Promised Land

[9] Everything Is Still Bad

The clock in the hallway doesn't have a right to tick loudly, Ranboo thinks, staring at Sister Agnes.

Even though he can't recognize her face at all-- he tries to avoid it, by looking at her eyebrows, the mole on her face that stands out the most, the air around her head, back down to the notebook she held-- he stands still, looking at her.

She looks back at him, holding the notebook.

Tick, tock. With his door wide open, the sound of the grandfather clock that he usually tunes out is deafening.

He doesn't know what to say. His mind goes blank for a second.

"You-- you found my journal."

Sister Agnes holds it tightly. She doesn't have a ruler. But Ranboo is still afraid, and feels himself shrink down on himself.

"Yes. Yes, I did." Her grip is iron-tight on the binding of the journal. "Under your pillow, like it always has been."

"Ah." He didn't move it from its spot-- she.

Oh.

Oh, Sister Agnes took my journal, echoes through his head. Bounces.

He's cold. His hands are sweaty and shaky. He feels like the world is shrinking around him.

Tick, tock.

"I was curious about these boys you said you had met over the summer, at the park." Sister Agnes starts. She doesn't move. It's more foreboding that she doesn't move, she doesn't feel real, she feels more two-dimensional than ever before. "Sister Anne told me it was fine for you to make friends, and that, from what she heard, they were two good boys."

Ranboo gulps. He knows where it's going but also he doesn't know what she means but he knows what's coming.

"I put my trust in her. But I was still, admittedly, curious." She takes a few steps in, her nose crinkles at the pile of sheets up on his bed tangled together, the desk drawer he's opened and tossed out half the contents of on the floor, the dresser drawer hanging open. "It's my duty here to keep all of you children safe and make sure you grow into men and women of God, Ranboo. That's what I swore I would do to the Bishop." She opens his notebook.

His memories flood back. Bad memories. Young boys whispering and giggling at night. He wakes up slowly, but when he turns his head, they're holding flashlights over a notebook. His journal. Making fun of his writing, his handwriting, how he can't remember anything.

He yelps in shock, and the other boys gasp loudly, too, and the light flickers out to darkness. It blinds him a bit.

"Give it back!" He cries out, blinking through the darkness of the room.

More laughter. It's thrown, it hits him in the face. Nothing breaks, but it stings.

"It was a very interesting day, one I don't want to forget." Sister Agnes reads his words aloud. Taunting him. "Tommy and Tubbo and I were at the park, when we were attacked by something that wasn't a squirrel like I thought."

He's shaking. His legs feel like jelly. They might give out under him.

They do.

His knees are going to bruise after hitting the floor that hard, but he's not really in control of his body. His anxiety is. His nerves are. Everything else feels like it's shutting down.

"They were able to get us away, to Tommy's house. Phil was there. He explained everything to me. Magic exists, apparently. And the thing that attacked us was called a dream on." She pronounces the last word funny, definitely on purpose, in a mocking tone.