𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐄𝐧𝐝𝐬

[𝐀 𝐊𝐨𝐭𝐋𝐂 𝐅𝐚𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐜]</big>
== 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐎𝐧𝐞 ==
==== 𝑺𝒐𝒑𝒉𝒊𝒆 ====
  “𝑺𝒐𝒑𝒉𝒊𝒆 𝑬𝒍𝒊𝒛𝒂𝒃𝒆𝒕𝒉 𝑭𝒐𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓, what have you gotten yourself into?” I mutter to myself, pushing a strand of blonde hair out of my face.
“A bunch of trouble,” Keefe piped up, supplying me with what I already knew.
“Paired with a side of danger!” Fitz added.
I find myself smiling at them, despite the severity of the situation; they always have that effect on me.
Glancing back at the map, I place a finger on the illustration of Atlantis. The artist depicted it as a glittering, perfect city, but I knew how much darker the secrets that resided within it were.
“Sophie,” I turn around to look back at Fitz, “Don’t worry. We’ll figure this out.”
“I certainly hope so,” I murmur.
Ever since people- humans -started going missing, we’ve been working nonstop to figure out the who? why? and how? of this situation, while everyone else does the protecting-slash-saving part.
Not the best job, gotta tell you.
Keefe comes to stand beside me, staring at the map; the lines shift, changing as the world changes with it.
“They’re all going to keep dying if this keeps up.” The voice, surprisingly, is Keefe’s.
“I know,” I say miserably. “Did Dex ever get back to you about that girl?”
‘That girl’ being a fifteen-year-old human that had somehow found her way into the lost cities.
“No,” Keefe replied as Fitz said ‘Yes’ at the same time.
I raise an eyebrow, “Does she have a name?”
“Phoebe,” Fitz tells me, “She’s still sedated, but I searched her memories,”
“Wait a second, you searched her memories?” I can’t help sounding a little bit angry at him. “And she’s sedated?”
“Told you she wouldn’t react well to this,” Keefe muttered.
I ignore them, biting my lip. “Can I go see her?”
“Why?” Keefe asked.
“Because…” I glance out the window. Because she’s probably just as scared as I was when I first came here. Because her family is missing, just like mine was. “I want to,” I answer instead.
“Uh..Grady…Elwin…” Fitz says, evidently struggling to find an excuse for me not to see her.
“Stop being an idiot,” I say, “Why can’t I go see her?”
“For one, she’s sedated, and secondly, she’s…”
But I never heard his second excuse. I hold up a light leaping crystal to the light, letting the gentle flurry whisk me away.
───── ⚝ ─────
Phoebe is covered in burns.
Choking back a sob, I turn away from the girl, towards Elwin.
“Sophie…what are you doing here? I told Fitz to warn you that you shouldn’t..”
“What happened to her?” I ask, my words fragile and shaky.
“We don’t know,” Elwin sighed. He looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks. “We don’t know anything,”
I turn back towards the girl; she has short black hair, and the only part of her chocolate brown skin that isn’t burned is her left cheek.
“I guess I get why Keefe and Fitz didn’t want me to come see her,” I state quietly.
“You really should listen to them, Sophie,” Elwin says softly, placing a hand on my arm, “They’re just…”
“Trying to protect me,” I finish bitterly, “But I don’t need protection!”
I sit down on the cot beside Phoebe’s, looking anywhere except at her. Catching the concerned look Elwin is sending me, I repeat, “I don’t,”
“Fine, maybe you don’t. But you’ve got to admit the gesture is sweet,” Elwin says, sitting down next to me.
I groan, “Not you too. Grady has already been bugging me nonstop.”
“Ok, ok, I won’t talk about that.” Elwin gives me a lopsided smile. “How’s your progress with the missing humans?”
“Terrible,” I say.
Elwin snorted, “That’s helpful,”
I roll my eyes at him, “We’re getting nowhere. Every single day more humans go missing, but we still can’t find or protect them,”
Just then a teal-eyed boy glimmered into view, “Sophie, why on earth did you just leave like that-”
He glanced towards Elwin, then finished, “We were really worried. And we knew that seeing Phoebe might…affect you,”
“I’m fine Fitz,” I assure him, remembering Elwin’s earlier words, “But it was really sweet of you to come. Really,”
Fitz finally seems to notice Phoebe. His eyes grew dark.
“She’ll heal, right?”
Elwin nodded, “The burns are recent; one or two days at the latest. She might have a few scars, but other than that, she’ll be fine,”
“That’s good,” Fitz says, but his heart doesn’t seem to be in it.
Elwin stands up, “I’ll be back in a moment.”
Which leaves me and Fitz, alone. I glance back at Phoebe. Well, maybe not completely alone.
“Hi?” I try.
