Idiot Lloyd: Okay, so this story is a joint effort between my friend Genis who shares this account and myself. It may take us a little while to update our chapters and get new ones to where they actually work, so you'll just have to bear with us. We'd love reviews - criticism is the best - just so long as we don't get any flames. Those just make people feel bad - don't use them! And I'm sorry for those people who hate self-inserts, but this is one of them. But please read! The two of us have come up with an idea that's different from anyone else's. Promise.
Also, there are quite a lot of inside jokes in here. Most of them are on our profile - a couple will be from the movie Bolt. So if you don't see the joke on the profile, it's from Bolt. Just to warn you.
Genuis Genis: Om nom nom. Feel free to give us constructive criticism, but I think Lloyd already covered that. Actually, I'm pretty sure Lloyd covered just about everything. Ah well. Enjoy?
Disclaimer: Neither of us own Tales of Symphonia, even though we both wish it were true. However, we do own the idea and our self-insert characters, as well as any other random characters we may include.
Lloyd: Oh, and I would like to thank our beta, Manwathiel, for helping us with editing and such. Thanks for the help!
A hotel in the small town of Larkhill, England was silent as the people there slept. The few night staff went about their duties quietly so that they didn't wake anyone up from downstairs. As far as anyone knew, everyone was asleep at midnight...except for the occupants of one room. A small strip of light shone from underneath the door of room 419, and if someone were to listen, they would hear a whispered conversation within between two teenage girls.
Within the room, two lamps gave off the light that came from underneath the door, which wasn't enough to light the entire room but enough to get rid of the thick darkness the night brought. One girl was sitting on one of the two beds, lacing up her shoes and looking fairly reluctant while doing so. She had to push up her glasses halfway through, since they slipped down her nose a little bit; her wavy, shoulder-length hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, looking as though it had been done hastily and without a mirror, even though one sat just a few feet away, on the wall above the dresser.
The second girl was rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet, looking impatient and a little bored at the moment. Her own shoes were already on her feet and laced up, and she had donned a jacket. She wore gloves and her brown hair was cut so short that she had it spiked, as she usually did. She was lingering near the door, looking ready to open it and bolt outside with her bouncing.
"Hurry up, Genis," she said quietly, glancing over at the door behind her. The other girl, nicknamed Genis with the real name of Katherine, finished lacing up her shoes and stood, pulling on a jacket as well.
Her answer was coupled with a sigh: "Hold on, Lloyd." The second girl sighed right back and stopped bouncing, crossing her arms over her chest and drumming her fingers on her upper arm. Like her friend, she, too, possessed a nickname - Lloyd - while her real name was Caitlin. The pair got their nicknames from one of their favorite video games, which was only rivaled by others in its series: Tales of Symphonia. They had played it every weekend for months on end, completing it at least twice by now, and getting their nicknames from the characters they figured their personalities matched the most.
A moment later, Katherine was ready to go. Caitlin cracked the door open slowly, to make sure it stayed silent, as her friend clicked off the lights. No one noticed the pair of them, since the door was well-oiled and stayed silent as first Caitlin and then Katherine slipped out of the room, closing the door behind them (after the latter made sure that they had a room key in order to get back in. Waking up their team leader to get back in would defeat the purpose of sneaking out silently).
Neither of them were supposed to be out of their rooms past curfew, since they had come to England with a group of forty students from their home state of Wyoming. They were there on a student ambassador program and had stopped in Larkhill for the night, after being at Stonehenge for a good part of the day. It made sense that they weren't supposed to be out and about if they had to sneak out of their hotel room, however.
The two girls crept silently down the hall, watching for any lights that would randomly snap on or listening for someone to open up their door, which would be bad since there was absolutely nowhere to hide in the middle of a hotel hallway. Luckily, like in most places, the floor was heavily carpeted so even if it did creak, the sound was muffled so that it was inaudible to anyone who didn't possess wolf-like senses, which was everyone.
"Should we take the elevator?" Caitlin asked, motioning to the silent, still, metal doors that led to the elevator. Katherine shook her head, and her friend seemed just a tad bit relieved by that fact. "Wait, then we have to walk down four flights of stairs?" she complained, but quietly.
"The elevator would make noise. Moving up and down, and they always ding whenever they open. Taking the stairs will make us less likely to be caught if you want to do this. Anyway, it's not that far," Katherine reasoned, and the other girl sighed but nodded, agreeing full-heartedly with her. Elevators did make quite a bit of noise, which wasn't something that the pair needed at the moment. So they entered the stairwell and started down. At least the stairs were always lit in case of an emergency, or else going down would have been difficult. Without windows, the small space would have been pitch black.
A few lights were on downstairs because of the night staff going about their business, and the two girls avoided them as best they could, going to a side door and stepping out. A chilly wind hit them as they left the warmth and quiet of the hotel building. Caitlin instantly tugged her sweatshirt's hood over her head to cover up her ears and stuffed her hands in her pockets, while Katherine shivered and crossed her arms.
