Chapter 3: Rainy Day Breakfast

Whisper tried to sleep some more, setting her clock to wake her up at 5:00 am, as Doctor Clysdale's clinic was an hour walk away, though the voicemail had spooked her so bad that she couldn't get any rest at all. As she thought about and eventually listened back to the voicemail, she came to the conclusion that Wilma and Dr Clysdale must be close friends, and Wilma told him about the fact that Whisper and the other Freedom Trainees had been stalking her yesterday.

After what seemed to be an eternity later, her alarm clock went off. Whisper got up from her bed, wrote a small sign explaining where she was, and hung it on her door. When Whisper went downstairs, she noticed that it was raining outside, so she put on her raincoat, rain boots, and grabbed her umbrella before heading out.

Whisper was indeed nervous, but walking alone in the rain, with the sun slowly rising into the sky, creating streaks of vibrant yellows, oranges, reds and even pinks in the sky as it changes from a dark indigo to that more familiar cyan, even faded through the gray clouds, gave off a calming vibe.

Soon enough, Whisper reached Doctor Clysdale's clinic, which had a sign on it saying that it wouldn't be open until noon because of "internal reasons''. Suddenly, Relic came around from behind the building.

"I told him that you wouldn't have been able to show up so early!" She pouted.

"A-Am I late?" Whisper asked.

"Yeah… Only by an hour."

"An hour…! I-I'm sorry!" Whisper apologized, partially because she was scared of the doctor, after hearing his angry voicemail, but also partially because she just felt bad for being late in general. Relic assured her that everything was okay, and told Whisper to follow her. Relic led her behind the clinic, where a small house resided.

"That's where ol' Clyde and I live!"

"Oh? Are you two… related? Or a married couple?" Relic giggled a little, blushing from that second suggestion.

"No! No! We're just friends! I… I figured out a good while ago that he wasn't into me…" Whisper decided to drop the subject. Relic opened the door.

"Ah! Whisper! There you are, darling!" Doctor Clysdale looked quite chipper, completely different to how he was the night before. "Ah, why don't you come inside?" Whisper did as she was asked, and saw none other than Wilma, standing around, and her son Garrick, quietly playing on a Nintendo 3DS. She instantly panicked.

"Oh. Don't worry yourself, Clysdale says you're a good kid, and I believe him. You looked uncomfortable yesterday, I could tell." Wilma said.

"Wait, really?" Whisper was surprised to hear that.

"Yeah."

"It'll take me around 15 more minutes to fully finish making breakfast, so make yourself at home." Clydesdale said to Whisper from the house's kitchen. Whisper nodded and took off her coat and boots.

"Why don't we play a game together? I bet that'll help us get acquainted!" Relic suggested. This caused Garrick to look up from his 3DS.

"Oh! Oh! I wanna play Uno!" he excitedly requested.

"I do like that idea quite a good bit. What do you think?" Wilma said, the second part directed at Whisper.

"Sure…! I like Uno…"

"Me too! So let's play!" Relic excitedly declared.

Wilma shuffled the cards, and passed them out, 7 for each person. She took the rest and placed them in a pile, flipping over the card on top, revealing the color and number of that card, and thus, the game began.

As the four played, Wilma started up a conversation with Whisper.

"How long have you known those friends of yours?"

"Oh! I've known Jewel and Tangle for a while, but we all met Lux just yesterday." Whisper replied quite quickly.

"Pardon me, I managed to get a picture of you four on my phone… which is which?" Whisper pointed out each of them.

"Lux was the one who told us about you, and asked us to help her... Get you imprisoned…" She admitted. Wilma understandably looked offended, but quickly cooled down.

"Thank you… I'll remember that." Wilma took her turn in the game.

"What?! That's… That's… That's so mean! She sounds like a meanie! I wanna smack her in the face for being a meanie!" Garrick jumped up in defense of his mom. Whisper felt bad for laughing a little at that.

"Settle down pumpkin, Mommy can deal with her own issues." Wilma assured him.

As the game went on, and Whisper talked more with Wilma and Relic, she started to feel right at home. She knew that her friends would freak out at the sight, but Whisper truly did feel loved in the moment.

Doctor Clysdale came out with the food, and placed a plate in front of each of them and set a picture of water in the center of the table before sitting down with his own plate. Whisper took a bite of the meat portion of the meal, it didn't taste like anything she had had before.

"Hey, Doctor Clysdale?"

"Yes?"

"What kind of meat is this?" He laughed at the question.

"Beef! I use a very specific blend of spices!" Whisper looked down at her plate, and took another bite.

It had an odd taste… not overall, but there was a slight tinge of...

Iron.

"Do you not like it, Whisper?"

"No no… I do.." She said. She kinda did, but it was just… off. She ate the rest of the meat, along with the rest of the meal provided to her, as to not seem weird or suspicious. Though, with her a bit more cautious and aware now, Whisper decided to bring up the cases against Wilma up again.

"Did you ever find out what happened to all the guys you dated… that went missing?"

"Why now of all times do you bring that up?" Wilma asked, annoyed.

"I… I was just curious."

"It's a very personal matter to me." Wilma said. Whisper was thrown off by how she was outright avoiding the question.

"Hey, why don't we have another round of Uno?" Relic suggested, though at this point, Whisper couldn't tell if it was to innocently calm the tension in the room, or to force her into dropping the subject.

"That sounds like a good idea. Oh! I think the tea is ready!" Doctor Clysdale got up.

"Tea?" Whisper asked.

"Yeah! I found a good flavor blend online and wanted to test it out." Clydesdale responded as he returned to the living room, pouring a glass for Whisper. Against her better judgement, she took a swig. "What do you think?"

"It's good…" Whisper answered genuinely, though seconds after drinking the tea, she started to feel woozy. "Sorry, I didn't… get any… sleep… last ni…." Whisper passed out mid-sentence.