I apologize in advance for this chapter. Nina seems a little bipolar throughout the whole thing, going from worried to happy to sad to pissed and back to sad. All in one chapter. Sorry, but it was the only thing I could think of while typing up this chapter! So I hope you enjoy Chapter eight: House of Swing.
Chapter eight: House of Swing
Eddie
"COME ON! HURRY UP!" Nina yelled, worry and panic in her voice.
"What was the order?!" I screamed as the ceiling descended above me.
"Dog snake horse cat duck cow!"
I looked at the carvings on the floor and ran back to the beginning. Okay, dog. I placed my foot on the dog. Snake. I jumped onto the snake. Horse, cat, duck. I hopped onto each of them in turn. Cow. Where was the fucking cow?! I was about to panic when I saw it. I jumped, letting out a sigh when I landed on it. From there, it was simple to jump off of the hopscotch board.
The ceiling stopped descending, sliding back into place. I let out a cheer. I did it! I turned to Nina and gave her a hug, which she returned happily. We make a great team, I thought cheerfully. Well, a great hopscotch team. Nina was still like my little sister, and she was engaged!
When I let her go, we started to walk down the tunnel. What would this challenge be? I knew there was something about a stone platform we had to cross, but to be honest I had forgotten almost everything Patricia had told me about the traps.
When we turned the corner, Nina swore. I jumped back, extremely shocked. Since when did Nina cuss? She walked over to the edge of a deep chasm that I hadn't noticed before and sat down, her feet dangling over the edge. What was she doing?
I watched her reach her hand inside a small hole in the wall and jerk her arm back. A loud, scary noise sounded from behind me. My blood ran cold. What had Nina done? What was behind me? I ran back down the tunnel, away from the noise. So what if I was a chicken? I wasn't going to face the creepy whatever-it-was behind me.
A loud BOOM sounded through the tunnel, almost deafening me. What was that? I sprinted back to Nina, almost tripping over something that definitely wasn't there when I had left. It was a large stone block, painted to look like an alligator. What?
"Help me out, Scaredy Osirian," Nina teased. She bent down to pick the stone alligator up. Confused, I helped her out. Holy crap, this thing weighed a ton! When we had it standing up on its edge, Nina instructed me to drop it on the other end of the chasm.
Though I wasn't really sure we could do it, I prepared myself to let the stone fall. It fell, hitting the other point across the pit. It wobbled for a few seconds, dangerously close to falling off. Nina held her breath, staring wide-eyed at the stone.
It stopped moving, staying perfectly still. WE DID IT! One high-five later, Nina told me to walk across the stone. I gave her a look. Surely there was something I was missing? I vaguely remembered Patricia telling me about a swing or something. A swing . . . What did she mean by a swing?
I stepped out onto the stone platform, one foot in front of the other. There was a metallic noise coming from the slots in the walls and Nina yelled out to me.
"GET BACK NOW!"
I did as I was told, hurrying back to the edge. Just as I set foot on solid ground, I heard an even louder metallic noise sounding from behind me. I turned around and my stomach dropped.
There were razor-sharp metal pendulums swinging over the chasm.
"Did you know about these?" I asked in a hushed voice.
"I forgot," Nina answered sheepishly. "I only just remembered when I heard the noise."
I turned to her, too shocked to say anything else. How could she have forgotten about the challenge? How could she not know about the pendulums? How could she have forgotten? I asked her about it, which was a huge mistake.
Nina's expression turned to guilt. A trickle of tears fell from her eyes as she hurried back down the tunnel. I ran after her, but an upset Nina is a fast Nina, so she outran me. I followed her outside, all the way across the grounds to the old summer house where the last piece of the Staff of Osiris had been hidden. Why would she run here?
"LEAVE ME ALONE!" she yelled. Where was she? I hurried to the sound of her voice. Nina was sitting on the ground, her back pressed up against a blanket of vines. She was talking to what seemed to be thin air. I crouched down beside her, placing a hand on her arm. When I did, a burst of light surrounded my vision, and I saw what Nina saw.
Senkarah was standing in front of her, demanding she get the Mask soon. The spirit was as awful as I remembered her, maybe even worse. Her black robes billowed in the non-existent winds, and smoke rolled around her, adding to the haunted effect. Senkarah's expression was one of pure hatred, and it was aimed at Nina and me.
"Osirian," she growled. "You trapped me for over a decade in the Afterlife. I do not forgive easily, but if you do as I say, then no harm shall come to you, your friends, or that insolent girl you fancy. Do as I say, the both of you, or there shall be a new timepiece. Which shall it be, Chosen One? The jokester or the pretty girl? Maybe the scholar you fancy? Or maybe I shall curse them all!"
