Veil of Shadow and Rain ✓ [TSC #1]

Chapter 3 - A Choice, A Decision

It was 11 at night. Wren had spent the past few hours lying awake in her bed, staring at her grey-painted ceiling as thoughts ran over her again and again.

She wanted to know more. About her parents. Were they dead, or just held captive? Was the palace really expecting her?

The library book was beside her on the bed. She reached for it and randomly opened the middle of the book, sighing. She looked up, looking around her room. Her bag was open, its contents sprawled all over the floor. Her schoolbooks lay open, pencils drooped over her table.

She huddled in her blanket, flipping through the pages of the library book, bored. She tossed it from hand to hand, staring at the clock on her wall. It ticked by slowly.

She heard her uncle snoring from downstairs. He was a loud snorer, and she could only block him out if she closed her door. She tossed her book in the air, then a piece of paper came falling out.

Wren picked it up from her bed. It folded; crumpled. She unfolded it, full of curiosity. It seemed to be parchment, and it was brown-yellow at the ends. It looked as if it was from a thousand years ago.

It was a map. Cursive writing was written underneath the illustrations of locations on the map. It was rather quite hard to figure out what they meant. Wren frowned, peering at the words intently.

Argonian.

She wasn't sure that it was what she thought it was. Besides, the 'n's looked like 'u's. She traced her finger along the map. On the right side of what seemed to be Argonian was a forest full of pine trees. She felt as if she had seen them before ...

Of course. Those were the pine trees that surrounded the town she and her uncle lived in. At least, they looked like them. Didn't all pine trees look the same? She wasn't so sure. She rubbed her eyes and blinked.

Maybe she was just paranoid.

She decided to force herself back to sleep. Her eyes were getting heavy and sore. Just then - a flashing thought struck her.

It was so fast it disappeared as quickly as it came.

I could run away, she thought.

Then again, the idea came back. She sat up straight in her bed. The idea was already there, in her head - stuck there. Her heart hammered in her chest. Plans started drifting together in her mind.

She didn't know how she was going to run away - wild thoughts just swam towards her. The feeling when nothing is organised at all in your head but you have something to start with ... that was what Wren was dealing with right now.

Bolting upright, Wren scrambled for the map and looked at it intently again. The pine trees. There was just something about the pine trees, she thought frustratedly. It was almost as if they called out to her. She knew it sounded ridiculous, but she couldn't help herself.

She didn't even give herself time to think. She was going. Running away. Making a choice. Even though she didn't know where to start. But she was going to try.

She got out of her bed, and the only thing hanging in the air was her breaths. She had her map in one hand, and the library book in the other. She grabbed her bag and stuffed them inside; she would need them. She grabbed her torchlight and jacket, in case she got cold for it was midnight. Besides, it was only for a night. It was just a test-run. Just to see if she could reach out to Argonian or not. If she couldn't, she would find out another way to know what she needed to.

She lunged for her phone, pocketed it, slung her bag over her shoulder, and crept downstairs. Her door was already open, so all she had to do was make it down the stairs without any of the floorboards creaking. The staircases creaked loudly.