Shadows

Chapter 8

     Rachel. So that's her name.

     Vicky had already left to go to her next class, but Fatima still had some time to spare, so she was headed to the library, her favorite place to go when she had free time.

     Her thoughts drifted back to Rachel. She must have been the blond girl she saw in the robot. She wondered if she was the same girl who controlled the robot she had seen the night before.

     Suddenly Fatima stopped in her tracks. That robot...she had been so distracted that she couldn't remember seeing it at all this morning. She ran back to the entrance of the dormitories. Sure enough, there was nothing there. But what confused Fatima even more is that there was no sign that anything was there in the first place. There were no giant footprints on the parking lot, nor was there a sign anything big being dragged away. At least, Fatima assumed it must have been dragged, because even if Rachel supposedly was the one controlling it, there was no way she could carry something that big.

     The blast of a car horn cut through Fatima's thoughts. "Hey! Get out of the way!" the person in the car yelled.

     "Oh, S-Sorry!" she stuttered, scrambling out of the parking lot onto a sidewalk.

     Later, Fatima approached the library, a large building with an entrance of polished white columns, giving it a more historic feel. Fatima always liked to assume it was meant to get students excited about the knowledge it held, but maybe that was just her. Right now, she had a hard time thinking about the library's vast shelves of knowledge after what she had just seen. Or what she hadn't seen.

     It doesn't make any sense, she thought. It was almost as if the robot had never been there at all. But it had been there. She had seen it, and even fought it, which she still had a hard time believing.

     Right?

     For the first time, Fatima began to consider the fact that she might be going crazy.

     "Good morning, Mrs. Emmett," Fatima said as she entered the library.

     "Good morning, Miss Fatima," Mrs. Emmett responded from behind her desk, smiling. Mrs. Emmet was the school's head librarian, a kindly older lady with golden brown hair accented with gray streaks, showing her age. She had become a mentor to Fatima from the beginning of her first year, but it definitely helped that she cane to the library everyday. "But this morning has been more strange than good hasn't it?"

     "Wouldn't disastrous be a better way to describe it?' Fatima pointed out.

     Mrs. Emmett shrugged. "That depends on how you see it. I'm assuming you plan on checking out a book today?"

     Fatima shrugged. "Maybe. I've read so many of the books already, I don't know if I could find anything else to read."

     Mrs. Emmet sighed, looking out at the many shelves of books filling the room. "It would be nice to have a bigger library, wouldn't it?"

     "Yeah, it would." To be honest, the library was already pretty big already, but by Fatima's standards, it just wasn't big enough. She would need a library as big as the Library of Congress to satisfy her thirst for knowledge. Maybe bigger.

     "Oh well," she sighed. "I trust my favorite reading spot hasn't been taken?"

     "Of course not," Mrs. Emmet replied, laughing. "It's the deepest spot in the library, how could it be taken?"

     "Well, you never know," Fatima said, smiling. "I'll see you later," she said as she began to turn away.

     "Miss Fatima," Mrs. Emmet called out, causing her to turn back. "You'll find something new," she winked. "I don't doubt it."

     "Sure," Fatima replied slowly, not exactly sure what she meant.

     Fatima found her reading spot, empty as expected, and pulled out her Human Anatomy and Physiology textbook. She had an exam this week and she had never failed one before. She wasn't about to make this her first time. But as she started reading, she found that she couldn't seem to focus. Usually she was fascinated, but what had happened this morning was taking up the space in her mind.

     She began fiddling with her key necklace, lost in thought. What had happened? It seemed as if she had unlocked some sort of magical ability or something. She shook her head. That was silly. Magic wasn't real. It was the stuff of books she used to read when she was younger, where there were faraway lands filled with fantastical creatures like mermaids, pixies, pegasi and elves, with dragons and monsters that were always slain by valiant princes who would save a princess, and where there were many different beasts that she used to pretend were her friends.

     But then she met real beasts, and reality forced her to grow up. She had to learn that in real life, magic wasn't as wonderful as it seemed. It was terrible. And dangerous. And it hurt the people she cared about the most. Fatima gripped her necklace as she fought the tears threatening to fall. Maybe that was why she didn't want to believe in magic. The thought of it held too much pain and beauty than she could take.

*************
A/N- Soooo... that's it. Sorry its so short, but the next chapter will more that make up for that. Just... get some tissues because it's kind of emotional. It was for me, anyway.

I feel like the library scene is kind of like the village library scene in Beauty and the  Beast. Don't know how that happened. :-\  Oh, there's another little pun in this chapter. Comment if you see it. :-)

Anyway, I guess that's it sooo... don't forget to to vote and stuff... I'm done.

Funpi 🍰