Something was off. From the moment Sophie found herself outside of a fully-lit, yet completely silent Havenfield, Sophie knew something was wrong. An animal rehabilitation center that was dead silent? Not even sleeping animals were this quiet. Cautiously, Sophie made for the front door, only to discover it was open a crack. Her worry increased as she pushed the door open. Everything was a mess.
"Edaline?" Sophie called. "Grady? Is everything alright?"
If only Sophie could use her abilities, she'd attempt to track her parents' thoughts. Sophie headed for her parents' room first, wondering if they'd decided to hide out there. Or had Edaline and Grady escaped. If that were the case, should Sophie run, too? No, Sophie thought. Were she to escape, she'd run the risk of losing her parents. She reached their bedroom, only to find that, similarly to the front door, Edaline and Grady's bedroom door was open just enough to see the inside's chaotic state. Sophie gave the door a gentle push, calling for her parents in a hushed tone. If someone was in their house, she had to be careful. Especially if they were dangerous.
"Edaline?" Silence. Sophie's panic grew, and goosebumps ran up her arms. Voice shaking, Sophie uttered, "Grady?" She was getting desperate, the room being a dead end. So she headed for her room. Where were they? What had happened?
"Edaline?" Sophie cried out, tears burning. She'd only just met her parents, this was too soon.
Sophie raced to her room, praying they might have left a note, a warning, something. They had to be okay. They had to be. If she lost them like this... to the Neverseen... it would break her. She couldn't lose them, too.
"Grady? Please! Someone!"
As she passed other rooms on the way to her own, she found that each room was the same: an open door and a messy interior. Silently, she pleaded her family was okay. She'd crossed her fingers, wishing she hadn't so easily accepted the ability restrictor. She would've been able to track their thoughts, check on them. She reached her floor, tripping on the last step and collapsing onto the floor and bursting into terrified sobs. What would she find when she entered her room? Her imagination showed her terrible, horrible things. Bloody images, the corpses of her parents, and a note threatening Sophie.
It was so vivid, so realistic, Sophie nearly forgot they were only in her mind. She'd thought they were real for a moment. Sophie's nails dug into her palms. "Mom?"
The longer she sat crying, Sophie realized, the longer her parents were in trouble, if they happened to still be alive. Finally, Sophie convinced herself to climb to her feet and finally make her way to the bedroom. Wiping her tears, she erased the horrible images from her mind. They weren't real, so she couldn't afford to waste her tears on them.
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The first thing she noticed as she neared, was that the door wasn't open. Not a crack. The second thing she noticed as she turned the knob was that: her room wasn't a disaster. Unlike every other room in the house, her bedroom had been left untouched and tidy. She stepped inside, confused. Though as soon as she entered, she'd realized she'd been wrong. Because while the room was tidy, it had been touched.
On her bed sat a black card with white print: Truce? Meet me where everything first started. :)
Sophie stared at the note, wishing she'd hallucinated. Had the Neverseen... sent her a smiley face?
Sophie glared at the message, wishing she could simply toss it and return to her new semi-normal life. Her friends had forgiven her. They'd helped her, even after everything she'd done to them. And while that small, evil part of her which Sophie assumed was an echo of Keeper, wanted to trust the Neverseen again... Sophie couldn't bring herself to go. It had been stronger, the mixed feelings of mistrust and hate towards both sides... but the longer she spent with the Ruewens, her friends, and Mr. Forkle, the more she realized that the Neverseen were the bad guys.
Were she to agree to the Neverseen and meet up, she'd only be giving them the chance to take her again. Take her away from her friends for a second time. And hurt her. Turn her. Change her. Surely, Keeper would take over again. She'd win, permanently this time. That thought--it terrified Sophie. She had a good life now. Keefe trusted her, her friends had forgiven her, and it was just too good a life to give up in general.
Sophie tossed the note aside, turning to change. She'd shower and forget about it. Sophie had had a good day, and she wasn't about to ruin that-- Sophie paled as her eyes landed on a particular corner of the room. How had she not noticed? How had she totally missed this? Vertina would have warned her about the note, or at least commented on how messy Sophie looked. However, neither of those things had happened, and Sophie hadn't even noticed.
Her eyes stared blankly, confused and full of guilt at the corner where Vertina's mirror had once stood. In its place was a slightly paler spot on the wall, outlining where the spectral mirror used to be. Sophie had been such a terrible friend, not noticing her permanent roommate had disappeared. Sophie stepped closer, her fingertips grazing the spot on the wall. Until something else caught her attention.
"A second note?" she whispered, tugging it out of the crevasse it had been tucked into. Looking over it, it read: Please and thank you :)
It also had a little sketch of a cave Sophie had seen when touring Havenfield for the first time. Edaline had been reluctant, Sophie remembered, but with enough convincing from both Grady and Mr. Forkle, Sophie had gotten a short glimpse at the cave beneath the cliffs. Unlike most ransom notes, Sophie realized, these didn't contain an "or else" or "do not tell anyone". Written threat or not, however, the meaning was clear: come now, or risk your family's life.
