The hotness.
The fire.
The flames.
The very, very hot flames tried to burn her alive.
But the worst thing? The fire was inside of her. It grew larger with every breath she took and the flames burned her inside out. Her heart pounded as the flames in her spread, spreading to every part of her body. She could feel nothing and everything all at once, and it blurred together, making her feel numb yet making her feel pain.
And to her horror, the flames pushed through her skin and orange, fiery and thick flames appeared on Evelyn's arms, then on her legs. The next thing she knew, flames were covering every part of her body and it was so very, very hot, but yet very, very cold at the same time.
She didn't know what to feel. What to do.
After a few painful minutes, her brain finally gave her a command to run and find help or water to put out the flames that were slowly devouring her.
She took off in search for help or water but with every step she took, the flames wrapping her grew thicker and every step she took also left a burnt footprint on the ground.
Finally, she spotted a lake. Victory!
Evelyn ran towards it and was about to jump into the lake when she noticed her reflection.
She was terrifying and hideous. She was....a monster. She looked like a fire monster and the flames had covered her so much her body's shape and her face's features were gone. Her eyes were replaced with two blank, black huge holes and she looked a little goopy too.
"Wh-why do I look like this?" she asked aloud, but her question came out as a horrifying roar.
Without another moment to waste, she jumped into the pool and let out a relieved sigh as the water sizzled around her and the flames grew smaller. But a second later, the water morphed into a scorching, purple fire.
Evelyn quickly pulled herself out of the purple-flame filled pool and started running away from the lake-turned-into-a-pool-of-purple-fire. But the purple flames followed her and trailed behind her, making Evelyn freak out even more.
So she did the only thing she could- run and find help. Fortunately, she managed to spot a village filled with vintage, wooden houses.
Without thinking, she ran into the village, where villagers were happily walking and talking to one another, but the sight of Evelyn sent them scrambling and shouting.
"No! I'm not a monster- I'm not going to hurt you, I promise! I just came here because I need help!" Evelyn tried to explain, but it came out as heart-stopping roars.
That sent the villagers shouting and scrambling even more. A few villagers stopped running and pointed to behind Evelyn.
"FIRE!" Another villager shouted and Evelyn turned around to see....
Purple flame-covered wooden houses and fire everywhere behind her. At this point, when she turned backed, all the villagers had stopped shouting, instead now yelling orders to stop the fire and scrambling around to fetch water. The purple trail of flames must've somehow set the houses on fire.
And in all that chaos, Evelyn could spot some very familiar faces.
"Mom? Dad?" she gasped and was about to rub her eyes to make sure it wasn't a trick but stopped herself when she noticed her flame-covered hands.
She took a step closer and could make out Talia, Rick and Brain too. The world dimmed and blurred, with the only clear and focusable thing being her family.
But....they didn't look like her family. Their supposedly to be happy and cheerful faces were replaced with frowns and they just looked...different. And in a bad way.
The worse thing was when all of them raised their right hands at the same time and held out a finger and shook it, shaking their heads at the same time. They looked...disappointed. And mad.
But Evelyn snapped out of her reverie when Bently pointed straight at her and shouted, "Get her! She was the one who started the fire!"
Evelyn's eyes widened. How did he know that she was a 'she'? It was as if he knew who she was, somehow.
She took a step back as a horde of angry villagers headed for her with pitchforks and buckets of water. She knew she was supposed to run, but she couldn't get her legs to move and she could only stare at her family and the horde of villagers as they came closer....
And closer....
And closer.....
"GAH!" Evelyn heard a yell which was followed with a thud a few seconds later as her eyes fluttered open.
She sat up and realized she was the one who yelled and the thud was the sound of her tumbling out of bed. She took a few deep breaths as she told herself, "It was only a bad dream."
But it didn't seem like a bad dream-everything was so realistic. And her family....they looked so disappointed. And Bently had pointed out that she had started the fire. That was so....un-Bently of him. But she did start the fire.
She closed her eyes, her family's faces appearing in her mind. They looked so.....
"It was only a dream." she reminded herself once again. "A very, very bad dream."
