Heroes of Dreamland Rewritten, Book 3: Stars Amidst Darkness

Chapter 12

Sakura | 桜

Trembling, I pace back and forth across the wooden floor of the secret library, my gloves tightly crossed. "I don't have to listen to it. I'm stronger than it is, whatever it is. Galacta Knight put it in my brain, but it's not me and I don't have to listen to it."

We could track Galacta Knight down. We could hurt him. Make him pay. Or hurt something else. We could have fun with that, too.

I shake myself physically, trying to get rid of the angry voice in the back of my head that just keeps getting stronger with time. I don't know where it came from, but it's the one who told me to use the dark fog. It's the one that told me that the dark fog was the only way left to save Meta Knight from Galacta Knight.

I stop pacing for a moment and stare down at my gloves, trying to calm my breathing. It's not me, whatever it is. It's something else. And I can ignore it. I can drown it out. It can't control me.

I close my eyes and force my breath to calm, trying not to think about what the angry voice is or where it came from. Maybe it's a dreadful side effect of being a Halfling. The idea of being a Halfling seems so sinister to me somehow, unnatural, perhaps even abominable, but I can't remember why that would be.

We don't like it when we can't remember things, do we?

"Shut up," I snap angrily, clutching my gloves at my head. "Get out of my head!" I scrunch my eyes shut, focusing as hard as I can on shoving the voice so far back into my head that I can't hear it anymore. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

After a long moment, I relax just slightly, opening one eye and listening for the voice.

It doesn't say anything else. I guess I've managed to suppress it for now.

I give a sigh of relief, falling into a sitting position and staring up at the ceiling. Thankfully it's not too terribly hard to hide the voice most of the time. It's just when I'm alone or frightened or angry that it starts getting really noisy.

For a long moment, I just stare up at the ceiling before giving a slow shake of my head. I need to go apologize to Meta Knight. I'm not sure what that dark fog is, but I can tell just by how it looks that it can't be anything good. Well, and the fact that the angry voice gets so excited when I use it tips me off, too.

Sighing heavily, I push myself up into a standing position. Looks like the squire needs to apologize to her mentor once again. Why do I always seem to end up here?

The walk to Meta Knight's training room feels like it takes forever. I hate it when I have to apologize to him. It's not that it's humiliating, I just... hate the guilt. And more than that, I really, really hate disappointing the person I admire most.

Once I finally reach his training room, I knock on the door lightly with the back of my glove. Nothing answers me at first, but I can easily sense his presence on the other side of the wall, so I know he's there.

I clear my throat. "Sir Knight? It's Sakura."

His voice sounds tired. Disappointed, maybe? "Come in, Lady Dee."

Swallowing shyly, I enter the room. He is facing away from me, wrapped up in his cape, as usual. I shut the door behind me and then lean against it, gloves tucked behind my back. "I just wanted to come apologize. I know that... that dark fog stuff is bad, somehow. I know I shouldn't have used it. I just panicked and didn't know what else to do."

He doesn't answer, still staring at the wall silently.

I take a deep breath before continuing. "I hate disappointing you. I know that I'm not as much your pupil as I once was, but I'm still your squire—at least, I hope so. And I know that as your squire, I should do a better job of representing you. I know my actions reflect back on you, even if Galacta Knight was the only one to see it."