Iris felt herself become weaker and weaker. She knew that she should feel some alarm by how lethargic she was feeling, but she could not even muster a bit of worry. She spent most of her time trying to wrack her brain about how to save Lumi. It had been days since Lumi had disappeared into that other world and they were no closer to getting her back. While she was wracking her brain to find a solution, Lorna was able to get a breakthrough after about a week of dead ends. It had happened when she was talking to her grandmother, who had been alerted by her elder brother about her own wrecked state. Her mother reminded her about a more fond time in her childhood, during the time when she would scare her and her friends about the legend of La Llorana to keep the girls in check anytime she had to watch over them. Lorna had rolled her eyes, not really in the mood to visit her childhood memories of her missing friend but not wanting to alarm her grandmother anymore than she already was with her anxiety. Then her grandmother mentioned something that she had long since forgotten. Something that may actually help them with their current situation.
"Wait a minute," she cut her grandmother off. "Can you repeat that abuela?"
Her grandmother was confused as she had been rambling on, more focused on being there for her granddaughter than anything else as even she could see that her nieta. Mentally going back over what she had just said, she was able to recall the words that piqued her granddaughter's attention.
"Ah!" Her grandmother recalled. "Many people believed that La Llorona were not just drowning her victims. Some believed that she was dragging them to hell."
Lorna, intrigued by this new facet of information, asked her grandmother to elaborate. Sadly, that was a dead end.
"Uh Uh," the older woman shut it down. "I am not giving you that information that easily. Your hermano has told me that you have locked yourself in your room and won't even leave to eat. Nina que necesitas salir. You need to go outside and stop being a personal de la cavernas. Once you act like you have a life, then I will tell you more information. What do you young ones call it? A trade?"
Lorna wanted to scream at her grandmother about how this was not cute. Her friend was missing, possibly in danger and she was wasting time playing this game. But she also knew that her grandmother would not believe her and if she went on a rant about how there was a floating fiend kidnapping girls out of nowhere, it would only further cement in her grandmother's mind that she was losing it. Begrudgingly, she agreed to her grandmother terms.
Lorna was still waiting to hear word back from her grandmother about the stories of people being sent to another world by the evil spirit, La Llorona. She was mad at herself for never taking those stories seriously and had wished she had paid more attention. At least she was able to do something. Iris was still trying to recover from whatever ailment was afflicting her, whereas Perseus...
Perseus had been besides himself.
When he finally accepted the fact that his sister was gone, he had lost it on the girls. They have never seen him get that angry before. It took Iris slapping him mind-rant for him to even stop the deluge of anger and insults. She saw how he was going to go back in with words of fire and scorn, but stopped when he saw her watery eyes. They just stared at each other, one panting from their anger and the other huffing from hurt. Iris backed away from Perseus, shaking her head when he tried to reach out to her. She rushed over to the other distraught girl who long since collapsed in shock. She pulled the girl up to her feet and fleeing with her back to her home. She tried to keep her breath steady, blinking rapidly to keep the tears at bay as they tried to burn their way out of her ducts. Her throat was closing from the hurt. Her chest tightening from the anxiety. When she and Lorna finally made it to her home, she managed to hold it together long enough to know on her door, not having enough presence of mind to locate her key. When her brother opened her door, she collapsed into his arms.
It had taken her hours to calm down enough to give her worried family some story to explain her state. They took Lorna, in a separate room to interrogate her. Most likely to find out the true story as well as keep her calm through the comfort of her parents. She does not know how they were able to get their stories to match, but somehow she was able to convince them that she had gotten into a fight with Perseus and that Lumi was questioning their friendship. Which should not be enough to make her as distraught as she was, but that was the best she could come up with. Her family had figured that there was more to the story, but they wanted to give her time to tell them her story.
But Iris could see her time was numbered. Her family had been flitting around, trying to make sure that she was okay and wanting to remind her that they were there for her. Seeing her become worse for wear over the last few days were making them more wary of whatever situation was affecting her. They have never seen Iris get this bad and we're unsure of how to approach her about it. Iris wanted to reassure them that everything was okay. Or she would have if she still didn't feel guilty about already lying to them. She felt a headache building up in her head and just wanted to sleep without being assaulted with nightmares.
These dreams were something new, and made her more fearful of what the prince had planned for Lumi. Her dreams would be a horrible recap of what happened on the boardwalk before devolving into an onslaught of blurry images from what must have been the prince's world. For her, she would be assaulted by a deluge of smells and sounds. It took her a few days to realize that this was what Lumi was seeing. Her own heart would thud in tandem with someone else's. She felt the other heartbeat echo dully, as the person's own puffs of breath stole her own breathing from her. As if there was not enough air for both of them to share.
Now that Perseus was standing in front of her, looming in her front door as she was reminded of the hurtful words he had said earlier. She could already feel her eyes burn as oncoming tears brimmed on their surface. The moisture quivering in tandem with her lips. She tried to breathe as her chest jerked from the pain. Perseus, surprised by her reaction, quickly wrapped his arms around her, holding her as tightly as he could to his own body. She was going to push him off of her, but then she felt him brush his lips against her temple.
They broke apart when Iris's older brother cleared his throat. The older man studied Perseus, his expression unreadable as he the other boy scrambled to greet him.
"Hello, Winston!" The reached out his hand for him to shake. "How are you doing?"
WInston continued to stare at his hand until he brought it back to his person.
"So are you also here to fix the issue with your missing sister?" The older man questioned him.
"She's not missing," Perseus hurried to find a believable excuse. "She's..." He looked to Iris, unsure of how much she had divulged to her family.
Winston rolled his eyes. "Look," he drew their attention as he clapped his hands. "I do not know what craziness is happening in your life right now, but it is negatively affecting my sister. And Lorna's folks have reached out to us to see what we know of the situation.
"You better get to the bottom of this before someone decides to call police." He smiled dangerously at Perseus. "You get me?"
Perseus nodded hurriedly. "Of course." He jerked in surprise when he felt Iris's fingers curl around his own. He smiled at her in relief. "We'll get Lumi back."
Winston nodded, happy at the answer. "That's great...wait...get her BACK?!!" He stared at the other boy in askance. "What--"
"Thanks for the pep talk!" Iris said, cutting off her brother. "Gotta go, now! Bye!" She said the last part brightly before pulling Perseus after her, running off in the direction of Lorna's house. The older boy watched them disappear before shaking his head and making his way back into their home.
"Those damn kids," he muttered to himself before making his way to his nosy parents who had taken refuge in the living room listening in on their conversation.
"On the bright side," he said to them. "Nobody died yet."