Author's Note: Thank you to those who followed, favorited, and reviewed! I appreciate all of it. This fanfiction is my first piece of creative writing I've put online, and I'm really glad the bit of you reading are enjoying it. I will always appreciate feedback, so feel free to review! Thank you.

Oh! Might as well put a disclaimer here and say I do not own the lovely (and so, so much fun to write about) characters of Monster High, you have Mattel and Garrett Sander to thank for that. Speaking of which, there are many, many more characters to come.

Here's chapter two...


My eyes were shut, and I was in no hurry to open them. It already astonished me enough to open the door to a winter wonderland, but now all I could feel was... warmth.

Was I about to open my eyes to a tropical paradise? Stranger things have happened. But what did I know?

"Nothing," I whispered. That was what I was certain of: I didn't know.

I didn't know anything.

Colds hands gripped mine, and I flinched.

"Shh..." a voice cooed.

My body relaxed. Maybe it was the voice but, whoever this person was, she was someone I could trust. I didn't know how I knew, but I did.

I opened my eyes to a veil of ice. Walls of it enclosed me in a dome—an ice cave. It was small but spacious, containing the makeshift necessities any home required. In the corner, a tiny purple mammoth slurped some water out of a bucket. I sat on a ratty mattress on cave floor with a fuzzy blanket resting on top of me. A ghoul with frosty blue skin, tricolored white hair, and tusks poking from her bottom lip knelt by me. She held my hands with her large yet elegant cold ones; her purple eyes were gentle.

"Are you okay?" she asked, her voice heavily accented... Yeti. She was a Yeti ghoul.

I croaked out a "yes". She smiled, and the tension left the air.

"I am glad," she said. "Did not believe I would see you again, Cleo." There was a distant look on her face. "Went back to find others when the school fell... I did not see you and I am sorry." A single tear streamed down her face, like she was holding back. She sighed. "Monster High."

The words caused a sensation of ease to overcome me. Whatever Monster High was, I... loved it.

She closed her eyes. "I miss it."

I didn't like seeing her in pain like this. "Who are you?" I asked, my voice less hoarse than it was before.

The look on the ghoul's face was unbearable. She stared at the ground. "I see," she said after some silence had passed between us. "You do not remember."

"I'm sorry," I choked out.

"No," she sniffed. Was she crying? "Is okay." She turned back to me, her eyes glassy. "I understand. Simply makes things clearer. You were not in school when it fell, were you?" she said, forcing a smile.

I shook my head. Unlike other things, this didn't sound familiar whatsoever.

"Well, on to introductions." She wiped her eyes. "I am Abbey. And you," Abbey nodded her head at me, "you are Cleo. Cleo de Nile."

Hearing the name brought sensations of familiarity and a nagging feeling I couldn't quite identify. I knew Cleo de Nile, and I was her. I smiled at Abbey. Abbey. The name made me happy. I trusted her, and she knew me. What did she know about me? Who was I?

I tried to stand up but Abbey caught me.

"No," she stressed, "rest."

A part of me agreed while another part of me was annoyed. I woke up in a sarcophagus, I think I have had enough rest.

"Who am I?" I asked tentatively.

A sly grin further revealed her tiny tusks. "You are Cleo," she sniffed. "You are rude, snobbish, and conceited."

I was taken aback, and it probably showed clearly on my face, because Abbey laughed.

"But," she looked me in the eyes, "you have heart of gold. Am proud to call you friend."

The corners of my lips upturned slightly. Whoever I was, I meant something to someone.

Abbey released my hands and stood up. "Will get you food."

A minute or so later, Abbey returned with a metal bowl of hot soup, and served it to me on a metal spoon. "Has yak meat," she said. "Good for body." When I finished, Abbey put away the bowl and spoon and returned with a mug. She told me to sit up, and she handed me the mug when I did. "Hot chocolate. Was saving but now seems like perfect occasion," she said with a grin.