She disappeared in an explosion of black fog. When I was sure the spirit had vanished, I turned to Nina. She had tears streaming down her face as she buried her head in her arms, her knees pulled up to her chin. Why was Senkarah trying to break her down if she wanted the Mask so badly?
When I tried to comfort Nina, she shook me off. What could I do? I couldn't just leave her like this. An idea struck me, but Nina would kill me if I did it.
But I have no choice, I argued with myself.
Nina will kill me.
I don't care.
Yes, I do.
But she needs to get better.
Yeah, so help her out!
She won't listen to me.
Fine, I just hope I don't feel too bad when Nina comes after me with a knife.
I shook my head. I had some pretty strange conversations with myself sometimes. Telling Nina I would be right back, I got up and took off to Anubis House. There was only one person who could help her now. As I burst through the front door, I ran right into the person I needed to find.
"Fabian!" I cried in relief. "There's something wrong with Nina!"
"WHAT?!" he yelled, eyes widening.
"You need to come now." I didn't give him time enough to ask what was wrong. I just started running back to the summer house. Fabian followed me, worry over his fiancé giving him an extra burst of speed. When we got to the abandoned place, Nina was right where I had left her. She was still crying, still huddled up in the corner, still shutting out the world.
Fabian rushed over to her and sank down beside her. I took that as my cue to leave. I didn't want to give her any more reason to kill me.
Fabian
When Eddie told me something was wrong with Nina, I almost had a heart attack. Had someone hurt her? Had Eddie? That last thought was banished as soon as it formed. He was her Osirian; he would never hurt her. I followed him to an abandoned building, one that looked a little familiar, but I couldn't place it. It didn't matter anyway. Nina was somewhere inside, and she was hurt.
I found Nina curled up in a ball, crying her heart out. My heart broke into a hundred pieces when I saw her. Whoever did this to my Nina deserved to die. I sank down beside her and pulled her into my arms, cradling her next to me.
Eddie left slowly, probably not wanting to intrude on such a personal moment between us. I didn't mind, but the least he could've done was tell me why Nina was sobbing.
As I held her, she cried and cried, occasionally saying things like "I screwed up," "I'm so sorry," "This is all my fault," and –the one that broke my heart–"I can't save them."
Who couldn't she save? What was her fault? What did she have to be sorry for? Nina was an exceptional person who always did her best to help people. She was kind and sweet, helpful and funny, perfect in every way. Well, she couldn't cook, but everyone has an imperfection that makes them perfect, right? I held onto her for what seemed like forever, though it was probably only an hour or so.
Her sobs grew fainter and fainter, until they finally stopped. When I looked down at Nina, I noticed that the only reason she had stopped crying was because she was asleep. I shook my head, torn between laughing and crying along with her. What was going on? Did Eddie know what happened? I decided I would deal with that later, but now I had to get Nina back to Anubis House.
I gently lifted her off the ground and cradled her in my arms. As I started to walk back to the house, I felt her move. She was probably about to wake up. I didn't set her down, despite what she might have wanted if she were awake. I wasn't going to leave her on the ground. As I walked back to the house, the girl of my dreams asleep in my arms, I wondered what had happened to cause this.
When I got to the house, the door opened by itself. The house wanted to help her. I took Nina past the common room, where Amber happened to see us. She rushed over and followed me upstairs, opening the door for me. I thanked her quietly as I set Nina down on her bed and pulled the blanket over her. She was a wreck, and I was going to find out what had happened, but for now I was just worried about her.
"What happened?" Amber whispered, sitting on the edge of her own bed.
"I don't know," I told her. "Eddie just told me something happened to her, and I found her crying. She managed to say a few things, but I don't even know if she was talking to me."
"What did she say? If you don't tell me," Amber added in a low growl, "then I will kill you. I don't care if your wedding is next month. I deserve to know what happened."
"She was saying something about her screwing up, and that she was sorry, that something was all her fault, and . . . and that she couldn't save them."
Amber stayed silent for a few seconds. "Who can't she save?"
I just shook my head, turning to face the love of my life.
Nina
I was weak. That was all there was to it. I was a weak, stupid, worthless person who couldn't even save her friends. Senkarah practically told me that if I didn't find the Mask, then she would kill everyone I cared about. A decade in the Afterlife had made her even worse, if that was even possible.
So I sat in the summer house and cried. I cried over my failure and my situation. I cried in advance for the deaths of my friends and I cried over the fact that I was going to be the reason that the love of my life was dead. I sobbed for what seemed like forever, and at some point I realized that someone had their arms wrapped around me.
