock in sight. Oh wait, you put one hand to your head and reach the other down behind you to steady your dizzy self, but your hand hits a fairly sharp and oddly wet rock. 

You turn around to see something you don't quite know if you can comprehend. It looks to be the upper half of a person's body covered in a sack from the neck up lying completely still. Too still, and too close for you not to be sitting in their lap. Then you notice your hand. The hand that hit the sharp rock. The hand that is currently going straight through where the lying person's head should be in the sack. You buffer for a moment not sure what exactly this means for you. You look down at your waist to see that you are not just sitting on the person's lap, but you are in their lap. That's when it really hits you and you feel a sharp pain in the back of your head. Quite the funny wake up call to the not so funny situation you have found yourself in.

You snap your head back to the three men who seem to be wrapping up their little group meeting. They break from the huddle to face in your direction once you address them. "Hey, so, what the fuck is this?" You gesture to the body below you. 

"That would be your body." the man in the yellow-ish tan hoodie said matter-of-factly.

"Right, right," you nod. "and why exactly can I see that from here."

"Well, it would appear that you've turned into a ghost. So that could be part of it."

...

You're not sure what to say from there. What else is there to say, its not like you've ever just died and become a ghost before. Is this even real? You weren't especially religious or even thought much about the possibility of an afterlife, but you never could have seen yourself becoming a ghost, especially this early. You would like to be in denial about it, but it's kinda hard to be in denial when you can quite literally see through your own body. There's just no other logical explanation.

It took a lot less time than you would like to admit to accept your current predicament. Guess you're just a ghost now, and there's nothing you can do but it. You take a minute to collect your thoughts before asking anything more of the three men.

"Ok cool, so I'm a ghost now. Can anyone tell me how exactly I got to this point?" You say, hoping for a solid explanation. With how things have been going though, you're not sure you'll be getting one.

The man in the white mask starts. "Well, it's a bit difficult to explain-" you cut him off, "Look at that! Seems like I have plenty of time to hear you out". The man falters for a moment before continuing. "I just think it would be best if you heard the full explanation from someone else. We can only give you the short of it for now." 

"I'm on the edge of my seat." You retort sarcastically, keeping your straight face. 

The men all look a bit uneasy, maybe a tad guilty, too. You wouldn't say you're taking this well necessarily, but then again you also weren't taking it with... anything really. They probably expected more rage, depression, denial, not for you to just skip all the stages of grief and go straight for acceptance. They weren't sure if this was just some strange way of coping or if there is actually something wrong with you. To be fair, you were always a 'go with the flow' kind of person. You were also a bit surprised with how well you were taking this, but  you guess it's not too out of character for you, just a little unexpected.

"I-I'll explain it!" The scrawny one who'd been carrying you piped up, raising his hand up high like he was waiting for someone to call on him to answer a question in school. "So ba-asically, we were all watching you-u the whole afternoon while yo-you were setting up all your camp doohickeys and whatnot, waiting for the right op-op-opportunity to snatch you up. Then we made sure no one els-s-sse was around when it was time to strike. T-then we finally pounced! I was the o-one that threw the sa-sa-sack over your head-" He said like he was proud of himself. "And then yadda yadda yad-dda, I put you on m-my shoulder, we started heading back, and T-Tim-m over here," He pointed a thumb at the man in the white mask. "started picking a fight, which lea-ead to me dropping you and you la-lan-landing your head on what was p-prob-probably a rock. The end!"

The man in the mask just face palms, and the guy in the hoodie rubs his temples in exasperation. The masked one smacked the man in goggles on the back of his head. Goggles looks back at the other like he doesn't know what he did to deserve that.

You finally speak up again. "So what you're telling me is that I, minding my own business, somehow caught the attention of three kidnappers, who are apparently so incompetent that they accidentally dropped and killed their target on the one and only rock in the area that I can see, and I'm just supposed to live with that?"

The hooded man shrugs "Well, you can't really live with it, being dead and all." 

You snap your head in his direction and he raises his hands in mock surrender. "So then what am I supposed to do now? Is there anything I even can do? It's not like I hold any particular grudges or anything so I don't think there is a goal I have to accomplish to move on. Isn't that how ghosts usually work?"

The masked man answers. "That's not quite how all ghosts work, I guess some are different, it kinda varies. But that's besides the point. What we know now is that you're a ghost, and clearly you don't have anywhere to go back to unless you want to scare the hell out of your friends back there, so your best option would be to come with us and talk to our boss, maybe figure something out."

