Chapter 13: Foreign Emotion Part 1
Enterprise stood alone in the middle of a sea; her eyes widened in horrific realization when her mind made sense of her surroundings. Breaths elevated in her chest at the vast empty sea that stretched beyond the horizon. A sight like that wouldn't have bothered her, but this one almost felt fatally imposing to see all the emptiness. "Where am I?" She looked around and noticed that her right arm appeared to be all right.
Her breath released steadily with comfort, for she knew what kind of place this was. "Yorktown! This is your doing, isn't it?" She had a heartbeat of anticipation to see her older sister again in whatever form she had been allowed.
She waited and waited for her sister to appear and add context to this transient dream that she found herself in. A cold chill ran down her spine from out of nowhere and the sky, which had been a clear blue, had begun to darken with ominous gray clouds that appeared to move independently toward her regardless of direction.
The clouds grew thick until the sun was snuffed out of the sky, and this world's cruel transformation had concluded. Color from the sea drained its blue tones to be replaced with a darkish and murky color. Enterprise could feel her feet being weakly pulled down by this dark water, but with only a little effort, she could manage to keep herself afloat.
Her reserved hope that this was a welcoming dream like the one that she had about her older sister had vanished, just like the color in this world. The cold shiver on her spine intensified enough that it could have given her frostbite all over her body. She held herself from turning around as her instincts warned her of something encroaching from behind her.
Sweat from fear ran down the side of her chin, and she mentally forced herself to turn around. What stood before her was nothing. No enemy, no threat, and no sign of living beings. All that laid out in front of her was the now darkened watery world that she resided in. She let out a sigh of relief, but her nerves were still on high alert.
A whooshing sound resonated around her general area, causing her to flinch. The next thing, a large shell exploded from the water next to her, creating powerful waves that threw her off balance. The cold and dark water washed her from head to toe, further creating a sense of anxiety around her from being half-drowned in the waves.
Another attack landed in front of her that sent her flying backward. She grunted in anger and landed back on her feet to stare down at the unknown enemy. "Show yourself! Maybe then you can get a clear shot at me!" She screamed at the top of her lungs to the taunting enemy that masked its presence.
A large blaring alien-like sound roared into existence in front of her. The space in front of her peeled away as if it were a painting of a harmless backdrop, and behind that, a large ship then manifested in front of her that made her recoil from its massive stature. "Had that ship always been there?" She internally asked herself.
At first glance, she couldn't see any defining features and the only description she could come up with was that it surrounded itself with a dark aura. To better help this idea, it could also be described as a mere shadow of an equally large object.
Its shadowy cannon lined up toward her face without skipping a beat and fired with the most destructive force she had ever seen. While its existence was a shadow, its weaponry was all too real with its destructive heat proving that.
Her combat experience managed to keep her alive from the deadly blast that almost gave her a burial at sea. If it wasn't for her hair-splitting reaction within that second, it would have been all over. The aftershock of the blast caused a huge wave that successfully pulled her into the water.
Her eyes grew hazy from being underwater for quite a while, however, it appeared that that was her saving grace as the massive ship had not fired a follow-up shot.
She did not want to die in this unknown dark sea that felt like it was gently pushing her down deeper, and deeper, as if it wanted her to willingly give up on her terms. She moved her arms around in the dark water to shake off the odd force that pushed her downward. An image of her rig and bow manifested in her mind like a light piercing the darkness that encroached all around her.
She then blasted out of the water with her rig attached and her bow in her hands. She looked undiminished from her underwater-spellbound state that she had been seconds before. "Unknown ship… don't think I'll go down so easy with a little water thrown across my face. I don't want to fight but you leave me with no choice—Enterprise, Engage!" She powerfully commanded her planes that shot out of her rig and grew in size.
The alien ship blasted a horn in response to this defiance that sounded like a screech from a ravenous animal. The sound alone made Enterprise stagger for a second from its creepiness.
Her first wave of planes was ready to drop their payloads. Sadly, they never got close enough for a point-blank hit.
The titanic warship emitted a sphere of electricity that disabled Enterprise's planes, rendering them to plummet into the sea like flies in a bug zapper.
"Huh?! Change course, now!" She ordered her remaining planes away from the ship before they joined the rest of their comrades in the watery graveyard of the sea.
Her planes obeyed and scrambled away from the massive ship before them. She summoned an arrow and pulled back her bowstring for a clear shot at the hull of the massive ship. Her shot released from her grip with an unrestrained amount of power behind it.
