ST. KATHERINE'S ACADEMY | CHAELISA STORY

IV

Miss Park's POV

I awake to a frantic knocking on the door. Confused and still half asleep, I stumble out of bed and grab my night gown off the back of my desk chair.

"I'm coming!" I say loudly enough for the person knocking at my door to hear, and as I stumble towards the passage way I pull on my night gown and wrap it around myself, tying it around my waist.

I unlock the door and open it, and look down on a wide eyed frantic looking girl.

"Yes, Jisoo?" I ask, feeling myself waking up more quickly now, "what's wrong?"

"It's Lisa, you told me to wake you if she ever had.. you know, a nightmare..." she says, and I notice a slight amount of fear and worry in her voice.

As soon as the words are out her mouth, I push past her and run up the staircase, Jisoo close in pursuit. By the time I've reached the fourth flour, a large percentage of the girls are awake and either standing confused and half awake outside their room door, or are looking around and asking each other what's going on.

"What's going on, Miss?" some of them asks me.

"Nothing girls, go back to your room." I say pushing through the girls hurriedly. Even before I reach the room, I can hear Lisa yelling.

"Girls go back to bed now." I say firmly to three girls peering into room 28, and they reluctantly move away, whispering to each other with wide eyes and frightened looks on their faces. I step into the room and see Somi leaning over Lisa's bed, holding the thrashing girl still and trying to wake her.

"Somi go with Jisoo and tell the girls to get back in their beds." I say and Somi steps away from Lisa, relief flooding her face that an adult has arrived.

I rush to the bed and grab Lisa shoulders and shake them hard.

"Lisa! Lisa wake up!" I shout, struggling to hold her down. Her entire body is drenched in cold sweat and her face in contorted in pain, and somewhere in my heart I feel a tug of hurt and pain for her.

"Come on sweetie, wake up..." I mutter, half my body holding her still while my one hand moves to her face, gently brushing her hair out her face.

The thrashing starts to calm down and so does the moaning, instead she starts shaking and I notice tears slipping out of the corners of her eyes. Carefully, I brush away the tears and continue to gently stroke her face until her eyes open. She sees me, and I see the pain in her eyes. She looks nothing like how she has during class or otherwise, she looks nothing like that strong, hopeful girl walking around. Immediately I scoop her into my arms and she collapses into me, her arms slipping around my waist and her head burrows itself into my chest.

"It's okay, shhhh it's okay..." I whisper softly into her hair, my hand stroking her hair gently as I feel her shaking and the tugging feeling of a cracking heart starts up again in my chest as I hear her gasp in pain.

"It's okay honey.. it's okay.. shhh..." I continue to whisper. I look up and see Jisoo and Somi looking in nervously. I mouth a 'thank you' and gesture for them to close the door, which they do reluctantly.

I sit with Lisa and I continue to hold her and whisper that everything's okay and that she's safe into her dark hair for several minutes. The shaking and gasping slows down to a stop and slowly Lisa pulls away and pulls herself into a sitting position. Tear stains run down her cheeks and her eyes hold so much pain that I feel a hand tighten on my heart, and I resist the urge to brush away the tears dripping off her chin.

"I'm sorry." she whispers, resistant to look at me.

"Oh honey..." I say quietly, moving my hand to rest over hers, causing her to look at me, "you have nothing to be sorry for."