A/N: Hey, I think this is the first chapter ever without Piper's POV at all! Tell me if you guys want more like this.
Also, tell me if things went too fast in this. Reading it, I thought the chapter was too fast paced, but I'm also tired and really wanting to get this chap out.
Quinn's POV:
I took off my glasses, wiping them with my shirt. Being close to the fire had caused them to fog up.
"Okay," I turned to Ace, setting the glasses back on the bridge of my nose. "What is so important that you dragged me away for it? The others are probably wondering where we went." Ace sucked her upper lip between her teeth, a bad habit of hers. Nobody could even tell she was doing it unless you already knew about it.
"Don't do that!" I lightly hit her arm and she released it. "Why are you nervous?"
"C'mon," She grabbed my arm and pulled me up the stairs, stopping underneath the pull out stairs for the attic.
"Up there?" I asked and he nodded. Jumping to grab onto the side of the trapdoor, I pushed down on it while my feet dangled above the floor. When it gave way I jumped back and Ace caught the steps before they hit the ground, slowly placing them down.
Once in the attic she moved to the very back of it, grabbing something before moving forward.
"What is that?" I asked.
"It's a drawer, probably from a filing cabinet."
"And you would care about files, why?"
"Look, there were two of these." She started. "One was more recent.. It had files of the Residents in it."
"Wait, what?" Instead of answering, Ace sat down and pulled out some files, silently handing them to me. I paced as I opened them, reading what was written.
Katja (Kitty) Darwin.
Female
Hair: Light brown
Eyes: Brown
Known relatives: Kennedy Darwin
Background:
She and her twin grew up in an upper middle class family. They were the only children of their parents and when Rebels attacked, the twins, along with Kitty's childhood friend Pepper, were the only known people to escape and live to tell the tale.
"So that's why those two are so close.." Ace muttered as she read over my shoulder.
"Is there one for all of them?" I looked back at her.
"Pretty sure," She grabbed another file.
"Zigella (Ziggy) Morfin" She read out.
"Hair- Black. Eyes- Black... Known relatives... Zagmor (Zag) Morfin?"
"Zigzag, huh?" I chuckled lightly.
"Guess the two of them got separated. Can't even imagine what that'd be like." Ace mumbled, continuing. "Hey.. Quinn? Oakland and Morgan ain't in here."
"What?" I asked. "Let me see." I skimmed through the files, and sure enough they weren't any. "Are their any other drawers?"
"Yeah... but.."
"But?"
"It's full of names I don't recognize." Ace moved back to where she found the first one, pulling out an identical metal drawer. I looked through the names at the top.
"Salem, Morrey, Luna, Samantha, who are these people?" I furrowed my eyes brows in confusion as I read them all.
"Hey, wait, go back." Ace stopped me as I flicked through them. I went back and my eyes widened. Pulling out two files I read the paper that was printed on the top of them.
Greenwood Valley Orphanage
With wide eyes, Ace read out the top name.
"Piper Woods..." She muttered. There was a picture of a girl in the corner, faded with time. She had a blank look on her face as she stared at the camera. Her eyes seemed cold, almost lifeless. Floppy auburn hair framed her face, held back by a red cloth that, if removed, looked like it would cause the hair to slam into her forehead. There were scars on her face, much more then there are now, and one very visible nasty bruise under her eye.
"This must've been what they were talking about, from when this place was an Orphanage." Ace thought out loud.
"C'mon, we should find them." I grabbed the files and ran down the stairs, Ace behind me. After looking searching the house, we found Micha still sitting by the Bonfire.
She was with Donnie and Tomi.
"How do you say... thank you?" Donnie asked. Tomi raised one hand to his lips, making sure it was straight, before moving it down in Donnie's direction.
"Oh! What about-"
"Micha!" I cut her off.
"Yeah?" She turned to look at us. "Do you know where your sister is, we need to talk to you."
"Last I saw she was with Merlin." She shrugged. "What do you need to talk about?"
"Not here," Ace glanced back at the house. "C'mon, we'll show you."