"Oh yeah, cause my best option is to follow my kidnappers-slash-murderers back to their boss. Why exactly can't I just do whatever the fuck I want now that I'm dead?" As you say that, your feel something a bit strange, looking down you now see that your leg has started to phase through the ground. 

You look at your leg, back to them, then back at your leg again. It's solid ground beneath you and yet your leg is clipping right through it like there's nothing there. You try to pull your leg out, but it doesn't seem like you have much control of whatever's causing it. Pushing against the ground only makes it worse, and in a moment of panic, you reach out for something- literally anything- to grab onto. You weren't sure what would happen if you were to completely submerge under the ground. Would you ever be able to get back out? Would you phase straight through the earth to the other side? You really didn't want to find out. 

All three men reach out to try and help you up. While you may have been in a rush to get out, but you made sure to only grab the hooded man's arm. You don't completely trust that the other two wont end up dropping you again. He stumbles back a bit, probably expecting you to have far more mass than you actually do now, and stabilizes you on the ground still supporting you with his arm. 

"Holy fuck! What was that?!" You're reasonably freaked out, and you don't want to let go of this guy's arm just in case whatever that was were to happen again. Said guy looks down at you before answering. "I'm not sure, seems like you don't have full control of yourself yet, and from the looks of it, you don't have a very strong hold on this world in general anymore." The hooded man's gaze pauses at your arm. You follow his eyes to see what he means. 

Your arm looks like it's flickering, like a dimming flashlight that's running out of batteries. Shit. This doesn't look good for you. You thought that since you were a ghost now, you could pretty much do whatever you wanted. But it seems you aren't so blessed. 

You look back up to the guy supporting you as he continues. "We could figure something out to help you, but you'd have to follow us back to talk and our boss. Your choice." He shrugs.

You hate that he makes even a little bit of sense. But when you think about it more, what else would you even be doing? It's not like you could go to your friends or just head back home, there was nothing left of your now past life. There also isn't anything you can think of that you've always wanted to do, or places you really wanted to go. Not that you could now, but you really just didn't want to immediately go along with them with no argument. There is no reason to oppose , especially with the way you're phasing into the ground. Uuuugh, this is all such a drag to have to deal with.

"Fine, I guess that's my only real option now, but if I find out this is all just some elaborate shit prank, or if you guys try to exorcise me or whatever, I'm so gonna kick yall's asses into tomorrow."

You hear a scoff and giggling coming from the two other men who're now on either side of you. You give them a quick glare before returning your attention to the man in the hood. You should really start paying attention to their names if you're going to be referring to them more from now on. You'd been a bit too caught up with the whole being dead thing to really pick up on what was who's name. "Now that I'm tagging along with yall not as a hostage, I should know your names." You look at them expectantly.

The two in the mask and hoodie hesitate for a moment, but it wasn't the same for goggles. "M-my name is Toby, the grum-py old man over th-there is Tim, and that other-r-r guy is Brian!" He points to himself, the one in the white mask, and the one you were clinging on to respectively.

"You're just gonna give out our real names like that dumbass?!"

"W-what? It's no-not like she can re-reall-ly do anything t-t-to us" He shrugs.

"Gah- I can't with this kid."

Brian chimes in, interrupting the two's bickering. "It's fine Tim, she already heard your name earlier anyways, besides, Toby's right, she really can't do anything at this point." A little insulting, but fair enough. "Might as well take your masks off too, she's already seen my face so there's no reason for you both to hide anymore." You were curious about the masks. You guess it would be normal for kidnappers or whatever they are to hide their faces, but they're such odd masks that you can't help but wonder where they'd even get ones like those. Why not just slap a ski mask on and be done with it? Maybe they were just being fun and whimsical with it to add a little flair? Not that you care enough to know.

The other two both take their face covers off. Tim is the first one you see, looking like any other guy just with the thickest side burns you've ever seen and a nice pair of deep eyebags to go along with them. You see why Toby calls him an old man. Besides that, there isn't anything real special about his appearance, just some thick brows and oddly enough, his eyes are a warm shade of brown. They would be a lot prettier if he wasn't decorating them with a creased forehead a bit of a scowl at the moment. He also has a bit of a beard, but it is hardly anything compared to those side burns. A bit more than just some stubble, but not by a whole lot.

Toby on the other hand has a bit more of a boyish face. He also pretty deep eyebags, but he has more of a youthful look to him. Bushy brows, brown eyes, a sad amount of scruff that looks like it only grows on his chin, but there is a way more obvious detail about his face that stands out to you. A large gash in his cheek connecting to the side of his mouth creating a giant window straight to his teeth. It's a pretty gnarly sight to behold right off the bat, but you get used to it after a few seconds. Not like you could judge, you'd hate to see how your skull looks under that bag. Now you are more focused on the teeth being displayed behind that gash. He has some pretty impressive looking canines, probably the cause for the gash. Once again, that's none of your business.

