The Butterfly Girl: A Star is Born

#64 Proceeding

[Sophia]

I noticed the light slipping through my blinds from the early morning sun. I opened and closed my right eye and moved the blankets over me. I wasn't ready to get up yet and nuzzled my face deeper into my pillows. As I try to fall back asleep, I recall a dream that I had earlier before. But I don't remember most of the details.
Another day... get up and face it, said a random voice in my head.
I thought about it for a bit.
Naaahhhhh... just let me sleep. I don't care what time it is.
Unfortunately I did get up sometime later. Lately, I noticed I've been sleeping in late but today I actually woke up earlier than usual. I went downstairs and looked over at the couch, noticing the Twins were still asleep. I also realized Apollo wasn't even up yet. I quietly made it to the ground floor and peeked over and saw that there wasn't enough room left on the couch for me to sit. And I felt too awkward to just sit on the floor in front of the Twins. So I just went back upstairs.I wasn't hungry enough to make breakfast anyway. I quietly close the door and sit in the desk chair near my desk. I pull my laptop out of my bag and set it on the desk, staring at the screen for a while and trying to think of something to look at until everyone wakes up. I browse through my usual tabs, hoping to find something new. And unfortunately, I find nothing interesting. I even scrolled through Youtube a while and didn't watch a single video. That's a first.
I lean back in my chair and swivel in circles for a bit, trying to think of something to do. I turn towards the window and open the blinds, staring at the horizon for a while. I begin to daze. I ended up doing that for a while until I snap back to reality and grab my bag again and shuffle around inside. I pull out the ruined book and toss my bag aside.
I don't understand why I bother to look at this. It's ruined. This thing is impossible to read.
I sit down in the chair with the book in my lap and swivel around again, staring at the cover. This part of the book seemed to be the only thing that wasn't totally destroyed. Although, I couldn't read the cover at all. But the symbol on it somehow looked oddly familiar. I traced the symbol with my finger, before looking out the window again for another moment. I finally open the book and turn each page one by one. I recognize a few of the pages from before, but once again nothing was revealed to me. Most of the unrecognizable writing had been scratched or blotted out entirely. There were also pages where I assumed were chapter heading because of the extremely enlarged and bold letter on the page. But some of the ink blots on the other side of the page made it hard to identify. Other pages had illustrations, but again, they were crossed or scribbled out. I found that a little more upsetting because I like illustrations in books. Even if it's just concept art. However the ones that weren't entirely scratched out were still unrecognizable. I had no idea what it was depicting or what exactly they were in the first place. Page by page, letter by letter, I stared at everything my eyes could lock onto, hoping that I could piece something together. But I kinda doubted that any of these letters matched with the actual English alphabet. We probably needed an expert to do that. But to me, everything looked way too confusing for me to even think about it.
Too many big words...

I continued to flip through each page carefully, hoping something else might come up. Or at least, hope that any of whatever this said made any logical sense. In any way, I guess. But with each page I turned, more questions arose from the ink.
Why was this the only book that was the only one recently touched in Teri's library? Or... was it supposed to be like this? No, I don't think so... what purpose would it even serve if it was even supposed to be like this? What was this originally for anyway? What even is this book trying to say? Does Teri even know anything about this? Back in the library, it didn't even look like she had even seen it before... why this particular book anyway? What was so important about it that... creature wanted to try and dispose of it?
As soon as I asked myself that, I suddenly began to realize. And it started to take me somewhere else.
That creature... whatever it was... if it knew that book had to be important in some way, did it know about us and that we were looking for something? It had to know about the book itself, and where the book was. It had to have known what it contained. It had to know it was in Teri's kingdom...
The questions I asked myself didn't bring me any closer to any kind of conclusion. I guess I was just speculating rather than trying to figure it out. And it didn't make any sense to me anyway, it just sounded more suspicious. There was no way it could know. And there's definitely no way that that creature was the one who ruined the book in the first place. It could have just been an accident that happened a long time ago... probably. Well, I guess the scratched out words wouldn't exactly prove it was an accident. The ink blots prove that, but scribbling out the words... maybe the author made a couple of mistakes? Well, maybe more than a few since more than half the book was scribbled out. Including a few missing pages.

Well, it was a possibility. But for now, it seems whoever or whatever did intend to destroy the book succeeded. I wasn't even sure that Teri could read this, even if she knew the language.
I mean, she was able to read the note from her Mother that I found. But I didn't really get a good look at it so the symbols might be completely different. Maybe.
I ended up closing the book and staring out the window again, contemplating everything I just thought. For now, only one question made the only sense in answering.
What kind of information in this book could possibly help us to the point that someone would try to destroy it in the first place?
I thought about this for a long while. I set the book down neatly on my organized desk and looked around for something else to do. My attention turned back to my computer and I messed around on it for some time until I finally got hungry enough to go downstairs and make something to eat. By that time, everyone had finally woken up. Even the Twins were a little surprised to see me awake before them. Later we all decided to go back out to the tree house. Climbing over the fence one by one and walking down the slope together and into the trees. It wasn't as warm today as it was last week.
Some of us assumed we were going to do some more basic training. But we actually did the complete opposite of that. Me and Apollo were sitting at the base of the tree house and showing funny videos to each other that we came across on our phones. The Twins went off by themselves to check on the Moonflower. When they came back, they reported that it was actually doing well and was recovering slowly. They also said that they might have to move it somewhere else soon with more space and shade so it could continue growing. Teri didn't show up until around noon and came to greet us on land. She also wondered if we were going to do any training today, but since none of us actually planned for that, we just shook our heads and decided to hang out for today. Teri was okay with that, but reminded all of us not to get lazy anytime soon. We all agreed to that. (I think I saw Teri look at me when she said that.)

"Well, if you guys don't mind, do you think we can go out to the waterfall so I could do a little training?" Teri asked. Apollo and I put our phones down.
"You guys don't have to practice with me if you don't want to, you can just watch me."
"Yeah, I'm okay with that." Apollo agreed.
"What about you guys, you wanna come practice with me?" Teri asked the Twins.
"Yeah, that sounds good." they both replied.
"Okay, let's go then!"
We took off one by one. I stayed behind Teri because she still wasn't too used to having wings and I just wanted to be sure she wouldn't crash into anything. Once we all landed at the waterfall, Apollo and I sat down under the treeline while Teri and the Twins practiced with each other out in the open. She wanted to practice hitting harder while the Twins practiced defense. Later, Teri started to complain that her arm would become sore and tied after each punch. That's when Apollo got up and pointed a few things out to them. I sat back in the shade and pulled out my computer and started reading something on the screen. But soon after, the light of the screen and the brightness of the sun were too conflicting with my eyes and I couldn't concentrate very well on what I was reading. I put my computer away in my bag and began to wander around the area near the group. As I walked around near the rushing river, I picked up random rocks and tried to skip them across the water, in hopes that they could make it to the other side. But they all just splashed coldly in the water. In the end, there weren't anymore rocks near me that I could throw so I stood up and my mind began to wander as I looked around at nothing in particular.
I looked to my left, where Apollo was still advising Teri and the Twins. Teri punched Flyboy hard in the chest and made him stumble over accidentally. She gasped and apologized while the other two laughed hysterically. I looked over from them to see the cold water spray over the edge of the cliff while the rest of the forest in the distance swayed silently on the horizon of my vision. I looked out in front of me where the other side of the river was, again with more trees and shrubs and loose rocks near the waters edge.

I turned to my right.

And was met with the sight of a Shadovians face, claws stretched out just mere inches from me as its hideous cries rang through my ears and echoed throughout the area.
I wasn't able to react in time.