MY FINGERS RUN down, my neck tie, then back up, adjusting, it around my collar, looking at it through my locker mirror. I fidgeted alittle with it, telling myself this was either a stupid idea or a very stupid idea. But only for seven hours, then I remembered fence practice after school, make that Eight hours.

  Eight long hours to pull this poorly constructed plan, if I can just make it today, I'd think of a better plan tomorrow. I felt obliged to bring it along with me to school, mostly because I thought about the 'What if's'.

  What if one of the cleaners came in that guest room to have it cleaned, and then the same thing happened again this time with someone else.

  What if this time someone really got hurt or worse this creature got caught and what if it were to be killed. But it was the killer, what if it murdered someone.

  I had alot on my mind, thinking maybe I was the problem; it was true. It was all true- I was the beginning to all this, every fault all attributed to me touching that watch, tossing it to the floor, instead of respectfully leaving it in that box, I just had to get angry, to be fair I already was, that was just a plus.

  'Why did I have to touch that watch?'

  I circled my finger around what I heard, what I saw and what I felt. That night, when we both went to sleep, I couldn't. I couldn't sleep, all I could think of was its words ringing and ringing inside my head, loud but seeming far away, just like how an echo felt like, and sleep, when I finally found sleep, it wasn't any better, I had these strange dreams of voices of ones I knew. They just kept on echoing and echoing the goddamn same things.

  But.

  I had a very descriptive nightmare last night, in it they was only one thing I could see. Even I have very little memory, more of vague and unreasoning of the nightmare, I had last night, about the girl, that girl I saw her, but I only heard her when I couldn't see her anymore, she was actually talking to me, and I could feel her hand in my mine, her long delicate thin fingers, caressing over mine, and we held hands. She told me things that were so familiar and actual.

  Everything she said couldn't be true. She only said those things because we last talked about it, not at all true, it wasn't anything like the rest I had encounters with, this was truly just a nightmare. I kept that in mind, I kept on thinking about it.

  What she said was Not true.

  She's not real.

  she's just a part of my imagination.

  She's what my nightmares look like.

  She's Not real.

  I touched her. I felt her wet hand around my wrist that day, I felt her hand again in my dream, soft and warm.

  She's Not real.

  She's something of my mind, something my mind sorted out, something I don't want to see, she's - she's

  She's a ghost.

  Shit, I didn't believe in mythical creatures, then what was this? How was it even possible that I had one of their realm so called wondrous gifts, I was neither from there nor had I ever set a foot on their grounds.

  It made No sense. I couldn't believe it, it was absolute bullshit, I knew when I had the chance, of leaving Cosmon or Albert to find it I should have. All it was doing was looking for ways to fit me in it's craze, I knew I wasn't the start of it's plan but I was a part of it.

  I could end all this by handing him to Albert, telling him I found what attacked Cosmon and Rose~ Anne, the other day. However, what if the little monster decided to go all Antman and murder Albert. Then what if I call animal control before all that happens. So maybe hoax it then hand it over to animal control. That would be like back stabbing, I gave it my word on safe keeping it. Would I do it? Maybe it was. . .

  Just a thought.

  I held the sides of my jacket and adjusted it, as I looked back at it, it was just about staring at me the entire time, at the dark corner, where light faintly loomed, it looked like a tiny shadow in the dark with it's glowing, violet eyes. What are the odds of it being a wraith, one of those shadower creatures it was going on about.

  ''Why you starin'?'' It asked. My locker thundered with it's deep bass voice, almost fell like it was in an empty tin.

  I hadn't noticed, that I had been staring at it for that long, my eyes left it immediately and looked left down at the hallway, it was relatively quiet as students walked about, some with their heads dug in their own lockers, others getting to class, others just getting in, I had just ten minutes left before my first class commenced.

  ''I dunno know. You tell me.'' I started. ''I found you staring at me.''

  ''Hmph. When I was transported from you're dungeon, to here you skipped the part where you tell me where you were takin' me. ''

  ''I didn't think you wanted to know, you seemed like you just wanted to get out, I took a guess to anywhere I'd go. Not so bad being fastidious, eh?'' I said, leaning in pretending like I was grabbing something from my locker as I spoke lowly to it.

  ''How long are we here?'' It asked. Wading it's focus to my books slanting at it's opposite side.

  I straightened my left arm, sideways, pushing back my jacket, looking at my watch.

  ''Seven more hours. Not forgetting I have fence practice after school, make that eight.'' I said swiftly.

  It Leaned back, frazzledly, it had this flat bored look on it's face, now, it's ears hung low grimly, it folded it's arms to it's chest, and spread it's legs. My lips cut into a smirk, I got this feeling rolling up deep in my gut, lightly faint and tumultuous, great and amusing, this is what it felt like to annoy someone you utterly disliked to shreds and like every second of it.

