There was someone in her room. She could hear them.
Aelita opened one eye, briefly glimpsing a dark ceiling.
Probably just Star.
She closed the eye then heard a muffled thud as something was knocked over. A small curse, then a sigh followed. A few seconds later there was another sound. Star was making an awful lot of noise.
"Star, can you keep it down?" Aelita mumbled as she turned away from the wall, not bothering to open her eyes.
"Oh, so this is Star's room?"
Aelita froze. That wasn't Star. She sat up, rubbing at her eyes, and came face to face with a girl. Literally. She leaned over the bed so that her nose was inches from Aelita's.
The pink haired girl drew a breath to scream, but a hand was quickly over her mouth. The other girl shook her head.
"No need for that. You'll wake everyone up." She blinked. The movement looked strange under large lenses that magnified her eyes slightly. "I'm just looking for Star."
Aelita tried to push the hand off of her mouth and panicked slightly when it wouldn't move.
"Don't scream," the girl said as she removed her hand. "I'm not going to do anything." She stood straight, no longer leaning over Aelita's bed. The glow from Aelita's computer, which the girl had apparently turned on, formed a halo around her waist length hair... was it silver? No, it probably just seemed to be in the darkness. Maybe it was blond.
"Who... are you?" Aelita asked, still staring at the girl. She wore a pink gown that appeared to be old and that barely reached her knees. Were those Hello Kitty faces on it?
"Well, I'm certainly not Star," the girl said.
"Uh, yes, I know that. But who are you?"
"Twi."
"That's your name?"
"Part of it, yes." The girl paused. "I'd tell you my full name, but what's the fun in that?" She smiled and sat at the foot of Aelita's bed. "Who are you?"
"Aelita." Aelita was beginning to get irritated, but most anyone would have been if a stranger had gone into their room, woken them up, and started a random conversation. "What are you doing here? How did you even get in here? The door is locked."
"Lock-picking can be quite easy with my tools." Twi blew hair out of her face. "And I've told you already. I'm here for Star. I assume that bed is hers?"
Aelita glanced over at the bed. To her surprise, it was empty. "Yea—wait." She frowned suspiciously at Twi. "Why do you want Star?"
"Questions, questions, questions. My, you're a curious one, aren't you?" Twi tilted her head.
Aelita looked at Twi, half annoyed and half confused. "Look, you're the one that's barging into my room at..." She glanced at the clock and became even more annoyed. "2:06am. I don't know what you do at night, but normal people need to sleep." Aelita surprised herself with the rudeness in her own tone.
Twi frowned. "You sound like my brother. But hey, nobody likes talking to me. That's okay. I'll go find Star on my own." Her tone was strangely musical and detached, as if she was only half paying attention to what she said.
Aelita sighed, rubbing her temples to keep back a headache. Okay, so there was a girl named Twi that wanted Star, and she had decided to try to find her at 2am, of all times.
"Wait."
Twi had been halfway out the door. She turned.
"I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be rude, but it's not exactly polite to come into someone's room in the middle of the night without permission, much less a stranger's. This is a boarding school. And as far as I know, you're not a student," Aelita said, yawning as she finished.
"Not yet. I'm new, actually." Twi smiled. "But I'm afraid that the principal isn't here at this hour to meet with. So I was hoping to find Star and stay in her room until I can meet with the principal."
"Oh. But why her and not someone else?"
"She's my cousin."
Everything made slightly more sense now. Slightly. "Ah." Aelita stood reluctantly and stretched her arms over her head, yawning again. "She's probably in the bathroom or something."
"Oh, thank you." Then Twi had suddenly left.
"Wait," Aelita whispered quickly, but the door was already closed. She hurried out and immediately collided with something in the dark hall. "Oof."
"Sorry," said Twi's voice in a whisper.
Through a combination of shuffling, feeling the walls, and squinting, Aelita and Twi went through the dark halls without too much noise.
"I can be clumsy sometimes," Twi said unnecessarily as she bumped into Aelita for what the pink haired girl counted the sixth time. Aelita considered it a miracle that they hadn't woken half the dorm with their stumbling.
When they reached the bathroom, the bright light made them both squint. Blinking rapidly, the girls adjusted to the bright light.
"Anyone here?" Aelita asked, voice sounding loud after the quiet halls. She waited for a moment. Coughing and gagging noises were her response.
Aelita and Twi both shared a grimace. After several seconds, the sounds stopped.
"Aelita?" inquired Star's weak voice.
"And me. Boy, you don't sound too good, Star," Twi said before Aelita had the chance to answer. "Have you been eating cinnamon again? I specifically told you not to eat any. Don't you recall?"