"I think it's that way," Caitlin declared, not bothering to whisper, since no one in the hotel would overhear them now, pointing in some random direction. She sounded very sure of her decision, though her friend wasn't as sure, shaking her head. "What? We came from that way, didn't we?"
For a moment, the question went unanswered as Katherine looked around, "No. We came from that way," she corrected, pointing in almost the complete opposite direction. Caitlin grinned sheepishly and nodded, putting her hand back in her pocket.
"I knew that," she said, getting a skeptical look from her friend before Katherine set off in her own direction, Caitlin trailing behind her. The first girl's hair would have been in her face if it wasn't tied back, though a few random strands had gotten free of the ponytail and were bothering her because of the wind. The other girl had no problems with it, except for the fact that the wind was cold. And she didn't like that it was fairly dark outside, except for the fact that a streetlight interrupted the shadows for a very short while.
Overhead, a full moon shone, along with a smattering of stars. A few wispy clouds scuttled across the sky, but otherwise it was clear. The moon gave just barely enough light to see by as the two girls made their way out of the town, which took a good fifteen to twenty minutes of walking to do so. Caitlin's watch, which she always wore, said that it was nearing 12:30 in the morning on the day of June 15th. Just so long as they got back before seven o'clock without getting caught, they would be fine though.
The wind seemed to pick up just a tad when they left the safety of the buildings, though it did randomly stop for short intervals before coming back. Caitlin was watching her feet as she walked, trying to keep her friend's shoes in sight as well, stay warm, and not trip over some random obstacle all at the same time. Katherine didn't seem to mind as much, even though she seemed just as cold as the other girl in just thin, long-sleeved shirt and her jacket. She was watching where they were going, though, following the road further and further from the few glowing lights of the town.
Neither of them spoke, except for Caitlin's few moans of "I'm cold," "I'm bored," or "Do you see it yet?" None of her comments or questions got answered, so she fell silent, looking up every now and again. Her spirits were suddenly lifted when a structure came into view through the darkness and the windy gloom that was England after dark, and she stopped looking down at her feet, going to Katherine's side and matching her pace.
In front of them was the natural wonder that was Stonehenge, in all its rocky glory. The blurry shapes were barely recognizable with the encroaching darkness and the shadows, but the moon lit up the edges enough to make the general shapes recognizable. Earlier, the area had been bustling with people there to see these giant slabs of stone sticking out of the ground, though now the place was absolutely deserted, leaving it free for the two girls.
"Come on, Genis," Caitlin said, grabbing her friend's wrist and pulling her toward the towering slabs of stone when she thought Katherine was going too slow, "I want to see this place without all those people crowding around." It had taken away the excitement of seeing Stonehenge earlier, to see people all over the place; she figured it would be cooler without it being overcrowded.
Katherine looked about her worriedly, "Is it okay for us to be here, Lloyd? I mean, there's no one else here..." The reluctance she had shown before leaving had come back, now that they had actually reached their destination.
Caitlin grinned reassuringly, "You worry too much. We'll be fine. Anyway, having no one here is the point. We can't get caught if no one is here," she said, going up to one of the stones of Stonehenge as soon as she reached them and letting go of her friend's wrist, "Besides, doesn't it look cool now? Kinda spooky actually." She glanced up at the full moon above and then around at all the rocks around them. There were a lot of shadows around, and it did seem kind of Halloween-y. She half-expected a werewolf, like in Harry Potter, to jump out from the deep shadows and attack them. That, coupled with the cold wind, gave it an even freakier feel.
Katherine stood in the center of the stones, spinning slowly to look at the whole formation. The stones seemed to glow in the moonlight, but she credited that to the bright light of the full moon, "It's really...breathtaking, you know? It is so worth it to see it at night on a full moon."
"Told you so," Caitlin said, following her friend into the middle and glancing around at the glowing stones. The light seemed a little off for just being from the moonlight, but she dismissed it. It wasn't anything bad; it was just light after all, "I told you, but you didn't seem to be listening."
"Of course, I wasn't listening," Katherine muttered, not really listening even then. The light was slightly brighter now, more than it should have been for only a full moon. It was almost as if the stones were giving off light themselves, which didn't make any sense at all, "Caitlin? I think something's wrong here."
Caitlin frowned and nodded, glancing around at the stones, "You're right. Stones don't normally glow. Unless it's like one of those crystals with the lights underneath." She looked at one of the glowing stones as if she'd be able to see why it was glowing in the first place, "Maybe we should just go back to the hotel. This place is starting to creep me out a bit."
Nodding, Katherine started to back out of the center of the stones. Suddenly, the light grew to nearly blinding and teal symbols etched themselves across the stones, forming a pattern that must have meant something when Stonehenge was built. Now, however, it only meant that something was seriously wrong.
It took a moment for Caitlin to tear her eyes away from the strange markings, which she had been looking at in shock. She grabbed Katherine's wrist again to pull her out of there faster, but they didn't get very far. A flash of light filled the area between the stones, blinding the two of them briefly, before it faded away, the symbols disappearing from the stones. Everything looked the same now; the stones were glowing, there wasn't any light around...and the two girls were suddenly gone without anything to show that they had been there in the first place.