Previously on NIGHTMARE:
There shouldn't be any consequences." She grinned. "I'm sure they'll love to hear about this new development."
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"Looks like everything's packed. All I have to do is ask Vaughn to move." Seraphina said, stretching. John rolled his eyes.
"You didn't think to ask him before?" he asked.
"None of this was really thought out though. I mean, I just need to get away from Elaine and Arlo. Besides, there's no way Vaughn could say no." she said. "I'm gonna go ask him. Wait here for me?" John nodded. Seraphina took off onto the courtyard and turned the corner into the building. He stood there, hoping it wouldn't take too long, after all, Seraphina was pretty fast.
It must've been 10 minutes while he waited outside the girl's dorms when a familiar redhead jogged past the residential buildings. Blyke saw John standing with the suitcases. He pulled out an earbud and walked over to him. "Hey, John, right?" John looked up from his phone. Seeing the face of Wellston's Jack brought back a storm of bad memories from the "dream" that he'd had not too long ago. Needless to say, his reaction to Blyke's presence wasn't pleasant.
"Yeah." he said curtly.
"Are you moving into the dorms or something? Because the boy's dorms are over there..." He trailed off seeing the nasty look on John's face.
"I'm waiting for someone." he replied gruffly. Blyke was about to ask who he was waiting on but stopped himself, noticing that John was in no mood to talk.
"Well he didn't have to be such a jerk about it." Blyke remarked internally. John looked up from his cell phone again and saw Seraphina stroll out of the doors and wave at John.
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"I guessed that you'd have some luggage, but why so many bags?" John said, heaving one up the steps.
"Where did you think all those clothes from our mall trips went? I need to get rid of some though. I think I have some clothes from last year." Seraphina said, unlocking the door.
"Well I wear clothes from three years ago-" John deadpanned internally. Seraphina stood inside the apartment and looked around.
"Nice place. Sure must be good to have this much room." John leaned the luggage against the wall and stood behind Seraphina. She moved over to his punching bag and noticed the boxing gloves on the table. "You spend a lot of time practicing self defense?"
"Yeah, it's great to let off steam." He glanced back at the bags. "I have a small room for storage. We can put your stuff there." Seraphina nodded and lifted several bags at once, effortlessly. "She's strong!" he thought, watching her move them over.
"Do you have any spare sheets I could use? I hate to ask for so much but the bedding I used before was issued with the dorms." she asked him, tucking the last of the bags in the corner of the room. Surprisingly, the bags took up little space.
"Oh, I was assuming you'd use my bed. I have extra sheets though." John replied, disappearing into the hall to find them.
"I don't mind sleeping on the couch like I do everytime I stay over. No biggie." He nodded, listening to her from the hallway. He returned with a blanket and some pillows. "Thanks." she said, taking them from him. She dropped them over with the bags and returned to face John. "So, this is where I'll be staying for a while, huh." she stated, grinning.
"I guess it is."
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Blyke's run-in with John had put him out for a bit but he quickly remembered that he was meeting Remi and Isen at the girl's dorms to plan their EMBER investigation. The three of them had agreed to work on it together but deep down, Blyke knew that what they were doing was dangerous. His initial plan had been to join Remi in an attempt to stop her but he soon realized that there was no trying to stop her. Her desire for vengeance was too far for him to reason with her. Even so, he was willing to do this, after all, it was for Remi. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to lose someone close, only to have everyone move on without justice. He saw Isen at the other side of the hallway as they both walked to Remi's door and he noticed that Isen looked just as exhausted as Blyke felt. "I'm guessing he was just as surprised as I was." Blyke thought.
Isen got there first and knocked on the door, which Remi opened instantly. "Uhh, you two look awful." Remi remarked. Blyke tossed her the drawstring bag that he was carrying.
"Here. Take this." Remi looked at the both of them with a questioning look. "You wanna be a superhero, right? Then you gotta do it right!" She grinned, looking at the bag. "They brought clothes!"
Remi stood in her bedroom and pulled the clothing out of the bag, holding it up. She smiled awkwardly as she took a closer look at it. Isen on the other hand was blunt.
"What the hell is this crap?! You just put a bunch of masking tape on a sweatshirt! A five year-old could have done better!"
