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The place was like a vacuum. Nothing echoed and nothing stirred. And it was dark. No, it was pitch black. Emptiness stretched out front and even that couldn't be seen with the naked eye. It was that black and that silent. And it was killing him. No walls, no ceiling, no nothing. He had tried walking forward, hands stretched out like a blind man, groping the veil of darkness. Legs that could walk a straight line now going zigs zags and everything in between. And after what had seemed like forever, he found nothing. Not a stumble against any objects blocking his way, not a single voice calling out his name, no breeze to whisper soft whistles flirtatiously in his ears...no nothing. And through all that, his legs had trudged on with no effects of slowing down, of being tired. Everything just stopped in this forsaken place. Except, for his fears. They kept on growing and eating at his insecurities and loneliness. Gnawing into the very core of his being, where his faith once was. Faith that whispered hope and promises that he would never end up here again.

So he had given up, knowing that there was no way out. Sinking down to the flat, smooth ground underneath him, he had stayed that way for God knows how long. There was no night nor day in this place, no hunger nor desires, no sleep nor awake. No today nor tomorrow. He was just there, to exist in this non-existence. As far as he was concerned, this was Hell.

He didn’t want to come back to this hell. But he had failed yet again. He knew he shouldn’t stop thinking. He knew he should keep his mind occupied for the Pull loves it when it was empty and void of voices and concerns and emotions. Everything that made someone human. And as hard as he tried not to, he had slept. Drowned in a dreamless slumber, served as an open invitation for the Pull to take him.

And pulled it did.

The familiar tingling at the tip of his toes that gradually grew and ran up his legs and up his spine, the surge of pure energy going up to his head, seeking that empty place where his thoughts should be. And the Pull would come next. It wasn’t there but he could feel it. A being of some sort, jumping up on him, restricting any form of passage for oxygen to enter his body. That menacing voice in his head telling him not to fight it. You can’t fight it Nickolas, surrender yourself to me...that invisible hand gripped his heart, slowly but surely, weakening him down. He tried, for the love of God, he tried. Screaming and pushing that thing off him, it doesn’t matter if everyone else thought his flailing arms were trying to grab the air, it doesn’t matter if everyone thought he was crazy and needed to be put away, all he knew was, he could not go back to Hell.

But he failed, just like the voice in his head had promised. It pulled him back to where he ˜belonged’ and left him there to live in this hell until the end of time. End of time...when will that come around?

However, this time, he had felt something different. He felt a presence, someone that he should know. Someone important in his life and yet he couldn’t call out to this person. Not that he didn’t try, but how do you yell in a vacuum? But he could feel this presence’s fears, it’s desperation in trying to grasp the fact that he was indeed trapped in nothingness land just like him. God knows how long he had walked, hoping to stumble upon this other presence there, but just like before, he found nothing.

"AJ, where are you?"

Alone again.

All the time it would end up the same. His legs surrendering to gravity, caving in beneath him as he collapsed, bringing down together his admittance to defeat. He knew it wouldn’t work, with him alone, it will never work. The man in the white robe had told them so. They need to be together, all five standing back to back in a circle. But there was only him there. It wouldn’t work. It wouldn’t work. But he said it nonetheless. Said it over and over again, knowing that no one would hear him in this barren place.

~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~*~*~


“See, I told you Brian, I’m NOT crazy!”

NICK!

Sweaty palms, sweat soaked shirt, sweaty forehead, damp tousled hair, sweaty legs, a dangerously fast beating heart. And yet the room was chilled by the ferocious blow of the air-con. The still of the night so out of place, only the sudden, eerie shifting of a chair next to him- a result of the earth revolving and the gravitational pull of the core of this very earth- had him startled.

Blurry and still in the grasp of pieces of his sleep, one name uttered from his lips in a whisper of urgency.Nick.