  I heard it make a gruff sound at the back of it's thought in irk. Which only made me want to continue, burdening it.

  ''My dungeon is starting to look alot more capacious, huh? I hope you're good with confine spaces cause you're going to be here for quite some time, believe I, you'll love the solitude. '' My smile only seemed to increase, watching it look this miserable only seemed to lighten my mood.

  It breathed out, short loud breaths through it's nostrils, it gazed below, unnerved, I waried at it, strange how much I liked to see it all sad and quiet. But something quivered in it's gloom, something started to loom in, dim but becoming bright, like the uprising of dawn, it's expression fell, and I saw its lips cut into a smirk.

  ''You're right It is better here. All alone. No more seein' thar twisted pitchfork face of yours or havin' to listen to you utter any ofer stupid fings, you just can't seem to help yourself to ask. Brilliantly how the creators favor I, even in this Shit hole. '' It uttered, picking at it's nails now.

  The gap in my mouth slowly shut as I gnashed my teeth and clinched my jawline, my fist clenched, just as I tightened my features, on my face, cold and hard, my darks eyes glowered at it.

  ''H-" I couldn't even start that sentence because I felt a light tap on my shoulder, and my stance shifted, it felt like a bucket of freezing cold water had just been plummeted on my body, causing it to go rigid, every fine hair rose, and my eyes widen to saucers.

  It was clear that they obviously heard me speaking to the eccentric deep gruff voice getting out of my locker. I turned to my back.

  My sight cut into siren mischievous dark eyes, the hue of a grassy sea, with a fiery copper ring wrapped around her pupil, and little flecks of amber dappled around her band, filled with much irk to the brim, it could have been, troubled or frustration, maybe even indignation, I couldn't get it right, if she was angry about something she was handling quite well, still keeping silent, her arms were into a fold up to her chest, frowning at me.

  Honestly I was lost, I didn't understand what was this whole attitude all about.

  Did she just overhear that weird conversation I had with some eerie voice getting out my locker?

  Was this the reaction?

  Did I have to explain myself?

  But then they were thoughts of what if she didn't. . . it would be crazy if I broke out blabbering about something so surreal and hard to believe, I pondered briskly, thinking of what to do. The only thing I could resort to as quick and not suggesting suspicion as I could was to play it like I was oblivious, and didn't know what she was talking about if she brought it up. Low and stupid, but I'll take it.

  I leaned over to my locker, pulled my hands into my pants pockets, coiled my knee across the other, with my ankle grazing a few inches over the other, she stood infront of me, so our focus on each other, was much concentrated, my features skated with questions and surprise, my mouth drew into a line, ultimately, I raised an inky brow.

  ''Gemstone?'' I uttered.

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  Kind of like what a surprise. Or what are you doing here? Answers?

  However, she didn't replied to my utter with much delight.

  She rolled her eyes, to the left side, like pissed I couldn't crack out why she was in such a mood, her features looked hard with processing exasperation, in that square face, her lovely lips were colored with this, salmon shade that smeared a, frown.

  Her hair seemed lighter than before, almost looked like metallic blonde now, a lateral side curtained her left temple, waving all the way down to either sides of her shoulders, she still had that rehearsed nuance, the one in between calculated and demanding, the one she always presented me with, so devious, but in a really seductive kind of way, and for that reason I found that, very very comical.

  ''What is it?'' Assuming she wanted me to simply just ask her what was wrong, I had my eyes narrowed about now, at her wondering what was up with all this new attitude. I bit my lower lip hard. Guessing. More of trying to.

  As she glared at me. I saw her mischief eyes lower to my lips, for a second before they cut back immediately to my eyes.

  ''Why didn't you text me?'' She asked. About Damn time. I breathed collectively, glad it was nothing to do with my fears.

  ''Why didn't I what?'' I furrowed, tasting the words as though they were foreign to me, regaining my confident voice. ''I think that's obvious. It's not like I have your number.'' I pulled my hands out of my pockets, and folded them infront of my chest.

  ''But you do. I left a note in your locker right after fence on Friday. You'd know if you had seen it, that my number and Name were written on it.'' She explained.

  I made a slight turn behind me, my back had covered a reasonable amount of my locker, a good part to hide that creature.

  ''You said after fence. I didn't stop by my locker after fence. '' I shrugged, the lack of concern skating around my face, got her gaze darker, noticing. I looked down at the floor then brought my head, slightly up and sighed. Because I finally guessed why she was angry with me, I had forgotten all about our plans due to almost being suspended within the range of a month in school, for the very first time, Dad's odd mood, which I was starting to think was alot immature for a man of his age, and yes, let's not forget the climax, me discovering my Grandfather's really- really not dead and wants to trade me in as a player in his little mind game of the Not~ so ~real.