She sighed and pulled herself back onto the bed, wrapping herself up in the covers. But… she couldn't help wondering. What if her family were still alive? It was silly, of course, but she did live in a world where powers existed and mythical animals roamed the grounds.
What if-
WHIRRRR!
CLANK!
"What the-?" Evelyn jumped in her bed and threw back the covers. She grabbed her nightcoat, which was hanging on her bedroom door and slipped it on, stumbling into her night slippers as well.
She slammed her door open and stumbled down the stairs and to the hallway, where she was sure the noises were coming from. Sure enough, when she screeched to a stop in front of the hallway, there were some workers removing the wood floorboards from the floor and digging up something.
WHIRRRRR!
"Excuse me-" Evelyn started to say, but another WHIRRR! cut her off, so she just got on her tippy-toes and walked on around the workers, careful not to trip. When she finally got outside, there were even more workers digging up several spots of the earth.
Several steps away from Evelyn stood three familiar figures with their backs turned to Evelyn, monitoring the workers while they did their work.
Evelyn marched to the figure closest to her. "Alter? What is going on?" she demanded, pulling out her timeteller from her coat's deep pocket. She eyed the timeteller, which looked like a clock and frowned when it showed that is was half past two. "Why are there workers here during midnight?"
The three figures turned to Evelyn and Evelyn found herself standing in front of Atler, Ellete and Zak. They turned slightly pale when they saw her, and Atler's eyebrows raised to the top of his forehead. "Evelyn? What are you doing here?" he asked. "Shouldn't you be sleeping?"
Evelyn placed her hands on her hips. "Back at you. Shouldn't you be asleep? And why are you ignoring my question?"
Atler but his lip and turned to Zak, his eyes pleading with help and Zak put his hands on his hip like Evelyn. "Hey, I told you to put sleeping powder in her beverage! That's what you get for not listening to a grimmy. And not just any grimmy- me! So, nuh-uh. I'm so not helping you get out of this mess. You're handling it by yourself."
Atler but his lip even harder and turned to Ellete, who gave a slight shrug. Then he let out a groan. "Well… um… the water pipes underground burst and we had to fix it."
"And you had to fix it in the middle of the night?" Evelyn asked, signalling to the workers.
Atler hesitated a second before answering, "It was so serious it flooded the entire toilet, so we had to fix it before it flooded the entire house."
Evelyn frowned. "That feels like a made-up story."
Atler shook his head-a little too fast and hard. "It's not! Really, the water pipes just burst. Now you should run along and go to bed."
Evelyn held Atler's stare, searching for any clue of his appearance that might give out the answer, but she couldn't find one. "Fine. I'll go to bed. But I want more details on this tomorrow, even if it's just 'bursted water pipes'." She held up her fingers into a Y and bent them.
"There's no more details- it's just bursted water pipes! But if you insist, I guess… sure. If anything happens while you're sleeping." Alter agreed.
"Alright, kid. Off to bed!" Zak said, shooing her off.
Evelyn gave her good nights to them before running off inside and stumbling into her room, burying herself in the covers.
She could still hear the construction sounds but she tuned them out, thinking about her family before finally managing to drift off to sleep.
"I don't get it," Evelyn mumbled the next day at school to her friends, who were sitting together with her at their usual table. "Atler's been acting super weird after he talked with Zak."
"Do you know what Zak talked to him about?" Leia asked.
"I have no idea of what they talked about. But...Zak did look a little frightened." Evelyn answered, poking at her food.
"So....Lord Atler just said the pipes burst?" Amelia jumped into the conversation.
Evelyn nodded. "And you know you can stop calling Atler and Ellete fancy names like 'Lord' and 'Lady', right? They insisted that you call them by their normal names."
"Okay...." Leia cleared her throat. "I kinda feel like the story he gave you was fake."
"Same." Evelyn sighed. "Plus, Zak, Ellete, Atler and the workers were still outside when I woke up. And the hallway is back to normal, but Atler told me when I teleported back home I would teleport to the centre if my neighborhood, so I have to walk back to my house. Plus, my house didn't have fences but when I went outside today to check on them, there were extra-long fences securing the sides of the house and alarms are being added."
"Have you asked Lord At-" Leia paused, giving a sheepish smile. "Sorry, I'm just so used to calling him that. Anyway, back to what I was saying. Have you asked Atler why there are fences and why alarms are being added?"
