Living in the Shadows

CHAPTER 6 THE RAINS, DAY 2: STRANDED

May 11, 7 a.m.

Someone must have set an alarm on their phone because we were all awoken by this annoying: "BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! KABOOM! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! KABOOM! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! KABOOM!"

There were several grunts and groans followed by someone saying: "Shut that thing off."

I don't know who said that, but they took the words right out of my mouth. No sooner had that thought crossed my mind than I sat straight up. Holy Murkrow! I slept the entire night without waking up! That hasn't happened since my grandfather left.

I quickly got up and made my way to the girls' dressing room. In the mirror, I saw that my hair had grown but luckily no more of the red dye had fallen out. It might as well have though as my natural sky-blue hair was down to my cheekbones. Then I checked the bruise on my neck.

It hadn't healed much. It just went from an eggplant purple to a regular purple. But at least my neck wasn't as tender as it was the day before yesterday.

I shadow-jumped into the secret room to check on Zorua. She was up and pacing in an agitated manner. When I appeared in the room she demanded: "Do you have any idea what it's like to wake up and not know where something, or in this case someone, is?!"

"I told you last night I was taking Darkrai back to the attic," I told her. "It's not my fault you were half asleep at the time."

"Well," she began as she sweat-dropped, "speaking of which, how did everyone sleep?"

"If you mean back at the mansion? Just before I left, I saw Darkrai absorb a lot of nightmare mist that was darker than what I'd seen before-"

"That's great news!" She interrupted while wagging her tail with a big smile on her face.

"And if you meant here? Well, I don't know about the others in the gymnasium, but in the auditorium . . ." I opened the grate so Zorua could hear the alarm and the complaints said alarm was getting.

"Oh, that's what that noise is?" Then she turned to me. "When you bring the King back here, tell Zorro it's my turn. He's had him all night."

I checked to make sure the coast was clear and see the aftermath of operation Nightmare Payback.

Ben, the twins, and my brother were all drinking large mugs of coffee; Jake had more dark circles under his eyes than the other three combined.

When I shadow-jumped into the attic Zoroark was still asleep; Darkrai resting against his mane. Even in this kind of light, I saw that Darkrai was looking much better. I didn't notice until now, but he wasn't his normal pitch-black color for the last two days. It took a night of feeding on human nightmares for me to realize he was a color between black and a dark grey before.

"Hey, Zoroark," I whispered as I gently shook him.

He grunted and half-opened his eyes then he groaned and turned his head away from me; judging by the gentle snores, he had gone back to sleep. I shook my head while smiling before I quietly and gently brought Darkrai back into the secret room.

(FYI: You can't stand up in that room unless you're less than four feet tall.)

"What'd my brother say?" Zorua asked as I laid Darkrai on the quilt.

"He must've had a bad night's sleep because he was no different than you were last night."

"It couldn't have been the nightmares so it must have been everybody screaming."

"If that's true I'll see if I can find some earmuffs for him next time."

Just then the phone alarm was drowned out by someone banging on what sounded like a pan. "Breakfast! Up and at 'em everybody!"