Sophie spat out a bunch of naughty words, tearing both notes before drowning them in her bathroom sink. The urge to ignore the notes and get back to that shower was strong, Sophie had to admit... but her family's lives were in danger. No matter how badly she wished she could, Sophie refused to risk her parents' lives for her own. Even if it meant losing her own consciousness to Keeper's, Sophie had to go. Because Sophie now understood what Stina had meant by being the "moonlark". Being the moonlark was to risk her own life and wants for the safety of others, giving up everything for others.
Knowing this, Sophie wove her hair into a tight, combat-ready braid. She didn't waste time changing, though, and went straight for the window.
"Three stories up," Sophie said, trying to convince herself. "I can make that."
Before she could think anything else of it, she got a running start and leaped for the window. She hadn't understood what had happened before, but thinking back, Sophie knew what had happened earlier that evening when she'd raced. It wasn't her imagination, but a talent. An ability. With just enough speed, Sophie could teleport. Maybe if she applied the same trick her, while falling, she could make it to the cave faster.
As Sophie fell, a sense of familiarity came over her and her instincts kicked in. Picturing the cave with her photographic memory, a black void cut through the air and swallowed her whole with a thunderous roar. Sophie held the image at the front of her mind, determined to find Edaline, Grady, and Vertina... Sophie corrected herself. She was going to find her mom and dad, and Vertina, who was technically her sister, according to Sophie.
The void opened up again, and Sophie fell from the sky and onto the beach, landing in the damp sand. Waves crashed behind her, still managing to soak her tunic and hands. The moon above, though halfway hidden behind the clouds, reflected off the ocean's waters. Sophie shivered as a cold breeze nipped at her skin, leaving her both soaking and cold. She stood up, kicking off the sand and scanning the area for the cave, which turned out to be a few meters down the way. Sophie hurried over, only slowing as she reached the entrance.
Unnatural shadows seemed to stretch out of the cave, straining to pull her inside. She stepped closer, strangely drawn to the emptiness that lurked inside. Once inside, while only by just a few feet, she found that the shadows seemed to greet her. The deeper inside she went, the darker it got, her eyes refusing to adjust. Not to mention how could it was down there. Had the cave always been this long?
As she continued, she noticed the sound of cracking beneath her boots. It became more frequent the further in she got. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Thankfully, it didn't feel like bones, as the horror movies often portrayed. Wait, was that a memory? Or just knowledge? Sophie didn't have time to dwell on that, knowing that with each step, she was growing closer and closer to her family. To the Neverseen. And to Keeper.
Sophie wanted to turn back, make herself believe she'd gone far enough. She wanted to convince herself that she'd tried, and that maybe, maybe it was the wrong cave. Because with each step, she could feel the Keeper part of her stirring, growing excited.
"I'm sorry," Sophie said, wishing she could transmit the words to Keefe. "I wanted you to be right. I wanted to be good." Tears blurred her vision, not that she could see anyway. The darker it got, the colder it got, and Sophie found that the tunnel seemed way too long for her to still be in Havenfield's property range.
Maybe Sophie had been wrong. Maybe she'd just never given the Neverseen a chance. Besides, wasn't it only fair to hear their side of everything? To understand their goals and at least try to be open-minded? It didn't seem fair that the Black Swan were allowed to choose who were heroes and who were villains.
Maybe the Neverseen were good people with the wrong ideas. Maybe they simply needed guidance. Sophie, growing bored of the same old walls, began to trace her hand across the sides of the cave as she walked. Time blurred into itself, nothing seemed to matter anymore. Come to think of it, why was Sophie in this boring cave anyway?
"Huh," Sophie said, halting in her tracks. The weird crunches had stopped. She picked her foot up, rewinding her steps a bit before stomping down on the floor. A loud, satisfying crunch! rang throughout the cave, and Sophie smiled. Again, she did it. Again and again. Soon she was as a child jumping in puddles, only this time...
"Having fun?"
Sophie froze, instantly knowing why she'd come here. Edaline, Grady, and Vertina were missing. She was supposed to be saving them. How had she forgotten that?
"Hello?" Sophie called out, her voice bouncing off the rocky walls. She hadn't been as careful as she should have been.
The voice was so familiar, and her instincts seemed to know that she should be scared, as she couldn't stop shaking. Maybe it was someone she'd even fought beside during the Battle of Atlantis. One of the members who had left her to fight alone. And while Sophie hated herself for that moment, she also hated the Neverseen members for ditching one of their own. It was cruel.
"It's nice to see you again," the voice stalled. "I was beginning to think you weren't going to show."
