Angel slowly opened her eyes, seeing the familiar dark place around her. She looks around, hoping to figure out where she was only to be interrupted by the sound of soft crying. Her eyes land on a child, a familiar child she's seen before in her dreams. She tries to slowly approach the child, stopping after a step when she sees the familiar features of the child. She sees that the child was quietly crying, at least trying to be as quiet as possible, sitting on the floor, ignoring her presence, but even she knew that the child wouldn't probably even notice her. She silently stood there, simply watching the child continue to cry, a strange feeling coming over her. She felt...lonely, but for some reason, she can't understand why. Why does looking at this child make her seem so...alone? While she was mulling over, she noticed that someone was approaching the child, a person that seems to an older woman. The woman just smiles at the child and squat down, getting on her eye level and the child notices, lifting her head to look at her. The woman put her hand on her head, rubbing the child's head as he smiles at her. "It's okay, ■■■■■■■■" she carefully says, but Angel couldn't understand the name, seeming a bit muffled. "It'll be fine, I promise it will be," she says as the child continues to cry.
"B-but...." The child sobs. "I-I-I...it's h-hurts, grandma..."
"I'm sure they care about you," the woman says with a smile. "They would never abandon you. No parent will ever abandon their child. Besides, I'm sure I taught them better. When they come back, I'll be sure to give them a stern talking to!" He huffs, making the child laugh a bit. "You want to know a secret?" She asks the child and she nods, curious about the secret. She looks around, making sure no one is around and leans to the child, covering her ear. "Your father and mother are actually scared of me," she whispers, making the child look at her in shock and disbelief. She notices and laughs. "It's true!" When your father used to get into trouble, he would cower in fear at the look I gave him. Said that he felt like a dinosaur was staring at him! Can you believe that? Me, a dinosaur! Ha ha!" She laughs. "When you mother was pregnant with you, she kept saying that she was so nervous and scared about how unprepared she was, so you know what I did? I put her through a training class, and she ran away crying! I remembering your father saying how she couldn't stand to be in the same room as the devil, learning about how to change diapers for 4 hours straight! It's not my fault that I didn't think she was ready until she could change your diapers with her eyes closed, well, until she changed your diaper with the diaper on your head," she says in thought. "That might have been just a slight mistake on my part, but she did good on a real baby."
"She did that...?" The child asks.
"Heh heh, yes, she did," she chuckles. "I remember how you looked so confused at the whole thing, but you just laughed it off, and next thing we know, we were all laughing." She smiles at the memory, and look at the child looking at her in awe, only to realize the situation and give her a sad smile, something that the child couldn't notice. "■■■■■■■■, your parents love you, and I know it's tough, but you got to keep trying. Your love will reach them, I'm sure of it, and if they don't accept it, then you can tell me, and I'll set them straight!"
The child giggles. "Can I tell you everything then, grandma?"
"You can be my little rat," the woman smirks. "Always tell the truth, after all. How about this? I'll take you out for ice cream, and you can tell me every little thing that happened. That sounds fun?"
"Yeah!" The child happily exclaims as she gets up. The woman just chuckles at her enthusiasm and stands up with her.
"Then let's go. I know a place where they can give you the biggest sundaes that's as tall as a giraffe!" The woman says as she holds her hand out, and the child happily takes it and they walk off, leaving Angel behind. She looks at the scene, seeing that they happily walked off in the darkness, having some other conversation she couldn't follow. She looked at where they were, another feeling coming over her. She was...happy. Was that the right word? Not happy, but...elated? No...it wasn't that either. It felt...like it was right, like everything was okay. But...why did she have an uneasy feeling about this? Why did it seem like...something didn't sit right with her. Just as she thought that, her eyes land on something else in the distance, a distant light and she slowly heads there. As she was walking towards the light, she felt her stomach drop, like something was creeping up on her, but the feeling wasn't mutual, almost as if...