Horror painted her face when the titanic ship phased out of reality, leaving behind a flicker of blue light. The blue light ignited a good distance away from the previous spark of blue light, and with it, the massive ship phased back.
"No way… something that massive is able to evade that instantly?!"
Another blast roared its way toward her. Her next set of arrows connected with the incoming blast, but they did nothing to halt its destructive nature. In a desperate attempt, her remaining planes grouped together to cancel the blast, causing the metal of their remains to rain down.
She shielded her face from the metal debris that fell around her, and her face looked pained from seeing her planes take the fatal hit.
The ship's hull moved across the wreckage of the planes that fell in the water with slow and ominous advancement.
Enterprise grunted in frustration and retreated from the imposing enemy. "That thing… can't be real." She gasped when she heard another blast coming her way. She launched a single plane that she used to jump on top of it to gain air superiority. Only just in time, she was able to miss the deadly shot that came her way.
In response to this, the titanic ship launched its own fighter planes. It was interesting to note that these planes didn't launch from an airstrip, but more like they were fragments of its overall shadowy mass, like how an amoeba would split itself. To comprehend that it didn't use an airstrip would have been the soundest of minds.
Enterprise widened her eyes in astonishment at the unreal sight before her. Those planes that angrily tore themselves from their vessel came toward her. "You got to be kidding me!" Enterprise held on tightly as her plane expertly maneuvered across the sky to dodge the group of five shadow fighters that were on her tail. After adjusting to the aggressive back and forth altitude changes from the dog fight, she locked her eyes at the targets and fired a multi-arrowed shot that claimed all five of them.
Her small victory was short-lived when two more shadow planes appeared from her sides and fired rockets covered in dark aura at her lone plane.
All she could do was jump off and land on the water; she was thankful that she was so low to the sea, to begin with. A flicker of hope appeared when she saw an archipelago of islands in the distance. Looking behind her, she could see that she had lost the massive ship. "Is it gone? No… grr… I can't make heads or tails at finding its shadowy outline with all this cloudy forecast and darkness."
Her gaze tore away from the darkened horizon before her. Every second felt like the sky and clouds were growing darker all around her that would blanket this world in true darkness. She made it to the group of islands and found a ravine between two that gave her the best outcome to remain hidden. She felt safe among the rocky formation where a river stream flowed and a tree that rested behind her, but something had begun to eat away at her. This place wasn't here when she scanned the environment earlier. Back then, all she saw was endless water.
"That's enough games with her. You'll have plenty of time to play with your new variable later." A disembodied voice pierced the dark sky and atmosphere. The voice retained much power and harshness, and it was hard to pinpoint where the source had come from. Any attempt to solve that would be impossible with all the rocky environment that bounced the echoey voice all over the place.
Panic wormed its way into her mind and body. Her ears perked up when she heard moving machinery and gears meshing. She trembled silently, wondering where it was coming from.
The dreadful anticipation wasn't for long, as a cannon gathering energy filled her ears, and soon her vision.
A blast. Full of heat and unrestrained power emerged from the darkness where she sailed through to get to this spot. Her body made the quickest decision of her life that saved her in the end.
Explosive heat and the impact of rock shattering near her caused her to tumble down until she felt the water from the river stream wet her clothes.
Water and pain were all she could feel, the blast had caused her to go deaf in one ear and left the tree she sought refuge in ablaze.
The water continued to aggressively assault her face. The next thing she knew, her arm had begun to surge with a searing pain that was all too familiar. She weakly lifted herself from the stream with one hand, and horror was the next wave that assaulted her.
With the help of the burning tree providing a source of light due to the growing darkness all around her, she gazed into her reflection in the water.
Her counterpart's face stared back at her with the same horrified expressions that she was displaying. "No- no! Someone help me! Please!" Not only did she now don the same hair and broken expression that of her counterpart, but she also donned the worn outfit version of the standard outfit used in her daily life.
The stream gave off another source of light aside from the fire behind her. She didn't need to turn her head to understand that the unrelenting dark ship had fired again. She cracked a defeated bitter laugh at the idea that it had pulled her like a puppet to this very location and wanted her to witness this image before her demise.
It was odd to feel the next sensation after death, and beyond that, odder that she didn't feel the wetness of her final resting place. Instead, what she felt next was the softness of the pillows around her.