"Maybe you shouldn't have made the tunnel so long," Sophie said, deciding to go with it, chat, and see what she could gather. Though that would have been a lot easier if she had her telepathy. Sophie meant that sour thought for the council. If she could, she'd make sure that the council knew it was their fault she hadn't been able to properly defend herself.
"See, but I needed you to have time to adjust."
Sophie could practically hear the smile in their voice. "Adjust to what?" She snapped.
"I can't do what we'd done the first time," he said, disregarding Sophie's question. "Gisela's in control of the main ingredient to the drug and without that, I'm left simply to bring out what remains. And for that to happen, I needed Keeper to be closer. You'd buried her far deeper than I wanted. Not to mention that I'd need you to be distracted, your guard down. But we'll get to that in a moment."
The shadows seemed to thin, making the end of the tunnel just the tiniest bit brighter, and Sophie could just barely see who the voice belonged to. His unkempt hair stuck to his face in greasy strands, the rest of it gathered into a messy braid and out of the way. His grin was wide, a true villain's smile.
"Where are my parents?"
The man's face contorted in confusion, his eyes watching Sophie curiously.
"You mean the Ruewens? I have no idea--"
"Don't you dare lie to me!" Sophie growled, staring him down. "Where are they? Where's Vertina?"
His smile returned. "The mirror girl?"
A small flame scared the shadows away, the fire flickering above the man's finger. Sophie followed his gaze to the cave floor, shifted her feet. Nothing. Just rock, more rock, and as she followed his eyes even further back...
Crunch, crunch, crunch. Sophie had been right. They hadn't been bones, but they might as well have been. Scattered across the cave floor behind her sat millions of glass shards. And not only had Sophie walked on them...
"I... That wasn't me. I didn't do that." Sophie shook her head, so violently it made her head spin. Shards of mirror. Pieces of Vertina. "What did you do?"
"No, Sophie Foster. What did you do?"
"You killed Vertina. You killed her!" Sophie cried out as tears waterfalled down her face, uncontrollable.
"Oh, so I walked on top of her? I jumped upon them?"
Sophie watched the shards, wishing Vertina would call out to her, tell her she'd managed to live. But no, even if she were small enough to stay on one shard, the coding and programs were inside the mirror. Without it, Vertina was nothing. And it was all Sophie's fault. She'd crushed the glass to bits, made it that much harder to put her back together. She'd jumped on the shards. For. Fun. Sophie wanted to vomit. She'd just murdered her roommate. Her friend. Her sister.
"What did you do?" The man taunted, grinning wildly.
"I...killed her," Sophie admitted, falling onto her knees. Tears spilled, her mind spiraling into itself as she tried to make sense of things. How had this happened? Sophie was the screw-up. She was the one who'd made the mistakes. She'd hurt everyone. So...
"Why Vertina?" Sophie asked, expression empty. Blank. Numb. Confusion had blocked out every other emotion, leaving her to question everything.
"I didn't feel like dealing with blood today. Maybe tomorrow... Who knows?"
Sophie had killed Vertina. It was her fault. She'd...
It wasn't her fault. Nor was it Fintan's. The fault belonged to no one. That was life; some live, while others die. Kill or be killed. The strongest will survive, as their own safety is their top priority, and therefore they will do anything to survive. While the weak put others before themselves, and typically don't last nearly as long.
"You can choose, Sophie," Fintan said. "Kill or be killed. Be strong or be weak. Live or die. Which would you prefer?"
"...My family--"
"That wasn't the question," Fintan snapped. "Live or die, which do you pick?"
Sophie glared at the hand that Fintan had offered. Her family, friends, so many have died at the hands of this man. And she knew that. Yet... it wasn't Fintan's fault. It was their own. Kenric, Mr. Forkle, Calla... even Alvar had had the choice to be strong. Yet they'd chosen weakness over strength. Their deaths were on them and therefore it was no one's fault but their own. Once upon a time, Sophie had wanted to save everyone. Her friends, family, and all the Lost Cities. Now, Sophie realized what a foolish dream it had been. To have a goal like that would only disappoint her and bring her closer to death. But to dream to live...
To truly live. To feel that same thrill she'd felt not so long ago, and to feel it every day... The feeling of power... Sophie craved that feeling, more than anything in the world. Sophie could have everything she'd ever wanted should she choose life. She could live... For everyone who had died, she'd live. She'd live for Alvar's sake, as that's what he'd want, right? For his advice and time spent with her to live on inside Sophie, so she'd live for Alvar. And for everyone else who was too scared to be strong.
To be strong would be to feel no pain, feel no regret. She'd live a full life, the perfect life. A better life than the one Mr. Forkle and everyone else had tried to give her. If it was only her current, painful life she was sacrificing to have a thrilling, full one? Sophie took Fintan's hand, gripping it firmly as she stated her decision.
"I want to live."
:)