I didn't care who it was, didn't think about it. I tried to tell them what had happened, but all that came out was a few, almost unidentifiable sentences. The last thing I could remember saying was "I can't save them." That was the truth. If I couldn't remember the tasks, then I couldn't get the Mask. If I couldn't get the Mask, then I couldn't save them. If I couldn't save them, then I didn't deserve to have them.
I couldn't save them.
At some point I fell asleep, my head resting on the person holding me. Well, I was in the point between asleep and awake, the place where you're dreaming but you can still hear and feel what's going on. The person I was half-sleeping on lifted me into the air and carried me away. I had no idea where we were going, but I found I didn't care. I moved a little, trying to get comfortable, because I knew that the person wasn't going to let me stay where I had been.
After a few minutes, the person set me down on something soft and warm. The warmth of the place was too much to ignore, the soft call of sleep impossible to deny. So I fell completely asleep, my nightmares haunted by the impending deaths of my friends.
The next morning, I woke up to see Fabian's face inches from mine. What the heck? He was asleep, his eyes closed in peace. Had he been here the whole night? I reached out and poked him, trying to wake him up. It worked, much to my surprise. Normally he was a much heavier sleeper, but I guess being back in Anubis House made him revert to his old Sibuna sleeping habits.
"Oh!" he said, rolling away. I laughed as he fell to the floor, his face an expression of shock. "You're awake. I thought you'd sleep longer."
"How did I get here?"
"I carried you in," Fabian said, getting up and sitting on the edge of my bed. "You fell asleep in an old building, so I had to carry you here. What happened last night?"
I bit my lip. Should I tell him? No. The last time I told him about Senkarah, he was the next one marked. I wasn't going to let him get marked again because of me. So, as quickly as I could, I came up with what I thought was a convincing lie.
"Um, I don't know," I said, internally wincing at my choice. Okay, so I was still a bad liar. "What happened?"
"I asked you first," Fabian smiled. I smiled back. He was pulling a very unfair argument, but I still couldn't tell him.
"Well, all I remember was crying, though I can't remember why, and someone carried me here. Was that you?"
"Yeah, it was. You were sobbing your heart out, and I had no idea what to do when you fell asleep. Nina, you said a few things while you were crying . . ."
"Like what?" I already knew.
"Who can't you save?" Fabian asked instead of answering.
"I don't know. Who can't I save?"
"You tell me. You're the one who said it."
I sighed. A nosy was not a good Fabian, especially not in this situation. Why did it have to be Fabian who heard me talk? Why couldn't it have been someone who knew about what was going on, like Eddie? EDDIE! He told Fabian about me crying! Rage built up in my chest as I thought about it.
I hopped up and stormed out of my room, ignoring Fabian's questions as to where I was going. I was gonna go kill me an Osirian. I found him sitting on the couch beside Patricia. Even though a small part of me hated to break up their cozy little setup, I had to confront him.
"Eddison Miller! What the HELL did you do?!" I yelled at him.
He looked up at me, shock and fear in his eyes. Good, he should've been afraid of me. He should've been afraid before he went and got Fabian!
"You slimy, dirty, rotten little RAT! How the heck did you think it was a good idea to run and get Fabian?!" I strode over and smacked him across the face. Everyone in the room –I hadn't noticed it before, but everyone in the reunion was in there –let out a gasp. Fabian grasped my arm before I could hit Eddie again.
"LET ME GO!" I yelled at him. "You have no idea what's going on!"
"You're right, I don't know what's going on," Fabian said in a calm voice. "So why don't you explain it to me?"
Everyone's eyes were trained on me, waiting for an explanation I couldn't give. Instead of answering, I dashed out of the room and picked the lock to the cellar door. I had to get through the challenges before the end of the week, even if it killed me.
When I got into the tunnel, I found the pendulums still swinging. This had taken us a week to learn last time, so how was I going to learn it in less than a day? I sat on the edge of the pit, my legs dangling off. I was going to sit here and watch the pendulums until I learned the pattern.
Two hours later, I was so bored I had actually thought about going back up. No, I had to solve this challenge. Another hour later, I heard footsteps sounding through the tunnel. Eddie marched up to me and sat down on the other side of the stone, far out of my reach.
"So, am I still in trouble?" he asked as we watched the pendulums.
"Not as much as before," I said. "But I'm still upset with you for telling him. You had no right to endanger his life."
"I didn't tell him about Senkarah, Nina. All I said was that something had happened to you."
"Yeah, but when he sat down beside me I thought it was you, and I told him everything! Thank God not that much of it came out in actual words, or Fabian would've gotten marked!"
Eddie stayed silent.
We watched the pendulums swing across the chasm for about a half hour until the pattern finally clicked in my mind. I stood quickly and walked swiftly across, Eddie looking on in amazement.
