Even in a world full of magic and wonder, no one can escape dealing with very human problems.
Claire, the outspoken witty new kid mermaid is fearful of being alone and separated, and just wants a group of friends to call her own. Elora, the wild on...
Memories are the worst type of torture. They have their ways of impacting our choices, silently guiding us through life ensuring we don't repeat our past. The bad ones act like weeds in the sidewalk. They keep on growing no matter how many times we pluck them out, no matter how many times we want to rid them from our mind. They are forever seeded, ready to spring up at the most inoperative time. We can't help but remember the actions of our past.
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It had been two weeks since the academy's ward failure. Mystic had blustered up the confidence to continue back on her normal school life, albeit she would only leave her room if she was wearing a protection charm. Claire mostly kept to herself. She silently worried about the repercussions of her actions that day, but didn't let on to the fact that it bothered her. As for Elora, she seemed to be fine too. She, happy Claire wasn't more than just a peer again, carried on her days as usual with last-minute assignments and late-night hangouts in the Living Lobby. Everything started to seem normal again.
Lily's Saturday breakfast routine consisted of her sitting down in the dining hall drinking two tall glasses of blood with her pink reusable silicone straw. To be honest, it was the same as her everyday breakfast routine, but on Saturdays, she liked to use that color straw specifically. She never liked drinking blood—or whatever the school passed off as "blood"—without a straw. She didn't like the way the metallic taste lingered on her lips. Using a straw to drink made her feel more like her old self. It felt normal.
Today was like any other Saturday. She flipped the page in her Psychology of Magical Thinking textbook and reluctantly enjoyed sucking down the last gulp of thick red blood from her cup. Had this been four years ago, Lily would have been screaming at the feeling of blood in her mouth. It took her the greater part of 18 months after that unlucky day to get past drinking half a glass on her own. Now, she drinks two glasses every day with ease. She hated that she enjoyed it.
Abelle yawned. She pulled out the seat next to Lily and started to peel her orange. Her finger pressed into the orange skin squirting some juice in her eye.
"You seem off," Lily said, flipping another page in her textbook.
"I didn't get much sleep last night."
"I know how you feel. I kept waking up in the middle of the night too. A side effect of being undead," She frowned.
"But I'm not..." Abelle pointed out. "I just...I kept having this nightmare." She stuck a slice of orange in her mouth.
"What's it about?
"I..." Abelle swallowed. "It never starts out bad. I find myself at the circus, watching the clowns, the jugglers, the acrobats, marveling at their abilities... and then everything goes... badly. The clowns start acting murderous, the acrobats fall off the tightrope, and everybody... and I do mean everybody... starts chasing me around the ring." She ate another slice of her orange. "I keep running, but always end up, somehow, on the knife-thrower's target. And then, just before the first dagger hits, I wake up, back in my dorm." She shuddered. "It's strange. I usually love the circus."
