Title: The Witness

Main Pairing: Joshua Washington/Sam Giddings

Tags: Horror, Romance, Supernatural Elements, pre-game, Canon & non-canon (as in some things that happened in the game does happen here but also things that didn't happen also happen at the same time, ya know?), Butterfly Effect, DID (Dissociative Identity Order), Psychosis, Schizophrenia, Unbeta-ed, We Die Like Men, Alcohol

Genre: Horror/Romance

Theme: Butterfly Effect (canon but also non-canon to the original plot-line of the game)

Description: Instead of Beth running off alone after Hannah, another person was there as well. How does the addition of one extra person change the fate of the personalities of some of the characters? What emotional, mental, and physical challenges does the group have to go through?

Instead of Beth running off alone after Hannah, what if Sam had run after Hannah as well? How would things change.

Boom: Butterfly Effect. - Christopher Hartley, Until Dawn

Sam sighed heavily, turning away from the group and heads upstairs. She calls out for Hannah a few times, trying to locate her before this stupid prank could play out. She honestly didn't know what was going through their minds, especially Jess and Emily. Mike was just going along with it because he didn't care either way. Matt and Ashley…They must just think it's mindless fun, a harmless prank apparently.

Sam didn't think it was harmless, this was just stupid and unnecessary. Just tell Hannah that Mike doesn't like her and let her down easily, don't humiliate her.

"Hannah?" Sam called out, walking around a corner. She shook her head before heading back downstairs to the guest room, hoping to stop Hannah before she entered the room. She appeared to be too late though. She reached the bottom of the stairs in time to see Hannah rushing out of the room and through the sitting area and straight out the door and into the night.

Sam yells, "Hannah!", chasing after her, stopping once she's right outside the door. She can hear Beth inside trying to wake up Josh, who is probably on his way to sleepy town right now, so making a split decision, Sam runs after Hannah before she loses her.

"Hannah! Stop running!" Sam desperately calls out, running after Hannah quickly. Sam may be pretty fit since she's pretty active but running in the snow and trying not to fall everywhere is a massive challenge. She can barely hear the sounds of Hannah crying over the howling wind and eerie emptiness of the night. Sam finally catches up to Hannah when she's knelt down, holding her chest. She's still crying, rubbing her arms.

"I'm so stupid! I can't believe I actually believed that he liked me for even a second!" She mumbled out, angrily and upset, jaw clenched. Sam sighed sadly for her and knelt down beside of her, wrapping her arms around her. She ran her hands up and down Hannah's arms, trying to warm her up a tiny bit.

"Hannah!" Sam hears behind her, Beth running up to the pair. "Oh, thank goodness, you caught up to her, Sam."

She's never heard Beth sound more grateful. "Beth, you guys are my best friends, of course I'm going to run after her."

Hannah gasped, "I'm such an idiot. I'm so dumb…" and shook violently. Beth took off her coat and wrapped it around Hannah. Eventually, they get Hannah to stand up and properly put the coat on. The three of them are just standing there when they hear a strange noise behind them. Sam can't quite make out what made the noise but it's big and it's shadow is leaping through the forest. She gulps and almost collectively as a group, they start running forward and away from the creature.

They cross a bridge in the midst of them running away, Hannah falling while Sam and Beth don't. Sam falls back and helps Hannah up and pushes her forward to catch up with Beth, taking the rear of the group as they continue sprinting away. Sam's running on the edge of the forest when something grabs ahold of the back of her shirt and yanks her back into the dark parts of the forest. She almost screams when a hand is thrown over her mouth and she's yanked around to look at the shadow of a person who whispers in her ear, 'Don't scream'. Unsure of why she's listening to him, she doesn't make any noise and just watches as the man runs up behind the creature, which has now chased Hannah and Beth to the edge of the cliff.

Sam watches as Hannah and Beth hold hands, both of them looking so scared out of their minds. Hannah takes a step back to far and ends up yanking both herself and Beth off the edge, yelping loudly as they fell. Sam almost screams, hands flying to her face as she steps out from the forest edge. The stranger is using a flamethrower, which Sam didn't notice earlier, against the creature. It's howls fill up the forest and it runs away so fast that Sam isn't sure that it didn't just 'blur' away. Shaking, Sam ran desperately with tears streaming down her face. She leaned over the edge of the cliff and almost sobbed as she saw the pair of her friends, hanging onto a branch embedded in the cliff for dear life. Sam reaches a hand down towards Beth.

