Aquamarine entered the class with Atlatnic shortly behind her, and the whole class turned to her. Most of them grimaced or quickly looked somewhere else, as the rumors had
spread like a wildfire. Aquamarine started nervously fidgeting with the beads on her bracelet. Mr. Acheron quickly noticed, and looked up at her and her cousins. "Do you two have a pass?"
Atlatnic walked up to Mr. Lost, Aquamarine hesitantly walking behind him. He gave Mr. Lost his pass, and Aquamarine anxiously did the same. Mr. Lost mumbled a barely audible, "stupid teens with stupid mental problems," as he threw the passes in a folder, before turning to the two cousins. "The assignment's online. You just read a paragraph or two then answer some questions."
Atlantic nodded and turned away to his seat. Aquamarine mumbled out a quick, "thank you..." before heading back to her own seat. Everyone stared at her as she walked, making her incredibly uncomfortable. She did her best to ignore the eyes, as she sat down in her seat and got out her materials necessary to do the assignment.
Aquamarine glanced at the clock, and saw that it was a minute or two from the bell ringing and school to be over. She couldn't wait to finally be at her dorm and buried deep in her bed, away from the world. Quickly, Aquamarine shut her laptop down and collected all of her supplies. She watched the second hand of the clock, mumbling under her breath the seconds left as they zoomed past. Eventually the bell rang, and almost immediately Aquamarine sprinted up from her seat and dashed out of the class. All hour long students were staring, whispering, or teasing her. On her way there, she quickly got stopped from a hand grabbing her forearm. She was surprised to see Blackout holding onto her, and especially that he wasn't burning her – and even looked slightly worried.
"Are you okay?" Blackout asked, looking at her with the slightest hint of concern. "Atlantic told me he'd tell me once you woke up. Do you know where he is?"
"He's..." Aquamarine saw Atlantic exiting Mr. Lost's class, and pointed over at her cousin. "... Over there."
Blackout glanced behind him, as Atlantic saw the two and ran up to them with a cheerful grin. "Hey, guys! What're we talking about?"
"I was just checking up on her. When'd she wake up?" Blackout inquired, seeming a bit more happy than before Atlatic had come.
"Uhm..." Atlantic looked up ahead of him, squinting his eyes in the slightest. "Around first period?"
"What? Why didn't you tell me?" Blackout asked, his eyebrows shooting up in shock. "We have third and sixth period together..."
Atlantic shrugged. "Aquamarine needed to take a while to calm down after the nightmare that was kind of forced upon her, and she wanted me to stay there with her."
"Oh, I see..." Blackout nodded slowly, but grew puzzled as Atlantic let out a little snicker.. "... what's so funny about Aquamarine almost going insane?"
"Huh-!?" Atlantic gasped at what Blackout said. "I wasn't laughing at that! I'm not that cruel! I just thought that 'upon' was a funny word."
Blackout stared at him with high confusion, but Aquamarine couldn't help but let out a little chuckle of her own. "It is kind of a funny word... Upon," she said in an overly fancy voice.
Atlantic cracked up at that. "You're so good with voices, sis! You should be a voice actor someday!"
"Nah," Aquamarine shook her head. "That'd get annoying real easily. Plus, what if I end up voicing one of those cheesy cartoons?"
"Yeah, I'd hate you if whenever I heard your voice I got reminded of some fat yellow bird puppet thing," Blackout shivered in disgust at the thought.
Aquamarine snickered. She quickly got shoved, as someone whispered something to their friend and glanced at Aquamarine coldly. Aquamarine immediately remembered they were still in an open hallway. "... can we please go back to the dorms?"
"Did something happen?" Blackout asked. Aquamarine gestured to almost everyone whispering and staring at her, and the two boys almost immediately understood why Aquamarine wanted to escape this building.
"Ah, okay," Atlantic nodded quickly, and he quickly grabbed Aquamarine and Blackout's hands, dragging them to the elevator. They hurriedly made their way back to the dormitory, getting on that elevator and rose up to the third floor.
Once there, Aquamarine froze, causing her two friends to pause as well. There were boxes being moved out of her dorm, and Aquamarine gasped softly as she saw Electra carrying another box into the pile out in the hall. "Electra..?"
Electra glanced up at Aquamarine, and her body immediately tensed up. "D-don't mind me..."
"What're you doing..? Are you moving out..?" Aquamarine whispered, feeling her heart shattering at the mere thought.
"I, er, yeah..." Electra took a deep breath. "It's not you, Aquamarine. Well, it kind of is... I don't feel safe sharing a dorm with a siren, okay? I requested a dorm change."
With a dry mouth, Aquamarine got out, "b-but I'm not a siren..."
Electra sighed. "Aquamarine, I heard. Everyone knows. I'm not surprised if other grades know, too. It makes sense. Why else would you hide who you are?"
