Too close, dear children. Too. Close.

When's it my turn?

The dinner had lulled both girls, tiring them from so much talking and pretending to care about Octavia's father's career. The corridor down to Octavia's bedroom seemed to last an eternity as both girls longed to fall to their beds, Octavia to her plush Queen sized mattress and Beck to her single mattress on the floor with her sleeping bag. But when they opened the door, Beck's eyes widened in surprise, and Octavia's scream startled the night.

The police again were going through similar questions which technically were the same as before. Had anyone heard or seen anything or anyone strange around the house? Was there anyone they knew who would want to do this? Was there has there were there where was...and finally why.

Why had they taken the girls' research? Every notebook, every scrap of paper, why had they torn up the mattress in search of more and demolished Octavia's wardrobe still searching for every scrap of paper or USB that might have contained anything similar.

They had even taken Octavia's personal diaries, which had only small mentions of the research, but were mostly bitchy complaints and wishes about certain boys. They had swept their laptops clean of everything to do with it. Beck even checked the back-ups, and the only thing that remained was photos of family and friends and the occasional fanfiction story.

 But everything was gone. Octavia was distraught, and Beck did her best to calm her friend down, reassuring her that they probably had it down to memory anyway.

The police were completely baffled as to why anyone would take research on fictional stories.
But it was not the first incident that night. The police received call after call about the destruction of a child or teenagers room and everything to do with monsters or demons was taken or otherwise burnt in the very room. The news went crazy, the papers exploded and all the victims rallied together on social media. Because all of them had the same things in common. They loved the horrors that fantasy had created for them, mythical creatures and even biblical demons. All of it. Every single person had lost it in the area.

 And it spread. Over the next day, the next few days, and spanned into the next week. People tried raising the security on their homes, but apparently nothing could stop, detect or captcha the people who were doing it. It was a complete mystery that people all over the world were terrified of, and the craziest of theories were coming to light.

These theories grew more when the attacks started at Holy places, religious places from all over the worlds, even Archives far under Basilicas and ancient sights started losing information on anything that had to do with dark forces.

 And then it got so much worse. People who had the most incredible memories in the world were going missing, those especially who had this information. Scientists were left alone but Religious and culture researches were also disappearing or, on the strange occasion, went missing.

The police went nuts. They said anyone who had information the same or similar to what was being stolen and destroyed was to throw it all out, destroy it, but not to hide it. The people who were doing this were very thorough. And those who were particular experts were taken under protective custody and then had their records wiped.
But none of it helped.

 Phase 3 seemed to be the worst however. People who hadn't been experts but knew quite a lot, started losing some aspects of their memory. Not enough to destroy their lives, but large gaps of information were oblivious to them. Family and friends noticed the changes, and the media and public got worse.

The people turned on the government, saying something was going wrong and the government was trying to cover it up. The government turned and said it was terrorist groups. Terrorist groups stayed the hell out of it.

 Of course there was calls of people saying they saw something. They heard something. They swore they saw this or that, but of course this was just over-excited imaginations. The ones who were really doing it, were not seen at all.

Not at all.
________________________________________________________________________________

Octavia was terrified. She was wondering when her memory would be taken away. Or even Beck's memory! But of course Beck wasn't bothered. She perched on the window sill as always and watched the night just as normal, no matter how many times Octavia, or Octavia's step mother told her not to.

She'd almost officially moved in, because Octavia couldn't stand being in her bedroom alone at night, and couldn't stand it being too quiet at night, not that Beck was a noisy sleeper. In fact, she was quite silent, and rarely moved in her slumber.

But simply having the larger and scarier friend nearby was a comfort.
One night, Octavia could certainly not sleep.

 "Beck." She whispered into the darkness of the room, her eyes wide open and clutching at her bed covers.

It was a few moments before she responded. "Hm?"

 "I can't sleep." Octavia whispered back.

"But you can. You did last night." Beck mumbled back.
Beck couldn't see it, but Octavia tried looking at her with a glare.

 "I mean right now."

"You can, you're just refusing to."
Again with the dark stare.
The night-light reflected off of Beck's almost-bare back. She had only on some shorts and a light singlet that only reached down past her ribcage, but her clothes laid right next to her mattress, positioned so they would only take a few moments to put on. Octavia on the other hand had resorted to wearing normal shorts, a shirt and even bras, that's how scared she was. She was so scared. So scared. She was terrified and worried and all out horrified that she knew they were coming for her next. They had taken everything they'd had on paper, but now it was her turn to have her memory erased.

 Beck sighed and looked up. "Don't worry. You have the alarm systems on and everything."

"But the reports say the other houses did too. And they still got taken."

 "Well just don't worry. It'll make it worse if it-, never mind just go to sleep."

"You were going to say if it actually happens weren't you?"

 "Yes." Beck admitted easily.

Octavia whined, and turned to stare at the window.

 "Look, do you want me to stay up?" Beck said easily. She didn't sound tired, but Octavia knew she loved sleeping at night while all other teenagers stayed up through most of it. She went to bed early but woke up ridiculously early as well. Sometimes she'd be gone for hours before Octavia woke up.

Octavia considered it for too long, so Beck huffed a laugh and started to sit up. "I know that's a secret guilty yes."

 "No really Beck, I know you like your sleep-,"

"It's fine girly, really. Besides it might be fun. I'll just catch up on sleep tomorrow."

 "You've got classes tomorrow." Octavia deadpanned.

"No, you've got classes tomorrow. Remember?"

 "Oh. Yeah."

Beck hadn't been to school for a long while. She had a job and also sold art on the side, so earned enough to pay rent to Octavia's parents and buy her own food etc. She was building enough to try get her own car and buy a place.

 Octavia on the other hand still had school because she wanted enough to go to university and become an editor for magazines.

"Well only if it's okay with you." Octavia said cautiously, as Beck stood and started putting on her clothes. She was done only a few moments later, and Octavia was confused at how she'd done it so fast, as always. Octavia yawned, and started drifting off just as Beck walked to the window, pulled up a chair from Octavia's dressing table, and sat back with one leg resting on the other.