darkness rising ( complete )

Broken Glass

Mal breathed heavily and deeply. She thought about waking Evie, but seeing how peacefully she was sleeping, decided not to. Sweat caused her dark purple hair to stick to her face. She pulled the covers off of her and stepped down onto her floor. She stayed there for a while. She took a step foreword and felt a sharp pain in her foot. Looking down she noticed there were shattered pieces of glass at her feet. She noticed that they were from a shattered picture frame. Mal sat down on her bed and carefully pulled the glass from her foot. She watched as a drop of blood fell to the carpet. She lifted her toe up above the floor and went into the bathroom. She opened the mirror cabinet and grabbed a Band-Aid. Sitting down on the toilet, she grabbed a piece of toilet paper and dabbed the blood from her foot. She put the Band-Aid on and sat on the toilet longer thinking about the dream. It was a flashback, so it happened before. She looked younger in the mirror. Mal decided not to harp on it. She hit her foot and a sharp pain came from her toe and she remembered the broken glass. She stood up and walked into the bedroom. Picking up her phone, she turned on her flashlight and shone it around the room. She found a broom and lifted it and swept up the glass. Mal wondered where it came from. She found a broken frame on her bed-side table. It was a picture Mal had spray-painted from one of the murals in the VKs club house on the Isle. Two weeks after the barrier came down and the VKs still haven't gone back to the Isle. In a way, it made her feel homesick.

There was a stirring from Evie's bed. Evie turned to Mal. "M?"

Mal froze.

"Mal, why are you up so late?" Evie asked sitting up.

"It's nothing Evie go back to sleep."

But Evie was smarter than that. She got out of bed and walked over to Mal. She noticed the bag of glass and the broken picture in Mal's hand. "Oh, what happened?"

"I don't know," said Mal setting the picture down and motioning to her foot. "It was like this when I woke up."

Evie glanced at an alarm clock on her dresser. It said 6:57. It wasn't too early.

"Breakfast starts in thirty minutes," said Evie softly. "You could go back to sleep."

"Yeah, I don't think I could," said Mal.

"What happened?" Evie asked.

"Nothing," said Mal. It was too weird. Until she knew more, she would keep this to herself.

Evie didn't pressure it. "Come on, let's get dressed and go wake up the boys."

Mal smiled at her and pulled clothes out of her dresser. Evie threw open the windows. A misty air blew into the girls room and the smell of rain lingered in the air. The students that were awake at the time were wearing sweatshirts due to the chill in the air.

"Well," said Evie. "Must have rained last night."

"Poor Carlos," said Mal, joining her at the window. Ever since Carlos got lost in a woods on the Isle when he was seven, he had a deep fear of thunderstorms, or rainstorms in general. When it thundered he would sleep in Jay's bed with him because it made him feel better. Usually the girls slunk in and they all stayed up late and Carlos would curl up next to Evie and they would fall asleep around ten o'clock.

The girls got into generally warm clothes and headed to the boys room. When they opened the door Carlos and Jay were sound asleep together and Evie and Mal decided it was too cute to wake them up yet. For the next thirty minutes they walked around campus and chatted.

"Why were you up so early?" Evie asked.

"Dream," said Mal simply. "It doesn't matter."

"You look like it mattered," said Evie.

"Evie it's fine, it wasn't important," said Mal walking a little faster so Evie wouldn't have to keep up the conversation.

But Mal should have known better. Evie chased after her. "Why are we going to the library?"

"I need to research something."

"The dream?"

"Shut up about my stupid dream OK?" Mal snapped. She found herself moving towards the dark magic section. Not many teachers taught dark magic, but the library had to have books on it because they assigned things for extra credit and dark magic was a favorite of the VKs. Mal wandered into the dark magic section and began to scan the books. She found one marked Evil Queens of the Island and flipped to the index. Nothing on wolf queen. But there were pictures. Perhaps she would find the person she was looking for by the picture. Picture by picture Mal leafed through the book until she came to the one she was looking for.

Out of excitement she shouted. "That's her!"

Evie looked over. "That's who?"

Mal explained the dream to her (finally) and showed her the picture of the young queen. It was labeled "Raven Delarosa, queen of the wolves".

"'Queen of the wolves'?" said Evie. "Is this a joke?"

"What do you mean?" Mal asked.

"The queen of the wolves?" said Evie. "She couldn't have come up with a better name? And her name is Raven? I mean, who is this?"

"I don't know," said Mal taking the book from Evie. "That's why I'm looking her up."

"Well I don't know about you but I am going to breakfast," said Evie.

Mal nodded.

"And maybe jump off a cliff," Evie continued, knowing Mal wasn't paying attention.

"Cool," she said.

"See you in the afterlife," Evie almost yelled.

"Yeah, love you too."

Evie rolled her eyes.

***

At breakfast, Mal still was reading the book.

Carlos and Jay were sitting across from Evie and Mal and they were still wondering about the dream.

"Maybe it was just a nightmare," said Jay. "They're pretty common."

"It felt real though," said Mal, looking up. "I don't know, maybe I shouldn't worry about it."

"If it felt real, then you should just tell Fairy Godmother," said Carlos. "That's what I would do."

"I don't want to worry her," Mal said.

"Well," said Jay. "You don't seem to want to worry a lot of people."

"Oh really," said Mal, setting down her book and marking the page she was on. "Name who."

"Uma, your dad, Fairy Godmother, Ben, Jane, Audrey, Belle, Beast, Doug," Evie said.

"OK, OK, I get it," said Mal. "Jeez."

Evie smiled victoriously.

Suddenly, a very excited Jane raced up to their table and squealed.

"Guess who's coming back to Auradon Prep?" she asked.

Before they could say anything, she answered. "Lonnie, Jordan, Ally, and Freddie!"

"Seriously!" Mal and Evie smiled. Jay's face turned bright red and Carlos stifled back a laugh.

"That's amazing!" said Mal. "Celia's gonna love this!"

"I already told her!" said Jane. She looked over at a table. "I gotta go." She waved. "Bye!"

Once Jane left, Jay's face had turned more normal and Carlos had stopped laughing.

"Lonnie's coming back!" said Evie. "And Jordan and Ally and Freddie!"

"This is so awesome!" said Mal.

Carlos nudged Jay. "Ya hear that? Lonnie's coming."

"Shut up," said Jay under his breath.

Carlos snickered.

Mal and Evie exchanged looks. The two girls smiled. They knew when something was going on between the two boys, and something was definitely up.