Thanks for all the reviews, it always makes me really happy when people like my story!
Now here's chapter seven, hope you'll enjoy.
Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima.
~Chapter seven~
Red. The red color was constantly haunting her in her sleep. Red water falling from a gray sky, people lying in puddles of red and sometimes just red. A deep red color surrounding her with no exit. Sometimes she would run around inside the red maze, panicking and desperately calling for her friends. There was never an answer and when she couldn't run anymore she would fall to the ground and lie there until she woke up. Before she couldn't even remember these dreams, but somehow she could now. It was the worst nightmares she'd ever experienced, but the worst was still the dark room covered in a crimson color.
'My blood' Lucy reminded herself.
She stood in the exact room at the moment, but where she'd normally walked to the wall and reaching for the red substance, she now stood her ground in the middle of the room. If she didn't attempt to touch the wall, maybe the shadow person wouldn't call out to her. That was the thing that frightened her the most. To hear a person talk about you in such a sad voice and telling that the thing on the wall is your own blood. And if she ever lost that much blood she would surely die. A scary thought which reminded her of the emptiness and loneliness in the completely red dream.
Lucy sat down on the floor, resting her head on her knees. She tried to squeeze her eyes together and pinch herself but little did it help. She had to wait until the others woke her up or she woke up in a normal way. Though it apparently also woke her up, when the pain in her chest became too much, but she'd rather wait than feel that.
She closed her eyes and sighed. The others would probably wake her up soon. Right?
'Please let me out of here soon,' She mumbled into the silence. She didn't expect any kind of response and was surprised when a sound echoed throughout the room. Looking up from her position, she saw small pieces of the wall falling down on the floor. Her eyes grew had never happened before and the blonde was unsure of whether it was a good or a bad thing.
The wall shook violently as if something had hit it and Lucy yelped. A crack started to appear on the wall, growing wider with every 'hit'. She got up from the floor and moved backwards, away from the wall. She couldn't really figure out what was going on, but there was defiantly something outside the room and it wanted to get in.
'Lucy'.
The mage snapped her head to the right and saw the silhouette of a person standing there. It was the same as it had been the other times she'd the dream, but the voice was defiantly different from the one she'd heard when she was with Tsukune.
'Lucy, run. Get out of here.'
The pain spread out through her chest and she clenched her teeth together. Her best choice was to listen to the 'person' but the problem was how to get out.
'There's no door', she said through the pain. It grew worse and her breath started to become shallow.
'Get out'.
'I don't know how-'
'Now!'.
Lucy opened her eyes and shot up from the bed. She didn't get far though, as her forehead collided with Natsu's. She fell back into the bed and the dragon slayer fell to the floor with a loud thump.
"What are you doing, Natsu?" Lucy said in an irritated voice while sitting up in the bed and rubbing her forehead. The boy sat in a similar position on the floor with a cranky look on his face.
"I was trying to wake you up," he said looking at the spirit mage.
"And you had to hover all over me to do that?"
"Well, since you wouldn't wake up when I just shook your arm, and you started to throw around on your bed, I thought you had a cold or something."
"Oh..". Lucy looked down a bit before she turned her eyes up to meet the dragon slayer's again. "I just had I nightmare that's all," she said, smiling to her friend. He looked at her, a small confused frown on his face.
"Do you've nightmares often recently?"
"What?" Lucy asked. She tried to hide her shock, but she was pretty sure that she failed. Had Natsu discovered her illness at some point?
"You just look a bit tired," he shrugged. Lucy first thought was to say no, but chose to use it as an excuse instead.
"Yeah," she mumbled. She looked at the boy and hoped the answer was enough for him to drop the topic. She really couldn't let him know how tired she'd gotten since her illness had showed up.
"So these dreams," Natsu said in a stern voice, making Lucy worry even more. "Are you being chased by a ghost?" He made a big, creepy smile and gestured with his hands, by moving his fingers up and down. He changed his voice, so he sounded like a witch from an old fairy tale and Lucy couldn't help but laugh, and Natsu joined her shortly after.
"Good, you're happy again," The pink haired boy said to her, a big smile on his face. "It doesn't suit you when your smile doesn't reach your eyes."
Lucy looked surprised for a second before she smiled back at him. That was just like Natsu to do that.
"Oh and Erza called Gramps about the thing Tsukune said yesterday, so we're going home when you're ready," the dragon slayer said getting up from the floor. "I'll go downstairs while you get ready".
Lucy nodded and got up from bed. She heard a small click when Natsu closed the door to the room. She looked at the other three beds in the room. The party yesterday had been pretty big for such a little town, but they also had a lot of money from Tsukune's 'readings'. When Tsukune crossed her mind she came to think of the rest he'd said.
Time and strategy of their attack, he knew it all.
The only reason the team had stayed to join the party was because Tsukune'd said that Asuta and the rest of her guild only would attack in at least three weeks. Also the others said that they wanted a rest before heading home, though Lucy suspected they'd only said that because she seemed tired. That was probably also the reason they had let her sleep.
Lucy washed her face and looked herself in the mirror. She had big bags under her eyes, her face was getting paler every day, and somehow it looked like she was getting thinner. The only thing that looked a little bit better was the scar on her hand, which at least wasn't yellow and infected anymore. Now it was just a typical scar stretching across her palm.
The mage went into the main room and packed her stuff before heading to the door.
The little constant pain in her chest grew a slightly but she kept walking.
"What do you mean we can't ride the train back home," Natsu said annoyed.