Aquamarine got out the tiniest stutter, before Blackout took a step forward defensively. "Does it really matter what she is? Even if she were a siren, has she done anything wrong to you? Has she done anything wrong to anyone that you're aware of?" Electra stayed silent, her eyes wide by the sudden confrontation, so Blackout continued on, "exactly. She's done nothing to you. Just because your dumb little brain is anxious, does it have anything to back up your little anxiety?"
"I- uhm..." Electra mumbled. Shaking her head, she grabbed a pile of her boxes and walked down the hall. Blackout scoffed as she nervously passed them, swiping away an electric charge he felt in his fingers and she walked by.
"Idiot," he mumbled, crossing his arms angrily.
Aquamarine stood there, her eyes widened and her mind racing as she stared at the ground before her. Everything was supposed to be perfect. Everything was going to be peachy perfect. Where'd it all go? Was it all just thrown away like a mistake that was made by whatever force rules their lives? Aquamarine was stuck in her mind until Atlantic shook her out of it.
"Aquamarine..! Are you okay!?" Atlantic asked desperately.
"Y-yeah, I am," Aquamarine nodded, gently pulling away from her cousin who let out a huge sigh in relief.
"Thank goodness! Quit zoning out on me... I thought you had heard the voice again."
"Speaking of which," Blackout turned towards them, cooling down. "Have you heard it anymore since that lake incident?"
"Nope," Aquamarine shook her head. "Luckily..."
"Yeah, that's good. Well, I guess we should go back to our dorms..." Blackout said.
"I guess we shall," Atlantic nodded, and Aquamarine gave out a weak smile as Atlantic
said, "are you going to be okay by yourself, Aquamarine?"
"Yeah," Aquamarine said, not sure who she was trying to reassure more – Atlantic, or
herself. "I'll be fine, don't worry about me."
"And you'll let us know if you need any help?" Atlantic added.
"Of course I will."
"Okie dokie, then off we go! C'mon, Blackout!" Atlantic grabbed ahold of Blackout's hand,
dragging him off to Room 312. "Bye, sis!"
Aquamarine gave a tiny wave, before sighing. She ran a hand through her hair. Life was
going horribly wrong. She grabbed her ID, and got her little key ring off of it. Inserting the key
into the keyhole and swinging the door open. The emptiness that was in Electra's now empty and barren room only heightened Aquamarine's unease, but she did her best to block it out and go into her room. She shut the door tightly, hoping that the saying 'out of sight out of mind' would really help her right now. Electra's empty dorm out of her sight, the reminder that Electra left her because she believed that Aquamarine was a monster out of mind.
Aquamarine flopped down onto her bed, surrounding herself in her fluffy light blue blanket and drowning herself in her big collection of fluffy and decorative pillows. She sighed heavily as she did so, and wasn't sure if it was relief or frustration. Aquamarine was furious at the world right now, but the softness and comforting colors that surrounded her reminded her that there was still good in the world.
Aquamarine looked around her room, her vision seeming to grey down to match her spirits. Pictures of her and Atlantic were littered over her desk, and pictures of the whole family – including Mrs. and Mr. Mlyn. Aquamarine's eyes widened as she stared at one picture ,her family having a picnic. Behind one of the coral clusters was a shadow. She'd never noticed it before... reluctantly, she headed over, grabbing the shelled frame. The shadow was of a woman with dark purple hair, and piercing black eyes. The eyes in Aquamarine's nightmare.
Aquamarine's eyes widened. "Oh... my... flippers..." she mumbled, as she looked around at her photos. In almost every single one, this woman appeared. In the reflection of a mirror. Inside a window. Aquamarine stared at the pictures in horror. "This... this must be her... I've got too..." Aquamarine muttered. She made her way to Atlantic and Blakout's dorm, and knocked furiously on the door.
Eventually, Blackout answered. When he spotted Aquamarine, he blinked in confusion. "Is something wrong?"
"I... I need to show you two... c'mon!" Aquamarine yelled in a stuttering mess. Atlantic walked up, glancing at Blackout, who stared back in confusion. The two ended up following Aquamarine, who led them back into her room. As they entered, Aquamarine's eyes widened.
All of the pictures' glass frames and cases had been completely smashed, along with the frames broken and cracked. The pictures were ripped and torn and left in a pile on her desk, all the photos mixed up and unable to piece back together with how small they had been ripped.
"No... no..." Aquamarine mumbled, grabbing the pieces of torn paper and trying to piece together at least one picture. "There... there was solid proof..."
"What's going on?" Blackout asked, as Aquamarine was on the verge of hysterics.
"On the back of all... in the background... you could easily see her... she was a siren! It must be her! I know it!" Aquamarine said desperately.