"Hey, she's waking up!" A voice helped guide Enterprise back from wherever she was. Her eyes opened to see Cleveland.
"Huh? What happened?" She tried to stand up from the bed, but a stinging pain resonated from the back of her neck.
"Try not to stand up too fast." Another voice sounded off, and it was the voice of Vestal. Enterprise looked toward the source of the sound and saw Vestal and Unicorn. They both walked closer to join Cleveland. "Unicorn here entered your room earlier and found you on the ground. She got horrified when she saw you spasming on the ground," said the medical ship.
"How long was I out?" Groaned the white-haired carrier.
"A fair number of hours, Ent. It's seven in the afternoon now," replied Cleveland.
"Is that so?" Responded Enterprise with confusion painted on her face. The last thing she remembered, she had been waking up to a later start to her day than she usually did, only to have the corners of her vision grow dark. The other thing she remembered was the back of her neck receiving a trauma that had no reason to be there. Another discomfort soon reared its head, as her cheek gave off a numbed feeling. "Ugh… was I in some sort of bar fight?" She joked half-seriously. To this day, she could say that she never had that experience, since everyone got along at the base and nearly everyone respected her to some extent that would never warrant a bare-knuckle fight like that.
Cleveland cracked a smile at the subtle joke that came out of her friend's mouth. "Ha, that would be a sight to see- of course, that's not your style at all. Long-range combat is more of your thing after all. Back to the topic at hand, the only conclusion we could come up with would be those girls from the Sakura Empire. I tried contacting them for the cause of this but, man… I knew they would goof up on taking care of that woman. And they haven't even responded to our earlier message, just like Hornet with her phone that's apparently on silent," said Cleveland with her arms crossed.
Vestal coughed to grab the attention of the blonde, and when she did, she nudged her head toward Unicorn.
Cleveland sighed, knowing full well that they shouldn't be talking about things that related to Enterprise's counterpart, especially in front of one that would take the news hard.
"M-miss Enterprise, I… I brought you some pizza from the cafeteria. It's a little cold now after they closed. P-please enjoy, you need your strength after not eating all day."
While Cleveland and Vestal had no problems in procuring something warm from the now-closed kitchens or even anywhere else on the island base that served food, they preferred to have kept silent and let Unicorn's gesture take root.
Enterprise gazed at the cold pizza with an odd look that felt detached from what she had in her mind. Even her thoughts had shifted to a colder foreign mindset. She couldn't help the look of disgust she formed when she saw the cold slice. "I don't want your food," she said coldly with a turn of her head. As soon as she said those words, they replayed in her mind and the heaviest of torments filled her with self-loathing.
Unicorn looked like a piece of pristine paper that had been balled up and then stomped on. Her hands began to tremble, and her eyes poured out with tears. "I… I understand, Miss Enterprise. I should have listened to the others that the pizza was a bad idea." She placed the plate on the nightstand and bolted out of the patient's room without anyone being able to stop her in time.
Enterprise extended her uninjured hand toward the door, with so much regret for what her mouth had spewed.
"Ent, what the heck was that about?" Sternly spoke the blonde.
"I… I didn't mean to say what I said. Her gesture was precious and heartwarming, but something inside my mind… or was it my heart? I couldn't transfer my thoughts out correctly- I need to go after her!" One toe out of the bed had proven to be fatal, as she felt her head grow fuzzy and her legs worn out.
"Ah! Take it easy, Enterprise. What you're feeling right now could be headrush from being asleep the whole day without anything to eat, that's not to say how much of an effect your main cause for passing out might have also added," said Vestal.
"R-right…" They gently put her back on the bed. Of course, while her dizziness had passed, she still held the scar of hurting Unicorn close to her chest.
The door opened and Belfast cautiously peaked her head in. "Pardon me, Vestal, was everything all right in here? I passed by Miss Unicorn in the hallway with tears in her eyes." Belfast's cautious nature dissipated when she learned that Enterprise was wide awake. "Enterprise! How are you feeling?"
The white-haired woman had no energy to respond to her maid companion that would usually put a smile on her face.
The room grew silent with Vestal and Cleveland exchanging dire looks of woe.
"We'll just be out there if you need us for anything," said Vestal. She nudged for the blond to follow her to the exit but not before she whispered close to the maid's ear. "Make sure she gets something to eat, she'll listen more to you than she would for us on this matter."