"The railway is currently damaged and it has not been repaired so far. There will probably go four or five more days until the trains can drive on it again." The conductor apologized.
"Okay we understand," Erza answered in her normal cool voice. She grabbed Natsu in the collar and pulled him away from the ticket counter while Lucy, Gray and Happy followed her willingly. She stopped outside the train station.
"We can't wait so long before we go, so what now?" Gray said asking the question the rest of the group had in mind. They all turned to look at Erza, Natsu still with a grumpy face.
"They don't have any magic vehicles in this town either so I think our only option is to walk home. It'll probably take a day, but I got food and blankets in my luggage so we should be able to manage," she answered, but then looked at Lucy with a silent question. When the mage understood her gaze she shook her hands in front of her.
"It's okay, really, we'll just do that. The only reason I look so tired is because of bad dreams," the blonde explained.
The redhead locked eyes with the spirit mage, trying to find something that went against the own girl's words. Lucy kept her eyes locked and didn't budge even though she knew Erza was a lot more skilled at the 'starring-other-people-down-until-they-say-something' skill, but she somehow managed to make the other mage believe her.
"….Okay then it's settled. Let's go."
Lucy relaxed and began to walk along with Erza, when she felt a pair of eyes looking at her. Turning, she saw Gray looking at her. She smiled to him, which made him smile in return and start walking too. Happy flew up the blonde and began a serious conversation about which fish was Lucy's favorite.
Meanwhile Natsu found it weird that nobody else noticed the slight difference in the girl's feature as if something was causing her pain.
The darkness came sooner than the group had expected and they made a small camp beside a big forest. Erza was quickly to delegate the work between them – Gray and Lucy was going to find wood while Natsu, Happy and herself would stay back and make the beds. Gray'd tried to make the redhead realize that he could just cut one of the branches from a nearby tree and use, but the woman insisted that it was an amazing opportunity to try the life as a normal camper who didn't posses any magic power. Except for using Natsu's fire to turn a bonfire she refused to use any kind of magic. When the ice mage had tried to insist, she'd send him a glare and he'd swiftly turned around and walked into the forest. Lucy had obediently followed the order and followed the boy.
Now she wished she'd supported her teammate a bit more. The dark forest sent a chill down her spine and the shadows freaked her out. There had been too many shadow thing for the next couple of days, and she really didn't like being alone after all her dreams. Gray was close by of course, and if she wanted to she could probably get to him in ten seconds. But she stayed where she was and collected wood, set on the thought of proving that she was alright.
She bent down to get another stick and when she got up again she almost screamed. In front of her stood a person with a long black coat with silver patterns. She recognized him to be the person, who Erza and Gray had described and backed away from him. She was about to get one of her keys, when he suddenly disappeared and then reappeared right in front of her. Her back hit a tree behind her and she was caught between the trunk and the stranger in front of her. He was higher than her and looked down on her under his hood. He moved his hand up her arm and placed it under her chin and lifted her head.
"Such beauty," he whispered. Lucy wanted to use her magic or at least call for help, but couldn't. She didn't know how, but somehow he'd made her unable to speak. He was defiantly dangerous. "So beautiful, but also so fragile like a flower. A flower just waiting to be crushed." His voice changed on the last words. It got darker and kept an unspoken threat.
"Shall I crush you, little flower? Shall I make your pain go away?" he asked in a somewhat pitying voice.
Lucy opened her mouth, but then he was gone. He left no trace behind and it made the mage wonder if he'd ever been there. She took a deep breath before she walked over to Gray to stay by him and collect more wood.
She didn't want to be alone.
When Lucy and Gray got back to the rest of the team, the beds and preparation for food was ready. She and Gray placed the wood on the ground and Natsu lit it with his fire.
"Did you see anything interesting inside the forest?" Erza asked still sticking to her camper mood. Gray sighed before he answered her.
" Two squirrels, a bird nest and a hell lot of thorn bushes."
"What about you Lucy?" Erza said turning to the blonde. Lucy considered to tell about the 'hood-guy' but decided not to. It would cause too many questions.
"The same except for the squirrels. I saw a hare though."
The red haired mage nodded in excitement, but made no further move to talk more about the forest. The rest of the evening went by with them talking about the food, the trip back home and then a minor fight between Gray and Natsu, which Erza ended pretty quickly. No one mentioned the oncoming attack.
The bed consisted of a waterproof sleeping pad, a pillow and blanket. Everything was taken from Erza's suitcase and it only proved that she was ready for everything when she went on missions. Lucy tried to fall asleep but couldn't because of the cold. She was the only one infected since it wasn't actually that cold, but she couldn't stop shivering. Her illness had already made her weaker than she thought and it was showing off through her inability to keep her own body warm.
She cuddled into the blanket and closed her eyes.
Suddenly she felt a pair of strong arms around her and she almost panicked, fearing that it was the hood-guy.
"You're freezing, Lucy," Natsu mumbled into her ear. "I can hear you teeth clatter."
Lucy stopped moving for a moment. She hadn't expected him to hold her like that and she couldn't decide if she thought it was a good or bad thing. But it made her feel warmer.
"Sorry," she said moving a bit away from the boy to have more space between them.
"It's okay," he said pulling her back into his warm chest.
I guess this is something you'd normally call a filler chapter, since the trip home isn't something big itself, but I also wanted to have some nalu and it was an opportunity I ended up taking. Still, I hope you liked it.
Well, tell me what you think, everything is appreciated.
~RememberTheDay