It was a nightmare he wouldn’t want to revisit any time soon. No. It was a nightmare he wouldn’t want to revisit EVER. Nick wasn’t trapped in a dark forsaken place somewhere; he was in the hospital, dangerously ill. Make that strangely, dangerously ill. But he would be fine for now, AJ was with him. AJ, the guy who couldn’t stand being in the same room as Nick when both were too charged up with elephant sized egos. The typical brother rivalry you see in a family, who couldn’t be near each other but were the only ones who understand each other best. Who would have thought AJ would offer to stay in the hospital with Nick?

Not that they didn’t voice their concerns. Kevin was quick to dismiss his offer. Howie had agreed too, adding that it was best that Brian instead, should be with him. And he of course, was more than willing to take that sacrifice, but AJ started begging the rest of them to go back to the hotel for their deserved sleep. And after awhile, they had nodded their approval. Probably just plain tired of hearing AJ’s strings of the reasons why he should be the one to stay behind.

It wasn’t always Frick and Frack. In fact, it hadn’t felt that way for awhile. Frick and Frack never keep secrets from each other. But Frack did, and went mental somewhere along the line and Frick was totally in the dark about it.

Dark. Pitch black. Just like the nightmare.

And Nick was in it.

Something wasn’t right, he could feel it. Something about the dream...no...nightmare...that had troubled him, that had roughly woke him up. It was a warning. Nick was trying to tell him something.

But it was a dream! Nightmare! It was supposed to be scary! With this charm I beseech thee...With this charm I beseech thee...With this charm I beseech thee...

Nick was saying those words in his nightmare and he knew there was more to it. What was it? Why couldn’t he remember? Why does it feel like he SHOULD remember? He should KNOW. It sounded like a chant.

A chant.

Nick was telling him about the chant back in the hospital. It sounded so crazy then, that Brian was certain his little brother was delirious. He was talking about something after him and that he had taken AJ too. But it was even disturbing when he had referred to AJ as Evil AJ and then telling him that AJ got better when he didn’t, the next. It was enough to decide that Nick really wasn’t himself. It has got to mean some kind of a blow to the head. Post traumatic stress disorder, the doctor had claimed. Yes, that was it. I know, "Brian, this wasn't your fault, it was mine. I didn't do the chant like I was supposed to."

"Chant?"

"You know! The chant so they wouldn't take me!"

"What chant Nick? WHAT CHANT?"

"With this charm I beseech thee..."

Blinking those troubled thoughts away, he decided that he wasn’t any far from being branded crazy as well. His throat felt dry all of a sudden and the urge to wash it down with a glass of iced cold water was inviting. He pushed himself out of bed and out of the room.

It doesn’t surprise him at all to find Howie sitting on the beige coloured sofa, facing the TV. It was switched on, sound set to mute and Nick’s laptop laid on top of his folded legs. The sweater a tad size bigger, making him look a lot smaller and vulnerable than he actually was. He assumed something had caught his full attention for he didn’t acknowledge his presence until he dropped next to him.

“Oh hey...did I wake you? I thought I set the TV to mute.” Howie frowned, pressing some buttons on the remote.

Brian shook his head while his gaze dropped to the document folder Howie was reading in the laptop. “I got thirsty...is that Nick’s laptop or did you just get one yourself and I didn’t know about it?” Howie absent-mindedly dropped the remote beside him. He reached out for the bottle of Evian that had been sitting on the table in front of them and passed it to Brian. “It’s Nick’s. And the more I go through all these files, the more I think he needs help.”

“Help?” Brian frowned, no longer interested in the bottle of drink in his grasp. “Like a psychiatrist?”

“I know it sounds...crazy...but you’d agree with me once you read this.” Howie explained, shoving the laptop to him. Brian adjusted himself before placing the laptop on his lap. ‘There’s a reason why a laptop is called a laptop, Bri,’ Nick had told him once when he had commented that Nick should place the laptop on a table instead of on his lap. “What are we looking at?” Brian asked as he looked at the microsoft word document displayed before him. 23 pages of paragraphs after paragraphs of words.

“He’s writing a story about us.” Howie said. “About some force...the pull...trying to get him and supposedly, it did attack all of us back in 1993.”

“93? That was...long...and it attacked us?”