Abbey walked off as I set the mug down for a second and wrapped the blanket I was under around me. Satisfied with my coziness, I took the mug and sipped, careful not to burn myself. My hands warmed with color. Tan. It felt odd but right somehow. Cleo de Nile had tan hands...

A shuffling sound interrupted me from my thoughts. Abbey noticed it too. She cautiously approached the wooden door leading outside the cave when it blasted open. A draft of icy wind flew in, and I huddled into the blanket.

Abbey relaxed. "Iris," she acknowledged, a relieved sigh escaping her lips.

The door closed, and in front of Abbey stood a short, olive-green cyclops ghoul with one long, messy braid.

Iris.

I knew her.

"Sorry I didn't come sooner," Iris said as Abbey came over and hugged her. Were they friends?

"Was worried when you not come yesterday," Abbey told her.

"Don't worry, none of the Queen's people saw me, I just had some business to take care of, so I couldn't meet you on Wednesday like I said I would." The cyclops ghoul rambled through her sentence for Abbey's sake, who stiffened at the mention of a queen. They seemed to be afraid of her.

"I didn't want to worry you but..." Iris drifted off, halfway through taking off her coat, and I froze as her one eye made contact with both of mine. "That's..."

The next thing I knew, she rushed over to my side and held me in a tight hug, her braid sweeping against my shoulder.

"Oh my ghoul! Cleo! I didn't know you were still around I thought you were gone like the others I just can't believe you're here!" She pulled back, and I'm sure the confusion I had showed on my face. "Sorry." She sniffed. "I know we were never really friends back then, but you being here is a miracle." She gave me a small smile.

Abbey came to stand behind her. "Your excitement never ceases, hmm?"

Iris giggled. "Times like these need a little joy, don't you think? Cleo being here is amazing."

"Yes, but she does not know."

"Know..?"

"She remembers nothing."

Iris gasped. "We need to help her then! Do you think the Queen had this done to her? She could've been her prisoner."

Abbey scoffed. "The Queen would not let prisoner escape. Besides, she was much far from Queen's Palace."

This queen seemed ruthless. Did she have the ability to make someone lose their memory? Abbey and Iris didn't question it.

The green cyclops let out a sigh and turned to face me. "Cleo," she began sternly, "what do you remember?"

I told them about how I was in the sarcophagus in some elegant room on top of a snow covered mountain. I remembered coming out of the room onto the snow, but then waking up in Abbey's cave. They stared at me, dumbfounded.

"Told you she does not remember," Abbey said calmly and crossed her arms.

"Is that all?" Iris pleaded. I tried thinking before then but there wasn't anything there—nothing but the dream.

"I... had a dream."

Abbey raised an eyebrow, probably wondering how a dream would be of any use. Iris' eye widened, and she clapped her hands. "Okay tell us what it was about."

Once I explained, I realized they were both in it. Abbey and Iris were ghouls with me in the dream. Both Iris and Abbey took the information intently.

"Monster High," I heard Abbey say. "Her dream was there."

"Do you think it was the day when it happened?" Iris asked Abbey.

Abbey brought a hand to her chin. After a moment, she said slowly, "Do not think so."

I couldn't stand being clueless. What were they talking about? "When what happened?"

Iris turned to me with a grave look on her freckled face, and Abbey turned away completely, sulking away to attend to the small mammoth in the corner. Whatever happened, Abbey made it clear she didn't want to talk about it.

I glanced back at Iris. She sighed.

"Okay, Cleo, I'll tell you how the world got wrecked."

Iris began to tell me about how she attended school at a place called Monster High. She asked if I knew what school was, and I nodded. The only things I needed clearing up in my unlife were what happened within my own.

Iris talked about Monster High with a wondrous, far off look on her face. But sometime while she was talking, her face fell. The school disembody had reunited before the new school year during the school gore-rientation when, suddenly, there was an earthquake and Monster High crashed down upon itself.

