Extra Ordinary - e.o'connor || unfinished

sixteen - wights

how are y'all liking the story? its turned out longer than i anticipated but oh whale

       It was 56 years later and Lois lived in a loop with Miss Starling. Lawson came with her. They were best friends again and even though Lois never gained her memory she'd made another life for herself.

Lois sat with her feet propped up on her desk with a book in her lap. Her eyes drifted from the words to the window. Not far off from here was the beach. After not much deliberation, she snapped her book shut and set off for the water.

Lois had spent many days watching the normals of the coastal town of Miss Starling's loop. She checked the time and nothing seemed off. She saw
the couple yelling at each other as usual and she saw the carriage with the girls in the dresses go by. The pretty boy with brown hair and his friend with the freckles were taking the same steps as they did daily.

Yet she stopped with a start because the normals outside the bar were fighting and that never happened. It was the bar tender she'd seen before and a normal with... Lois ducked behind a building and craned her neck for a better view. Her breath caught in her throat and she turned and sprinted, running in to people along the way but not caring. She bursted into the house and started yelling.

"I think there's a wight! Miss Starling! In the town by the bar! What do we do?" She said, all while shoving open doors and running in desperation.

She almost ran into Miss Starling, who launched herself out of the room she had previously been in. Lois launched into an explanation that was so rushed that not anybody but her ymbryne could have deciphered. Miss Starling had a tendency to talk very fast and always had to repeat herself because nobody understood her.

When she finished her breathing was labored but Miss Starling nodded like she's known this was coming. "Go gather the children and bring them to the living room," she dismissed Lois before walking off.

Lois ran from room to room and tried to keep herself calm as she told the children where to go. Soon enough all the children were sitting on the couches and the floor of the living room and stared apprehensively up at Miss Starling. She stayed silent for a while, simply staring out the window as the sun set slowly.

"We believe there are wights in our loop," she stated, still staring out the window with her eyebrows knit, deep in thought. Some of the younger kids crawled to the older ones, who tried in vain to act strong, but fear glinted firmly in all of their eyes.

"Hollowgasts will be outside the loop. More wights will follow if we don't go out there as prisoners. They'll only kill us if we escape free," the ymbryne continued.

"Pack your things. I'm going to call the other loops," she said and waved the kids off, walking to another room to retrieve the rarely used telephone.

The kids ran upstairs to pack their things. Lois followed and as she began to follow the orders of her ymbryne she heard the creaks of floorboard and looked up at Lawson. Her best friend didn't normally get scared and she was good at hiding emotion. Yet now her gloved hands were shaking violently.

"What do we do? We can't stay. We can't leave. They'll kill us," Lawson's voice shook.

Lois took a seat beside her. "I don't know, love," she whispered as she shook her head softly. Lois leaned her head on her friends shoulder and her eyes welled up with tears because she suspected they would either get held captive or die.

She was pushed out of her thoughts as there was a crash that echoed downstairs which was followed by a scream that ripped through the silence. The peculiars fled down the stairwell in stupid bravery and Lois followed.

There she saw Savannah Starling being held violently by the strands of her black hair. The man stood behind her, snow-white eyes glinting with malice. A gun rested in his hand as he held it to the ymbryne's head.

"Oh, Miss Starling, these are your wards, I see. They'll make a lovely addition to the collection," the man said.

"Why are you doing this?!" yelled Allie. She was only eleven and always stupidly brave. Miss Starling always told her that she never thought. 

"Because we need your ymbrynes to recreate it. Bigger and better this time," he said.

"It?" Allie asked.

"The experiment of 1908. Siberia. You want to recreate the event that turned you into those monsters in the first place," Lois said.

The wight nodded. Standing there with the gun, Lois had no trouble imagining this man's past form was a soulless monster. All that changed was how he looked. Behind him, the door remained open and in flooded more wights, all armed with weapons. The first wight led Miss Starling out first and the rest of them followed suit in a single file line.

Lois heart sank. Hopelessness truly is an awful feeling.