“Yeah. But we survived...obviously.” Howie smirked. “Why would he write such a thing? And the scary part is, it was very detailed, like it did happen. Do you remember any such thing happened?”

“I think I’d remember something THAT scary D.”

“Worst, I found out the last entry was made yesterday, before the concert. And he ended it with...ah well, why don’t you read it and tell me.” Howie was stressing himself out and Howie never stress out. He was supposed to be the calm, cool and collected one. Kevin stressed out, he stressed out, hell, even AJ and Nick stressed out at times, but Howie...never. Until tonight.

He dragged the cursor down to the last page of the entry. Supposedly, it was set in 2003, the present. Nick was pissed because the rest of them had went straight to sleep when they should all do the ‘ritual’. Then Kevin woke up and Kevin remembered the ritual. But it was too late, he had felt the pull.

“He felt the pull.”

“Yes. The pull. When did he get this...disturbed? How come we never see it coming? I thought the solo thing was supposed to make him be a better person.” Howie sighed.

Brian thought of Kevin. If what Nick wrote was indeed the truth, then why didn’t he tell it to any of them? About them forgetting the ritual? Suddenly, he felt jealous of Kevin. He must be sleeping his night away. Damn the man sleeps like a dead log.

“This ritual he was talking about...is it the same one we...”

“Yeah, the same one.” Howie cut in. “I thought he had outgrown that phase. We all did. I didn’t think he’d still be afraid of monsters under the bed, I mean, he's all grown up! Do we still have to do the ritual?”

“Do you remember if we were saying stuff? Say...like a chant of some sort?”

“Chant? You’re beginning to sound like Nick, Brian, and frankly, you’re scaring me. The ritual was stupid okay? We did it just so Nick could go back to sleep.” Howie spat.

“But do you remember how it goes? I mean...the ritual...what was it that we do when we did the ritual?” Howie slumped his body back to the sofa. Sinking as deep as he possibly could. “I don’t remember. Do you?”

“Precisely, I don’t. Neither did AJ. But Kevin remembered last night, Nick said so in his...story...”

“Which, let me refresh your memory, is just that, a story! A figment of his own imagination."

“D, he said he felt the pull and that very night, we found him lying in a hospital bed. He wasn’t mugged D, his wallet was intact, no money missing, credit cards still there.And I bet it wasn’t a fight cause he showed no signs of struggle.” Brian reasoned. Howie stood up, eyes darting around as if trying to keep his cool.

This was something new to Brian. “What are you trying to say Bri? That this...this...Pull...is out to get him? And us? That this stupid ritual is supposed to protect him? We all know the ritual was fake Bri.”

“Look, did you find anything else worth reading about in here?” Howie combed his trembling fingers through his curls, tugging at it slightly, hoping to ease the soft throbbing of an impending headache. “Most are gibberish.”

“Where should I go?” Brian asked as he patted the seat next to him, motioning for the Latino over.

“Journal.”

He found the folder in his desktop and double clicked. The entries had gone right back as far as 2000. Before that, he used to have a thick book as a journal. He randomly picked 2002. He had always wondered what Nick had felt going solo for a little while and 2002 was the year where it all happened. “I didn’t know Nick was this organized.” Brian smiled. He received a chuckle from Howie. “I didn’t know he was this disturbed.”

3rd November 2002

I can’t do this anymore. I called the guys and told them that I want the Backstreet Boys to do another album. I told them I’m ready to go back and make more beautiful music together. But you see, although that is true, it isn’t the whole truth. I HAVE to have them with me. We NEED to be together, just like the man in the white robe had told us. We NEED to do the chant again, it’s going to be a full circle come 2003. We HAVE to renew that chant. Renew this bind that will ward them off us. I don’t know if they remember this, they never seem to remember any of it. WHY am I the only one who does? WHY ME?

Brian closed the document, feeling the hairs on his hands standing on end. Had this suite always been this chilled or was it just him? He shifted closer to where Howie was but Sweet D was trembling himself. He clicked on another entry.