"Everyone, no, almost everyone, made it out in time." Iris lamented, her voice choking on words. Sadness filled her green eye, but she continued on, "After, one of the most popular ghouls in school started organizing ways to fix up the community. I didn't know what that had to do with our destroyed school but everyone rallied behind her. No one even bothered to fix Monster High. It wasn't until months into the next year that monsters began to realize her 'community service' was really a way to reform the community. She built an entire city the way she wanted it and practically destroyed everything surrounding it. It was insane."

"This is the queen, isn't it?" I asked.

Iris nodded.

Abbey grunted from the corner. "Does not even go by name anymore. Simply 'the Queen'."

Hesitant to delve any further, I asked Iris what everyone from Monster High was doing now.

"Well, a lot of former Monster High students live in the city within the Queen's kingdom. Abbey's here," she gestured to the Yeti with her arm, "and I'm—along with a few others—trying to find out the reason the world became like this in the first place. We haven't found out much but, once we do, we're going to get whoever's behind it."

"Something's wrong with the world?" I asked, my face twisting with confusion. Iris told me Monster High had been destroyed but... the world, too?

"We have a hunch it's the Queen who did it, so we're located pretty far from the city." Iris grinned shyly. "I guess you could call us rebels."

Abbey scoffed. "Not rebels if not rebelling."

"I don't see you doing anything!" Iris retorted.

I flinched. Seeing Iris like this didn't fit my perception of her. Calm, gentle, and sometimes nervous... Not bursting with rage.

"You are one to talk," Abbey protested.

"We are planning something!" Iris stood and took a few steps toward her.

"That is what you say each time you are here."

"Well, it's happening this time."

A silence passed between them. Iris clenched her fists, let out a deep breath, and then knelt back down in front of me. "A group of us former students are rebels," she emphasized, to which Abbey ignored. Iris shook her head and continued, "There's a..." she glanced warily at Abbey, then lowered her voice, "house near this mountain that a couple of us stay in sometimes. Close to the city, but far enough to not be detected."

"Maybe they not see you as threat," Abbey said.

"They will soon enough." Iris beamed back at me.

Abbey let out a huff and refilled the mammoth's water.

"Anyway, Cleo, we also have a camp much farther from the city past this mountain." It bewildered me that Iris told me about her group's camps, but she seemed excited to share this with someone who wouldn't criticize her.

"What's the point of telling Abbey that? Didn't you already tell her?"

Iris shot up. This was a new voice. The door in front of the cave once again burst open and closed just as quickly. A ghoul with pale green skin and browned green hair stood in front of the wooden door. Her clothes were faded and caked in mud. She seemed familiar, but something was off about her.

"Venus," Iris stammered, her one eye wide with alarm. "W-what are you doing here?"

The ghoul—Venus—sighed and waved her off. "I don't have time for this." Her sky-blue eyes landed on Abbey, expressionless. "You're coming with me."

Abbey rose to her feet, her purple brows furrowed.

"What?" Iris asked. "Does it have to do with what we're planning?"

"Yes," she quipped.

Abbey rolled her eyes. "Why needing me?"

Venus shook her head. "Look, we need all the help we can get and even though you're just one monster," she sighed deeply, "you would be a valuable asset to us."

Silence passed. I didn't know why until I realized Venus was looking right at me. I sent her a slow, careful smile.

She narrowed her eyes. "She could be useful too, I guess."

Wait a minute, this ghoul was familiar to me. Shouldn't she be worried about me like Abbey and Iris were? I didn't feel a particularly bad vibe come off her... I must have been on good terms with her before all this.

Iris ran to my defense. "Venus! She's lost her memory."

"Oh. I guess she isn't useful then."

"She will be coming," Abbey asserted from behind me.

"Alright then," Venus consented, unfazed. "Let's get going."

"But, Venus, I..." Iris avoided her gaze. "I just got here."

Venus stared at Iris. "Fine." A grin crept onto her face. "You'll stay the night at Abbey's."

"But what will you do?"

"I have some business to take care of." And at that, the door opened once more and Venus exited the cave.