The Sand Queen ✅

First

"Oh, fuck, I'll be late!" I echoed through the entire house, waking up everyone early in the morning.

As I swished through the hallway, my older brother, Eddie opened the door to his and his fiancée's room, looking sleepy and annoyed. "Can't you be late without waking everyone up, Addie?"

"Not everyone can afford weeks off of work, Edward" I replied, my tongue stuck out as I hurried down the stairs.

Mother was already downstairs, sipping her flat white coffee with face as fresh as mine after like 10 hours of sleeping. I gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek as I took my prepared food.

"Late again?" she asked with absolutely no anger and such. She seemed rather entertained by my being-late-skills.

I nodded, putting on my autumn jacket and my sneakers. At the door, before closing it after myself, I replied. "As usual. Bye, love ya"

And with that, I was on my way with hurried steps toward the small store I had been working at ever since I knew my name being Adeleine Hollister.

But really. As a kid, I used to help out grandma there. After school, as a teenager, I helped out the shop owner, grandma's good friend. God had plans with me in that shop, cause no matter having diploma in IT Engineering, I had ended up there again. I had been looking for a better paying job, but no luck whatsoever. My brother had a company and he even told me if I want, I can go work there, so that was my plan C if the store shuts down or I had enough of searching for IT-related job, etc.

My way to the store was thankfully without any lion in the path. There was only one young and kinda strange guy, with hair black as fresh coal and in a similar colored, long coat covering his entire body until his shoes. His frightening, bright blue gaze followed remorselessy, his face cadaverous as I passed him by.

Chill ran through my spine. Ugh, that was the only drawback of starting your day early. You meet oddballs like this guy, in whose brain God knows what weird thoughts are going on. I fastened my pace until I had to take a right turn on the sidewalk to face the little store. Relief spread over my body just then, becoming full when I opened up the entrance and closed it behind myself. Inhaling deeply, I sashayed behind the counter, just in time to welcome our very first costumer of the day.

Thankfully, that creep didn't follow me. Still, his daunting gaze haunted me every now and then that day. His strange scent nested in my nose, making my body shiver.

~•~

Third person's POV

"You got to be kidding me, Matthew" the man in black, long coat hissed to a raven standing in front of him.

"Just think about it, Master!" the raven, Matthew interrupted his owner. "You have everything you need to rebuild your kingdom. Still, you can barely restore anything. There is something missing and if we don't try finding it in any way, more people will stay asleep"

Morpheus hated to accept, but the raven was right. He had absolutely no idea what could be missing. Why couldn't he rebuild his kingdom with all his equipments being found.

The king of dreams sighed, holding his sack of sand in hand. "Alright. I guess giving it a try won't hurt, we're not in a hurry. Tell Lucienne I'll be back as soon as I can"

With that, a whirling, cone shaped shape began forming around the man, slowly making his body disappear entirely. The world changed from the gray dreamland to the cold view of a street in the USA. Even though he didn't feel how cold it really was, Morpheus acted as if he was cold, too, just to not look more like a black sheep.