sᴇʟғɪsʜ~ʟᴇɢᴀᴄɪᴇs {slow updates}

ᴛ ᴡ ᴇ ʟ ᴠ ᴇ

"This happened to you in a nightmare? Are you sure?" Uncle Ric asks Raf as we made our way to his office, realising this must've been the latest monster. "Look, I know that it sounds crazy, but I was studying and then I fell asleep, and then I just started dreaming about..." we all look to him as he trails off, "About what?" He looks at me and then away quickly, "Um... Um... One of my old, uh, foster dads. He was in the library, and he had this old belt that he used to use on me." I feel bad for Rafael, I had no clue on how he felt at the resurface of his old trauma. "Do you remember anything else?" Uncle Ric asks, "Yeah, there was, there was this woman there, too. She was wearing an-an old, black dress and-and a veil. And she told me, "You know what I want." But..."

"The urn. Sounds like our next monster showed up. You know, every culture on Earth has legends about creatures that only appear in dreams. But a woman in a black dress and a veil is pretty specific." I glance over at my uncle, "So, does that mean that she can, like, control what we see in our dreams? That she can put stuff in our, in our heads?" I ask him wanting to know if she had put that scary image of my father in my head or if I had done it. "It's possible." He says shooting me a curious glance. "Did you have a dream too?" I nod and lift the sleeve back to show the rather large burn decorating my flesh.

His eyes widen as he comes over to inspect, "have you treated this burn." He asks me as he looks it over, I shake my head, "no..." He gives his own head a small shake, "Arabella you need to treat it before you catch an infection." I wince at the tone, "I know uncle Ric, I will, besides even if I do catch an infection I can just magic it away." A small smile makes its way to his face at my light hearted tone.

"What did you dream about?" He asks me curiously causing the small smile on my face to fall as the two other teens shot me curious glances. I think about my dream and whether I should share or not. "My dad he um- he did it to me." I admit in a small voice making uncle Ric's face fall, "your dads gone he can't hurt you." He tells me as he pulls me into a hug. My eyebrows furrow for a second I realised that every time my dad has been mention around him uncle Ric gets this weird look on his face, like he knew something or something.

It made me wonder; did he know where my dad was?

"Ok now go and take care of that burn." He tells me, I nod and give him a small smile as Hope links her arm in mine. "I'll treat it for you." She tells me as she pulls me along, "I feel like I've not spoken to you in ages." I tell her making her laugh, "same, there's a lot we need to catch up on." She hums as we make our way to her room, see living at a boarding bub school meant living with your friends, and so you get so used to seeing them that a few days apart could feel like months.

"So you asked Landon to be your boyfriend?" I ask in shock in all the years I'd been friends with hope she'd never had a boyfriend, the closest thing would've been Roman but then he helped kill her mom so. "But?" I ask knowing the look on her face, "we met his mom but she jumped into the malivore pit that makes people forget you and so he doesn't know." My eyebrows raise, "And you're not gonna tell him?" She looks to me for guidance, "should I? Kie thinks I should but I'm just trying to protect him." I nod completely understanding what she meant, I was doing the exact same thing to my sister. "I don't know Hope, I don't know Landon like you do, you just do what you think is right." I advise knowing I probably wasn't the best person to be handing out advice.

***

"A black-winged what?"

"Shapeshifting dream demon." Hope and Landon reply in unison. "I know it sounds bad, but now that we know what the creature is, we can fight it." Hope had assembled a group of us to try and get this dream demon. "How the hell are we supposed to kill a dream demon?"

"Leave that part to me. But since I can't fall asleep without compromising the location of the urn, I need someone else to pull it out of the dream plane and into our waking reality." Well didn't that sound fun. "So, Freddy Krueger. Like I said." Mg adds making me laugh. "Wait, how the hell are we supposed to do that?" Raf asks as I nod song confused.

"If it's anything like the movies, we just grab and pull." Mg says making me nod, "that sounds like a solid plan."i hum sarcastically.

"Yeah, okay. Is it too late to get on the, uh, evacuation bus?" Kaleb asks "No. I mean, I'm not gonna ask all of you to stay for this, it has to be your choice." Hope tells us making me sigh.

"I'm not leaving unless Hope does." Landon says, "We already know the answer to that, so..."

"I'm not leaving Landon behind."

"I'm a founding member of the Super Squad, so I can't bail." Mg says making me sigh again. "Y'all gonna get yourselves killed." Kaleb says before he too sighs. "But if MG stays, I stay. No child left behind."

Hope turns to me and Kaiara, "well you know we're with you always no matter what." I say making Hope smile as Kaiara nods. "In that case, it's naptime."

"You don't have to do this Kie." I say as everyone gets ready to go to sleep in the gym. "Well neither do you. I can handle it Bella." I nod, "I didn't say that you couldn't but I don't see the need of you putting yourself in unnecessary danger."

"Well you're doing it." I sigh, "I'm doing it because I've already been through it, you haven't and I don't want you to have to go through that because it sucks big time."

"Arabella, I know that you're technically older but you have to stop constantly worrying about me, I can handle myself, you don't need to keep babying me." She says making me nod. "Right sorry, I know that you can handle yourself but looking out for you is like my job." I say making her smile.

"Time to go to bed guys." Hope says disrupting us, we all lay down on our makeshift beds and I smile over at Kaiara reassuringly before turning over and closing my eyes.

"Arabella!" They shout at me because I start laughing, "I'm sorry you guys but this is so awkward I can't just fall asleep like that." I say making Mg reach over and pinch me, "ouch." I hiss pulling my arm away from him. "I will kick you out of the super squad if you do not take this seriously."

"Boo hoo I'm gonna go cry about it now."

"Arabella!"

"Ok sorry, sorry. Sweet dreams guys." I say before laughing at the statement, "wait that's not the goal sorry." I say as the rest of them laugh too.

"You guys stop laughing this is serious!" I scold making Mg pinch me again. "Ok, ok I'm sorry again let's sleep for real this time."

𝙍𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙤𝙢 𝙪𝙥𝙙𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙞𝙢 𝙨𝙤𝙧𝙧𝙮 𝙞𝙩𝙨 𝙩𝙖𝙠𝙚𝙣 𝙨𝙤 𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙜 𝙨𝙤 𝙬𝙝𝙤𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙞𝙨 𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚, 𝙞𝙢 𝙨𝙤𝙧𝙧𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙝𝙤𝙥𝙚𝙛𝙪𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙪𝙥𝙙𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙛𝙧𝙚𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙤𝙣 :)