 "Alright, so Tim," you point to them individually "Brian, and Toby, got it." A sudden thought came to your mind that caught your attention. Why is it that they seem so unfazed about you being a ghost? It's not like this is a normal thing to see, sure there are plenty of people who believe in ghosts, but even people like that would probably be more freaked out than they were. You question them. "So how come yall seem so chill with the fact that I'm a ghost? Not like that's something you see every day so what's with your calm demeaner? This just another Wednesday for you?"

"Can't tell you that yet, sunshine, you'll have to just let us get a move on so we can get back, and then we can explain all you want.. well, as much as we are allowed to that is." Tim responds trying to usher everyone forward.

"Ok, but what are you gonna do with that?" You point to the ground behind you. The all turn to see what you are referring to. Your now limp, uninhabited body is still lying there lifeless and with a puddle of blood pooling around where your head was. They sit there staring for a bit thinking of what to do with your body. 

"Ummm, how about we take your physical body with us just in case there's anything we can do with it to help your situation." Tim says. You aren't sure what on earth they could do with your dead body that might help you, but you aren't about to question them after everything else that you've let pass. 

"Alright, but at least have some decency and take off those zip ties and that sack over my head. Give a girl some respect. And maybe this time someone else caries my body?" You side-eye Toby.

"I can't, my hands are full." Brian adds in slyly with you clinging onto his arm. "That leaves you Tim." The man rolls his eyes in contempt. "I should've expected this. I'm always the one picking up the mess." He mumbles to himself while starting to clean things up. He cuts on the zip ties with a knife he pulls out from his pocket and unties the sack from your head as well as the cloth from your around mouth. It was odd seeing your own body from the outside, especially with it being so lifeless. You aren't about to mourn over your life now, but it is a little sad seeing it. It starts to set in that you really are dead and this isn't just some stupid ass dream. 

That's enough of that. You're not sure if a ghost can cry, but you're not going to find that out now. Tim finally lifts your body up from the ground and moves it to the side for now. He needs to take care of the blood that's starting to soak into the dirt and leaves around the rock that bashed your head in. It is a conveniently sharp and pointy rock with no other rock around it. It's like that rock was destined to kill you from the very moment it formed there. You're not to happy about it, it's like the rock is mocking you. Just a stupid rock, can't even think for itself, and yet it bested you. It's probably laughing at you in it's little rock mind. You would spit on it if you could. Could ghosts spit?

You were so busy burning a hole into the rock with your eyes, you didn't notice how Tim had covered up and cleaned up all the blood one the ground to the best of his abilities. The ground looks untouched, like nothing had ever happened there. It's eerie how was able to do that in such a short amount of time. He's got the rock in his hand looking not nearly as covered in blood as it was before, once again, scary. He tosses it over to you. "Here, a souvenir for you."

It flies straight through your head and Brian catches it for you with his other free hand. You deadpan at him. "How funny." Toby chuckles a little and Brian tosses the rock for him to carry. "Make yourself useful kid." Toby salutes back to Brian with a dopy grin. "Sir, yes s-sir!"

Tim hands Toby the sack with the zip ties and make shift mouth gag inside then goes back to your body to throw it over his shoulder like it's a bag of potatoes. Classy. "Alright, let's head out. It's not too far of a walk so it shouldn't take too long, but that doesn't mean you can take your sweet ass time. Let's go." He starts walking off ahead of the rest of you, you think he must be the leader with how he acts. The others fall in line after him with you and Brian in the middle and Toby tailing in the back. It's a little hard to keep up with Brian's long strides and you don't seem to be able to float like a stereotypical ghost, at least not very well. You can just barely lift yourself for a mere few seconds making it a little easier to keep in step with Brian, still, it doesn't help much. He catches wind of your struggle fairly early on and slows his pace just enough for you to manage. How considerate, especially for a kidnapper.

And with that, all four of you are on your way to this mysterious boss they keep bringing up. You have no clue how far you have to go but Tim seemed to be sure it wouldn't take long to get to. You don't know what to expect when you get there so you try not to hold your expectations too high and just go along with the ride. 

 

---

 

Not too far your ass!

