The Problem Solvers Club

Part 19

Keira

I can't help but feel bad about lying to Logan. As we enter the clubroom, those feelings take the backseat. Hippolyta sits on one of the desks, Autumn in the desk's chair. Rory stands off to the side next to a girl I recognize, after all, I'd spent an entire night researching her. Lolina Degrass. "Hey. I brought Logan."

Hippolyta smiles, putting her hands together. "Let's begin then! Lola, would you like to begin?" Lola nods, her face pale. She walks over to a circle of desks set up near the center of the room and sits down. The rest of us join her.

"So..." Lola seems hesitant to speak, her sentence ending before it could even begin. I glance over to Rory then Autumn who are sitting on either side of me. "It started about two weeks ago when I was out with friends. We were going to a local coffee shop when I saw this figure standing behind a tree. They were strange enough hiding there, but that's when I saw them, their purple eyes. After we passed them by, that was all I could remember, those eyes." Lola's voice trembles as she speaks and I can't help but remember what Logan had said yesterday. "That's the problem Lyta, they weren't normal a little while ago." He had been so convinced there was something off about Rory's eyes.

I look to Logan who seems to be listening intently, nodding and tapping his finger against the desk as Lola talks. "So you said you saw this figure multiple times?" asks Autumn, her hands flying across her keyboard, most likely taking notes. "When did you really start to feel threatened?"

Lola clears her throat before continuing her story. "It was about three days after the first incident. I'd thought I'd seen the figure a few more times, but it was always out of the corner of my eye, so I thought my eyes were just playing tricks on me. Then..." Lola's voice fades away and she rubs her eyes in a tired fashion. "Then it was at school. I'd never seen it inside the school before, only outside it or around the neighborhood. My house and school were the only places where it would seem to leave me alone. I was walking down the hallway on my own when I saw them just standing there staring at me. I'd never looked right at it before and...well. I felt my whole body go numb and then everything just went...purple."

As Lola says this last bit I hear a quiet gasp beside me. Rory is sitting up straight and is staring at Lola like she just grew a second head. "What happened after that?" he barely manages to choke out.

"I woke up with my friends standing over me. The said they had found me in the hallway screaming my head off. When they tried to check on my they said that I'd tried to hurt them. I told them that I'd seen the figure again, but they didn't- Ahh!" Lola suddenly cries out in pain, grabbing her forehead. She squeezes her eyes shut. I look at Rory and nearly yelp when I see him doing the same. What happened to them?