Creatures of Unknown Worlds

Chapter V - Cecilia

"Cecilia! You have to come look at this!"

Cecilia stirred in her new bed.

"CiCi!"

Felix was calling her. How?

Cecilia opened her eyes. She tried to look around, but couldn't– she couldn't move her head. She couldn't move anything. Her breathing got heavier. It felt like there was something sitting on top of her.

Why is it so hard to breathe?

She saw something out of the corner of her eye. She couldn't make out what it was, but she knew it was looking at her. Not just looking, it was staring and smiling. The room was darker than it should have been; almost pitch black. The thing's eyes were glowing.

What is that?

She tried to close her eyes, but she felt like she was paralyzed; she couldn't do anything. She tried to call out, but she couldn't speak.

Oh.

Now she knew what was going on. She focused on breathing rhythmically and focused on her hands; she moved each finger one by one until she could move her whole hand. But that was enough. The thing disappeared and the room lightened a little–it was still dark– and she was finally able to close her eyes. When she opened them again, she noticed one of her new roommates looking at her from the bunk bed across the room.

"Are you okay?" She whispered. Cecilia could only guess that her bunk-mate was still sleeping.

She whispered back, "Yeah, I'm okay. Just a nightmare."

The other girl got up and walked over to Cecilia. She sat down on the bed and the blonde sat up.

"I'm Mila. What's your name, new kid?" She asked and then put her dark brown hair up in a ponytail.

"Cecilia. I go by Cici. Did I wake you?" Cecilia hugged her legs to her chest.

"No, I woke up way earlier but I couldn't go back to sleep. What was goin' on? You sure that was just a nightmare?" Mila asked, and to Cecilia she seemed a bit concerned.

"Yeah, no, sometimes I wake up and can't move and it's like my nightmares come to life. It usually happens after some sort of major change." Cecilia explained.

"Sounds like you have sleep paralysis. Have you met Archie yet? She has it sometimes." Mila said.

"Yeah, I've met Archie. She's so young though, how does she have it?" Cecilia wondered out loud.

"It's a trauma response, really. She was put into this orphanage in quite a violent way. But, let's not talk about that– I want to introduce you to some of the girls here." Mila changed her expression from rather sad to excited. "Is that okay?"

"Yeah, I don't mind. Isn't it kind of early though?" Cecilia asked as Mila got up from the bed and slipped on a pair of shoes.

"Well, some of the girls get up early, like me, and Princy usually has breakfast at six for us. For other girls, though," She indicated both girls on the top bunks, "he has breakfast at nine. Everyone is supposed to be awake by then."

"What do we do when we're all awake?"

"We can go out or stay here."

"We can go out?" Cecilia asked Mila, she'd never been able to 'go out' other than to go to school. Mila clarified that they could. "I've never walked around outside before. What do we do when we go out?" Cecilia asked.

"Princy doesn't care about what we do, as long as we make it back before dark. From the view we have here, though, we can see the city and the water really, really nicely." Mila explained. She guestered for Cecilia to follow her, so the blonde put on some slippers and went with Mila.

From the looks of it, Princy was doing everything– cleaning, doing dishes, making breakfast– by himself. Cecilia thought this was odd.

"How many girls live here?" She asked her new friend.

"I'm not sure, but there's not too many. There's a reason it's called a 'home' and not 'orphanage'." Mila tried to explain.

Once again, Cecilia thought that was weird.

"Huh. I guess that makes sense. So what do you do when you go out?" She asked.

"Well, usually me and my bunkmate go to the shop. We work there." Mila said.

"You have jobs?" Cecilia was now starting to love living here.

A new world and more freedom? This place is perfect for us. If they ever try to move us again, we should fake our death. Actually, maybe not, that seems extreme.

Cecilia muttered under her breath, "You don't say."

"Hmm?" Mila asked.

"Nothing. Talkin' to myself."

"Oh-kay. You should come with me and Emery. She's my bunkmate." Mila suggested.

"Yeah, that sounds cool. What's my bunkmate's name?" Cecilia was curious about everything at this point.

"Her name is Flora. She has an older sister who isn't here anymore, she got too old and had to move out."

"Oh, that's sad." Cecilia said.

"Yeah. Flora was really close with her sister. They still meet up sometimes, but she told me that she feels more distant."

"Interesting."

The two ate breakfast together, and while they were trying to leave, Princy stopped them both at the door.

"Now, now. Mila, you need to tell Cecilia about the rules we have outside." He said.

"Oh-kay, Cici, there are a few rules... um, one: we can have jobs, but they can only be part time and we can only have one at a time... two, no usage of powers... and lastly, we can't talk to any adults on the streets." Mila explained.

Powers? What? This place gets weirder and weirder every day...

"Alright."

A/N
I'm sorry this chapter is so short 😭 I've been having trouble writing lately cuz of writers block but I promise I'll get back into it!!!