The Lovely Suicide Children

Chapter 56: Morfran

The machines moved back against the wall, sliding pass me if they had minds of their own. For a second I imagined the machines talking to me, saying something like, "excuse me, Olivia." I smiled at the thought.

"You were on fire," Emmit smiled then crossed his arms and nodded his head. "and you were confident. We like that. We need that, all of us do." 

The others walked behind him, each having blank expressions on their faces. My smile faded too, along with Emmit's. "What's the matter?" I looked from him to the others.

Julia shrugged took a step near Emmit and grabbed his arm. He shrugged her arm away, taking a step back away from her. "Julia, before you say something, I have a good feeling about Olivia. She JUST got here. We can trust her."

Trust me. I thought.

Annoyed and eager to know, I stepped in between them. I knew that was rude, but I didn't have time to hear them argue about me over trust. "Listen, guys. I don't know what's going on here or why you're both even arguing over this. I just got here, and I don't know much about anything. As far as I know, I thought this place was supposed to be perfect."

"Ha!" Julia huffed, giving me a 'matter-of-fact' king of smile. "As if! I don't know who told you that."

"Yeah, who told you that?" Emmit asked.

I bit my lip before answering, hoping I wasn't going to say the wrong thing. After all, if I wanted to find Amber or Sunny, I believed they could help. "A boy on Earth. He committed suicide and was buried on school grounds. The school I went to. His name was Robert Parker," I told them.

Emmit smiled and looked at Julia then back at me. "That's interesting. So he told you this place was perfect?"

"He didn't speak that bad of it," I replied back. "He just said he got tired of seeing the people he loved suffer."

Julia nodded. "Well, he left out a lot of parts. This place is bad, and in fact, this place is hell. The Lovely Suicide Children aren't lovely at all. They never will be. It's sad that we can't call them murderers, but they are. They kill-"

A beeping sound in the room went off. Everyone looked around, confused as I was. Out of my palm beamed a bright blue light. My mother's face popped up out of the light. When the others saw that, they ducked down. I looked at them then back at my mom.

"Come home and join me for a nice meal," she said. "Here you don't get hungry, but you will enjoy the food. See you soon." The light disappeared. 

Everyone slowly stood up. Their wide eye expressions made me nervous. "What?" I asked.

"Morfran," Julia took walked up to me and snatched my hand, squeezing it tight. "I knew it, she's a spy!" She said while facing the others.

Emmit raised his hands. "Chill, she just got here," he snatched her hand off of mind. "She's probably assigning Olivia a room, jeez."

"Who is Morfran?" I asked. "Why would I spy on you? You guys didn't tell me the full story."

Emmit took me by my hand. "Say bye to the others. You'll see them later."

No one said anything. Everyone flew into their own rooms without saying goodbye. Feeling bad, I let Emmit fly me out the door and back down to the ground. He landed correctly this time. "Sorry," he said and kept walked, our hands still linked making me feel tense. "That woman that beamed from your hand, she's the reason behind many murders and many of our good ones going missing."

"My mo-"  I stopped myself. If he knew she was my mother, he wouldn't trust me. None of them would. "Morfran is the name she's called here?"

"No, the good ones gave her that name," he went on. "She takes that name because at night, to make sure her rules are in place, she turns into a crow and watches over us. No one sees her change or when, but I have. Here, we're not supposed to feel sadness or fear. The night I saw her change was when I was out exploring the place. I wasn't supposed to be out, but I didn't know. I found this tree and began peeling the bark off which soon revealed a hole inside like a tunnel. I heard an echo before I could go inside, and someone had been coming. I didn't want to get into trouble, so I hid behind a huge pearl that rested to the side of a tree."

He paused, his hand tightened around me, and I could have sworn to myself that he trembled a bit as he thought about something. "You okay?" I stopped in our tracks. 

He looked at the grass as if remembering the most painful memory. "She didn't walk out of the tree. She slithered out like a snake, dragging her thick furry wings of black to her size. I'll never forget the sounds she made like she was exhausted and could barely breathe. The noise went on forever to me, shaking my very core. When she stood up, her eyes were as big as owl eyes but just pupils surrounded by light brown fur. Her wings aren't wings...just hands of others covered in fur. Her wings are made up of hands, Olivia. I saw the fingers move. I heard the screams of kids as she walked away as if their souls were attached to her in a way."

I didn't want to believe it. I didn't want to believe him. My mother wasn't a giant demonic crow. But then again, what if she was. "Did...did she see you?"

He shook his head and kept walked. "No," he said. 

"You're shaking a lot," I squeezed his hand for a second. 

"I fear for my people here," he said. "Be careful."

I looked up and saw the palace. "Woah, we got here fast."

"Yes," he said.

I hugged him. "Thank you. We'll talk later, okay?"

"Okay," he replied then flew away.