Twisted Wonderland: The Seven Treasures

Twisted Wonderland & The Scars of a Ruler-Part 4

Ruggie's leg bounced up and down under his desk during class. Normally he could sit through a lesson no problem, but today he was feeling anxious, like he'd done something wrong and was going to be punished for it.

As the bell rang, Ruggie sprang out of his seat and out the door, trying to escape the feeling by heading outside.

  Soon, he found himself in the woods behind campus and dropped beside a tree, breathing hard. "Ugh..." he groaned. "I'm exhausted! Gonna take a nap before next class..."

  Leaning back against the tree, Ruggie looked up at the sunlight filtering through the leaves and closed his eyes, slipping into a hazy dream.

  Running across campus, on all fours, jumping through the Mirror of Darkness and landing in the Sunset Savanna...

  Outside of the dream, Ruggìe frowned and twitched, unable to wake himself.

  The dream continued, feeling more real than a dream now, and soon had taken Ruggie to the royal family's house, where he slipped inside and padded through the hall...

~~~~~

  Leona's phone buzzed in his pocket during class and he withdrew it, reading the notification.

  "ROYAL FAMILY OF SUNSET SAVANNA UNDER ATTACK BY WILD ANIMALS!"

  Clicking the notification, Leona opened a live video that showed leopards, lions, monkeys and panthers breaking down the front doors of his brother's house.

  Turning on the captioning, Leona read: "...the animals came through the travel mirror, but it is not yet confirmed where they came from or if this is only a small portion of a larger attack. The animals appeared only a few minutes ago and have already broken down the doors, heading inside..."

  Leona's ears twitched as more phones around the classroom suddenly went off, with dings! and other noises and he looked up as the students withdrew their phones.

  "What's going on?" Professor Trein asked, pausing the lesson.

  "An attack on the royal family of Sunset Savanna." A Heartsabul student said.

  "What?" Trein asked.

  Leona was about to close his phone when he spotted something slipping inside the house through the shadows. A spotted hyena.

  With everyone distracted by the news report, Leona slipped out of the classroom and down the hall, running into Jack.

  "Have you seen?" Jack asked.

  Leona nodded. "Where's Ruggie?" He asked.

  "His class got out early," Jack said. "He could be anywhere."

  Leona held his phone out, showing the paused video with the hyena on it. "This is getting out of hand," he said, closing the phone. "I don't wanna clean this mess up."

  "It's starting to look like your Overblot form will force you to clean it up." Jack said.

  "...let's just find Ruggie." Leona said.

~~~~~

  Ruggie continued to dream, walking down the hall till he reached a room with a closed door.

  No longer on all fours, Ruggie picked the lock and stepped in, relocking the door behind him.

  A child's room, with toys scattered around, looked back at Ruggie.

  A sniffle from around the bed made Ruggie walk over, where he saw Leona's nephew, Cheka, curled up with his knees to his chest and tear stains on his checks.