"Www- hey! AT least I brought something!" Blyke retorted. "What did you do, huh? Asshole!" Remi waved her arms between the two, trying to lighten the mood.
"It's not too bad! I'll go try it on." Remi disappeared into the bathroom while Blyke and Isen sat beside each other.
"I take it you didn't get much sleep either?" Blyke commented as Isen yawned.
" 'Course not. This whole superhero thing is too much for me to take in." he replied. Isen fished for his phone for a moment. "OH, BY THE WAY..." He tapped on his screen before showing it to Blyke. "In case you didn;t know what a superhero was supposed to look like, here's an example." Blyke examined the picture of the young man with teal hair using a lightning ability. "X-static. Her brother."
His eyes snapped back up to Isen. "Look, I did what I could. It's fine! She said she liked it!"
"She was just being nice. We could've bought a better one honestly.
Remi stepped out of the bathroom, clad in the 'costume' Blyke has made. A dusky red woolen cap and a black sweatshirt with the letter 'X' designed in masking tape. The look was completed with a medical mask and boots. "Alrighty guys! How is it." The two boys cringed.
"WHAT THE F*CK. She looks like a sick little kid!"
"Okay, that's pretty terrible."
"I think the 'X' is good, but it needs more personality." she decided. She walked over to her desk and pulled out a marker. Blyke and Isen watched from behind her as she scribbled something onto her mask. She spun around to face them with the mask back on, now sporting a cute, illustrated bear mouth and nose. "Tah-dah! Completed the 'homemade look', don't you think?"
Blyke smiled weakly and Isen looked horrified.
Despite the clothing mishap, the three set off to work researching potential targets. Sometime into their search, Isen piped up with a result.
"Hey, what about this guy?" he said, motioning to his laptop. Remi shuffled over and looked at Isen's computer screen. A middle aged man with lavender hair and a strange grin was in a picture alongside his information.
"Waldo, age 35, with a shockwave ability leveled 2.8." Remi read aloud. "Causing trouble in Branish, a low-tier district." Isen looked at her expectantly. "That's pretty far from here. They won't be able to recognize our abilities."
"Looks like he's been doing this for a while... the authorities haven't responded."
"Even a 2.8 is threatening to a low-tier district. We can get our name out." She looked at Blyke. "Hey, what do you thin-"
Blyke, who was tired from keeping awake all night, had softly fallen asleep against the desk.
"Seriously? Lazy bum." Isen remarked.
"He must've been really tired." Remi said softly. She smiled mischievously and looked at Isen, who instantly caught on. She popped off a marker cap and they got to work drawing on his face.
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Claire took a seat on the floor of her room, cross-legged. She shut her eyes and tried to clear her mind. Throughout her years in middle school, she'd trained with her ability and grew finer control over it so as to stop the random visions that appeared in her mind. Almost all of them were about John.
Months after the incident, her mind was wrecked but the damage he had caused and she couldn't stand it. Eventually, he gained enough power to willingly see visions. Apart from that, she was able to send others telepathic messages, although they were short and vague and almost always incomplete. She recalled the first time she tried it out, sending a message to Adrion. She soon realized that she needed a strong bond with whoever it is she wished to communicate with in order to send them a vision.
She took a breath in and tried to focus in on John's future. Slowly, like a camera zooming in, she was just able to hone in on a blurry view of him at Wellston. She was about to check his safety but the vision shifted quickly without her doing, almost like a film being switched in a projector. Instead, she found herself looking at a group of three strangers. She picked them out to be a pink-haired girl and two boys. Whoever they were, they had to have some sort of connection to John.
The second thing she picked up on was that the girl was fighting someone. Whoever it was, they were getting beaten badly. Claire snapped out of her dreamlike state and returned to the present of her own room. She sighed, disappointed that she was unable to reach John. She grabbed her keys and stood up to leave, hoping that whoever she saw in her vision made it out okay.
Chapter 10 (1672 words)
anna's A/N: hey guys :D
I've been away for a while and I haven't been able to upload since I wasn't able to contact EZ for some time. sorry about that! to make up for it, this chapter is extra long. I'm working on setting aside time to write NIGHTMARE and we have a lot of interesting stuff planned for the story plot. thanks for reading, have a lovely day!
♥