It was hard for Calypso to gauge how much time had passed. It was strange how she’s so zoned out, staring outside her window at the Sun drowning the sky, and yet keenly aware how deeply she stewed in this silence.

Hell, the fact Sal elected to turn off her music at all was telling alone.

Sal was driving, keeping her eyes on the highway’s road. From the nervous glances Calypso made every odd moment, it was clear that she was struggling. Which again, is so odd for Calypso to see.

Her cousin was the definition of go-getting. She didn’t care about looking dumb, about failing or the possible consequences of her actions. She did things and worried about it later while making fun of you for sweating on her behalf. She could talk about and talk to virtually anyone and everything. So the fact that even the immutable Sal Grimes can’t figure out what to say to her, Calypso wondered if this entire “idea” was a waste.

Another thing she wasted. Time and lives of others when she should’ve taken care of—

The car suddenly stopped. Not to the point where Calypso was flung out of her seat, but a notable jerk that caused her to look around. Looking forward, it seemed like there was some traffic, but not terrible considering. Maybe the car in front was being careless…?

Calypso couldn’t think further, as her head turned towards the sounds of a bag opening, zipper being undone.

Only to see Sal opening her CD case, taking one out and putting her finger through the hole as she causally put the case back.

Her cousin wasn’t meeting Calypso’s confused gaze, which made this somehow weirder. Sal, now sporting a vacant face, just slid the disk into her player, and then leaned back as she had one hand on the wheel, and her arm outside the rolled-down window.

Calypso was on the verge of paranoia, opening her mouth to ask what’s going on, only to be cut off by very familiar opening bars.

“…” Calypso’s eyes raced side to side, her face tightened in confusion. It relaxing in realization, with her deary eyes going so wide the first time in weeks.

She began to laugh. Genuinely laugh.

And yet, despite that, Calypso could clearly hear the muttering of Sal. Her smirking as she purposefully mumbled out nonsense that was once lyrics. Craning her head, destroying the song’s intro as she was belting out scatting towards the girl.

Calypso covered her reddening face with her dainty hands. Her laughter getting hearty, louder as the song was going towards its first bridge.

To which Sal, pushing her face towards the girl’s red-tipped ear, just whispered nonsense that was once the song’s iconic line. Sending Calypso into hysterics as she feebly tried to push Sal away, as the latter laughed and yet kept going.

Despite being red in the face, despite the now-streaming tears, Calypso couldn’t help but to discordantly harmonize with her Sal, knowing that her fit of laughter would mangle the song more.

It was before life went to shit. It was a representation of their familial bond more than anything. Not just this song, but many. It wasn’t like they hated music or the latest hits, but there was nothing more funny to Calypso and Sally Grimes than riffing on them, their terrible takes adding nonsense words and noises that even by saying one of them, it would cause the other to fall into laughter.

What made this so… Blissfully disarming to Calypso, was that this was a hit from 2004. Literally the last year before Sal couldn’t visit anymore. Before the death of her father, and then the spiral that resulted for both her and her mother. And now before the death of her only friend.

It made her realize… No, remember that she’s always had someone else. When family fell through, when friends go away… She’d always have Sal somehow.

What followed was an improv session, so much so that Calypso ended having the opposite problem from before. She didn’t realize how much time just flew by. It was only when Sal turned the volume down on her player that Calypso realized the passage of time.

“You… Bitch…” Calypso wiped a tear. “You’re such a bitch… I just got out of the hospital and god, I’m so sore right now, I could’ve died for real this time—”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“You’re gonna crash at my house and go to my college—” Sal grinned while still looking forward driving. “Of course I’m tryna kill ya’—”

Calypso giggled, “It’s so strange, imaging you being a college student…”

“Only because Maw and Paw forced me into it,” Sal pouted a bit. “I wanted to keep helping out at the farm, but nooooo. My future n’ all. We compromised with, y’know, only going to town’s college—”

“Hm…” Calypso looked out of the window again. “Your hometown of 560 people—”

“Hey, we’re at 1000, and just celebrated the fact--!” Sal verbally sneered at, clearly laced with comedy.

Calypso just turned her head, with an unimpressed but amused smile.

Before it faltered again, her thoughts catching up to her once more.

“It’s just weird… Everything’s going to be… So compressed. So… Communal. Isn’t it a creepy place too?”

“So is Sleepy Hallow—or Hollow or whatever!” Sal argued back. “And those guys use that for tourism!”

Calypso sunk in her seat.

