- 660:32:35 (1:28:25 P. M., Day 1)
Malise came to about an hour later, in the nurse’s office, lying on the only bed. Her head was throbbing terribly.
Kiara and Arden had stopped arguing when Malise collapsed and run back into the cafeteria, finding the police officer that monitored their school, who then carried her to the nurse. A few minutes later Arden had complained to his mother, one of the members of the school faculty, that he had started to feel sick too, and she immediately sent him home; he always pulled this trick, and he was always sent home. Malise and Kiara held this grudge against him, about always feigning illness, and sometimes they would stop talking to him for a few days afterwards. It wasn’t the subtlest of tactics, but it worked.
Malise blinked her eyes, willing them to adjust to the bright lights of the nurse’s office, and trying to slough the sleep that still clung to her, and for the first time she noticed the nurse was there. She didn’t know how she could’ve missed that detail, seeing as she was making a terrible racket.
“…and those monstrous tests! Who could expect eighth graders to know this stuff? God, even I wouldn’t be able to keep up with all the work they’re given! I keep telling those teachers that one day a student will get overloaded and just collapse! But no don’t believe Ms. Engle she’s only the school NURSE!” Ms. Engle the haggard old school nurse and the guidance counselor (scary, eh?) ranted to herself as she typed something up on the computer, probably some kind of medical report.
Malise moaned and sat up. Ms. Engle stopped talking immediately and bustled over to the bed, pushing at Malise’s shoulder, forcing her to lie back down. “Stay down! You’re not fit to get back up yet.” Ms Engle looked down sympathetically and sighed, “Poor child; pushed yourself too hard would be my guess…” Ms. Engle’s tone of voice had changed so quickly it made Malise’s head throb even worse. Ms. Engle made a tutting sound with her tongue as she laid the back of her hand against Malise’s forehead to check her temperature. “Well, you’re not warm…” She shuffled back to her computer making a note of Malise’s temperature.
“Uhhh…” Malise started, “where are my friends? Are they in class?” She asked, inconspicuously raising herself off the bed as to not attract Ms. Engle again.
Nevertheless, it was in vain. Ms. Engle turned around, forced her back down by her shoulder and said, “Yes, yes, well, one is. Kiara is. Arden went home. He said he had a headache too… though he didn’t act like it…,” she said, mumbling the last bit. Malise sent an annoyed scowl in the direction of the wall, as if it could somehow transmit the message to Arden.
“Can I go back to class now?” Malise asked Ms. Engle anxiously, growing ever more bored and sick of the white walls and the near silence. Malise usually liked silence, but not… hospital silence…. Hospital silence is silence that seems to stretch your sanity to its limit. Hospital silence is uneasy silence, like the silence that occurs when you’re waiting; silence that makes you feel the need to scream, break something, play loud music, make some kind of noise, anything just to shatter it.
Ms. Engle waved a distracted hand back at Malise. “Yes, yes. Go on if you feel better. Oh and here’s something that may help.” She said reaching into her pocket and rolling her chair over to Malise and handing her something small and fruity smelling. Malise scowled at the cough drop lying in her palm and left the nurse’s office, tossing the cough drop in the trash can on the way out.
- 661:02:06 (12:58:54 P.M., Day 1)
Arden walked hunched over, head down, back to his house, sighing. ‘I can’t believe it… Malise is the legendary…the disciple of Satan….’
‘Well, you’d better start believing it, because the moment she collapsed I recognized her soul. It was that of Natas, Lucifer’s wife… she who is prophesized to give birth to the apocalypse.’ Lan, the very real demon inside of Arden informed him, sounding almost bitter. ‘And she did so, nearly two millennia ago. Though it didn’t go exactly according to plan...’
Arden’s head started to ache as he looked for any possible way to prove Lan was lying.
He closed his eyes tightly, as if trying to shut out the truth. ‘That’s impossible! How can that be true? She wouldn’t… she isn’t capable of bringing around the end of the world, Lan!’
‘Don’t tell me what people are capable of, Braeden!’ Lan went silent, realizing he had made a horrible mistake.
Arden stopped walking, coming to a halt directly outside of his house gate. ‘Who’s Braeden?’ he asked quietly. Lan remained silent for a long moment.
‘He is… one of Satan’s followers, and he died a long time ago.’ He finally conceded. Arden continued his path into his house and up to his room. Lan gave a dark laugh, ‘You’re a lot like him… in more ways than I would have ever thought possible… I guess that’s why I called you by his name.’
Arden nodded, having never seen this side of Lan before, or heard about his past.
- 660:19:32 (1:41:28 P.M., Day 1)
Kiara sighed, leaning her head on her balled up fist, waiting for the note back from Helena, another of their friends. They all called her Elena for practicality. She twitched her fingers and made her pencil strike the school desk in a furious cadence, gaining her aggravated glance from the other people in the room.
Elena cleared her throat and Kiara sighed. Finally. She reached behind her and plucked the communication from Elena’s hands, unfolding it as inaudibly as she could without the arithmetic teacher perceiving. She reread what she had written again; it had been so long ago she had almost forgotten.
I can’t believe he faked again. What a loser. … but what about Malise? I wonder why she collapsed like that… and then there was that deal with Arden’s hair and eyes again… .
Oh, yeah that’s right… and Elena’s response was:
Yeah I know. I don’t know… maybe Arden made her have an anxiety attack
I don’t know. Him and that “demon” of his… sighs But it is weird that his hair and eyes changed again. What got him so riled this time?Kiara sighed, ceasing the incessant tapping to write her reply.
A little sixth grader spilled chili on him -.-‘.
Kiara shifted her weight onto her right elbow and slid the note, with her left hand, across the desk and in between her arm and elbow behind her to Elena again. And immediately she heard a stifled laugh. Very quiet but there. She got the note back quickly.
