Hope (Enoch O'Connor x Reader)

Chapter 2: Miss Peregrine's Loop

Walking out of the cave, I realise I had mistaken the bright moonlight for sunlight. The night sky is lit up in a messy array of flickering stars. I look up, in awe of the beautiful clear night. No harm to be seen. A paradise. I follow Emma through a manicured garden to a huge building. At the front door, Emma stops and smiles slightly.

"Welcome to our house." She gestures me in. House? I think as I walk inside. Clearly this is a mansion. A really, really nice mansion.

We walk up a leg-breaking staircase and through many twisting hallways until we stop at a door. It is exactly the same as basically every other door in the mansion - I mean, house - but I can tell that behind this door is something important. Someone important. Emma hesitates but then grabs the doorknob and opens the door... only for it to be blocked. A woman, maybe in her late twenties, stands staring at us. Her piercing eyes bore into me, then she turns to Emma and pulls out a small pocket watch.

"You are approximately three minutes and twenty-seven seconds late from accompanying Jake to the loop entrance. That makes you one minute and forty-two seconds late for curfew. And who is this?" The woman turns back to me with her intimidating stare. This must be Emma's ymbryne.

"Hello, my name is Y/N. I am from Miss Avocet's loop. This is Miss Avocet here." I say as I hold her up, still cupped in my hands in her bird form. "Our loop was just raided. Miss Avocet was captured by the wights but she managed to get away. She is trapped as a bird as she is hurt pretty badly." I show Emma's ymbryne the cuts on Miss Avocet's body. "As she flew off, I followed her. I didn't know where we were going, but we arrived at your loop entrance, and Emma was there so she brought me here."

"What about the other children in your loop?" The ymbryne asks. I shake my head. "I tried to save them. But I was too late."

"Oh, you poor thing." She whispers, looking a little horrified. "Here, Emma will find you a spare room to rest in. I will see what I can do for Miss Avocet." She gently scoops the bird in my hands into her own and goes back into her room, closing the door behind her. Emma takes me by the arm and leads me a few doors down. We enter a small, grey looking room with a single bed, a small dresser and a large window.

"This is a spare room. You can sleep here." Emma says, smiling. I sit down on the bed.

"Thanks Emma." I say, knowing that sleep will be impossible tonight. "Um, what is your ymbryne's name?" Nobody told me." I add to try and keep her here as long as possible to prevent me being alone in this small, grey room.

"Miss Peregrine." She replies.

"Is she always so... intimidating, I guess?"

"No. I guess she is just weary. She doesn't know you like I do. It has been so long since I have last seen you though!"

"Yeah. Seventy-two years without seeing my best friend... Surely that breaks some kind of record, right?"

Emma chuckles. "Oh Y/N, you don't know how much I have missed you. Anyway, it's getting a little late, so I'll let you sleep now and talk to you again in the morning. Okay?"

"Yeah, that's okay." But it is not okay. I am not okay. Emma, please don't leave me. Please don't leave me alone in this room, with these four, confining, grey walls. Please stay. Please talk to me. Please keep me up all night. I am so afraid to shut my eyes and see all the events of today play out again, on loop, just like our loops, repeatedly, every night, for the rest of my life. Please spare me one night from this horrid pain I feel, this guilt, all the children I couldn't save.

"Okay then, I'll see you tomorrow." Emma smiles once more, then walks out of the room, shutting the door behind her. The room is instantly darker, meaner and enclosing around me. About to crush my miserable heart and soul to smithereens, if there is anything of either of those things left to crush. I need an escape. A way out.

Light shines through the window. I am drawn to it, like a moth to a flame, clinging to stark reality. Outside, I see the night sky, still lit up with its beautiful stars.

The rest of my night is spent at that window, staring at the stars.

The beautiful diamonds of hope lit up against the dark blanket of the night sky.

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Hey, what did ya think? Please comment and tell me how I can improve. Okay, okay, look I am sorry that I haven't got to the Enoch part yet or what your peculiarity is yet (I'm only kind of sorry) but I promise Enoch is definitely in the next chapter and I will tell you what your peculiarity is. And how you know Emma already. Okay, just be patient with me. Thanks for reading!! :D

~Tamika