“Plus, it’s so funny talkin’ to ya’ again, you have literally never changed yourself,” Sal practically sounded like she was smirking, Calypso didn’t need to look to confirm.

“Totally meant inside, by the way,” Calypso turned back towards her cousin. “Like seriously, you exploded. I tried to push you away and my hand nearly stunk into your chest—why must you always show me up?”

Sal’s disposition and attitude makes one forget that she’s rather pretty, Calypso thought. And it wasn’t like she didn’t know it, considering how much skin she was showing and how rather tight her shirt was.

“Hey, the adults meant somethin’ when they told us to drink our milk~” Sal knowingly smirked as she stopped due to the traffic once more.

“You grew up on a farm,” Calypso spat overdramatically, aware. “You got a head start!”

“And it paid off wonders~ Now, when they get me for offin’ ya’, I can bribe ‘em all with my beauty and get away scott free!”

Calypso giggled once again, lightly slapping and then punching Sal’s arm, who in turn was laughing along with her, paying no mind to it.

“Man, I forgot how much I hated you…” Calypso said in warm reverence.

“Hate ya’ too, cousin,” Sal smiled at her. “Glad that I could make ya’ actually smile.”

“The first time in weeks, I might add…” Calypso looked forward, again looking at nothing and nowhere in particular. She could see Sal fidget softly in response to it, before facing forward herself and resumed driving.

“I never even heard of ‘clinical depression’…” Sal scrunched her brow. “Of course, I’ve heard of depression, but clinical? What makes it special or is it the actual medical jargon or somethin’?”

“All it means is that I get to enjoy a niiiiice side order of happy pills with every meal I take from now on~” Calypso chirped, but lacking in positive cheer nor comedic leaning.

She was surprised and caught off guard when she heard Sal hum in worry, glancing at her.

“Lord, that sucks…” Sal looking very crestfallen. “Now people are gonna think you’re some wackjob…”

Calypso scratched her cheek. Nervously. Pathetically.

“I’ve always been a wackjob, to be fair…”

“Cal.”

Her just saying the girl’s name made her cold.

“You just went through stuff that not even a grown ass man could cope with. You’re not crazy or insane. You’re hurt, and you’re comin’ up here with us so you can heal. So let’s start doin’ it, alright?”

Calypso was going to respond. With a “yeah”, or a “hm”, something noncommittal yet ultimately pleases the person’s concerns.

But she doubled over in pure fear.

Clutching at her sides as she hugged herself tight, pulling against the seatbelt, sweat immediately forming on her clamming skin, and starting to pant as if the breath she had was sucked away from her at an instant.

It was happening again, something causing her body to launch into fight or flight. But there was nothing there, there couldn’t be. Nothing about it made sense.

Because the danger wasn’t around them, or afar. Weirdly enough, her senses were going into overdrive…because her body deems HER the danger.

Calypso was so wrapped up and crippled by the response, it took a violent stop of the car to snap her back to reality. Slamming her back upright onto her seat.

“Cal, Cal!” Sal grabbed her cousin in concern. “Are you okay?!”

Calypso looked at her cousin. Then at every side, all with her pupils still shaking and delated.

Realizing that Sal pulled over from the road, and into the parking lot of a plaza of rest stops and restaurants.

“It’s nothing…” Calypso could barely go above a pained whisper. “It’s nothing it’s nothing it’s nothing…”

“Did I do this…?” Sal looked gutted, far and away from her self-assured expressions. “Was this because of me-?!”

“No—” Calypso took a big gulp, somehow provide relief for her drying throat. “N-no… I just need a moment… It’s another m-men-mental thing I have to go through…”

Sal just looked on. Her face shifting from fear, hurt, to finally guilt. She was waiting for what Calypso was going to say next.

“Please… Just give me a moment… I’m getting better now, in fact… Just a few and we can resume arguing with each other…” Calypso twitched, in the effort to form a smile.

“…okay…” Sal sounded so little. “Okay, yeah, okay—but we’re totally gonna go to the nearest drive thru and piggin’ the fuck out. We’re having a detour anyways.”

A dainty, shaking hand rested on top of Sal’s. If Calypso couldn’t use her usual standard of words, or her back up plan of faking smiles—she had no other choice in giving her cousin the assurance she needed.

But Calypso was scared, scared of what this could mean for her… What it already meant. Is the monster still alive inside of her…? No, that sensation was wildly different, she was painfully aware of it being alive, wriggling against her skin. This was fundamentally different.

Somehow, someway, she was mortally afraid of herself—just as much as the shadow monster that nearly killed her.