"How did you do that?" he asked as I stepped off the stone platform.
"It just clicked. Um, I'll help you out. When I say now, you take one step forward, okay?"
Eddie nodded. "Alright."
"Now!" Eddie moved a step forward, just missing the metal sun.
"Now!" He stepped forward, missing the moon.
"Now!" He missed the other sun.
"Now!" He missed the other moon, stepping off the stone platform. The pendulums swung through two more swings before they swung back into their holders. We did it! We beat the pendulum challenge!
I turned to the way forward, but I knew what was up next: the crawl space of fear challenge. We needed to face our fears, and we needed to conquer them before tonight.
I told Eddie, and he agreed that we needed to go back up. He led the way out, and on the way I let him know he was almost completely forgiven. Once we got there, we were greeted by an unhappy Patricia and Fabian.
"So, are you going to tell us why you slapped my boyfriend?" Patricia demanded.
"And are you going to tell us why you ran off to the tunnels, only to have Eddie follow you?" Fabian asked, steel in his voice.
"Um, would you take 'no' for an answer?" I asked hesitantly. I got a glass of water over my head as an answer. Geesh, Patricia still poured water and other such liquids on people when she got angry at them? As I shook my head to get some of the water off, I sighed. "Okay, so I deserved that," I admitted. "But I can't tell you what happened. It's not that I don't want to, but if you want to stay alive, then you have to trust me."
"Are you threatening us, Nina?" Patricia asked, her eyes wide in shock.
Fabian looked surprised and scared, as though he thought I was going to pull out a knife right now and kill him. Why would he think that? I would never hurt him! That's why I was warning him!
"I'm not threatening you guys! I'm just saying that my secret could get you hurt, and I don't want that to happen. If either of you got hurt, then I wouldn't be able to forgive myself."
"Well, Eddie seems fine," Patricia sneered. "I take it he knows?"
"Yeah, but that's only because he figured it out! I didn't want anyone to know!" I said. Okay, so Eddie found out about it the same time I did, but I didn't want for Patricia to be mad at him, too. Patricia dragged her boyfriend away from the door and outside, where I heard her yelling at him. Oops.
Fabian was looking at me, despair and rage written all over his face. Why was he angry? Why was he sad? It wasn't like I had told him my secret. When he opened his mouth to speak, a soft whisper came out.
"I'm not sure what you're doing, but I know it's not good. I'm not asking you to tell me everything, but you can't hide from me. I don't think I could take it if you hid from me, Nina. I'm not even sure if I can really trust you anymore."
"What are you talking about? Of course you can trust me! I'm just saying that if I disappear for a little while, then you need to let me stay that way so you don't get hurt. Remember the last time I had to keep a secret from you? You found out about it, and you got hurt."
The last secret I had kept from him included his sister –who by now was sixteen –and a really big stuffed bear. I had bought Fabian a huge stuffed dog for Valentine's Day one year, and his sister found out about it, so she told him. He tried to top what I had gotten him, so he found an enormous stuffed bear for me.
I think it weighed around one hundred pounds. The dog I had gotten Fabian was about half the size and a third the weight of the bear. When Fabian had pulled the bear up the stairs, he fell from the weight of it and tumbled to the bottom. He had been in the hospital for a week.
"I'm pretty sure you don't have a giant dog in the tunnel, Nina."
"You're right, it's worse. You won't just be in the hospital this time. You might end up in your grave."
"Why are you threatening me?! I cannot believe you keep telling me that I'm going to end up dead!"
"Would you just listen a minute, Fabian? I want to protect you! I don't want you getting hurt! If you can't accept that, then this is over. We are over."
With that, I stormed out.
Amber was around the corner, a worried look in her eyes. I could tell she was worried about me, but I had no idea why. Why was she worried about me? I was fine.
No, I wasn't. I had just broken off my engagement with the love of my life because he couldn't trust me. A small sob escaped my lips. I couldn't deal with this right now. I ran past Amber and locked myself in our room, not wanting to deal with the rest of the world.
Ooh, trouble with Fabina! Is Fabian right to not trust her? Was Nina right to break off the engagement? On a random note, would you guys please read my other story on here? It's called Secrets of the Boys. It's only a oneshot, but I hope you'll like it. I'm also going to post another one, called A Day at the Pool, which is a Fabina-ish oneshot (I say ish because there's not a lot of Fabina in it, but there's next to none of the other couples). Secrets of the Boys is a slash-fiction oneshot, so if you don't like to read those kinds of things, then don't. But if you don't mind terribly, would you please do so? It would mean a lot to me!
Thanks for reading! ~C
