The next morning Lily woke up on the couch with her bunny hoodie covering her face, pushing it back the little girl realizes she's alone. Her friends must be sleeping and grandma Star...
"...I pushed her." She whispered with a shaky voice before shaking her head and getting up, slowly she goes to her grandma's room and cracks the door enough to peek inside, the bedsheets are rising and falling but that's all.
Her grandmother must still be sleeping so she decides to go upstairs get cleaned and dressed first thing, so that's what Lily does. Going upstairs and avoiding looking at the bloodstain she quickly grabs a baby blue tanks top with matching shorts and heads to the bathroom.
Once inside of the bathroom she notices her toothbrush still on the floor covered with toothpaste, so she takes care of cleaning that first before taking a bubble bath and getting dressed. Looking into the mirror she's pleased that she got ready all by herself after all if she was really going to be living forever like David promised she needed to learn to be more independent.
Lily's less than pleased though when she tries to brush out her tangled hair by herself.
The little girl puts the brush away after a moment and instead pulls out her hair ties and proceeds to put it up in lopsided pigtails but she's happy with the end results of her first pigtails.
Heading back downstairs the small brunette tries to decide if she should check on her grandmother but thinks it'd be better to see if she can find something that she can feed to the older woman who probably won't be able to move today.
It might make her less angry with her too.
Though she hopes it's like what Paul told her and her grandma forgets why she fell down the stairs.
So once in the kitchen, she finds the leftover pizza and while she could eat that something tells her it wouldn't make her grandmother happy to have reheated pizza for breakfast. So instead she decides to try her luck with the toaster, after a few tries on getting the settings right and a few burnt pieces she had to throw away Lily made some edible ones.
That and some orange juice seemed like a good breakfast though if she knew how to make eggs that would be better, though she knew better than to start the stovetop.
So, after eating a piece of leftover cold pizza she brings her plate of toast and orange juice to her grandma's room and quietly sits it on the table beside the bed. That's when the older woman stirs for her sleep and the younger one tenses and wonders if she should flee or not.
Lily is indecisive for just long enough for Star to wake up with a groan of pain, "Lil- what happened?" She notices the little girl beside her bed the pounding in her head and the sharp stabbing pain in her leg in that order.
Star groans and tries to sit up only to cause herself more distress, "G-Grandma... I brought you some breakfast..." A little voice says sweetly but also nervously.
Star could care less about breakfast though instead, she wanted some painkillers because she was in a world of pain, finally forcing her way into a sitting position, "Lily turn on the lamp..." The girl nods and turns on the bedside table lamp where she'd set down the plate of food just a few seconds ago.
Star pulls back the sheet and sees her leg, it's in an odd position and bruised something fierce... it was broken. The older woman's head was hurting a lot, so it was hard for her to get a grasp on how it happened, but she knew she needed to go to the hospital.
"Lily I need you to call for an ambulance." The girl's eyes grew wide, "Why?" Star didn't feel up to explaining but the younger girl wasn't moving so she did.
"I need a doctor." The woman rubbed her aching head as the words left her mouth and winced finding a knot there.
Lily was near panicking at the mention of getting a doctor, if the doctor said she needed to stay at the hospital then someone would call her dad to pick her up... but if she needed a doctor Lily couldn't be selfish.
But she didn't want to leave...
If Lily left there'd be no more David, Paul, and Dwayne... she'd be alone again.
If she left she couldn't help them stop being ghosts or become immortal like them, it wasn't fair...
A thought comes to her then and the little girl brightens up some.
"I could take care of you, you don't need a doctor." Star frowns and explains, "Lily my leg is broken you can't fix it."
The older woman had hoped that'd be the end of it, but Lily wasn't going to give up, "I'll get you some ice and some Tylenol too." Without waiting for a reply, the little girl runs out of the room to get both of those.
Star tries to call after her, but her head is pounding so raising her voice is a no go and another glance at her leg tells her that she should not be attempting to walk even the short distance to the phone, she would just have to convince the child that while it was sweet that she wanted to help take care of her grandmother that it was also beyond what she was capable of.
While waiting for her to get back some things became less muddled and she could remember falling down the stairs, but how? She was headed downstairs to do something... to make a call, it was important.
Suddenly it hits her like a jackhammer, last night she heard Lily taking to herself... she said the name Paul, her insides felt frozen.
Her fall down the stairs wasn't an accident... it was them.
They had never had enough strength to do something like this before, why now?
...It was Lily.
She needed to get her granddaughter away from here, she was in danger.
