Aerie woke up in silence. There were nothing else left from that day. She went back to university, alone.
It was the same. Lily was there, waiting and complaining that she had to return her favours, talking her endlessly that she could never possibly return her enough.
Aerie didn't pay attention when hearing anyways.
The good thing is, Brian was awake. Except for forgetting everything that had happened, from the ghost hunt back to the encounter in the basement, he completely forgot.
It seemed that the other two forgot completely too, as if it was only a dream with Aerie inside. If it had not been the two empty offices that had been filled with boring people shortly after, she would have really thought it was all a dream.
"Can I come in, sir?" Aerie asked, knocking on the door that used to be Cade's office.
The door was opened by a man in his forties, Aerie guessed. Dressed pretty decently with nicely polished shoes. "What can I help you with?"
"Eh-" Aerie said, "You must be new here. Have you been throwing things out?"
"Yeah, why?" The man answered, opening the door wide for her to go in. "Lucky for you. If you had left something here, you can try and find it in the storage room. I haven't stared to throw anything out yet."
"Goodness. Good." Aerie replied. Without looking, she started to look throughout the storage room. "Hopefully I'll get what I want here."
It was the same as when she left. The fans, the lights. But she was there to search for her scarf. It was the first thing that she searched for when she returned, only failing even she turned her room upside down again and again. When she had exhausted herself from the days of searching, Aerie eventually gave up and decided to come to his office instead.
Though there would be completely no reason why it would be there.
Aerie sighed when there were more than thirty boxes, completely filled with stuff. Searching in every single one of them would be taking time, she must admit.
But she had start from somewhere, right? Her instincts told her to start from the one on the left, towards the right.
A box of waste paper. Nope. A box of cleaning mats. Nope.
Somehow the third box sounded familiar. A tiny yellow post-it sticking out of the box.
"Dear Cade. :))" It started. Aerie stopped and read forwards. "Hopefully these would help you enough. Very sorry, but I'll be terribly busy in my town. Drop a note if you need anything else. Night xx"
Well? That was something. Aerie thought. She folded the note in half and stuffed it into her pocket, digging further. Apparently there were even more maps than she had expected, and a big deal of food that Aerie guessed would be enough for her to eat for three month- if she could eat dried food for that long- first of all.
Guess she will be taking that box away. Aerie noted to herself. It was heavy- of course. Food would weight. But something felt even heavier. She gently pushed the cereal bars to the side, and a black box of stuff appeared at the bottom.
There was a lock, but Aerie could open it easily. To be honest, she wasn't completely surprised when guns were the thing that were being revealed.
Yes. Guns. Plural.
Aerie wondered how could Cade- or Night- possibly get that much weapons without anyone noticing. But immortals are immortals, Aerie guessed. And there's going be quite a lot of problems if the that man- whoever he came from- found them.
As she still didn't got what she want, she looked further into the room, tripping herself against a wire that was apparently on the floor and falling with quite a painful fall.
"Are you okay?" The man pushed the door open and asked after hearing her scream when she fell.
Which Aerie only covered the box with the fastest speed she could and replied that she was fine embarrassingly as she tried to block the box from his view with her body.
"Do you mind if I take this entire box?" Aerie said.
"The entire box?" He asked in curiosity , "are those all yours, eh?"
"Not quite but it had been the project that I worked on with the- eh- teacher before you." Aerie said, trying to smile so as to hide the awkwardness.
"Sound like a large project." He mumbled. "If you don't mind- we can work on it someday. If you could kindly explain what's happening and I can catch up with your progress."
"Yeah- sure!" Aerie replied, moving into the next box, ripping the duct tape with such force that some of the card box came off.
There it was- what she was looking for. The plain white scarf that wrapped around a book. She immediately grabbed it off the box, dusted it although there were none.
"Is that all what you're looking for?" The professor said.
"I think so." Aerie said. "If you don't mind, I'll take all of these away."
"Of course." He replied. "Feel free to do so. Honestly I would really throw them out if you didn't come. Should check to see if there's anything else that's yours. The rest would be gone by tomorrow- my documents would be arriving at the office tomorrow— and there had to be somewhere to put my stuff, right?"
Aerie laughed slightly as she lifted the box. It was extremely heavy- she barely managed to put it into her hands, and now she had to walk all the way back to her room alone.
She would deserve a medal if she made it all the way back without falling or something.
"You Ned any help?" He asked generally. "You look like you are struggling. A lot."
"Nah." Aerie replied. "I'm fine with it." She looked at the side, grabbing the book and the scarf with her hand and barely placed it on top of the box before falling. She could feel herself wobbling and her feet like melting jelly- there were no way that she could make it back. "Maybe I'll have to make it in two rounds." She admitted.
"Go ahead. I'll be waiting for you here." The professor said. "Don't worry about it. It's fine."
"Thanks." Aerie replied, and unpacked a few bags of unimportant items before kicking the door wide open and marching in the hallway, making a big deal as she still wobbled as she went, ready to fall any moment from the heavy weight.
It was another hour when she arrived at the door. Aerie knocked at the door again, and was opened into the room.
It was at moment when she went into the storage room, watching the scene once again, feeling the wind hitting onto her, it felt real.
It was gone. Before she could feel the happiness running inside her, it was already away from her. The life where she was alone. Where she would be the only character in the story of her own. The hero of the story. The villain of the story.
There would be one day when she became older, have a job, have a family. She would be like anyone else- but if anything, she would be alone. She would have to face it herself- as if she had anyone by her side in the first place.
Aerie allowed the feeling to come into her. She allowed it to consume herself, in this very room where it started, and in this very room where it ended. She would wait for what Cade said to happen- after all, she had completely no idea of how to find Night as he mentioned. She could only wait for him to come into her life- and she had no idea when it would happen, and who that guy is. Her cheeks felt hot.
The only thing that is worse than waking up from a good dream is to wake up into a nightmare. Because a good dream only lasted for as long as a sleep- a nightmare could last longer. As long as a lifetime.
"You okay?" The same voice came from behind her. It's been a while, Aerie must admit.
"I'm okay." Aerie replied. "Sorry for bothering you for so long."
"No problem." He replied. "Tea? Think that you might want it- it's been quite a while and you seen exhausted."
"Yeah. Maybe I'm really only tired." Aerie replied politely. "But I'll go. There will be lessons waiting for me to catch. And I'm late already."
In fact, there were nothing on her schedule. It was empty, and she even cleared her schedules on reading so that she could keep the feelings to herself.
She wrapped the scars around her neck. It wasn't that cold that she would need to wear one anyways, but she just felt like it and wanted to wear it for every single second that she was alive after this.
"Goodbye then, I guess." Aerie said. She didn't bother- dare to look back. She knew that she would not be coming back anytime soon. She knew that she she would not be going back at all in the future.
The moment when she finally walked out of the office, she allowed the tear that hung around fall into the scarf, clean and completely absorbed by the fabric.
It felt as if there was a glitch that happened around the room when Aerie looked up again.
There was a faint figure that walked across her at the moment if impact.
And they had a brief moment of coming across each other.