"IT'S YOUR FAULT!" She hears someone scream as she's walking. She looks at the light, seeing that there were people gathered within it. She quickly heads towards it, the light becoming clearer as she stops, looking at the group of people in front of her. "YOU KILLED HER!" The voice screams and from what Angel saw, it was a group of people she couldn't get the faces of, but she knew the other three people in the room, two adults, one man and one woman, and the same child. "You killed my mother," the man says in anger to the child, who silently looks down. "If she didn't go with your will, this would never happen!" He shouts at her. The child glances up, looking at the woman to see her reaction, but she was occupied at something in front of her, a specific black box. The woman had a tears in her eyes, ignoring the shouting, but the child noticed that she glanced at her, but the look was of disdain, anger, fury, and disappointment, and the child flinches, only silently taking the onslaught of verbal abuse from the man. Angel watched the scene silently, the familiar feeling of loneliness coming over her, but her eyes went towards the box instead. She hesitates for a moment, then slowly starts walking, feeling that everyone's eyes were on her, but she knew they don't even see her, in fact they don't even feel her presence there as she continues, stopping right at the box, and looks down, seeing the closed lid. The words of the man shouting started to reach her. "You shouldn't even be alive! If this didn't happen, we wouldn't have lost her! It should have been you instead!" Angel looked at the box, slowly lifting a hand to the box, hesitating on her next action and grab the box, finding an edge to grip the lid. She grabs the lid, and hesitates. There's no way...right? It couldn't be...could it? She felt tears starting to fall, not expecting the development, but she ignored them, the feeling of dread starting to become more prominent as her mind focuses on the box in front of her. She slowly lifts the lid, the weight being a bit heavier than she expected, but she didn't care about it, her mind too focused on what's inside the box to even care about any other distractions. Once the lid was opened, she closed her eyes and her breathing hitched, not knowing if it was from exertion or what awaited her, but she slowly opened her eyes and looked inside the box, her eyes widened at the sight of the contents of the box, the tears releasing like a dam as she take in the sight of the woman from before, lifelessly sleeping inside the box. Through the tears, Angel could notice it was the woman, but instead of smiling happily, she was smiling peacefully, but even so, it meant nothing since there wasn't a sign of life from her. She felt that something inside her break as she gaze at the woman, something being free inside her. What was it? She wanted to scream, but was devastated, but she couldn't understand why she wanted to do that or why she was feeling this way, but it felt like she needed to. She heard something creak as she's mulling over her thoughts and her eyes moved up, seeing the woman staring right at her, fear overcoming her as she steps back in fright, trying to get away from the box, but next thing she knows, she sees a hand stick out and grab the edge of the box, then the woman crawling out of the box, staring at her. Angel looked around, trying to see if there was anyone around her to help her, but she was met with darkness instead, her eyes having no choice but to go to the woman, now out of the box, walking towards her. She looked on in fear as the woman points her finger at her, glaring at her.
"You..." the woman whispers, leaving Angel a bit confused on the words, but then suddenly, the woman started to twitch, and something comes out of her, the fear starting to take over her body as the woman slowly approaches her. Angel could only look at the sight in fright as she feels something wrapping around her body, making her immobilized as she could only stand there and watch the woman stop in front of her, forcibly grabbing her head, making her have no choice but to look at her and her alone. "Did...this..." she mumbles, but Angel couldn't focus on the words, instead trying to get out of the bind she was in. "YOU DID THIS TO ME!" The woman shouts, and Angel became terrified as her face becomes closer to hers, seeing bloodshot eyes an inch in front of her. "I'll show you..." she mumbles and Something starts to come from her body, heading towards Angel and she starts to panic, trying to escape, but the woman keeps her grip on her, forcing her to look at her as something starts to swarm her. "You're just an insect that needs to be killed," she says as everything starts to become black.
Angel wakes up with a jolt and quickly sits up from the bed, breathing heavily as she looks around, seeing the familiar room that she and Grim shared. The surroundings start to calm her down, a feeling of safety start to overcome her as she looks out the window, seeing that the sun hasn't come up yet, leaving her to be illuminated by the moonlight peaking through the curtains. She looks at the bed, seeing that Grim was snoring, blissfully unaware from the torment she went through in her dream and mumbling about something she couldn't understand. She sighs in relief, feeling that she had control over her body and that her body moved freely, not restrained by whatever it was. She quietly got up and head to the mirror, trying to see if there was anything else to check, but when she got there, she was met with her reflection, aside from tears falling down her cheeks, making her wonder if it was tears of fear or something else. She wiped the tears, not wanting them from inhibiting her sleep, but after a while, she glanced at the bed, shuddering at the sight of it. I...don't think I can sleep anymore tonight.... She thinks back on the dream, the last actions feeling so real and vivid. She looks to window and thinks for a moment before sitting in one of the chairs in the room, letting her mind wander as the night continues, hoping that what she had was a bad dream and nothing more. She slowly start to doze off during the rest of the night, the feeling of forgetting something starting to grow.
During the day, the four walk down the hallway from class while Ace huffs. "Trein caught me napping in Magic History. Now I've got extra homework!" He complains with a groan.
"He's using a sleep spell on us so he can load us up with more work. I just know it!" Grim adds.
"I put a rubber band on my wrist to keep myself awake," Deuce says. "Any time I start to get sleepy, I pull it back and snap it."
