Parenting Assignment (Miraculous Ladybug)

Chapter 4

Marinette dragged herself to school, literally. With each step she took she would have to drag her feet, which she could have sworn weighed a thousand pounds, across the sidewalk. She could have cared less if her shoes were getting scuffed and scraped, all that mattered in that moment was if she could make it to school before passing out.

On a normal day, especially one after a nighttime akuma attack, Marinette would usually be late for school due sleeping in, but not that day, Emma made sure of it. In fact, Emma made sure that Marinette was up all night long. It had gotten to the point where Marinette could constantly hear the baby's crying, no longer able to distinguish her hallucinations from reality.

She stared down at the doll who now sat quietly in the car seat carrier and Marinette struggled with the overwhelming urge to toss it onto the busy street and run away without looking back. She sighed and let the thought drain from her head. Had it not been for Adrien being her partner and her actions having an influence on his mark, then she probably would have gone through with it.

Although Marinette lived really close to her school, it felt as though she had been walking for miles before she was finally able to collapse in her seat next to Alya, resting her head in her arms on the desk. It wasn't long before she felt a finger poking her shoulder. Marinette turned her head slightly to see her friend staring down at her.

"Hey Marinette, how was your first nig-" Alya stopped mid-sentence and her eyes grew wide when she caught sight of Marinette's face. "Girl, you look like something straight out of a horror film!"

"Is it really that bad?" Marinette mumbled. "I didn't bother checking this morning,"

Alya went digging through her bag and pulled out a small mirror, handing it to her friend. Marinette stared back at her reflection with an expressionless face, she was too tired to make any exaggerated expressions, but on inside she could have screamed.

Alya was right when she said that she looked like something out of a horror movie, a zombie one to be exact. The whites of her eyeballs were pink and had red veins running through them. The bags under and around her eyes were so bad that it looked like she had been punched as both of her eyes were surrounded by a deep purplish brown that showed off how tired she was. Her eyes in general looked glazed over and made it seem as if she was off in her own little world, as though her brain wasn't focused on anything. She wasn't even about to start on the state that her hair was in.

Marinette groaned and plopped her head back down into her arms.

Alya offered her a smile of sympathy. "Rough night I take it." Marinette groaned again in response and Alya patted her back. "Babies are weird like that, some nights they're great while other nights can be horrendous."

"That's not it," Marinette mumbled.

"Hm?"

The dark haired girl flung herself up from the desk and stared Alya in the eyes with a serious expression on her face. "It was timed, all of it, I know it was!"

"Timed?" Alya could only blink back in confusion. "What in the world are you talking about?"

Suddenly Marinette's eyes grew wide and crazy. She whipped her head around to stare at her baby before bringing her attention back to Alya, lowering her voice to a frantic whisper as if to hide her words from the doll.

"Her timing was too perfect," she said whilst bringing her hands up to grip Alya's arms. "The second I began to doze off she would immediately start crying. There's no way she could have known when I was about to fall asleep, but she did! That's not a doll, it's a demon. It's possessed, I know it is!"