Belfast gave her a hastily nod, confusion plastered on her face. When they had left, she took a chair and sat close to the bed.
For a good minute, not one of them had said anything to break the silence in the air. Belfast glanced at the plate of pizza that caught her attention, and that was when Enterprise quickly snatched the plate from the nightstand. Frustration and anger had been felt behind her actions like a kid eating vegetables out of spite.
"Umm… Enterprise, I can get you something else much warmer. That slice looks rather cold," she wasn't nervous about the aura in the air that could suffocate the weakest of people, but she did choose to tread carefully as she didn't know the full details of what happened.
"Maybe this is how I like it," she venomously glared at the maid.
Belfast silently half gasped, with the other half successfully suppressed. There was no mistake, that glare was one found most on the other woman that shared the same face as the one in front of her. "Stop… that wasn't you."
"What?" Said the Eagle Union with an annoyed face.
Belfast smoothed her maid dress after she had lightly gripped it. "Don't speak like her. Don't speak with words meant to push others away," she sternly focused her gaze at Enterprise. Her gaze was one of conviction in the woman in front of her being better than her counterpart, yet she feared for harsher words to come out that would deteriorate her stance.
Enterprise could see how defensive Belfast had gotten; a defensive act that had been created by her harsh words. The maid's sad, yet stern eyes were a perfect mirror that helped the injured woman take a deep and long look at herself. "Gah… you're right. Oh… this time I didn't even react to what I said until you brought it up." The pizza dropped back onto the plate, and she felt like eating her own heart out from guilt. It wasn't long after that when Enterprise laid it all out, like an open book on what happened with Unicorn to the maid.
"I see… that would explain why she had tears in her eyes when she ran past me," she said grimly.
"I know it in my heart that I'm not like that, to try and angrily push someone away must never be me."
"It isn't. You must make amends with Miss Unicorn but now, you must eat to gather your strength. Tomorrow is a new day to start fresh."
Enterprise reluctantly agreed to put a pause on her sorrow until tomorrow. She could only hope that Unicorn wouldn't avoid her. She continued to eat the cold pizza, hoping that she could find comfort in receiving the gift of the purple-haired aircraft carrier.
The hours rolled by, and Belfast had stayed with her for the rest of the night to keep her company, as well as to make sure that she didn't suffer any more harmful accidents.
(The Next Day- Hornet)
The sun hadn't even risen yet when the blonde twin-tailed carrier had her phone to her ear. She stood outside the door of the Takao-class sister's home. "Please, pick up, come on…" She had been aware of the phone calls that Vestal and Cleveland had assaulted her with the other day. The reason for her not picking up was one that even she had no underlining conclusion to. While they could have called to tell her that something horrible had happened to her sister, she knew that wasn't the case, since E-2 looked fine whenever they had made check-ups to the warehouse yesterday.
The wild-haired woman appeared to be silent and moody when they made their rounds and Takao, Atago, and Hornet called it a day, knowing that she wouldn't want to talk to them.
Ultimately, all her excuses didn't help to keep her worries at bay, which is why she wanted to directly call her sister to explain things.
The phone finally answered on the other line, making her perk up. "Ent! It's so good to hear from you."
The voice on the line was quiet but one could still make out what the white-haired sister was saying. "Hornet? You do have a habit of waking people up in the morning," tiredly responded Enterprise from the line.
"It's good to hear your voice. Cleveland and Vestal flooded my phone with missed messages, and I heard what happened to you. Are you all right?"
"For the most part. You don't sound that overly surprised about my sudden brief injuries."
"Umm… yeah, about that, it was because of her," nervously replied the younger sister.
"Hmm… I'm not surprised, what happened over there?"
"Oh man, where do I start?" Hornet spent the next ten minutes laying out all the facts that had transpired yesterday. Her sister stood silent and took in every word with the occasional sound of understanding. "… then she passed out on the spot when we got her to her bed," said Hornet.
"… a device that reads her very being, memories of a harsh battle at sea, and her frightful face when she emerged from that device… it's all so much to take in," said Enterprise. A feeling of pity wormed its way into her heart for her counterpart, mostly because of the sharp lengths that the Sakura Empire had gone to in order to secure the information that she had requested.
"D-do you think that the methods of the Sakura Empire were somewhat harsh?" Asked Hornet.
