Stolen Time

A painful reminder

"Why do I feel like my head was smashed into a concrete wall?" She asked as she massaged her temporal region for some relief.

Though after voicing her question the ideas struck her. Was it possible? Could that be the reason? She hardly met anyone stronger than her nowadays with being a level 8.0 and all, but what if she was ambushed?

She still had an impressive passive to aid her in that case but... could someone possibly be faster than her?

The thought was unnerving.

She missed as Elaine averted her gaze and cleared her throat before answering. "I ran into you on Saturday when you were returning from somewhere. You were already looking sick and claimed you had a terrible headache. You went to sleep the moment you got into your room and were out cold for the entire Sunday. I was so worried for you!"

She added hastily in the end after her otherwise stiff and measured explanation. Seraphina could tell there was something strange about her last sentence and behavior as a whole but the emotions in her eyes now seemed genuine.

Wait... Sunday?

"Are you telling me it's Monday now?" Her eyes widened. She could hardly believe she slept for more than a day.

And she slept in the clothes she had worn to who knows where. She immediately felt dirty again despite the shower she had taken.

Elaine tentatively nodded.

"But how could I be sick enough to be sleeping for a whole day??"

She was in disbelief. She lost a whole day of her life. What was wrong with her?

"I..." Elaine started to answer but stopped before anything meaningful could have come out of her mouth. She opened and closed her mouth several times after but still no word left her.

Now that Seraphina thought about it she should have checked the time last night on her phone.

But where was her phone?

She marched back into her room to see its usual spot on the nightstand empty. It was a little weird she wasn't fazed, however. If she fell into bed as quickly as Elaine described, something uncharacteristic to her, then it would make sense she left it in her bag. With this thought process she strode to said item to rummage through it.

Still, her phone was nowhere to be found. She checked the few more possible places in her room but came up empty-handed. Her frustration grew rapidly.

Elaine squeezed and unsqueezed her fingers as she silently watched her from the door. She knew what she was looking for. The thing Arlo instructed her to get rid of along with any other item that could trigger Seraphina's memories somehow.

As ordered she removed the photos with John and Seraphina on them, some papers John doodled on and a few other objects she thought had sentimental value to Seraphina and were connected to John somehow.

That was kind of all the sentimental stuff Seraphina kept in her room. Now it was barren and sterile lacking almost any indication of who lived here. Seraphina's personality alongside her items was removed from the place almost to completion.

Elaine shouldn't have been surprised, she knew how close they were, and how John was practically the only person she opened up to ever since she came to Wellston. Still, it was like completely robbing Seraphina of all the connections she had. Almost all of the pieces showing that she had a social life outside of studying and training vanished.

She felt her heart sink even lower than it already was and it hardly seemed possible. The only consolation she could provide herself was that she didn't throw away all those items encapsulating her memories of John. She knew Arlo told her to do so but when she tried to dump the box filled with Seraphina's items into the trash she couldn't bring herself to do it.