Evelyn slapped a hand against her forehead. "I didn't. But I'll ask when I get back home."
"And you said Zak was frightened, right?"
Evelyn nodded. "Not that frightened-just a little. But he did look nervous. He was a little pale and fidgety, especially when he asked Atler if they could talk privately. And I couldn't hear what they were saying. I mean, I could, but just a little. They were speaking in hushed whispers."
Leia rested her head in her hands and bit her lip. "Hmm…"
The conversation seemed to end there as the group devoured their food.
The bell rang several minutes later, and they all went their separate ways to their different classes.
Evelyn had history, and she took notes as she sat through the two-hour lecture about Nyx history. After the difficult two hours of struggling to keep up and write down what the teacher was saying, she had a one-hour English class and a two-hour social studies class before the bell rang once again, signalling the end of school.
Students raced out of classrooms and the opening and closing of lockers clicks filled the air as students collected their possessions. Chatter echoed through the hallway as Evelyn made her way to her locker to retrieve her timeteller, holopod and teleball. She teleported right after clicking her locker shut and sure enough, as Atler had said, she ended up in the neighborhood's centre and she walked to her house.
She stopped in front of a noticeable door between the fences but noticed there wasn't a handle on it. There was also no doorbell or knocker, so she settled for calling out: "Hello? Is anyone home?"
Several minutes passed before she could hear footsteps and the door slightly opened. Alter peeked out of the door and gave a relieved sigh when he noticed it was Evelyn. "Hey, kid." He opened the door more to let Evelyn in and stepped aside. "How was school?"
"Good." Evelyn went through the door. "Why are you adding fences and alarms?" she decided to ask before she forgot to. "I thought the pipes underground burst? Why are the workers adding security?"
Atler scratched the back of his head and hesitated a second before answering. "Well… since the workers were already here, I decided to ask them to add some security."
"Why?" Evelyn pressed.
"Why can't I?"
Evelyn frowned. "You know that isn't a real answer, right?"
For a second Atler looked like he might tell her the truth and his mouth formed different words but he settled on "Well, it's the only answer you'll get, kiddo. So run along now."
Evelyn wanted to squeeze more answers out of him, but she also wanted to obey so she stumbled into the house, deciding to ask Ellete instead. If she couldn't get the answers she wanted, she could go to Zak.
Evelyn found Ellete in the kitchen, cooking lunch.
"Oh, Evelyn. How was school?" Ellete asked as Evelyn tried to peek at what Ellete was making.
Evelyn gave her the same answer she gave Atler: "Good." Then she asked Ellete the same thing she asked Atler.
Ellete went a little pale and her voice sounded the tiniest bit of quivery as she asked, "And what did Atler say to you?"
Evelyn repeated everything Atler said to her, and asked her the question again. "Why are you guys adding alarms and fences?"
Ellete went silent.
"This is my home too. I need to know if something is happening. You can't tell me 'Oh, we're just adding extra security since the workers are here anyway.' As far as I'm concerned, before I came and up until now, you guys didn't have any security. You said it was so safe in this neighborhood that you didn't need security. And now there are extra long fences and a crazy amount of alarms. It's way too sudden for me to believe Atler's lame reason."
Ellete sighed. "I...."
Evelyn put on her pity eyes.
"I'm sorry. I can't tell you." Ellete wiped her hands on a blue, patterned cloth and walked pass Evelyn.
Evelyn let out an extra-long, dramatic sigh and frowned. "Well, I still have Zak to ask." she said to herself, pulling out her teleball from her school uniforms' shirt pocket and threw it in the air, muttering for Zak's place before the ball fell onto her head.
A blinding white light flashed and disappeared, leaving Evelyn in the hallway of Zak's cozy, neutral-brown themed home.
"Zak?" she called out. When there was no answer, she walked around, trying to find the obnoxious little grimmy.
She wandered into the living room, which looked as cozy as ever with its fireplace and neutral-and-light-brown couch. A tiny, wooden bookshelf was located on the left side of the room and it was filled with different books.
