To Be Proud: Revamped

Chapter 38: Face Value

~Bona~

I had never realized just how lonely a monster could feel by themselves. That was, until Thwok had left the hotel room to go and socialize with the others. As soon as he left, the silence that followed had started to overwhelm me completely. There was no one to talk to, no one to look at, no one to share thoughts with—it was a nightmare in itself. Being in the hotel room alone for even a minute or so was pure torture for me, a kind of agony followed by a lingering emptiness.

For the time being, I laid on the floor and stared up at the ceiling above me. It was painted to match the constellations visible in the night sky, made smaller of course to fit the twelve major star patterns. I stared at the false lights as I thought about the information given, my eyes locking with the constellation for the Earth element: Earthern Eclipse. Something was happening with that island, something unnatural, and I wanted to figure out what. Storms could be made artificially, according to Thwok and proven by Cyro, and I was tempted to apply that knowledge to the situation at hand. What if the storm is artificial, I asked myself. If so, then who or what was forming it and why?

I turned on to my side, glancing under the bed a bit, when my eyes caught sight of a peculiar outline. It seemed like a box of sorts, holding its rectangular shape as it just sat in peace. Curious, I reached my arm underneath the bed to try and retrieve the unfamiliar item. My claws managed to snag on to the object, and with ease I was able to pull it out. Picking the object up in my hands, I realized that it was a book that had been sitting under the bed for years, evident by the amount of dust on the cover. Brushing the dust off, I took a seat on the bed and carefully examined the book I held before me.

The book had a pristine red cover, adorned with printed-on spirals and shimmering like a soft fabric of sorts. Hearts were subtly indented all over the book, many small ones but only one or two larger ones. Sticking out of the hundreds of pages were thousands of tiny red tabs, spanning from those as pastel as pink to colors as deep as maroon. I looked at the title, trying to read the fancy twisty letters that properly identified the book: 20 Hues of Red. Fitting, I thought as I started to flip through the pages and landed on one with a maroon tab.

I had only read one paragraph, and that was all it took for my body to start tensing up. Millions of thoughts ran through my head, some of fear and confusion while others were of genuine curiosity. Though I wasn't sure of what exactly I was reading, feelings of sickness kept banging and bouncing around in my rib cage. I wanted to drop the book right then and there, maybe in fire or in the ocean, just to get it away from me. At the same time, however, I found it entirely difficult to look away from the strange assortment of words on the pages. I shivered, perhaps in horror, but no matter what I tried I could neither put the book down nor avert my eyes from the text.

      "Bona?" I jumped, standing up and trying to grab the book as it hopped around in my hands. Holding the book with a tight grip, I hid it as well as I could behind my spine and spun around to face the monster that had intruded.

      "Oh, K-Kayna, hi!" I tried to seem convincing to her, but she clearly was not buying the disguise.

      "What do you have there?" She pointed at my rib cage, supposedly motioning towards the book I was trying to hide. Hesitantly, I pulled it out from behind me and held it up for her to see.

      "I-I found this under the bed, and I got curious." I glanced away, rubbing the back of my neck, when I felt the book being yanked from my hands. Looking down, I saw that Kayna had taken the book and was red from embarrassment.

      "Th-that would be mine!" she admitted as she backed away a bit. She was looking up at me, and I could see the guilt in her eyes. "How much did you read?"