  How could I possibly have forgotten?

  "Look, Gemstone I know how important this is for-" I started.

  ''Clearly you don't because, the due date is now next week, Friday, we would have done a great deal this weekend." She argued.

  ''It's not my fault that I didn't see your note. Right after fence, I- I skipped coming back here.'' I shrugged again.

  She let out a long heave, as the tight grip on her features lessened, her pretty dark gaze raced to the floor as if yielding, I felt a knot in my stomach seeing her all jaded, I recently became her partner and I was already giving her a pretty shitty impression of my character, I looked at her once more, and relaxed on the thought that it was because of her I actually had a partner.

  ''Let's just reschedule, or we could both work out on our projects solely, I could work on the beginning then you the middle, then we both could give it an ending, we'd work on it online then send each other copies of what we'd work on." I proposed, as her eyes lifted back on my suggestion gaze. ''Agree?''

  ''I don't see why we can't just work in person together, I could just come over, I already have a topic and beginning which I wanted to show you this prior weekend.''

  I looked right across her at the ceiling. Before, I would have immediately accepted, but what about that little monster now in my possession, I couldn't allow her to see it, and it was only it's first time hiding out in my room, but that was blatantly proving to be it's detriment.

  I looked back down at her, and she had her left brow stretched into an arc, Implying 'Why can't we just go with my idea instead.'

  ''Listen,'' My eyes to the floor again as my right fingers rubbed at my left temple, with my left hand now dug deep into my pocket.

  ''I think that's a great idea, but why can't we just follow mine, it's both quicker and saves time, we could just switch, you'll give it a beginning and I the middle, you can show me your topic notes during study hour, good?''

  ''Are you avoiding been seen or hanging out with me because of what happened on Friday?'' She asked quitely, and my eyes darted toward hers, I think surprise had already found it's way up about my face, the gap between my brows declined, and I wondered how much she heard.

  My lips parted to speak but her words, escaped out before mine.

  ''Is this new attitude about Branden?'' She asked, her light eyebrows risen upward her short forehead. Her eyes asking me as well what the real reason was behind the pretext.

  ''What? No.'' My utter sounded too lost in incredulous intonation which was more of on the exaggerated side.

  Trying to overcome that and sound believable, I played casual, toying with my eyes ranking them up to the left side, down the hallway at a student eyeing us but briskly swiveling her gaze back into her locker, she thought I didn't notice, I turned back at the seductive blonde trying to give me a hard time. Her gaze hadn't even modified it was still solid on her question. Although as imperceptible her inquiry gaze was, I noticed that her brows had risen more, slightly.

  My head reclined back on my locker, craned comparatively upward, my locks had been pressed forward, falling into my dark eyes, I looked down at her through half eyes. I sighed mentally, that wasn't the difference, Branden had nothing to do with my stance.

  Her brows relaxed back down, her features slid into empathy cuts, her siren gemstone green eyes, full of sincere care and worry, that was rare of her to display. One of her arms left her chest, then moved over to my shoulder, moving close, reducing our distance to three inches.

  ''I know he can be very unreceptive to new students. His- his. . . Just uptight.'' Her head shook in small volumes, as she shrugged, frowned fairly, then thrashed cool air out through her nose that landed on my lips. She smirked. ''I really don't blame him for being so protective, we've known each other since we were toddlers, his like a brother to me.''

  Instantly I made a gruff sound at the back of my throat, throwing darts at the thought of tell that to him.

  ''Brother?'' My head fell, with my unruly dark locks, my eyebrows up, narrowing my eyes at her, our contact became more close, more intense, and our distance shortened.

  I received an emphatically nod from her. With her lips now pursed together in a line.

  ''That's not how He sounded on Friday.'' My voice was casually low, breaths of it landing on her nostrils.

  ''Your point?'' She had her head cocked to the left, making her wavy locks fall more neatly to the side, recommencing that look I relished so much.

  ''As if I can fret about Richards.'' I scoffed. ''You need to though, if he just so much as hears your name being uttered, I see his solid~ice face crack, there's something more to it than your so called brotherly~ sister bond, you might not see it but he. He definitely does.'' I winked at her, letting my lips toy with a furtive half smile.

  Her dark eyes railed skyward then back into mine, lightly, furrowing, I sensed that she had just realized something. Her delicate long fingers started at the end of my neck tie then gently whirled up to the beginning, our eyes met again.

  ''Utter my name.'' Her voice now, had sultry notes curled out as I took focus on her lips tickle a triumphant smirk. ''So you agree you were talking about me.''

