“Wake up, Sebby!” I leapt onto his bed, and watched giddily as his whole body bounced up a little before he crashed back down on the downy mattress. He moaned into his pillows.
“Karinnnn...” he mumbled sleepily, “Whaaat do you waaaant.” I giggled and ran my fingers through his cow-licked hair.
“C’moooon, Griffy’s making breakfast today! Can’t you smell the crepes?” he half-rolled over curiously, the mention of food bringing him to awareness. “They’re your faaaavorite,” I sang, tickling his now exposed tummy. He burst into an uncontrollable conniption and attempted to push me away
“Okay, okay, I’m up! I’m up!” he laughed, sitting up straight and hugging me tightly to make me stop.
Together, we ran through the familiar mansion halls and down the spiral staircase. The scent of crepes and fresh fruit drifted through my twitching nose and I sighed happily.
“Good morning!” I chimed, taking a seat at the dining room table across from Sebastian and next to Akira. Griffin raised an eyebrow as he placed a porcelain dish in front of each of us.
“You are rather chipper this morning,” he commented skeptically. I looked down at his hot pink Kiss the Wyvern chef apron and burst out laughing along with Sebastian. His ears started turning pink as he retorted, “It was a gift.” He then proceeded to spin around and trudge back to the kitchen where breakfast was cooking. I was still laughing by the time he reached the frying pans.
I wiped a joyful tear from my eye and glanced up in time to see the other members pouring down the staircase, eager for a delicious homemade breakfast. Everyone shuffled around sleepily until they found a place at the table, and some people were starting to wake up and chatter with one another. I smiled at the sight of it.
Hot steam rolled across my face as I realized there was a pile of fresh crepes right in front of me. A grin spread across my face as Griffin tossed some strawberries and powdered sugar on top. I thanked him ecstatically and waited for everyone else to get their delicious French pastry, too.
As Griffin came back around the long table to sit across from Akira, I noticed Sam doing something peculiar in my peripheral vision. He was putting on...a gas mask? I saw Colette’s mouth open slightly, probably to ask him what he was doing. I cast a worried glance at Nodin, who was as far away from Sam as he could possibly be. Is Sam really that paranoid?
Then I heard the coughing.
It happened simultaneously-- a toxic scent overpowered the delicious steam before me, and I my throat began to burn. My coughs joined the chorus of wheezing and gasping surrounding the table. What’s happening...!?
I couldn’t taste any oxygen left in the air. With painful tears pricking at my eyes, I could barely see the look on Sam’s face as he watched us all writhing with convulsions. I met his frightening electric stare before everything went black without warning...
By the time I woke up, I realized I was being carried away from the mansion. It hadn’t even been a minute since I passed out. “Sebastian...?” I croaked, my voice singed from the poisonous air. I tried to lift a hand to his face, but it just felt numb and heavy...
“Sh*t, they’re waking up already!” I froze in his arms. “I thought you said this stuff was strong!” I gasped as the person carrying me threw me into the back of a large van. I landed hard on Akira, but she was still passed out. My heart began to throb frantically.
“You wanted them alive, didn’t you?” a cold voice snapped. It sounded muffled and distorted, but with a jolt, I realized it belonged to Sam and his gas mask. I rolled over with all the energy I could muster and saw several men heaving bodies into the open space around me. Acacia. Dante. Ela.
I looked beyond them, desperate to understand what was happening. More thuds resounded about cabin. Colette. Aerith. Rano. The breath was knocked out of me when Rano’s wooden body landed hard on my ribs.
“...Yeah, but at this rate-- Gah, they’re waking up! Quick, just grab those last few-- We’ll have to come back later for the others! Move, MOVE!!” a grown man ordered in a high, stressed voice.
“KARIN!!!!!”
Sebastian-- Sebastian! I found him several meters away, wrestling against...Griffin...? With a strange, mixed feeling of relief and dread, I noticed several members running into the forest to safety. Heiji. Amor. Ash. Kateri. Travis. Alice. Toño. Solana. Nai-Hina. Violette. Riley. Bellinda. Nodin. Each member flew by in a blur, stumbling and tripping away in a full-out panic.
Sebastian had other ideas.