2nd December 2002

Nickolas...you know you’ll never win. Soon, this body is mine. Who’s going to help you now? No body.

That was disturbing enough. He really wanted to stop, reading them only made Brian more convinced that Nick was just that...crazy. But he wasn’t ready to face that truth. Not yet.

They didn’t remember! THEY FORGOT! THEY FORGOT! We didn’t do the ritual, we didn’t say the chants! They’re coming for me, I can feel it and if I fail, then they will be next. We will fail. I can’t believe they FORGOT! They promised they’ll never forget! Why didn’t that man in white help us this time? WHY?

“You still think he doesn’t need help?” Howie asked.

“I don’t know D...I have a feeling like there’s something we forgot. Something that we shouldn’t have and Nick’s entry on this one was angry that we did forget something.” Brian murmured. He shifted again, this time looking into his friend’s eyes. “I mean, even Doctor Harris said he found it strange that his EEG reading was...out of the norm. You saw those lines on that paper D...something made him violent like that.”

Howie sighed. Not Brian too. It was enough to see AJ acting strange, he couldn’t afford to lose Brian now. AJ...he had been watching him closely, knew him inside out and knew when things weren’t right. AJ was becoming too sensitive and too temperamental at the same time. That wasn’t AJ. AJ hated sudden changes, need to adapt to new things before he could get comfortable, the AJ he was looking at that day was edgy and even at times when he was so near, he felt distant. “It’s all in his head Brian. For God’s sake, he even has his own spells to ward this...evil thing! You can’t say you believe that too, would you?”

“Spell? What spell?” Brian asked,

“Click under ˜Safe’ “ Brian did as told and was met with what Howie had meant by gibberish. They were small thoughts that were jumbled together. Sentence after sentence of ramblings. But it frightened him to no end. White robe man, are you an angel? Come and save me! WHY ME? THEY FORGOT, THEY FORGOT, THEY FORGOT!!!!!

They think I’m crazy. I’m NOT! I’m NOT! I’m NOT!

Stop talking to me! STOP TALKING TO ME!

“Where’s this spell you’re talking about D? I can’t find it.” Brian groaned, eyes browsing rows after rows of yet, more gibberish.

“It’s somewhere there...” No sooner than Howie had said it, Brian had found the ˜spell’ he was looking for. Bold and in red, it had spelt.

With this charm I beseech thee
Out of sight and out of me

and Nick had stopped. The next sentence filled with more gibberish. But Brian knew it was incomplete. He knew they were missing and it frightened him that he was able to finish it off.

“With this charm I beseech thee, out of sight and out of me,” Howie mumbled lazily. “Would be convincing if Nicky had taken the time to at least make a complete spell, don’t you think?”

“Bind by blood this chant hold may, ward all harm and evil at bay.” Brian continued calmly, earning Howie’s fullest attention immediately.

“What?”

“It’s the chant Howie!” Brian said a little too excited. “With this charm I beseech thee, out of sight and out of me, bind our blood this chant hold may, ward all harm and evil at bay! It’s the freaking chant Nick was talking about!”

“How...how did you...”

“I don’t know! I just...remembered!” Brian laughed, shoving the laptop over to Howie and pushing himself off the sofa. “Oh my God, D! You know what this means?”

“What?”

“Nick wasn’t lying to us D! He was really trying to tell us something!” That was when it came. Like an incoming flood, surging forward with no warning. Bits and pieces of memories that he didn’t even know exist now playing in his mind. As if it should have been there in the first place.

“How is AJ?” Brian asked all of a sudden.

“AJ?”

“Yeah, how is he? We never did find out what happen to him, did we?”

Howie glanced nervously towards Kevin’s room, wishing that he could just run away and get the oldest man to wake up and witness his cousin’s weird behaviour. This suite was meant for Nick alone. Four rooms, a kitchen that a 23 year old would never touch, a living room equipped with the magic Xbox, he wondered why a young man would need so much. His own suite was as huge and pleasant. But why would they need five suite when one would be enough for the five of them? Nick had wanted them to stay in just one suite, saying it was a waste to spend a lot when most of the time, they would be out there in the public. Did they actually sleep in one suite a few days back? He couldn’t remember. “Brian, AJ’s in hospital looking out for Nick. He’s not the one in trouble here.” Howie reminded him.