"In honesty, I expected them to rough her up during their research into her. If that research brings pain, then I must endure it or face the grim fact that the death of one of us would spell the same for the other."
"Yeah… I get it. Don't you wish there were another way?"
"Hornet, she isn't me. That vindictive expression on her face when we locked gazes during her departure told me that she will never be reasoned with."
Hornet remained silent for a few seconds. While her sister made all the sense in the world, she couldn't find it in her heart to give up hope. To give up hope on E-2 would be like giving up hope on Enterprise, the sister she knew all her life. In her mind, they were one and the same, further reinforced by the sisterly-like presence from the cube projection. Also, she refused to ignore the first act of sisterly duty that she did when she blasted the Siren ship during the mirror sea incident.
"Hornet, are you still there?" Concern filled the blonde's ear from her older sister.
"I'm here, I guess, I'll keep you posted on what's going on here. I honestly don't know what's going to happen with the research going forward. She did look very fearful of the things she saw while she was knocked out."
"Just remember, Hornet, there's meaning to all this. I won't seek retribution from them merely doing what I requested of them. I'll also try to quell Vestal and Cleveland from making a big deal about this." They exchanged more small conversations until they both ended their call.
(Enterprise)
The white-haired carrier remained with an unfocused gaze even after she had ended her call with her sister. Unknown to her sister, Enterprise had a worry that was born from the details that were depicted in her counterpart's night terror. The detail that she focused on yet didn't express any emotion on was the giant outline of a warship that had fired a destructive blast at her counterpart. She made no mistake; those details of that enemy warship were in line with what occurred in the nightmare she had yesterday.
Her eyes landed on the floor next to her bed where she found a suddenly stirring Belfast. Much to the approval from the Eagle Union, Belfast had refused to share the bed with her like last time. Of course, last time was brought upon by the maid on a spur-of-the-moment decision, and she had decided not to repeat the events because of personal reasons.
"Belfast, I don't know what to say for keeping a watch over me during the night," she said with a fond smile on her face. A part of her felt bothered by many reasons for the maid sleeping on the floor, but there was one reason that confused her. Regardless, she decided not to dwell too much on it.
The royal maid elegantly lifted herself off the sheet-covered floor with half-closed eyes. She restrained a yawn that, personally, looked bad for one to reveal to another.
A snicker past the Eagle Union's lips on how adamant the maid was to not show a disorderly side to her. "I can't do what you do. My yawns are like a lion's yawn when waking up in the mornings."
Belfast found herself fondly blushing. "Oh my, that is quite an image." She placed a hand on the side of the face to control the ensuing blush. "Ahem… be as that may, it makes me embarrassed to show such a-"
"Warm and defenseless side?" Plainly stated Enterprise with a playfully raised eyebrow.
"Something like that."
"I would definitely pay to see a deeper side of that," replied Enterprise.
The maid felt defenseless every time Enterprise would praise her with kind words. When that occurred, she felt no longer in control of her body's internal temperature and her strong confidence would shake its very foundation. This was the reason she knew that the Eagle Union was the one for her. Someone who deconstructed her and made her feel out of her element. Stuff like sharing a messy hash brown, potentially allowing her to yawn without fear of looking foolish, and overall feeling wild and daring in her presence. She could allow herself to be the part of her that she disciplined herself from ever showing to others, whenever she could be alone with the woman she loved.
(Hornet)
The blonde Eagle Union got lost in her mind with what to do going forward. She wanted to do something for E-2 after the dramatic events of yesterday but the more she thought about it, the more hopeless she felt. No matter how she spun it, any attempt to help her would jeopardize the life of her true sister. She turned away with disgust at how she worded that in her mind.
The front door swung open and Atago stared down at Hornet.
The blonde Eagle Union swallowed nervously from the powerful gaze beamed in her direction. The tension immediately dissolved when Atago shifted to a happy smile. "Oh good, I thought for a second you suddenly evaporated. What were you doing outside?"
"I… umm, called my sister. You know, after the intense events from yesterday."
"Ekk! How's she doing by the way? I hope that my tap on her neck didn't cause her too much pain."
"Nah, are you kidding me? My sister is a lot more durable than that."
"Good. That's good to hear. Well, come on out to the outside garden for our regularly scheduled breakfast."
Hornet found herself sitting near a low brown table where a beautiful garden resided.
Takao was already there, her knees folded on top of a fluffy pillow. "Hornet, we were worried about you for a second."
