ᴍᴀʀᴠᴇʟɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜ「 ˢᵒᵏᵉᵉᶠᵉ 」

𝓲. 𝘖𝘙𝘐𝘎𝘐𝘕 𝘚𝘛𝘖𝘙𝘠

Five years earlier...

Mr. Forkle didn't know what he was doing. And it wasn't the first time.

In his many years of watching Sophie Foster grow up, he hadn't expected it to come to this. Hadn't expected ghosts to come hunting his creation, disrupting the crucial timeline he'd set up for her.

She wasn't supposed to know about their world until she was older. Much older.

Instead, he found her strapped to a chair in a damp, moldy hideout. He hadn't had the stomach to look at her at first, the girl in front of him was different from the girl who he'd allowed to go to the Lost Cities with Fitz Vacker.

Pulling an elixir from his pocket, he uncorked it and prayed that it worked. It was a healing potion that would hopefully remove all, if not most, of the scars she'd acquired in the time she'd spent in this hell.

"Don't struggle, Sophie," he muttered when she began waking up and struggled with him, "I'm going to get you out of here."

Stiffening, she allowed him to carry her and he really couldn't express how relieved he was that she'd cooperated with him.

"Dex," she suddenly said, remembering the boy who was taken with her.

"I'll come back for him."

"No." She adamantly grunted, fighting with him.

Sighing, he shook his head as he went back to find the boy, "You kids are so difficult."

"Dex," and that was all she kept on saying.

Growling, they found the boy, but it took long enough that he was sure that the Neverseen knew he was there. He wasn't very stealthy, this mission was supposed to be in and out—grab the girl and go.

Juline would have been pissed, but she knew the consequences.

"Hang on to me," he ordered as he grabbed the boy and slung him over his shoulder. "If I have to carry two of you, you have to pull some of your own weight."

He felt her grip on him tighten as he began running again, silently making his escape with the children.

Children.

This was why Project Moonlark was supposed to keep that crucial timeline.

Because right now all the desired players in his ballgame were all children. Too young to see or do the necessary things that this world would require to be saved.

"Who are you?" She whispered into his ear as they hit fresh air.

They were in the Forbidden Cities so the air wasn't as pure as he would have liked, but it was better than that putrid air down from where they came from.

"It's not important." He stated tightly.

"Why are you helping me?"

Rolling his eyes, he was tired of all her incessant talking. "It's my job."

Watching her face morph into a frown, he didn't think she knew that she was glowering at him.

"How long have we been gone?"

Blowing a raspberry, he scoffed, "It took us ten days to find you."

They searched everywhere and anywhere they could, leaving no stone unturned.

He felt her freezing up again and beginning to panic, so he did the only thing he could think of.

He was going to drug her.

"Swallow," he ordered as he began to pour another elixir down her throat, her resistance more of an annoyance to him rather than an effort to make him stop pouring the sedative. "Swallow, Sophie."

And when that was done, he moved to the boy to drug him too. When they woke up they would be fine and that was all that mattered.

"Okay the medicine will take about an hour to work, and then you'll be back on your feet. That is the best I can do. You kids will have to take care of yourselves from here on out." He bluffed.

Because when the sedative knocked them out, he was going to have their memories wiped and finally have that chance to relocate Sophie.

"What?" He heard her hiss, "Don't go," she begged.

"I've been here too long as it is."

"Please don't leave me," she continued to beg, but her pleas fell on deaf ears as she began to lose consciousness.

When he was sure that she was out of it completely, he placed his fingers on her temple as he tried to erase the past months from her mind. And he gasped when he realized that he couldn't.

It shouldn't have been possible, but she was somehow blocking him when he'd specifically carved his own path in her brain to grant him access.

Realizing that he was getting nowhere, the best thing that he could do was blur everything. It was difficult, and it wouldn't only blur the memories of the past months—but everything.

He could either blur everything, or erase everything with the failsafe he'd engraved in her mind.

But he would just blur everything because if everything was erased she'd not only forget about her life and who she is, but it would change everything about her. The feeling of not remembering being loved, not remembering having a home or a warmth from those closest to her.

After he'd finished with that, he moved to Dexter Dizznee and proceeded to alter his memories. No one was supposed to know that Sophie Foster existed, but it was too late for that, so he would have to settle for the next best thing.

Sophie Foster was dead. And she was never going back to the Lost Cities.