When the Lion Roars [House of Anubis]

seven. Fast Forward

Three weeks had passed since the day that everyone had arrived. Things had mostly been running smoothly in the house, no massive fights, no strange mystery. Sibuna had not had to reunite yet, but they did have a small meeting mainly to catch up on things within the first week. It was then that Eddie returned Nina's locket, seeing as it was no use to him after he lost his powers on graduation day.

Arabella and Patricia's friendship had been growing stronger and they were now at a best friend level. This had caused Joy and Patricia to grow further apart and made Joy dislike Arabella more and more as each day passed without her lifelong best friend by her side, who she was annoyed with for abandoning her, but hadn't yet confronted. Everyone else had grown to like her, and she was considered mildly popular around the university, in terms of the amount of people she had befriended. Her and Patricia were also in a small group with Dan, who also had established reasonably good relationships with everyone in the house (including Joy).

Joy had become distracted from her relationship with Jerome because of all this however they were still together, just not as close as they had been and falling apart slightly, although they were both in denial and refused to acknowledge this.

Nina and Fabian had been avoiding each other the whole time, however Nina would still come to the house in hope of him talking to her. They had had small conversations when they did run into one another and would talk to each other in group conversations.

These three weeks had gone by in the blink of an eye; it was like someone had been holding down fast forward on the school term.

But there has to be a reason that the play button had been pressed here, doesn't there?

*~*~*~*

"Why can't you just do it?"

"We need to wait," the girl from Anubis House answered sternly, "I know more than anyone how this works, and I know that we have more time. Enough time to wait a few days, at least."

"Are you sure?"

"Look, I need more informatio-" She was cut off.

"I've told you all I know," the tall man that she was speaking to in a clearing in a quiet part of the woods snapped at her.

"I know you have," she replied with a calm tone, "and it's been very useful. I have a plan, it just involves having, let's say, evidence...of...things"

"What kind of things?"

"Things that could make people hate her with the press of a button."

*~*~*~*

Nina had just finished a lecture and was walking into Anubis House to visit for a while before returning to her house, like she had been doing everyday. She walked in and turned straight to the living room but no one was there. She then looked over to the kitchen but still couldn't see anyone through the hatch.

She knew that there were certain times of the day when the house would be quite empty so she reached for her phone in her jacket pocket to check the time. 2:14pm, and it was a Tuesday, this was quite a popular time for people to either be in lectures, or on their way over to them. It was also quite soon after lunch was served in Anubis, so people were more likely to be in their rooms than usual.

She exited the room and walked into the hallway. She was about to go up the staircase to see who she could talk to upstairs, but, just as her foot made contact with the first step and she reached for the sphere carved onto the top of the banister, she heard a loud thud coming from below her feet. She knew it had come from the cellar and she looked towards the door, noticing there was still a padlock on it, even though it has supposedly been cleared out and there was nothing down there to protect.