"That seems kinda drastic," Ace comments. He sees that Angel started yawning. "Huh, didn't get enough sleep either, Annie?" He asks. "You should've slept in Trein's class then we'd all suffer together." He smirks.
"I'm not a part of that and will be a part of that!" Deuce sternly states. "Anyway, it's not you to be tired this time," he says to her.
"Just didn't sleep well last night, that's all," she says as she tries to recall last night. She remembered waking up from a weird dream, but can't recall the dream clearly, only bits and pieces of it. All she can recall from it is just people, and even if she did try to focus on something about it, nothing becomes clear. "I'll just sleep earlier tonight."
"Whatever you say then," Ace says. "Oh yeah, on another note...Isn't today the day they're announcing who passed the SDC auditions?"
Grim looks around, seeing that some students looked more antsy than before, seeing that they were the students that were at the auditions yesterday. "It's almost lunch break, and we ain't got any news."
"If we haven't gotten anything yet, do you think we're out?" Deuce asks in concern.
Angel turn around to look at the three and give them a small smile. "Let's give it more time," she assures them. As soon as she said that, a whistle was heard, making her wonder where the sound was coming from, turning her head, only for something to fly by close to her, feeling that it barely touched her and a thump was heard.
"WHOA!" Everyone exclaimed at the sight, looking around to figure out what flew by them. "Wh-what was THAT?!" Ace exclaims in shock. "What just flew by?!"
"It buzzed past Angel's head!" Deuce says as he looks in her in concern. "It didn't hit you, right?!"
"No, it didn't..." She says with a sigh of relief, but her eyes catch something sticking out from the wall, something that wasn't there before. Looking at it closely, Angel's eyes widen at what it was. "There's an arrow in the wall!" She exclaims in shock, wondering how in the world an arrow got into the wall, more importantly in the school.
"Myah! An arrow?!" Grim exclaims as he looks at it. "What if there's an assassin out for our blood?!" He shivers.
"Where do you think we are?!" Ace exclaims in shock at his statement. "No way would a school be dangerous for that!" I don't know...we make poisons after all... Ace sees something hanging from the arrow. "Wait, hold up," he says. "This arrow's got a note tied to it."
"Say what?! Is it a challenge?" Deuce angrily says.
"You need to stop assuming everything's a fight," Ace says with a sigh as he takes the note from the shaft of the arrow and unrolls the paper. "Let's see here...'Thank you for taking part in the Song & Dance Championship auditions,'" he reads. "'The following two students have passed our rigorous screening process...Ace Trappola and Deuce Spade. Please report to the Pomefiore ballroom after school today.'" He finishes. "...Wait, what?"
"...We passed?" Deuce asks skeptically.
"WHAAAAAA?!" The three exclaimed in shock at the news.
"Th-that means we got selected for the ensemble, right?" Deuce asks, still confused at the news.
"What else would it mean?" Ace happily says. "Sweet! Now we don't have to help the housewarden!"
"Mrooow!" Grim whines. "What about me?! My performance was top-tier!"
"Ah, hold up," Ace says as he looks over the note again. "There's more. 'P.S.: To Angel of Ramshackle Dorm. We have news for you, so please report to Pomefiore with the two addressees'...That's it."
"Huh?" Angel says in surprise. "What kind of news could it be?"
"I guess we're all heading over to Pomefiore after school," Deuce states.
"Mrrow..." Grim whines. "My four thousand cans of tuna..."
A/N: Not my best written chapter but here we are! Anyway, I got some news for you all, I know that you're tired of these news but I feel like I should say it. So, since this week is officially over, I would like to say that I have currently 4 weeks until the end of the semester for nursing school, however, the problem is that there really isn't enough time to really write and post 4 chapters a week for the remaining few weeks. I have an exam Monday, another one next Monday, and after that exam I have three exams two weeks after that exam, which are my finals, and my last final will be May 1st. It also doesn't help that I have work for my clinical trials so my time will be ABSORBED. As I have said constantly throughout Book 5, nursing school takes up the majority of my time, then working, then relaxing, then writing. The good thing is that up to chapter 27 is written, which is about 3(?) weeks of content, but because my time will be limited to studying and practicing, I might have to temporarily post 2 chapters a week until exams are over. Do know that I'll still be streaming on Fridays, but my time on wattpad is limited from writing for just a while. I can still write chapters, but it'll only probably be one chapter every 3 days as a relaxation technique, and based on that math that's about 2 chapters a week I can write aside from a good 4 chapters a week. Do know this is temporary and I'll be ready to write more in the summer. I'm just suffering atm 😿 (3/23/24)