"Really? But...didn’t we find him on the floor in Nick’s ward? He was attacked by...someone...and we got him help. We got that nurse...what’s her name? Des...something....to help us...don’t you remember that?”

“Brian, you’re tired. Go to bed.” Howie sighed.

“NO D! Listen to me! IT HAPPENED OKAY? AJ wanted to see Nick first, remember? You were...you didn’t want to see him first and AJ said he would and the lights went off and we heard him scream, remember?” Brian urged. He wanted to hear Howie say that he remembered. He wanted to know that this was the truth. No way was he going crazy. It really DID happen.

“Oh yeah? What happen then Bri?” Howie mocked. He felt irritated, he felt like giving Brian a tight slap so that the man would calm down and come to his senses. Brian was like a raving lunatic on the run. Brian was anything but THAT.

But Brian had gone silent. The load of memories now etching in his brain, all rushing to get out together, filling him with renewed memories he never knew he had. Where did they come from? Where had it been to all these time? Why didn’t he remember them in the first place?

It was 1993 and they were sharing a hotel together and it was small and crampy, he remembered that. He had slept like a baby, oblivious to the night. And suddenly he felt it. The Pull. He couldn’t exactly remember what happened but Nick had woke up screaming bloody murders, saying that something was out to get him. To get them all. It had annoyed him then, being so rudely awakened by something so childish. But he watched as Kevin came up to him and gave him a bracelet. ‘It’s a charmed bracelet Nick, it will protect you.’ But all of them know it was the bracelet Kevin had bought earlier that day, meant for his brother back home in Kentucky. Never mind if it was a tad bit bigger than his wrist, Nick had held on to it like a life line. That very same bracelet had been hanging on his left wrist for the next two years, until a fan had made a grab for it. He remembered Nick being very upset and Brian could never understand why. Standing there in the middle of the suite, Howie watching him with creases of concern lining his forehead. How could he not remember? Then he remembered the ritual. It was supposed to be Kevin’s idea. He remembered his cousin wanting so badly to make it all better for Nick and so he had made it up, saying that the chant held special powers and that it would protect him and his brothers. And so, with pajamas and hairs sticking out on ends, they had stood back to back in a circle, repeating after Kevin’s chants. It felt silly but it made Nick felt better and they had all went back to bed after that. And it became their ritual. Something to make Nick feel better.

But another set of memories told him that it was all a huge lie. That it wasn’t just Nick being 13 and still believing in monsters under his bed. It was Nick and them fighting off something that wasn’t even there. But they had all felt it, he had felt it. Choking him and pulling him towards Shadow Land. The Pull.

And they had somehow managed to fight them off and in came the man in white robe handing Nick a bracelet. Out of nowhere, standing in the middle of the stuffy room, calling Nick by his name. This will protect you my child, he had said. And so will your brothers. They were too stun to even react. And the man had assured them that it would be all right. And so they succumbed when the man had asked them to stand in a circle, back to back. He had made a little prick on each of their palm, letting just a drop of blood to ooze out, and they had all linked hand in hand, back to back, repeating what the man said.

with this charm I beseech thee
out of sight and out of me
blood this chant hold may
ward all harm and evil at bay

And it did made him feel safe and protected. And the man had told them that memories of what happened will be erased, for no human being could live a normal life holding such an ugly secret. The power of the Pull. But Nick had told them that he will never forget and it upset him to know that he had to live with the secret alone. "We’ll never forget Nick. You are not alone, we’re stronger, the five of us", Brian had told him then. But the truth was, when the memories were erased, he had forgot. So did Howie, Kevin and AJ.

AJ...something happened to AJ in the hospital. He remembered it now. And if all of these were true, then AJ wasn’t AJ. And Nick wasn’t Nick. How he wished now that Nick was just crazy. It would be a lot simpler then.