Atlantic grabbed ahold of Aquamarine's hands, slowly lowering them. "Woah, woah... let's calm down, okay? Can we sit down and you explain to us what happened? Mainly... away from your desk?"
Aquamarine took a shuddering breath. "B-but..!"
"Hey," Atlantic quickly interrupted., highly concerned "Take some deep breaths, okay? Deep breaths... c'mon..."
Aquamarine eventually obeyed, taking one deep breath after another, as Atlantic slowly led her into the living room and kitchen part of her dorm room. She sighed. "In the back of all the pictures, there was the same woman... she had long purple hair, and her eyes... They were black. Cold, empty blackholes. I think she's the siren. I think she's the one who keeps trying to lure me in."
Atlantic nodded, Blackout humming to himself. "That seems like a pretty good theory... but then wouldn't you have noticed something like this before?"
Aquamarine shrugged. "Does it need to have happened before? Why can't it just be that she decided to strike now?"
"That doesn't make sense," Blackout shot back in a hasty manner. "Why would she suddenly do it now? Wouldn't she've done that singing voice thing on you before?"
"Why would she wait until now?" Atlantic questioned, seeming to agree more with Blackout than Aquamarine.
"Does it really matter!? It's not like it's set in stone, this is what's going on! It's just a theory! Can't we at least test it out?" Aquamarine demanded, "we're desperate, guys... this could be a theory that leads to the real thing!"
Blackout sighed heavily, rubbing his temples in annoyance. "Your persistence is most unpleasant."
Aquamarine scoffed, rolling her eyes. "'Your persistence is most unpleasant,'" she mimicked. "This isn't some old timey fiction story... this is real life!"
Blackout sneered back, "oh, so now you're retracting my ability of what I can and cannot say?"
"Guys! Calm down!" Atlantic pleaded, quickly getting between the two before a fight broke out. "We can test it out, okay? If it works, it works. If it doesn't, we at least tried. Isn't that good enough?"
Blackout scowled, taking a step back. "I just think it'll be a waste of time..."
Atlantic sighed. "I understand that... but we have all the time in the world! What could go wrong?"
"Uhm, I don't know, your cousin gets drowned because the siren lured her underwater?" Blackout offered, saying it as if it were common knowledge.
Atlantic's eyes widened at the thought. "O-oh..."
"But that won't happen!" Aquamarine yelled. "I haven't heard the singing in like four solid says. Plus, you two almost always save me! Are you saying you won't help me if I get affected again?"
"N-no," Blackout stuttered out.
"Exactly," Aquamarine said, crossing her arms with a smirk. "Can't we just try this? If I do end up drowning, I'll probably wake up part way through and I can take my necklace off again like I did last time."
"Fine..." Blackout grumbled, turning away in annoyance. "We'll do it."
"Great! Compromises!" Atlantic took a deep breath in relief. "So I guess we'll try to research this person... Aquamarine, would you be able to recognize her?"
"Of course I could," Aquamarine mumbled. "She's one of those faces that just... haunts me... I bet if I close my eyes I could see her."
"That's good..." Atlantic mumbled with the tiniest nod. "So I guess we'll try to see if we can find that woman in any books or something..."
"Okay, great," Aquamarine nodded. "I... I think I'm going to try to get some rest, now."
"Yeah, probably a good idea," Blackout said, "you were kind of going insane back in there..."
Aquamarine sighed. "Yeah, I was... don't worry. I'll probably just throw them in a trashcan, and then burn them."
The two boys blinked in confusion, as Atlantic spoke up, "... why?"
"So I don't have to ever be reminded of that again!" Aquamarine raised her voice a bit in pitch. "You said I was going insane, which was caused by remembering all of the pictures that hold memories and I spent so long collecting them and now they're all destroyed-!"
"Woah, calm down," Atlantic mumbled. He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "It's probably a good idea, I guess... how about you just put it in a trash can and then give it to Blackout?"
"I didn't sign up for this," Blackout said quickly.
"Too bad," Atlantic said back in a rush, covering Blackout's mouth. "You have no choice in this."
Aquamarine watched the two bicker playfully, chuckling in amusement. "I guess that'll work."
"Yippee!" Atlantic cheered.
Aquamarine entered her dorm, and sighed before going to her desk and closing her eyes, shoving everything into it. Walking outside, she let out a small squeak as her cousin snatched the bin out of her grasp.
"Here you go!" Atlantic said with a smile, turning to face Blackout.
Blackout sighed, and hesitantly took it. "Thanks, I guess. I'll burn it later. Sometimes sparks will fly and that is not a good thing. Especially since the floor is wooden here."
"Thanks!" Atlantic said with a sweet smile, and Aquamarine smiled as she saw Blackout become a stuttering and blushing mess. "E-er, no problem," Blackout mumbled, turning away in embarrassment.
Blackout headed off to his room, and Aquamarine closed the door when Atlanitic followed after him.