"Grab my hand!" She yells at Beth, even though she knows that Beth technically can't. When Beth shakes her head with tears in her eyes, Sam tells her to hold on. Beth smiles a watery smile, even though she's clearly scared to death. Sam barely has time to say 'it's gonna be okay' when a sharp crack is heard and simultaneously, she sees the twins headed straight down into emptiness.

Sam swears she sees the world move in slow-motion as she watches her friends fall to, what is inevitably, their death. She sees Beth's mouth open in a scream, Hannah's wide eyes becoming smaller as they fall farther away. And there's Sam, on top of the cliff, helpless to do anything but be a witness to her friends deaths.

Sam turns away from the cliff so fast and throws up a few feet away from the edge. Her head starts spinning and her breathing is definitely sporadic. She slaps her fact a few times, but her vision is blurry, and she can't think straight, and she let herself believe that they're just gone that easily. They're not! They can't be! Shaking and sobbing, she turns away and expects to see the stranger but there's no one. It's like it didn't even happen, like it was a part of her imagination. Yeah, that's what happened, she just thought the entire thing up.

She walks back, slowly and unsurely to the lodge. By the time she's walked all the way back, wind-howling in her still ringing ears and eyes still blurred with unshed tears, she's full convinced herself that she had just gotten split up from Hannah and Beth when they started running away. Sam unsteadily walks up the stairs and walks inside the lodge, leaning heavily against the door.

"Sam! Are you okay? Where's Hannah and Beth?" Ashley asked, jumping up from where she had been situated on the couch. The entire group, minus Chris and Josh, had been waiting in the sitting area, waiting on the trio to return.

Sam takes in a shaky breath. They just got split up from her. They're okay. They have to be.

"W-we got split up. We were s-standing, and we thought we h-heard a strange noise, so we ran to get out of there and I wasn't p-paying attention and ending up going a completely different way and ended up here. I thought they would have already b-been back by n-now." Sam said through chattering teeth, still clamoring together from the cold that lingered on her body. Matt grabbed a blanket that was laying on the couch and brought it over to Sam and wrapped it around her before leading her over to the couch. Sam sat down heavily and put her head in her hands. She just imagined the pair falling off the cliff, she knows that she did. She's always been told that she has a super imaginative mind.

"Surely they'll turn up soon." Matt said comfortingly. He patted her head before walking back to sit beside of Ashley. Minutes creaked by and eventually turned into hours. Everyone else slowly dispersed to go to the rooms to go to sleep while Sam sat there on the couch all night, staring out the window as she watched the sun rise. And she watched as there was no return of Hannah or Beth.

Once it hit around noon, Josh came stumbling in, scratching his head. Sam was still sitting in the sitting area, the bags underneath of her eyes were prominent.

"What's up, Sam-I-Am?" Josh asked, rubbing at his sleep-crusted eyes. Sam turned to Josh and watched as his face went from sleepy to alarmed. "Hey, what's wrong? Have you slept at all?"

Sam whispered, "They're not back."

"Who's not back?"

"Hannah and Beth. It's been almost ten hours now." Sam whispered, turning back to the window.

"Sam." Josh said, a stern and strong tone to his voice, one that didn't display that he had just woken up.

"Where's my sisters? What happened?"

Sam gulped.

"Last night, the others decided that they were going to play a prank on Hannah. They thought it was harmless, but I knew it wasn't. So, I went to go find her before they could play it on her. I was too late and watched as Hannah ran from this place. I chased after her immediately and found her a few minutes later. I sat with her until Beth showed. We stood there for a minute after getting Hannah a jacket before we heard something weird and it didn't sound good, so we ran. We got split up, and I ended up getting back here and they didn't." Sam said with a wobbling lip, her voice quivering.

Josh didn't say anything for a minute.

"You got…split up?" He questioned, his tone flat. Sam nodded her head, eyes burning with tears.

"How do you get SPLIT UP? Are you fucking blind or something, Sam?! I know you're smarter than to just let yourself get split up and to leave my sisters along in the DEAD of NIGHT!" Josh seethed, yelling at Sam who, even though her head was splitting, and her heart hurt, sat up straighter and glared at Josh.

