The Dancing Ghost ★ Edward Cullen

xii. Silent carol

Time ticked away into december and Anastasia had only remembered that it was Christmas when she woke up one morning to Meredith and James arguing about where to put the Christmas tree and in the blink of an eye, it was the twenty fourth of decembre.

She was involuntary humming a christmas song that was repeated everywhere she went, from her car radio to the stores in London, much to her annoyance.

After almost slipping a few times on the snowy streets, she finally made it to the ballet studio. She shoved some snow away from the front door and went in, removing her scarf and gloves and placing them back in her bag.

She was instantly suffocated by a hug by Jenny and they both fell back from the force of it.

"Jenny!" Anastasia laughed and hugged her back with equal force.

"Happy Christmas Stace!" Jenny said making Anastasia give her a confused look.

"I mean- Merry Christmas!" She corrected after recalling what she said.

Anastasia laughed, grabbing a small gift wrapped box from her bag, "Happy Christmas Jenn!"

"Oh you didn't have to!" Jenny said as she took the small box, "I didn't get you anything!"

Anastasia smiled as they walked up the stairs to the changing rooms, "Don't worry about it, it's nothing major."

Jenny took out the small bracelet with the pointe shoes charm, giving Anastasia another hug.

"It's adorable! Thank you so much Stace"

Anastasia smiled at her reaction, happy that she liked it as she helped her put it on.

Today's practice was early in the day since it's Christmas and everyone will be busy at night and Anastasia had no issue to the changement since she didn't have university today.

The two ballerinas entered the room where everyone else was, surrounding Oksana as she spoke to them.

"From now on we'll start training on stage once a week or more for the swan lake performance," The old lady announced to the crowd.

Anastasia felt a mix of fear and excitement as the performance date approached. She checked her watch before removing it and putting it aside to start training.

It was going fine until it wasn't.

It was near the end of the training hours and Anastasia was beyond exhausted from the countless of times she had repeated the white swan 'pas de deux' choreography of act 2.

She felt her anxiety eat her from the inside out when she was told to repeat it again. She thought she had perfected it when she was training at home last night. Did she have enough time to be perfect till the performance?

She looked at the large mirror across the large room as she repeated the dance again and her breath quickened when she saw a deep wound on her lower abdomen, slowly pouring red down her clothes.

Anastasia felt like throwing up as she saw the blood in the mirror, it reminded her of the crime scene of her parent's death although there wasn't any blood back then on the scene... She continued the dance perfectly, too scared to stop as if something was waiting for her to.

She was nearing the end of the choreography with dread, she recognized the melody that was near the final one. She didn't want it to stop just to repeat it again, she was sick of it.

"It's perfect now, keep it this way." Oksana said once the music stopped, even with praise her tone was harsh.

Anastasia was shaking in her ground making John, the dancer with the role of the prince, look at her with confusion.