"Alright, then..." Micha narrowed her eyes at us before turning back to her friends. "I'll see you guys later."
Merlin's POV:
"Okay, okay." I gasped after laughing too much. "What's your favorite snack food?"
"Well, I know yours is Cake." Piper smiled and I rolled my eyes.
"Don't tell me it's cookies. Especially chocolate chip. Everybody always says chocolate chip."
She shrugged, "I've only had it a few times, but I like brownies."
"Ooh, good choice." I smirked.
"What's the first spell you ever learned?" Piper asked as she stared up at the starry sky. We had been wandering the halls until we saw someone had left the attic ladder down. After going up and closing it, she found out you could climb from the big window all the way to the roof of the Safe House. It had the perfect view of the forest and the starry sky.
"Levitating," I said without hesitation. "I drove my parents mad by constantly making things float. I didn't exactly understand the concept of death until I was five, so the one time we had to go to a funeral I thought the guy was taking a nap and.."
"Merl.." Piper glanced at me.
"I may have tried to lift the body out of the coffin.." I grinned sheepishly and she burst out laughing. Her fit of laughter brought a warm smile to my face and I couldn't stop grinning.
"You were the nightmare child, and I was the kid from Hell." She mused. "It's a perfect match." Piper slung her arm around my shoulders and I did the same, grinning like an idiot.
"Okay, my turn. What're your favorite flowers?" The grin immediately dropped from Piper's face and I feared I said something wrong.
"You're gonna make fun of me."
"No I won't," I promised. "My favorite flowers are blue lilies, the lighter kind. See? A guy liking flowers, what could be worse than that? It's pathetic!"
"It's adorable," She raised an eyebrow at me and I looked away, hoping I wasn't blushing.
"Okay, fine! Don't laugh..." Piper took a deep breath. "I like dead roses."
I paused for a moment. "Dead?"
"Yes, dead." She started. "Not only do I find something sickly beautiful about them, but they mean something to me."
"In this world, anything can happen. It only takes a matter of seconds for your whole life to fall apart, it only takes one choice to send someone to their doom. Friends, family, all of them can disappear."
"I people always say you can count on them, but that's not true. They can't control life, and they can't control what life does to them. In this world, you can't be sure of anything, but..." She paused from her rant and took in a gulp of air.
"But at the end of the day, you can always count on a dead flower to stay dead. And that thought helps me." When she finished Piper was looking down.
"That was.." I trailed off.
"Stupid? A waste of breath? Weird-?"
"Beautiful." I finished. Her head snapped up, eyes wide in shock. Her silver Iris' reflected the star-lit sky. They almost seemed to glow even when she wasn't doing it on purpose. I noticed that, although it was barely viable, she did have some freckles. Unlike Nixie who had them littered all around her cheeks, Piper only had a few at the corner of her eye, under them and on the other side of it.
A strand of black rolled out from her auburn hair and she tucked it back.
"You're a strange, strange person, Wizard-dog." She smiled.
I smirked at her. "Well you're even stranger Bright eyes."
"Guys!" Someone called out from below. Glancing at each other, we turned to where we had come up from.
"Wait here," I told her. Slowly lowering myself to my stomach, I began climbing down the roof. While doing that, however, I saw something go past me.
Piper slid down, catching herself on the end of the roof before she got hurt.
"Piper!" I hissed and she rolled her eyes. Momentarily taking my eyes of my feet, I ended up grabbing onto a loose tile. "Woah!" Stumbling back, I would've fallen off the roof if she didn't grab the back of my cloak.
Dangling in front of the barn window, I was faced with Quinn, Ace and Micha.
"Uh, hey guys." I chuckled sheepishly. Piper swung me into the attic and I landed with a grunt. Once I was in she came down too, landing gracefully.
"What'dya need?" She asked. Quinn stepped forward, pushing up her glasses.
"Have you ever heard of Greenwood Valley Orphanage?" Piper froze and a sharp intake of breath could be heard from Micha.
"Where did you hear that name?" Micha clenched her jaw, probably biting back a growl.