"Twi?" This time her voice was surprised. "I she cut herself off and the horrible gagging continued. It lasted a few moments. "Ugh. It's like my stomach was turned inside out. I feel horrible."
"You sound horrible too," Twi said.
"What are you doing here?" The sound of a toilet flushing followed. Star half stumbled out of the fourth stall, appearing pale and sleepy. Her partly closed eyes seemed to have trouble focusing on Twi.
"What am I doing here? Well, depends on what you mean by here." The girl paused for a moment. "If you mean here as in the bathroom, then I was trying to find you. But I've done that. If you mean here as in Kadic, then I'll need a more specific question to provide a satisfactory answer."
Star walked to the sink and rinsed her mouth out, completely ignoring her cousin. Twi followed, blinking curiously as she waited for a response. Aelita yawned and stood where she was.
"I see you're still as long winded as ever," Star said once she was finished, looking her cousin up and down. Her eyes came to rest on the glasses. "And blind."
"So are you. It runs in the family. To be honest, I'm surprised Dawn doesn't have glasses yet. Maybe she will sometime. Anyway, hi to you too, since I haven't seen you in such a long time. Try not to get too excited," Twi said. Her musical tone contained a touch of sarcasm.
"I think I'll manage." Star stretched, yawning, then looked at Aelita. "Did this nutcase wake you up, Aelita? Don't worry, she did the same thing to me once. Got me out of bed in the middle of the night and forced me to go outside. I freaked out, thinking something was wrong. Turns out she just found a particularly interesting star, which turned out to be just a helicopter." Star looked pointedly at Twi, who frowned.
"Remember, Star, your mom said not to call me a nutcase. And yes, it was a very interesting star, even if it was only a helicopter."
"But you don't get people out of bed in the middle of the Star cut herself off with a sigh. She knew, even if her overtired brain was annoyed, deep down, her heart was glad to see her cousin. But her brain was winning.
"Look, I've been up half the night." She grimaced. "But I know all of us are pretty tired. Except for you," Star said. She looked at Twi with a raised eyebrow, asking a silent question.
The silver haired girl assumed a serious expression that looked strange and out of place on her face. She nodded slightly. Star bit her lip in response, her eyes saying something that Aelita couldn't understand. She had the sense that they were exchanging a wordless conversation.
"So let's get to bed. Twi, I have some extra blankets and pillows. We'll talk in the morning," Star said. Her stomach grumbled in protest and she put a hand on it. "Ugh. That is, if I survive until morning."
Once they were all back in the room, Aelita immediately went back to sleep while Star bordered on it restlessly. Twi lied in the darkness for several minutes, only going to the computer once her cousin was asleep.
She carefully read over the email that she had opened earlier, glad that Aelita or Star hadn't noticed it, and clicked reply.
I'm at Kadic. What do I do now?
Twi hesitated for a moment, then clicked send and shut the computer off. As she curled up under the covers, a dark, inky looking substance slithered under the door between Star and Aelita's beds. It hesitated for a moment, then crawled up the left bed and into its owner's ear. Star gave a quiet moan and turned over.
But Twi was already asleep.
"So it's agreed? Later tonight we leave to recover the fragments. If we can manage it in about an hour, then we'll be just in time for the end of the year dance," Jeremy confirmed, sliding the computer farther along his lap to hide it from view.
Ulrich and Odd, occupying the seats in front of him, nodded eagerly. Behind him, Colton gave a thumbs up.
"I can't wait," Aelita murmured from her seat next to Jeremy. "This is the first school dance I've been to." She caught Jeremy's eye and beamed. Jeremy fought a blush and looked back at his laptop. "Everything seems to be in order. The only one not here is Star. Does anyone know where she is?"
"She's sick," Aelita said. "Her cousin brought her to the infirmary this morning."
"Cousin?"
"Oh, yeah. That reminds me; I need to tell you guys why I was up at 2am this morning," Aelita said. As she began to describe the morning's events, a girl rushed into the classroom, her silver hair swishing behind her.
"Sorry I'm late, ma'am. I had to bring Star to the infirmary this morning."
"Quite all right," Mrs. Hertz said absently as she stared at the papers on her desk. She'd have to reschedule that meeting to quarter to four if she wanted to have time for Jim's salsa lessons... When she felt the student's eyes on her, she glanced up and tried not to appear surprised.
First, she had encountered Odd's purple hair. Then it was a strange pink haired student that seemed to come from nowhere. There was also a girl in Belpois' little group that had a streak of green in her hair. Now there was a tall, slender girl with hair the color of polished metal and glasses that made her eyes large like an owl's.