No way, are you serious? LMFAO.
Yeah, I’m serious. The kid nearly shit his pants LMAO. But I’m sure the whole cafeteria will have heard about this by now, you know sixth graders can’t keep their mouths shut.
Yeah, really. Great, this is just great. Not only is Arden gonna be thought of as more of a freak, but we’re now gonna be too. Ugh, I can hear it now. ‘The Gothic Demon Freaks.’
LMFAO, nice name.
Thanks.
One problem, we’re already considered ‘Gothic Freaks’ so add demon and I think that’ll actually stop the stupid comments from people. sighs Forget dogs, intimidation is man’s best friend.
Hey, I happen to like dogs.
Kiara couldn’t decide what to say to that so she altered the subject.
I have another stupid headache. sighs It’s probably from all this stress today. Kiara rubbed her temples with her eraser and forefinger. I’ve been getting these a lot lately. …actually, it seems like every time Malise has one of those message dreams I get a big headache T.T
Lol, it’s probably nothing.
If you say so.
On that note, the bell rang and everyone packed up his or her stuff, heading back to homeroom.
- 658:41:37 (3:19:23 P. M. Day 1)
“Hey, Elena, I say we should go see Malise and Arden after school, try to figure out what’s going on, you know.”
Elena nodded they departed, reuniting outside of the school where they walked towards Arden and Malise’s domains.
They knocked on Arden’s door and his mom answered. “I’m sorry, he can’t come out; he isn’t feeling well, you know.”
They nodded, hiding their exasperation as they turned and walked across the street to Malise’s house. They walked up the front steps and knocked. There was no answer. So they decided to knock on the side door, hoping to hell Malise’s dog wouldn’t be there. Phantom will bark and bite anything that moved. Kiara was almost deathly afraid of that dog notoriously named “The Dog from Hell.”
They opened the gate and Elena walked in first, Kiara waiting a few seconds before following. Kiara walked timidly forward, glancing around nervously. And then she heard the sound that nearly made her heart stop, a deep, throaty growl and a vicious bark that sounded before Phantom Came bounding at them from the backyard.
“Fuck,” Elena muttered as she backpedaled, spun completely around and instinctively tried to throw her arms up in front of her face, to hide behind her forearms, but her arms froze at her side. Kiara couldn’t see it but her eyes glazed over and her mouth fell open slightly. Kiara screamed, clenching her eyes shut and bracing herself.
What happened next astounded both of them. Phantom stopped mid-leap and slowly approached Elena, sniffing her and staring at her for the longest moment, and then looking at Kiara and in turn staring at her for a moment too. She uttered one non-threatening sounding bark and turned around, walking back to the backyard.
Kiara opened one eye cautiously, her arms still hiding her face. Seeing no danger, she lowered her arms a few inches. “Huh?” She asked incredulously. “What-what happened?”
Elena blinked, her eyes returning to normal. “I…I don’t know…” She said quietly. A little shaken, Elena pushed the thought from her mind and she walked forward to Malise’s home side-door. Kiara stayed put.
Elena approached the door and knocked, waiting a few moments before knocking again. In the midst of a third knock Serena opened the door. “What is it?” She asked.
“Is Malise here?” Elena replied.
“Yeah, but she doesn’t want to come out. Bye.” Serena closed the door in Elena’s face. Elena turned around slowly.
“She must still be feeling bad.” She stated calmly. Kiara nodded slightly, her face blank, still in shock. “Well, I guess we should go home now-”
Kiara nodded again and then clenched her eyes shut and shook her head in protest. “What was that back there? Why did Phantom respond to you- to us like that?”
Elena closed her eyes in a pained way. “I don’t know. That’s never happened before. It was weird…like… I don’t know.” She decided to try to avoid that answer that scared her.
Kiara blinked, deciding also to forego the subject. “Okay, let’s go home.”
- 657:59:09 (4:01:51 P.M. Day 1)
Malise laid on her bed, the blinds drawn and the curtains shut, gazing at the ceiling blindly. Her mind kept reestablishing the fact that Arden’s demon, Lan, was indeed real and that Arden played host to the Son of Lucifer and Natas, her reincarnated self. She was a reincarnated mother and her child was still alive. She was a mother. She was a wife.
Malise’s composure threatened destruction by explosion. She shook her head and rolled over on her side. She sighed. Lan, her son that despised her. Her eyes shot open. I must awaken Lan. I must deliver him the message from his father. Her eyes shut halfway.
‘I wonder if he’s realized it by now…’ She closed her eyes and shook her head again. ‘Arden…why’d you have to get tangled up in this mess…?’ Her eyes glazed over and she fell asleep again.
“Malise… I can feel it. The others are awakening. I can feel Aurelia is very close…very close to awakening, Kirra too. I can sense Ophelia’s presence as well… though since she isn’t as close it’s harder for her. The others have yet to react. Pay close attention to the people around you, Malise. Watch how they act. If their behavior is strange, keep a wary eye on them.” Satan relented.
Malise bowed deeply, “Yes, Master.” She replied. Awkwardness filled her mind as she transported back to her body.
Her eyes refocused. He is my husband… She shivered. It was a great honor, but it was also a little awkward. Though her soul was as old as time her mind was just over a decade old. She rolled over again staring absently at the wall. Then there was a noise coming from outside.
‘Phantom?’ She thought before she stood and walked over to her window, bending one of the shade blades so she could peek out. She furrowed her brow. Kiara? Elena? What were they doing here?
Malise watched the scene unfurl below her and what she saw made her jaw slacken. “E-Elena…?” She watched her eyes glaze over and saw how Phantom looked at her and then Kiara. Malise shook her head incredulously. It couldn’t be… could it?
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