COMPLETED // i don't want to hurt anymore - enoch o'connor x reader

Chapter 6 - Reset

(Y/N)'s P.O.V

I sat on my bed, after an... Interesting play session with the two younger girls. They had been playing a slightly psychopathic version of 'hot potato', where the potato was actually steaming, after being heated, somewhat reluctantly, by Emma. I now had one small burn on my thumb, which I couldn't hide, due to the fact that I was wearing a blue, no-shoulder and short-sleeves top.

The truth is, it was all a bit much. I wasn't special, despite the fact that I could make people feel pain. Wow, thinking about it, I'm... I'm kind of a monster. My peculiarity isn't fun, like Olive's, or endearingly creepy, like Enoch's. It's just disgusting and embarrassingly frightening. Not like me. At least, I thought not. I don't look particularly scary, with normal hair and normal modern clothes. Oh yeah, that reminded me, Wyn (I'd heard others call Bronwyn that) had promised to get me some 'old' clothes from Emma. So I decided to push my worries and thoughts under an imaginary carpet in my brain and set off to find Bronwyn.

She was outside, playing football in the near darkness with Hugh and Millard. She outshone them easily, kicking the ball 10 ft into the air and watching it as it soared over everyone else's heads, and finally flying into the makeshift goal. She whooped happily, before noticing me standing on the sidelines. "Hey, (Y/N), what's up?" I smiled at her.
"Oh, nothing much, I was just wondering about the clothes..." Bronwyn smacked her head. "Oh yeah! I'm awfully sorry about that, (Y/N). Come on, we'll go ask Emma now." She motioned to the boys, indicating that she couldn't play for a while, and we ran back into the house to find Emma.
We found her easily, as she was sitting on her bed in our shared room, reading, almost in the same position as I had been. She looked up when we walked in. "Hello, you two."
"Hello, Emma. We were wondering if (Y/N) could borrow some of your clothes before we can get some in town and ask Horace to make some. You look about the same size, and you know she'll stick out like a sore thumb dressed like she is now." Bronwyn said, mimicking Horace. Emma smiled back at me before placing her book gently back on the bed and rooting around in the wardrobe and her bedside table drawer. She emerged with a simple, pleated mid shin-length black skirt, a short-sleeved mint blouse and a small, grey cardigan. Emma held them out to me. "Here, you can have these. And - " she looked down at my patent leather brogues, " - your shoes'll do fine. Very 1940's," she said with a wink. "Oh, and there's an old nightdress of mine in wardrobe, and you can use some of my undergarments."
"Thank you so much, Emma."
"Here, Bronwyn and I will leave you to change."

In a couple of minutes, I was dressed in my new clothes and my old shoes, my hair tied back in a high ponytail with a mint ribbon that had turned up in the pocket of the cardigan. I folded my clothes neatly and placed them gently in one of my bedside table drawers, as if stashing away the last reminder of my old life.
There was a shout from downstairs. "(Y/N), it's time for the reset!" I hopped downstairs quickly, wondering what on earth the reset was.

All the peculiar children and I gathered outside the house, while the Headmistress handed out gas masks. Gas masks? This was just getting weirder and weirder. Nevertheless, I took one and slung it onto my face, feeling slightly claustrophobic with the hard surface smothering my nose and mouth.

And then I heard it. The low drone of a plane flying overhead. Wait... 1940? That was when the Second World War was going on, right? And... gas masks? Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no. The house was about to get bombed, but according to Miss Peregrine, the children here lived one day over and over. So that must mean... I looked over at the Bird and saw that she was holding a pocket-watch, and everything clicked into place. She would set back the magical pocket-watch, which would some how set back the day, in a way, and September 3rd, 1940, would start again.

Someone started up a chorus of that old song, the one that goes: "Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run, run, run..." They were all surprisingly good singers, and everyone contributed, apart from Enoch, who just stood there sullenly, which I now knew was the norm. I found it difficult to look at him now, the image of that prophetic dream still imprinted into my mind. But actually, although his expression was stony and harsh... His lips looked kinda soft... I mean, if Horace's dream did come true, It might not be all that bad...
(Y/N). Snap out of it.
However, their age-old song was haunting, and it chilled me to the bone, making me wonder how good and wonderful the loop actually was.
And then, before long, the plane I had heard was flying straight over the house, and it was dropping a bomb, someone was screaming; I think it was me, the children were just staring at it, bored, and then it was about to hit, and then... The disorienting feeling of going back in time to the very early hours of September 3rd.

I looked up and realised that everyone was looking at me. I suppose I must have scared them with my screaming.
"I'm - I'm really, really sorry..." But Miss Peregrine cut me off. "It's quite alright, Miss (Y/L/N). It is quite a terrifying ordeal to go through." Enoch cleared his throat, smirking. "That scream could've awoken the dead, though. Wait... I can already do that." He raised an eyebrow at me mockingly, as if pleased with his own joke. "Haha, hilarious," I said sarcastically. There was a pause, before Miss P said: "Right, everybody up to bed. I want you all to be fast asleep in 15 minutes." And so, we peculiar children trudged back into the house.