“KARIN!! AKIRA! Dammit, Griffin! Let me go!!” my ears managed to pick up his cries, even though he was very far away. “Arrêtez ce, Arrêtez ce....!”
“We will save them, Sebastian,” Griffin hissed quickly, but forcefully, struggling to hold my boyfriend’s wrath back. “But we have to save ourselves now,”
“Are you #$%*n’ kidding me?! Non! Non!!” he screamed as Griffin unfurled his wings.
I winced as even more bodies were tossed into the van. Ace. Keefer. Locke. Vevila. Kaki.
“We can't just let them...!” his voice sounded defeated, and I realized Griffin was using his wings to overpower Sebastian. Yet, he was still fighting back.
I saw the scientists in front of me cast each other anxious glances. One of them slowly pulled a handgun out of his coat, debating whether or not to just kill them right there.
“Sebastian, go!!” I screamed through tears. The scientists whirled around, startled. “Stop struggling, just save yourself, already!!” I cried, praying he would hear me and listen. He was so far away now, I could barely see the pain in his eyes as he let Griffin drag him away into the sanctuary of the forest. The man put his gun away.
“Karin, I swear--!!” his final call was cut off by the van doors slamming shut on my nose. My neck jerked back and I instantly knew that my nose was bleeding. I tried to cover it with my hands, but before long, I was crying uncontrollably and bleeding all over the place through my fingers.
“Shhh,” I felt a warm handkerchief being pressed against my face, and looked up to see Colette gazing at me sadly through heavily lidded eyes. “We’ll come together again in no time, alright?” I swallowed and tried to nod to her, but I ended up just hiding my face in her newly bloodied handkerchief.
“Toño,” I looked down at Rano, who was trying to get up from my body. I winced as her solid knees dug into my thighs. “Wh...Where’s Toño?!”
“Non...non...I can’t go back...!” Acacia cried, her hands trembling horribly as they grasped the hair on her scalp. Dante immediately went to comfort her, and she buried her face into his body.
All the others began to stir as the narcotic gas wore off. I flinched in Colette’s arms when Akira pounded the side of the van, enraged. “DAMN THAT HUMAN!! I should’ve NEVER trusted him!!” I sobbed as the realization sunk in.
Sam: a traitor. Suddenly every memory I had of him felt corrupted and ruined; tainted with the reality of his treachery. All the times I’d laughed as his awful jokes...
I even told him about my nightmares once, after he found me wandering the halls in a nightmarish stupor. He wrapped a blanket around my shoulders and brought me to the kitchen, where he made us both hot chocolates with the little marshmallows. He listened intently to my indiscernible sniveling and blubbering, as though he honestly cared... I woke up that morning on the couch, tucked into the same blanket he had given me along with a quilt and several pillows. Since that night, I genuinely trusted Sam Hawkins.
What a joke.
“I should’ve...never...” Akira railed off as her eyes darted to the corner of our claustrophobic cell. The rest of us subconsciously glanced the same way.
Our gazes found Ela, coiled up in her wings. Vevila let out a rather disdainful sigh, and Kaki's crimson eyes narrowed into a menacing glare.
Ela obviously took it as an attack, her eyes growing feral. “H-How was I supposed to know he was a #$%*ng traitor!?!” her voice wavered terribly, and my heart instantly broke for her.
“E-Ela, it’s nnnot your f-f-faul....” I tried to comfort her despite my stutter, but all of a sudden a familiar scent scorched the air and we all started coughing once more. Colette’s hand upon my face grew limp, and I could hear Akira attacking the van’s walls in a frenzy. As I slumped into the walls of the van, her pounding grew weaker and slower with each excruciating second.
“Geez, all that screaming was giving me a headache,” I heard a stranger’s masked voice complain. “That should shut them up...” Sam gave no reply as the van roared to life and sped away from my home.
Save us, I pleaded, even if the rest of the club would never hear me. Save us, please...
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GUYS SHIZZ JUST GOT SERIOUS.
Wyvern Wings shall post after this. :)
Here's a little diagram we made to represent the dining room table. :D
(Also, Melina - Keefer's sister - was captured by XL awhile ago.)
WHATS GONNA HAPPEN NEXT???