Evelyn was about to wander off into another room to look for Zak when she noticed a fast object, or creature that ran from under the couch to under the bookshelf. She let out a little yelp when it happened- the creature ran so fast that it looked like a shadow and Evelyn couldn't really see what it was. Whatever it was, though, definitely knew how to startle people.
"Um..." Evelyn muttered as she stepped closer to the bookshelf. "Um..Zak? There's..um..something really fast in your living room!" she called out.
Still no answer.
Evelyn cautiously got down to her knees and bent under to see the 'thing' which was hiding under the bookshelf, but before she fully got a look of it, it dashed out of under the bookshelf.
Evelyn quickly got to her feet and chased after it. It kind of looked like.....a huge, fluffy pom-pom, hairball creature-thing. But whatever it was, it was fast.
It exited the living room and made a dash for the kitchen, and as it swerved left Evelyn almost lost sight of it but fortunately, when she made a turn left she could still see it running.
Evelyn picked up speed and she could feel energy pumping in her legs. When the creature was close enough to her, Evelyn jumped and....
Landed on the ground with the creature squirming in her hands.
She clutched the creature a little tighter and examined it. The creature had blue hair and looked like those pom-pom, hairball keychains, but just three times bigger. The creature also had two large, cute eyes and two short but sturdy orange legs.
The creature looked a little startled, so she decided to soothe it a little. The run was pretty, terrifying, after all.
"Hey, little fella." she said, scratching the furball's top. The creature purred in her hands. "Aw, you're so cu-"
"Yes! You found Floof!" a shout from behind Evelyn startled her, making her jump and releasing her hold on the creature. The creature took off running again, and Zak came up from behind Evelyn and ran past her.
Evelyn got to her feet and ran after the creature, holding off a sigh-the run begins again.
She picked up speed after a few warm-up steps and ran past Zak. When she was close enough to the creature again, she bent down and scooped the furball into her hands.
Zak soom caught up with her and she waited for him to catch his breath.
"You...are..a...fast...runner,....kid..." he eventually managed to say between pants.
"Um...thanks?" Evelyn said, tightening her hold on the squirming furball in her hands so she wouldn't drop it.
"That's Floof." Zak introduced, pointing to the creature. "She's a little shy, so she tends to run away from people and hide. But she's shy because I just got her and she's not used to the environment and all, ya know?"
Evelyn eyed the creature- or Floof. "What animal is Floof? I've never seen an animal like this before."
Zak chuckled. "You've never seen a lotta animals, kid. But she's a Floof."
"No, I mean what animal is she?" Evelyn asked again.
"She's a Floof!"
"Isn't that her name?"
Zak nodded and gave a smug grin. "No, you've got it wrong. She's a Floof and her name's Floof."
Evelyn frowned. "Okay...that's a little weird."
Zak scooped up Floof from Evelyn's hands. "Weird is unique."
Evelyn couldn't argue with that.
"Anyway, why are ya here, kid?" Zak asked, scratching Floof before bending down to let her free.
Evelyn crossed her fingers in hopes of Zak giving her a real answer. "Why is Atler adding fences and alarms and extra security to the house?"
Zak winced. "Sorry, kid. I can't tell ya."
Evelyn put on her pity eyes once again. "Please?"
Zak shook his head. "No can do, kid."
Evelyn made her pity eyes bigger and said a "Please" again, adding a similar speech she gave Ellete when it didn't work.
When she was done with her speech, she held her breath as Zak looked liked he was considering it.
"Still a no, kid. Sorry." Zak eventually said.
"But why?" Evelyn pressed.
"Also can't tell ya that, kid."
"Fine. But can you give me five words to why and what all this is connected to?"
Zak went silent as he thought about it.
"Please?"
"Fine." he gave in. "But I'll only give you two words."
Evelyn eagerly nodded. Two words weren't much, but it was something.
"Okay, here are your words: Vision and future. These words aren't really the main point of this whole thing, but that's really the most I can give without giving the whole thing away."
"Well, it's something. Thanks for your help, Zak. Now I probably have to go home before Atler and Ellete starts to worry." Evelyn said, pulling a teleball out of her pocket.
"Yeah, probably." Zak agreed.
Evelyn watched him wander off in look for Floof before throwing the teleball up and muttering for home.