Spiderman From the Ashes : Volume One

Chapter Eleven - The Dream*

Piper had been taken inside the school. As an employee, Arisu still had the keys to the staff room where she could reactivate the fuses in the power box. Allowing the school to light up once again. Vicky knew she couldn't leave the girl there alone, her first action was to call the kid's parental guardians. Unfortunately, all she heard was static from the other line. She called again, static again. Until it worked.

The child felt herself being carried by strangers who wanted to shelter her. She had only one single thought, one single dream.

She couldn't remember her mother's face; even if she tried to force the memory, her beautiful features were torn and distorted by bleeding ink. The sweetness of her voice and the lavender scent from her perfume had faded from her recollection.

The vision of her mother twirling her gaze over the Piper's knee wounds was the only thing she could recognize from her blurred memories.

She felt as if she were finally remembering whether she was real or not. The a florescent cold light streamed in, illuminating the Piper's face. It wasn't supposed to happen this way, considering her room didn't have a lamp or ceiling lamps.

Piper's eyelids fought to continue sleeping, she didn't wanted to be awake. She wanted to be dream about mom all day. When she lifted up, she realized that wasnt on her own bed. but in cold, harsh surface, like a chair. She took her time to analyze the scenario she found herself in. 

Florescent lights flickered every few moments, as if it was about to stop working. But the only people near them, ensuring their comfort as much as possible, were two women.

"Welcome back." Vicky said, as Piper gazed around the corridor, seemingly she felt familiar. The same temperature, the same old scent of moldy stucco walls.

"I've called your sister. She is going to get you."

"They could lose custody of the kid..." the woman mumbled.

A few tens of minutes passed, piercing through like sharp knives of truth, until a woman arrived from the other side of the door, yelling. When Arisu unlocked the door with the golden keys, a well-dressed woman entered the room. Her gaze fell upon Piper, who didn't seem comfortable with her presence. "Darling, I'm sorry I took so long; I had a lot of appointments." 

"Did they did anything wrong with you? Are you fine?" the woman asked.

"Yeah...I'm."

The meeting with them had been incredibly awkward, and Arisu was certain she would offer a sincere apology. However, instead, she launched into a rehearsed speech about commitments—the same souless excuses she'd been using for weeks. Although it wasn't entirely within her control, she recognized the need to take action.

When the sisters left, Arisu switched off the power box, plunging the corridor into complete darkness—the same lights that had once illuminated the set now extinguished.

After securing the school's front door with chains, Vicky descended the stairs alongside Arisu, who stowed the master keys in his pocket. As the day drew to a close, Arisu couldn't shake a persistent thought.

She sensed that her sister wasn't entirely forthright about the delays in picking up Piper. It was as if Vicky were evading the responsibility of caring for the little kid.

Arisu didn't want to embody that kind of person, especially not someone with ten years younger than her.

The "Yeah...I'm" didnt feel honest.