It took what felt like hours to get to your destination! Is he just dumb or stupid?! You think both. Though the others don't seem to be very affected by the long journey. In fact, they look like they've just gone on a stroll. It's unfair how you are the only one affected by this. You aren't very disheveled or winded from being so unfit for this type of exercise, probably because you're a ghost now. That would certainly have to be something you get used to. But you are still pretty exhausted from the trip here. Maybe it's just a side effect of being so detached from this word, it feels like it take's a whole lot more energy just to keep existing than normal. 

It's over now though, at least you hope so as you come up on a clearing in the forest leading up to what look like an abandoned house. It looks super sketchy, but then again, what were you expecting from a group of kidnappers. You don't even know if kidnapping is all they do. It's not like you can die twice though, so you once again look past it. 

The sun was already starting to rise making the sky fade into a light shade of blue. You could see your surroundings a lot better now, but there isn't much else to look at besides the singular building in the center of the clearing and then the never ending trees in every direction. 

You all step up to the front porch and stop before you get inside. "I think it's best if we head inside first to give our boss a quick debrief of what's going on, then come back out to bring you in and have a proper conversation. Does that sound like a plan?" You don't really have much of a say in the matter. As long as you can get a full explanation, you can deal with a few minutes of alone time out on this porch. There is only one issue you can think of with that.

"Yeah, that's fine, but what do I do if I start to phase through the floor again?"

Tim looks around. "Uhhh, can you hold onto this pole?" He refers to a beam connecting to the guard rail of the edge of the porch. Brian moves you both closer to the beam so you can test it out. You reach out to grab the pole and to your relief, you can hold onto it. You transfer all your support from Brian to the pole slowly just in case. Standing there for a few seconds, it seems safe enough to chill out on while they leave you for a few minutes. You give them the thumbs up to head inside. Tim sets your body down on a rocking chair off to the side of the front door. Toby tosses everything he is holding at the foot of the rocking chair with a lot less elegance. 

"I'll just be here, hangin' around." All three of them walk through the front door without a word. Finally, a moment to yourself. A lot had happened today and you think it would be good to get a head start in processing it all. To think you went from wholesome, mindless camping, to getting kidnapped, killed, and then taken on a multi hour long hike through the woods to a secluded run down house in the middle of nowhere. It was like a serial killer's triathlon. You're not sure if you would be in first or last place if that was true. 

You were so hung up on the current situation and just wanting answers for why and how your life turned out like this that you hadn't really thought about what would happen after. Yeah you get your explanation, but what then? Not like you have anything else to live for.. you're dead. At least this means you don't have to worry about paying rent and living expenses. Would you still need to eat food? Could you eat food? What all is no longer a necessity now that you don't have a physical body to take care of? Could you possess your own body? There are a lot of questions you could think of, but none of them would be answered until they'd spoken with this 'boss' of theirs. 

It's only a few minutes before you start to get bored. What could they be talking about for so long? It is quite a bit to have to explain, but you aren't a very patient person. You haven't been phasing through the floor at all since you got here, maybe you could walk over to the door and see if you can hear anything through the wood.

You start to shuffle over to the door until you can't reach any farther while still holding onto the beam. The floor feels solid so you let go of the beam and quickly grab onto the door nob as your life line. Nothing happened, meaning you are good to go to try and eavesdrop on anything you can hear from inside. 

You press your ear up to the door. At first you can't hear much at all, but after a moment you start to hear some hushed voices. You can't make anything out yet. You think you can hear them getting louder, or maybe closer? You try to put everything you can into focusing on their voices to make anything out. Just as you were able to pick up on small bits or their speech, you start to feel like you were moving forward. 

The movement starts feels a whole lot like falling, and by next time you blink, you're on the floor with half your body sticking through the door... still closed. 

You look up to see the three men standing just above you about to open the door before you fell through it. There's only one thing to say at a moment like this.

"Boo."

Notes:

Another sub par chapter, I'm working on it. Idk if this is interesting to yall, I love and appreciate any comments anyone has to offer. Give me your opinions, tips, anything.

If it wasn't already apparent on the last chapter, my editor in the wonderful Frill/VirtualPet (ethernetWhimsy on ao3), please go support them if you haven't already! They have a banger fic they are writing right now, it's super fun, go check it out.

I am cross uploading this from Quotev under the same user. I post over there first, but I will try to update ao3 as soon as I can. Anyways, hope yall like it so far, we are getting into the good stuff soon I swear!!

secret editor note: everytime I hear the phrase dead weight I think of either some cool stuff [like this fic wink wink] or that fuckass among us rap

Notes:

I need yall to have a visual for the T-shirt I found for this chapter so here it is.

I think it's funny

Editor: Frill/VirtualPet wuz here ;P