"I'm sorry, Mr. I-Got-Too-Wasted-I-Couldn't-Wake-Up, but it's fucking pitch black out there, I could barely see six inches in front of me. It's not my fault we got split up, I'm lucky I even made it back here." She said, tone a little stronger.

"Yeah, well maybe you shouldn't have. I'd rather my sisters be here than you." Josh said, anger taking the priority emotion in him. Josh didn't even seem to realize what he said for a minute before Sam saw regret enter his eyes. Sam didn't care though. The words had already been said and her heart hurt even more than it did before he woke up.

She nodded and turned her head. She unclasped the blanket from around her shoulders and grabbed a heavy jacket. She didn't say anything to Josh.

"Sammy, you know I didn't mean that. I'm just angry and…"

"No worries. Since you'd rather your sisters be here and for me to be missing, I'll go ahead and just start the search party, yeah? Maybe, I'll get lost too." She said, flatter than flat tone and reaching for the doorknob. Without listening to what Josh is saying, she throws open the door and walks out, not stopping in her tracks. She hears Josh swears as he fumbles around in the house as she walks further and further away. Sooner rather than later, she's in the middle of the woods.

"Hannah?" She calls out. "Beth?"

She walks aimlessly, calling out their names. Hunger gnaws at her stomach as time passes by, but it means little to her. Hours must pass because the sun eventually sets and it's night time once again. She shivers, still walking around and calling their names.

No one ever responds.

It gets darker and colder.

She's shivering, still calling out their names. She's looking straight at the bridge where Hannah fell just yesterday when a voice calls out, "Hey!"

She whips around and sees Josh and Chris both headed her way. They both look so relieved while Josh also looks mad. He walks up to her quickly and hugs her tightly, tucking his face into her shoulder. He shakily lets out a breath of air, tightening his grip on her.

"Don't do that again, okay! Never. I'm sorry for what I said, I…I was just so caught up in my feelings and in my head that I just lashed out. I'd never want you to be missing, you mean just as much to me as my sisters do." Josh said, pulling back and leaning his forehead against hers. Sam didn't say anything, just nodded her head.

The three of them made their way back to the lodge and stood in the sitting area. Josh looked dumb-founded, like he couldn't believe what was going on. Chris looked confused and unsure. And Sam? Sam was so deep in her head with pain that she barely noticed what was going on.

Later that night, she heard Josh crying out. She stood up from her room and made her way towards him. He was situated on the floor in between his sisters bed, head hanging as he openly sobbed. Sam slowly walked towards him and sat next to him. He didn't give her any sigh that he noticed she was there besides the fact that he grabbed her hand and held on.

"I don't want them to be gone. Please tell me they're gonna come back. They can't be gone. They're the only part of my family that cares for me, truly. God, if I only hadn't have gotten drunk…" He trailed off, biting his lip and clenching his eyes shut as a tear slipped further down his face. Sam shushed him and held his hand tighter.

"It's not your fault, Josh. You didn't know this was going to happen." Sam said.

"That's the point, I should expect the unexpected, I shouldn't have let myself get so gone. I'm the older brother, I'm the protector, I should have been aware enough to notice something was wrong with my sisters before noon the next day!" He yelled out, another sob ripping through him. He drew his knees up and put his head on them, wrapping his arms around his knees.

"Please…Please…Give them back, bring them back, please, please, please, it hurts so much, make it stop…" Josh whimpered, shaking his head back and forth. Sam's eyes burned for the umpteenth time that day, burning with tears as she stared at the boy she had come to love. He was in so much pain and so heartbroken without his sisters near. Sam took her hand back but quickly wrapped her arms around him.

She held him tightly as he shook with agony, and they stayed there all night and Sam got to watch the sun rise again. Another sleepless night.

Josh eventually fell asleep, tuckered out against her chest. She kept running her hand through his hair, trying to soothe him from the outside enough that the emotions on the inside would stay dormant until he awoke. He deserved a good night of sleep.

What was supposed to be a get together party turned into a missing persons case. Sam shook her head in disbelief as she looked up at the ceiling. Of course, this would happen to them.

The only thing that bothered Sam was the fact that the line between her reality and what was an illusion, something she made, was starting to blur. It wouldn't be long before she couldn't tell the difference anymore.