Fitz sighs, “Sophie, you can’t just…run away like that,”
“It worked for Keefe.” I grumble, “And besides, I didn’t ‘run away’. I just came to see Phoebe.”
“Why, though?” Fitz asked, “’I want to’ isn’t much of an explanation,”
“I don’t know.” I say, deciding it would be best to just tell the truth, “I just felt…sort of, connected to her. It’s stupid, I know,”
“It’s not stupid, Sophie. In fact, I kinda get that. She acted exactly like you did when I first found you. That is, when she was awake,”
I bite my lip, “Thank-”
A voice interrupts me, “No,”
Both me and Fitz look at each other, then back at the human in front of us.
“No!” Phoebe says again.
Fitz slowly walks towards her, “-Are you okay?”
Phoebe looks wildly around, “Where am I? Where did they go?”
“Do you..remember your name?” I ask gently.
She stares at us, furrowing her brow, “I’m Phoebe. Phoebe Henderson. And my parents are dead,”
𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬: 𝟗𝟑𝟕 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬
𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬: 𝟒,𝟑𝟎𝟒 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬
== 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐰𝐨 ==
=== 𝑲𝒆𝒆𝒇𝒆 ===
   𝑰 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 known Sophie would leave like that. She’s always had a bit of a rebellious streak.
“I’m going after her,” I tell Fitz, fumbling with my light leaping crystal.
Fitz shakes his head, “I’ll go. You stay here and tell Grady where Sophie and I went.”
“Oh, that’s fair. You get to go be the hero and I get to stay behind and get interrogated by Grady,” I grumble.
Fitz eyes me, “I’ll bake you some ripplefluffs,” he bargains.
“But…fine.” I can’t say no to ripplefluffs, especially Fitz’s.
He leaps away, and I collapse onto Sophie’s bed.
“This bed is very fluffy,” I murmur, and Iggy burps in agreement.
I turn to him. He still has same mermaid pattern. The past few years have been so eventful that no one has had the time to change his colour.
Staring at him feels like a reminder of all my bad decisions. Specifically, my whole ‘let’s run away from my power’ decision.
“How ‘bout we change your colour up?” I ask Iggy. He stares at me with his watery green eyes, and I take that as a yes.
Pulling out my imparter, I say, “Hail Dexter Dizznee,”
Dex answers almost immediately, “Yes?”
I grin at him, “Iggy needs a makeover,”
───── ⚝─────
By the time we’re done, Iggy is red and orange and yellow, like fire. His fur glistens in the late afternoon sun.
“Perfect,” I say.
“Perfect,” Dex agrees.
Dex’s imparter starts ringing, and he pulls it out, “Sophie-”
“Phoebe is awake,” Sophie cuts him off. “She…wants to talk to you.”
“Me?” Dex frowns.
“No…Keefe,”
“We’ll be right there,” Dex hangs up and turns towards me, evidently wondering why the heck some random human girl wants to talk to me.
I shrug, “I don’t know either,”
Dex looks like he doesn’t believe me, but he doesn’t press any further, instead holding up a light leaping crystal to the light.
I follow him, feeling a silent twinge of panic.
No. It can’t be her. There’s probably hundreds of humans that are named Phoebe.
“You coming?” Dex asks.
I swallow back my panic, “Yep,”
If it is her, I don’t know what I’ll do.
───── ⚝─────
“-they didn’t get out in time.” a teary black-haired girl told Sophie.
Sophie gently hugged her, “It’s okay,” she said quietly
Even before Phoebe turned around, I knew it was her. Same black hair, same dark brown eyes, same dark pink lips.
“You’re not supposed to be here.”
I look up, almost starting to reply ‘Why?’ before snapping my mouth shut.
Part of me had hoped to see Foster, but instead I saw a girl with short black hair.
She glares at me, “You could at least acknowledge me.”
“I would but-” I slap my hand over my mouth.
Her eyes widen, “Oh..I didn’t know that you..well..didn’t speak English.”
I wince. Right. Humans can’t understand Enlightened Language.
“Hi?” I try in English, remembering a few words that Fitz taught me. Nothing happens to her, so I guess that’s a good thing.
“So you do speak English.” I shake my head, frowning. This was a lot harder. If only I could distract her, and then get away…
“You can only speak a little english?” she guesses. “Oh, by the way, I’m Phoebe.”
I grab a stick, writing out my name in the sand.
“Kefe?” Phoebe tilts her head to the side. “No, wait, Keefe?”
I nod.
“Strange name,” She says, then shrugs.
Phoebe recognizes me almost instantly. She pushes the covers off of her then runs towards me and asks, “Keefe?”
She says it in English, which I now completely understand, thanks to her endless lessons.
“Phoe-” I start, but she wraps her arms around my neck and kisses me before I can say another word.
𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬: 𝟔𝟐𝟗 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬
𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬: 𝟐,𝟖𝟏𝟔 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