forget me || sokeefe

chapter 4

Faces flew around in Sophie's mind in pure chaos. Lady Gisela. Kenrick. Fintan. Forkle. Prentice. Calla.

She also heard her friend's screams. Biana's. Fitz. Dex. Keefe. Marella. Wylie.

She also heard laughter. Cruel, taunting laughter. The same laughter she'd heard when every bone in her arm was breaking, leaving her with months of bed rest and a monster that constantly haunted her nightmares. The same laughter that she'd heard as Eternalia was burning down. The same laughter she'd heard in Nightfall. (A/N the one in Atlantis) The same laughter that had been haunting her for the past two years.

A pair of green eyes filled her vision, along with two words that broke Sophie's heart.

"Sophie, Stop!"

Sophie awoke in her bed with a loud gasp. Shaking, she put her head in her hands.

It was a dream. It was just a dream.

"Ms. Foster? Are you alright?" Sandor popped his head in her room.

"Yes. I'm sorry, I just had a bad dream." She looked up at Sandor and offered a weak smile.

"Another one?" Sandor frowned.

Sophie was sure that she looked a mess. With bed hair and her skin glistening with sweat, she was probably a sight to see (and not in a good way).

"Do you need me to sing to you?" Flori asked her.

Sophie smiled at her gnomish bodyguard. "I'm okay. But thank you, Flori."

Sophie grabbed a brush from her bed side table and began to brush out her hair. She started to softly hum a song to herself.

Once she finished brushing out her hair, she braided it the same way Calla had taught her to do it in Alluveterre.

One weave.

It wasn't your fault.

A second weave.

We will defeat the Neverseen.

A third.

Have faith in your friends.

A fourth.

It wasn't your fault.

A fifth.

It was not your fault.

Sophie took a few steading breaths as she felt guilt creep up on her. Grabbing a hair tie, she tied off her braid. With a sigh she stepped off her bed. She knew where she needed to be.

"Ms. Foster, where are you going?" Tarina, Sophie's troll bodyguard asked her.

"I'm going to Calla's tree." She told her.

"Let us check the area before you go out there." Bo, her ogre bodyguard told her. Sophie sighed. She knew that they were just there to keep her safe, and Sophie would be forever indebted to them. But they could be a little overbearing at times . . . Okay, a lot overbearing.

Going down the stairs two at a time, Bo and Tarina went ahead to "scout the area" as they put it.

Sophie made herself a mug of hot chocolate, it was still quite early in the morning. The sky was just starting to color, and there was a morning dew on the grass.

"Okay, it's safe to go outside." Bo told everyone. And by everyone, she meant 6 people. She had five bodyguards, five.

After seeing how much time Sophie spent at Calla's tree, Flori put up a swinging chair hanging from the tree. Sophie nearly cried when she first saw it.

Sitting in the chair, looking at the rising sun over the ocean quickly became Sophie's favorite spot.

Sophie didn't know how long she sat in the shade of the panakes tree, but the sun was a third of the way to it's peak by the time her parents found her.

"Sophie? You're out here again." Grady asked her.

"Yeah. I couldn't sleep."

Her father sighed. "We made breakfast if you're hungry."

Climbing out of the chair, she gave her dad a hug. With his arm still around his daughter's shoulders, they made their way to their castle-like house on top of the hill.

"Good morning." Edaline smiled at her daughter and her husband. "Couldn't sleep again, Sophie?"

"No." She sighed, there was no use denying it, they had caught her sitting outside early in the morning for no reason.

For breakfast, Sophie ate a bowl of some kind of green goop that tasted just like chicken. After putting her bowl in the sink and changing into her Foxfire uniform, she took out her braid, letting her now wavy hair fall around her shoulders.

"What happened to you?" Sophie's talking mirror, Vertina, asked.

"Couldn't sleep last night."

"See, Jolie always got her beauty rest. And every morning she would put effort in her appearance. And maybe if you did, that Vacker you're always blushing about would--" Sophie stepped out of Vertina's range, turning the talking mirror off.

"Foxfire!" Sophie called to the leap master.

"Have a good day at school!" Sophie heard Grady call as the light whisked her away.

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After a boring day of school, Sophie and her friends finally had a chance to talk about plans at lunch.

"Guys, the black swan think that the Neverseen are going to hit the midterm celebration." Sophie whispered to her friends.

"What? How do you know?" Dex whispered to her.

"Grady and Edaline told me last night."

"Midterms are 6 months away." Fitz whispered.

"Mr. Forkle didn't tell my parents how he found out." Sophie said.

"But so many people are going to be here for midterms." Linh said.

"It would be the perfect time to scare the public I guess." Tam said.

"So what are we gonna do about it?" Dex asked.

"We don't know yet." Sophie sighed.

"So, we have nothing." Tam said.

"Not nothing. We can start to prepare for whatever's happening." Linh told him.

"And we still don't know what exactly they're doing." Tam reminded them.

A bell rung, signifying the end of lunch. Sophie's worries clouded her thoughts.

What were they going to do?

How were they going to stop the Neverseen?

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1027 words

A/N sorry about the short chapter