"I'll say. Normally, my dear sister is the one that is the early riser, but my jaw dropped when she told me that your bed was empty," said the perky heavy cruiser.
"Oh, be quiet, Atago. There's no need to make her flustered for being an early riser, after all. It won't kill you to take some initiative and pull those legs out of bed earlier."
"Pass, dear sis. I do need my beauty sleep if I want to maintain this joyful energy," she said with her cup raised toward her mouth.
"Hmph, you could lose some of that perky energy and it wouldn't hurt anyone if you asked me," replied Takao with a stern eye trained toward her sister.
Hornet glanced at the plate in front of her for the first time, eggs and bacon filled the plate perfectly with a cup of coffee to her side. "Huh? Am I going crazy or is this my kind of meal?" Without any more objections, she began to dig into her food.
"I figured a change of pace was recommended," said Takao proudly.
Her sister snorted a laugh at the statement. "That can't be all it, then why do we have a whole pan of eggs and bacon still on the stove?"
"Jeez, Atago… stop reading into things. If I must lay out my reasons, then they are nothing more than providing E-2 with a meal that she might enjoy."
Hornet stopped, mid-chew, to beam at the pony-tailed Sakura Empire. "That's a great idea. We can all go over there when we give her the food."
"Yes, I'm overjoyed that you think the same way," said the legging-wearing swordswoman.
Atago grimaced. "Will that be a good idea? If she didn't hate our guts before, then subjecting her to that torture device had to be the final nail in our coffins." She didn't sound overly serious or worried, and as childish as it might have been, she snickered at her own subtle joke.
"As much as that holds, we didn't intend to hurt her originally. She gave us no other options when she attacked us, and no one could have foreseen that damage that transpired because of the device," said Takao.
"So, what do you think? Are they going to be going through with more of those sessions?" Asked Hornet.
"Most likely. My hands are tied with this one as the medics didn't find any underlying illnesses due to the device. Plus, Nagato had already permitted to continue as long as she didn't suffer any major damage," said Takao.
"What the hell do they consider as major damage then? She was spasming like crazy, and her mind and heart looked like they were completely ready to call it quits," fired Hornet.
"I can assure you, that after going through the device's vital recordings, her heart didn't reach a critical level of heartbeats. Her mind did have an explosion of activity that was probably caused by what she saw," said Takao.
"Are you sure?" Said Hornet.
"Yes, her spasming was most likely a result of her body sensing fear from long ago."
"Hmm, who can blame her? She puts on a strong face of indifference, but I would be terrified if I stared down that ominous dark ship," said Atago.
Hornet rested her elbow on the table with her hand on her chin. "Yeah… that ship. It had an alien presence to it that definitely shouted Siren related."
"That it did. As for the enemies that she faced before that… that's where I'm at a loss. There are no specific records of Sakura ships encountering a lone enemy with a level of carnage such as that," said Takao.
"Right, I counted about three burning carrier ships in the background, a half-dozen bodies floating in the water, and an uncomfortable number of detached rig parts floating all over the place. That's not even the definitive number as I'm sure I could see more but everything moved too fast. However, even after all that, the one last thing that is hard to understand is Zuikaku's presence in that image," said Atago.
"Has she said anything? We all saw someone that looked like Zuikaku get stabbed but that can't be," said Hornet.
"Atago filled me in on the details that Akagi sounded confident that what we were watching was a memory and beyond that, I don't know," said Takao. She could see how lost Hornet looked, and she could relate to the troubled expression. "How about we finish the rest of breakfast on a more positive note? After we deliver E-2 her morning meal, we can show you around our homeland, Hornet."
"Oh, that would sound lovely. You've been here for a few days now without a proper tour," said Atago.
"Eh, I'm fine with not sweating over that. I'm here to keep tabs on her, and make sure that she doesn't do anything that harms my sister in any way."
"Nonsense, you're going to have a proper tour and that would be that," replied Atago, which her sister agreed with her.
Hornet puffed her cheek and reluctantly smiled at them. In the end, it couldn't hurt to get to know the place better.
I had some trouble writing this chapter, so I decided on breaking it into two or three parts to push this first one out and have some more time to work on the other points of this chapter. For my readers that read these chapters, I would appreciate input on how the story is progressing. Are there any plot holes or things that I should clear up on? Is the story pacing well with enough mystery going on? Also, if there are any ideas or opinions that you all have feel free to let me know.