Someone to trust (Books of the beginning fanfic)

Chapter 30-A miracle

I starred at the two papers in front of me. One being the letter and the other being its translation. I read one sentence at a time and compared it to the scribbles on the burned paper. I sighed. My eyes starting to close on their own, I had been sitting here for hours by now. But then I saw a similarity and my eyes shut open again to check if I correct. I'd found it. I reached for the translation and read the sentence. 

It's a miracle that I even found a bed.

What part of the sentence is it? Not the it's. Or the bed... A miracle. MIracle. The word it spelled was miracle. It said something about a miracle. It raised more questions then it solved. But I would have to leave them for tomorrow because sleep was finally demanding my attention. It didn't wait for me to go to my bed, I fell asleep on the chair, my face resting on the desk in the library. The last thing I noticed in my blurry sight was some golden locks and the last thing I felt was a pair of delicate hands laying a warm blanket over my shoulders.

"Goodnight, bunny." 

--

"Just a dance, my dear."

The words were haunting me. His tone, the grin on his face as he said it. He was playing a game with me, trying to get into my head. And it was working. I stared at the white ceiling, clinging to my blanket like a scared child.

"After all, in the end, we all dance."

It was just a dream, he couldn't hurt me.  But I knew he had some sort of plan. He was taunting me but for a purpose. There had to be a reason. I just couldn't figure out what it was.

As useless as it was, it was all I thought about for the two days that passed. Neither Emma or Micheal visited. Always busy with something apparently. I didn't know what. And mom and dad... I was used to them not being there. Today had been no different. No one came, leaving me and Mia alone. She told me about her family, how happy they were. How sweet her brother was. How sad she was that they were gone but the determination in her eyes when she said she would find them. That exact same look my siblings and I held for so many years. She was sleeping now, leaving me alone with my thoughts. 

It was nighttime. It should be cooler.  But the more disturbing thoughts kept storming through my head the hotter the room felt. The sweat dripping down my face was trying to cool me down and actively failing. I jumped on my feet. I was already able to walk normally again. This would be my last night before leaving the room and it would be another sleepless one. I slowly wandered outside, onto a balcony. Slowly breathing in the cold autumn air and swiping off the remaining sweat. 

"You should be thankful."

I had to force myself to think of something else. Halloween was coming soon. A smile crawled on my face as I remembered our past Halloweens.  It was Emma's favorite holiday ever since she was little. She was always very excited about it. I was surprised that she hadn't mentioned it before. But then again, we all had a lot to deal with the past weeks.  I'm sure that there's a lot of other things on her mind. 

It was often the only time a year that we got candy, most orphanages couldn't afford to buy so many kids a daily treat. I remember us sneaking out of orphanages to go trick or treating at night and getting in trouble for it later. We also made our own costumes, which was always fun to do. Emma always made hers as terrifying as she could, enjoying scaring Micheal with it for the whole year until she made a new one.  Surprisingly, Micheal never dressed up as a dwarf, saying that it would come over as a joke and would be an insult to them. He was four when he said that. I couldn't help but giggle as I recalled the small boy with big glasses giving us a speech about respecting the dwarven culture.

It was something to look forward to. I wouldn't want to miss it.

--

Black dust, that's all it was. How could it keep my intention like that? I sat on the wooden bench, I always wanted to visit Central Park. Just hoped it would have been under better circumstances. I had taken the pouch with me, found a quiet area with a seat in the shade and immediately I stared at the ashes again. I had done it for days by now.  As if I expected them to disappear the second I didn't look at them. They did seem to... change. Their color seemed to be lighter. 

At first, they looked as if they had absorbed all the light around them, leaving them pitch black. Now they were still dark. But more of a grey.  I could have sat there the whole day, just looking at them. Until a few voices caught my attention. 

"Where's Buck now? He should be here. Bastard can't ever be on time." The male voice clearly was trying to stay reasonably quiet but his bad temper did make it loud enough for me to notice. I sneaked to a nearby tree and peaked from behind it. I already knew what I had been about to see, yet it still came in as a surprise. The man with the huge scar on his face.  He was waiting for Buck. Well, then he'd be waiting there for a while.

'Or you could help him visit old Buck.'

The thought felt weird as it ringed through my head.  It was... foreign. As if it didn't come from my own mind. Yet... somehow I wasn't alarmed by it. Like a dark lullaby was putting me in a trance, more open for suggestion. 'How?'

'Just a few of them should do the trick... Or all of them.'

Without question, my hand reached to the ashes. I grabbed as much as I could hold. As if I had lost control, I started to walk, stepping out from my hiding spot. He could clearly see me, his gaze should have frightened me, but it didn't. I stepped towards him as he started to shout at me. None of it reached my senses. The ashes were slowly falling between my fingers, dropping on the grass. 

My vision went blank. I only saw white and it hurt as much as if I had just looked straight into the sun. My ears were still ringing but even that sound seemed far away. The only thing I felt was my muscles working together to raise my hand. Barely any ash remaining in it. And then none, the sensation had left. Together with every other thing binding me to reality. I was empty... open. As if the white blocking my eyes was everything there had ever been. As if everything up until now had been an illusion. I felt trapped. Trapped in a nothing. There was nothing to keep me locked up yet I was yearning for a key, an escape. And a voice was offering it to me. No memories were left but they still seemed to scream for me to open my eyes and recognize it. 

The emptiness started to change in its appearance. Turning from a white to a bloody red. My eyes were still open, I didn't even think that a human could go so long without blinking. But the sight of trees and grass was still replaced by a new form a prison pitch black by now. 

Something touched me. It was cold, full of rimples, an uneven surface with veins so prominent that in the few seconds it took me to jump away I could feel it. It didn't touch my body, it wasn't here. It had reached me in a familiar form. Or what should be familiar. That thing, it was my key. It was my freedom. But its disgusting nature made me want to get away.  A few more whispers came from the voice but its alluring words were now connected to that feeling of the revolting hand. It was more sickening than the prison that gave me everything I loved today. 

"Stay away!" The words felt hard to speak as if the hand was keeping them locked away. From me!" I screamed, sensing the vibrations in my vocal cords. My real vocal cords from my body. My eyes finally witnessed my actual surrounding and then finally my hearing. The first thing reaching my ears was the now angry man with the huge scar, who was already out of sight, screaming that I would pay for what I just did to him. I didn't know what I just did. All the clues I got was the ashes laying on a patch of dead grass. They were a very light grey now. I quickly tried to put them back in the pouch I was holding. I was laser-focused on the task at hand that I didn't even realize that whatever was in the grass seemed to spread. The trees around me seemed to have rotten, between the grass crawled worms trying to get out of the dirt that had already harmed them greatly, but when they reached the overworld their pathetic movements didn't help them either and they soon stopped their attempts. 

I coughed as the air seemed to become toxic. I ran back to the mansion in horror, hoping that the rest of the day wouldn't be as horrible as this morning.