As if called by her thoughts Lily runs back inside with a bag of ice and a bottle of Tylenol, "Here you go!" She says holding the two items out as an offering, "Lily listen to me we need to leave here, call an ambulance."
The little girl frowns, "I can take care of you though, see." She motions to the ice and medicine, "I need more help than you can give me, and we need to leave before the sun sets."
"...Why?" Finally losing her temper she yells, "Just do as I say," Star instantly regrets it because her head feels like it's about to explode and if that's not enough the little brunette looks close to tears as she drops the items on the bed and runs out of the room.
Star hopes it's to call for the ambulance like she's told her to but as time passes the older woman starts to doubt it.
-
Lily was upset so she ran out of the house and went to the dead area- it was the closest place to her friends at the moment- and it cheered her up some because upon laying her eyes on it, it looked healthier than it had the day before, maybe that meant her friends were being less ghost than before.
The little girl liked that thought.
She stayed outside for a few hours drawing in the ashy sand and talking to the wind until the girl notices it's afternoon and heads back to make some lunch.
Lily washes up quickly in the sink so as not to be dirty when she visits her grandma again this time with an offering of lunch, a sandwich she made all by herself and glass of milk with a leftover brownie from the night before.
As soon as she pushes open the door though her grandmother yells, "Where have you been!?" The girl nearly drops the plate but steady's herself just in time, "Outside..." That doesn't make the greying woman happy, "I've been calling for you for hours, I was so worried something had happened... we need to leave."
The girl shakes her head and places the plate on the bed and the glass of milk beside the half full glass of orange juice and the untouched toast... she is a bit sad that her grandma didn't even take a bite out of her first attempt at cooking.
At least she had the melted ice pack on her leg, see she could be helpful Lily thinks positively before thinking that maybe she should get her some more ice.
Star couldn't believe this, why wasn't she listening to her?
"Don't you shake your head at me we are leaving right now, go get me your phone if you won't call then I will." Lily freezes as she recalls what caused all this last night to begin with and the older woman frowns as a memory comes to the forefront of her mind, "Your phone's dead... and your charger is missing."
Lily starts to deny having hidden the charger as Star pales, "I believe you..." It whispered but the little Emerson hears it and calms down some, the woman's mind was racing.
Her phone was dead, and her charger was missing and now she was bed bound, the only hope lies in getting Lily to call using the landline... they were cutting them off.
What would happen when night fell?
She needed to get Lily to make a call but for some reason, she wouldn't listen...
It was their fault... those monsters had somehow gotten to her.
She needed to get Lily to listen to her and not them but who knows what lies they've fed her.
"Lily I know you've been talking to some things those creatures you've been talking to they're not good, you shouldn't trust anything they've told you." Star tries to explain only to have the girl shut down on her, "Listen to me I know what I'm talking about, they're liars and monsters, they-"
"They're my friends!" The girl interrupted with a shout, "They said you were scared of them and they were right! But they aren't scary!" She explains much to her grandmother's distress.
"Lily you don't know them-" She shakes her head hard making one of her pigtails come loose, "No you don't know them!" Once again, she runs from the room with Star trying to call her back, the headache from earlier had lessened but didn't appreciate the volume of her voice but she couldn't give up, Star yelled until her voice became hoarse, but her granddaughter did not return.
Not until it was much later, and the sun was nearly set.
Outside of the older brunette's room Lily announces her presence before going inside in case the other woman was just going to start yelling again.
"Grandma... I brought you dinner. It's leftover pizza I reheated."
Hearing no reply, she peeks inside, "I brought you more ice too."
Star is sitting up staring out the window with dread, "I know you don't believe me," Her voice was strained from before, but the girl listened, "But if you would just call the number by the phone... and ask the person who answers to come over."
Lily wasn't sure if she should but seeing the defeated look on her grandma Star she relents, "Okay... I'll ask them to come over."
That seems to bring a slight smile to her warn face as Lily leaves the ice and the plate of food and takes the two from before stacking them on top of one another, so she can carry them.
Once Lily leaves the room she first puts the dishes in the sink and then goes over to the phone, a lone number is posted beside it on the wall.
"This must be the number," Lily dials it and after a moment a gruff voice answers, "Hello."
Before she can say anything, the phone is removed from her hand and put back on its hook, startled Lily gasps and looks at the transparent hand that hung up the phone before turning around and seeing a person.
A see-through person, he smirks. "Sorry little sister but the Frogs aren't in this part of the script."
"David... is that you?"