  I scoffed. My lips frowned and I shrugged slightly, prowling at the way she moved her features. ''We merely just talked about me having a partner for the History project, that character just happened to have the same name as you, that's all.'' Both of our smirks deepened in amusement of my little joke.

  More of. . .

  A lie. It was a hard lie, remembering what we were really talking about almost made my cheeks reddened, squirming. My free hand moved all the way up to the hand she had on my neck tie.

  ''This new schedule has nothing to do with him, but fine, we can work on it over at my house.'' My index finger slowly run down the back of her hand, along her veins, stroking each one, slowly, as her long fingers played with the ball on my neck tie. Did I think through what was getting out of my mouth, most likely not. Would I regret it later, definitely. All my mind was now doing, was focusing on this moment and stupidly mindlessly giving in to her persuasion like they wasn't a whole narrative behind me just ticking to be resumed.

  ''Do I need to give you my number, again?'' Her voice was different unlike Rose~ Anne or Delilah's it was somewhat on the deeper notes range, yet soft and seductive mirrored what she embodied, it was perfect on her. I loomed at her, as I watched her eyes travelled within wild excitement and demand.

  ''The first is fine. You said you left it in here, I'm sure it's in here somewhere.'' My head slightly gestured inside my locker.

  ''So. . . . Tomorrow?'' She slowly asked. Her eyes playing with mine.

  I nodded slightly, staring at her lips instead of her eyes. And for that reason, she moved closer to me, and we could practically feel each others warm breath, the warmth she brimmed in, felt good and pleasureful, her perfume was that earthy floral scent with a tang of musky velvet. Strong and lovely. Nice on her.

  My mind rang. 'She's a problem, a problem, a problem. '

  I bit my lower lip, I felt something inside me plummeted, this- us being so close, made me desire to seal our remaining lengthy distance, it made me imagine what it would be like to forget everything; the creature in my locker who probably heard every word we shared to each other, all the students walking through the hallways, staring at us, it made me want to forget we were Even in school. I didn't know, but I wanted to be alone with her, just to see how much more we could do than just these stares and mildly short conversations we had each time.

  I felt the need to do more, to want more than just stares and short conversations.

  However.

  I fought the urge to do anything more, and instead my hands that wanted to touch her; her beautiful face, run them down her flank, and seal this distance, empty me this feeling of lust and make me absorb her difference, I decidedly retreated back. And I let it go, and buried the hand stroking hers back into my pocket, readjusting my desiring gaze and straightening myself.

  ''I wouldn't want to keep you any longer, I'll just finish up here. See you around Gemstone.'' I cut short, and I felt her tense comparatively, slight irk brimmed on her features, almost looked like disappointment that I cut off short our mild sensual moment, her slender body moved back from mine, and her pleasureful warmth disappeared, my eyes left hers and touched the ground tying (down) a feeling of disappointment in myself and faint irk before looking back at her, composing emptiness, and thankfully, she was the first to look away, left of the hallway, then she swaggered off, and with that my seductive project partner was gone.

  'There Is more to stares and formal conversations, why can't you try to do more than just be friends with every one of them you meet.'

  A voice purred slowly inside my head. I immediately merged an answer for that.

  'Building up Relationships have time and effort, they need something I don't take interest in.'

  'But you want to? You Do.'

  I sighed immensely, loud and irked. Blinking back to myself. Turning back to my locker to find dead furious eyes lurking in the dark, they almost looked like they were simply hovering in mid air, that creature's body looked too far off to notice it there. It's eyes were fixed at me, prowling like a hungry predator at it's prey. I almost winced, startled, my eyes widen to saucers.

  ''Okay.'' I said awkwardly, normalizing my voice, clearing my throat. Holding my locker door. And I remembered something that had been slipping out of my mind, I asked it one thing that had been bothering me more than thrice in an hour since yesterday.

  ''Before you say anything, I want to know how is it that No one can actually hear you? Again with Cosmon and Albert, now with Stefanie. How?'' I squinted at it.

  ''Simple. Like I keep telling ey, am your guide. You solely hear me, Ilandians as well, perhaps ofer of the nine realm dwellers because of the tied spell between the realms but here, in this enigmatic world, No won but ey and I." It pulled out one finger out of it's paw, waving toward me then to it's chest making it's odd second bracelet on it's tiny wrist settle lower.

  That cleared that.

  ''Hmph.'' I made a bass noise, cocked my head, sideways, frowning my mouth to the downward angle, before narrowing my eyes.

  ''I only wish it was seeing too. Then you'd be just like her, a figure part of my shitty imagination.'' And with that.

  I shut my locker before it could utter a word. I snickered. Score one for Alwyn?