Nocte Yin

Chapter Ten

Fear.

It had her in its teeth.

Nocte could honestly say that she was afraid.

The rapid palpation of her heart.

The strained stretching of her lungs.

The painful bile in her stomach.

She had all the signs.

It was shocking because she had never been afraid before. Not of the heroes and heroines that had laid siege on their manor, not of the mutated servants that had gone crazy and chased her around the Labyrinth, and not of the Hell dragons that had decided to have her as a snack.

No, it was not fear she had felt during those times. It was apprehension. Because even in dangerous times, Nocte had been bred to put up with them. A Yin never feared, and she believed those words. She may not have believed that Yins never faltered or second-guessed or weakened, but she believed that they never feared.

Being reared alongside siblings such as hers and lived alongside a family such as hers, she figured that having survived, nothing could bring her down to her knees.

Until now.

Until Hayai Shikyo, the deputy headmaster.

With one word, he had stilled her, preventing her from aiding her sister, and it frightened her beyond imagination. To be stripped of her own will, to watch a family member (one she loved dearly) being dragged away, and to be left with the shattered remains of her broken defences.

It was enough to scare anyone.

Nocte hugged her books closer to her body, her eyebrows knitted together.

Every night she dreamt of that evening, and every night the nightmare manifested itself to epic proportions.

At first, it was just as she remembered that night to be. Then, in time, she saw her sister being forced into a giant, burning fireplace. Then, it was she who was steered into the fire. Then, it was her getting smaller and smaller in the eyes of Shikyo, his eyes large and bright and hypnotic, and Occult screaming for help, hands reaching towards her but never touching. And very recently, it was of those eyes that watched her, constantly watching her, and then with a flash of light, she had felt a fear so deep that she felt something tear physically at her.

And every night she woke up in cold sweat, sometimes even waking Savvy, who had begun to suspect something.

It was now November, the air crisp with ice particles, and she had yet to stop the re-enactment of the Halloween Dance. For the past two weeks, she’d been hiding in corners, taken the unlikely routes to get to classes and staying constantly in her room. Assaku was not an option anymore.

Paine must have noted her paranoia because he started to play practical jokes on her. Buckets of water were dropped on her, trap holes were dug for her to fall into, books were spelled to throw-up, homework was lost, pens stolen… and with her thoughts preoccupied with fear, her senses had dulled and her reaction time had slowed.

All these increased her fear.

Hearing about these incidents, her mother had sent a letter asking about her health. All she could write was: I’m fine, but there was no doubt that Malise could feel that something was wrong.

Nocte clutched at her books as she checked the hallway. Finding it clear, she dashed for her dorm and slammed the door behind her.

“Nocte,” Dire said passively from her desk.

She jumped and gasped, her books slipping from her arms and falling to the floor.

His eyebrow lifted, but he did not say a thing.