Without a word, Ace moved to the side of the attic and, with her foot, slid forward a cabinet drawer.
I tensed as I saw Piper's reaction, her face was emotionless but there was pain in her eyes. Suddenly, as if realization had dawned on her, her eyes widened and a grin slowly grew on her face.
I furrowed my brows, Why is she happy? I mean, it's good she is, but I thought she would've been-
Stopping, I internally smacked my own head.
Great, now I'm talking to myself.
"Our files," She breathed. "Micha, we can finally see our files!" Laughing, she scooped up her sister in a hug.
"You're... happy?" Quinn questioned.
"You guys don't get it," Micha shook her head. "In an orphanage, if you get dumped off at a young age, you have nothing. Piper was lucky, she had her necklace and a couple memories." Piper looked away as she said that.
Not just 'a couple'.
"But to most of us, we had nothing to say who we were." She continued. "Sure, we'd have to figure that out ourselves, but we had no family. No home. No 'Origin story'. Our files were the only evidence that we were even real and not just something someone dreamt up!"
"We weren't allowed to see them." Piper carried on. "But now..." She smirked and in the blink of an eye, pulled out a file.
"Let's see," She cleared her throat. "Piper Woods, Age: 3, that was about the time the file was made, Parents: Unknown, Other living relatives: Also Unknown. Height... Yadda, yadda, yadda. Social security number.. Boring." Piper huffed. "You know, I thought this would be a lot more fun then it actually is..." She flipped through the pages of the file.
"Ah, here we go!" She grinned before her eyes widened. "Holy Nether.. Check this out!" I went to stand behind Piper. "Looks like I was sent to three different places before Greenwood. And I got moved for..." Piper trailed off and I read what it said.
"Scaring children? Disrupting staff? Wh-" My eye bulged as I read the next reason. "Causing children to perform an exorcism?!"
Piper rolled her eyes.
"Right? How is that my fault? They're the ones who decided to do it." I stared at her in disbelief as she laughed. "I'm kidding. I must've been a baby, I don't even remember being in other Orphanages."
"Wait, is my file in there?" Micha perked up.
"Let me see." Piper crouched down and skimmed through the files. Smirking, she took one out and opened it up. "Yup, it's right here an-" She cut herself off and her jaw dropped.
"What? What is it? Let me see!" Micha tried to get closer but she just backed up.
"Piper?" Quinn asked worriedly.
"Mich.. Your name.."
"Wait, does it have my last name?" Her ears stood up. "Nobody ever told us our last names. You were one of the few who remembered, but after we ran away I never got to know mine."
"Sis, it's not your last name I'm looking at." Piper shook her head slowly, eyes still wide.
Micha scrunched her forehead.
"What? What are you talking about?"
"Micha..."
"You're real name isn't Micha."
A/N: Okay, it's been a while.
So school started, my Wattpad app freaked out for about two weeks straight where I had to keep deleting and re installing it in order for it to work, so I barely could write. Then I started planning a big story, and now I'm sick. I had a fever just a few days ago.
So, yeah. It's been eventful.
I know what comes next, I just don't know how to speed it up without going too fast. Which is the opposite problem I'm having with other book.
But, I'm gonna say this.
In, like, an hour there's going to (If everything goes well) be a new book up.
And it's gonna be an Original story.
SO, that's kinda terrifying and exciting at the same time. It's about weird families, not-so-stereotypes, and supers. Oh, and there's a dog. You can never go wrong with adding a dog. Or any animal, for that matter.
It'll be called 'Death's Trials' so if that sounds interesting, then you can check that out.
Yup, just some good ol' post-absence self promotion.
Seriously, though. I know I've been MIA recently, and I think it might be on and off like that for a while.
I can tell when I'm on a roll, and when I'm in a slump.
And let me tell you, right now I am not on a roll.
Hopefully that clears things up.
I am not going to be discontinuing or going on hiatus or whatever. Updates just might be a little slower than they have been for the past months.
And until next time,
I'll catch you guys on the Interweb,
BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!
-Onci <3