The student tilted her head, still waiting for a response, and Mrs. Hertz halted her mental scan. She attempted a smile that looked no different from a neutral expression. "Ah, yes, you are..."
"Twi," the girl supplied.
"Your name?"
"No, but that is what I prefer to be called."
"All right. I take it you've gotten a schedule and supplies. You can have a seat right there." She pointed to the only vacant spot, a chair next to Colton. Twi nodded and walked swiftly to her seat, not noticing the various pairs of boys' eyes staring at her. However, she did notice the sudden hush that fell over the small group of six when she took her seat.
"Good morning," she said cheerily, directing her smile at Aelita before the others. "Ulrich, Odd, Colton, Jeremy, and your girlfriend, Aelita." She gave a nod to each of them in turn.
While Jeremy blushed, stumbling over his denial, Aelita shrugged, embarrassed. The others nodded. Any conversation that would have started was cut off as Mrs. Hertz rapped a ruler on her desk for silence and began her lesson.
Though she received many stares in the hallway between classes, both for her looks and hair, the "new student" aura that Twi was wearing quickly wore off. Soon, she was only another one of those weirdos who seemed to be in that nerd's group.
Twi herself was very bored. The classes were easy, and the students were so plain—except for her cousin's friends. They were nice, funny, and something else. She could sense some sort of thing between them as she sat at their table at lunch, something that bound them together. They weren't just friends... They had some sort of wordless pact, something important between them.
This was what pushed out the science that was supposed to be occupying Twi's brain during last period. She frowned, staring hard at the back of Jeremy's head the way she had stared at the computer screen, willing it to give up secrets. She was as unsuccessful as before.
The clock gave a small chime, pulling Twi out of her stare. She looked up at it and sighed, then went back to staring at the back of Jeremy's head. There was still ten minutes left.
Then there was a small beep. Jeremy's head looked down instead of forward, and Twi noticed something black being slid onto his lap. Was that a laptop? She craned her neck for a view as Jeremy's hand shot up.
"Ma'am? May I go to the infirmary? I... don't feel very well." Then he shot a quick glance at someone across the room. Twi realized that the glance was for two someones: Ulrich and Odd. Ulrich gave a small shake of his head and Odd nodded.
"I'll take him!" Aelita volunteered.
Mrs. Hertz didn't even glance up from her papers. "Go on."
As the two jumped up, Odd raised a hand and said, "Ma'am, I'm not feeling too well either. Could I go to the infirmary?"
"I'll take him." Before Twi knew what she had said, she was getting up. She ignored the looks of surprise as she followed Odd out of the room.
Twi waited as Odd, Jeremy, and Aelita exchanged glances. They seemed to be having a silent conversation.
"Well, come on." She cocked her head.
The three followed with slow, reluctant steps, whispering to each other. Twi ignored it until she was outside the door to the infirmary, then sighed and turned around.
"You don't have to make a plan to get away from me. I know something's up; if you're going to go wherever you're going, then do it. I won't tell. But I might follow."
Startled, the three blinked.
"You really won't tell anyone if we leave right now?" Jeremy asked.
"Nope. But I might follow," she said, then pointed down the hall. "Hide around that corner, right now."
"Why?"
As if in answer, Yolande's muffled voice came from inside, "I'm coming, coming! Hold on a moment!"
They were out of sight only a few moments before the door had opened.
"Yes...? Weren't you here this morning?"
"Yes ma'am," said Twi in her dreamy, musical tone. "I've just come to check on my cousin."
Yolande frowned. "Your cousin... the one you brought in this morning, Star?"
"Yes ma'am."
"She left a little under fifteen minutes ago," she said, looking at her watch.
Left? Instead of displaying her confusion, Twi gave a single nod and swiftly walked away before Yolande could ask why she wasn't in class.
Twi didn't even glance at the corner as she passed it. The three were gone already. She hurried out into the courtyard, hoping to catch a glimpse of one of them. A flash of pink presented itself at the edge of the trees, then disappeared.
It was all Twi needed. She accelerated across the courtyard at a sprint and stood at the edge of the trees, wondering, like with the email, what she was getting herself into.
Then her immediate curiosity took over. A black haired figure, standing at the edge of the courtyard, watched the silver haired figure as she disappeared into the trees.
Curiosity was a strong force, the girl might have pondered, if she wasn't so busy being tugged by it. But the only thing the boy was pondering as he followed was if Yumi was out of class yet.
I haven't updated in forever... ;a; I'm sorry! I'm super busy with camp nano going on in June, but I just couldn't leave this sitting here.
I'll make the updates faster, promise.
