"Cleo de Nile? Seriously? I thought she was dead."
"Move out the way, Twyla! Oooh, this is so going on my blog!"
"Hush now, Spectra. The Queen wouldn't want news like this coming out."
"The truth must be told..."
"Fine, if you want to be sentenced to death."
Death.
Was that was what the Queen had in mind for me?
I heard voices fade as I was led deeper into the Queen's palace: Twyla, Spectra, and Valentine. It was nice to know that Spectra still had her blog. But none of them seemed like the kind of monsters to take orders.
My ghoul, what happened? I was just Frankie Stein, regular, everyday ghoul and then BAM—I wake up with amnesia in a world where Monster High doesn't exist and Abbey lives on a mountain by herself away from an enormous city ruled by a selfish queen prancing around in my body while I am currently stuck in Cleo's. And it's been like this for five years. That means Nefera has been in my body longer than I ever have!
My feet skidded the floor when the guards came to a halt. The bag was whipped off my head and I was shoved onto the dirt floor. A barred door squealed as it closed behind me.
"Have fun," one of the guards mocked, flashing his fangs.
"Yeah, you don't have long," the other chided.
They laughed as they left me in the cell of whatever sort of dungeon I was trapped in. I rolled over in the dirt so that I was facing upwards. A headache seared my skull, and I closed my eyes in an attempt to soothe it as my thoughts plummeted. Of corpse I would get myself into this situation. "I'm going to die."
"Not if I can help it."
My eyes snapped open and, tense, I sat up. "Who's there?"
"Relax, it's just me," a figure stepped out of the gloom.
"Clawdeen!" I cheered.
"Shh," she coaxed, standing in front of the bars of my cell.
I clutched the bars. "Why are you here?"
"I'm here to get you out, Cleo."
Right, I'm Cleo. Or at least I appeared to be. "But you're with the Queen."
Why would she help me? Was she still the same Clawdeen?
"Sometimes Frankie is a bit dramatic." A bit dramatic? Clawdeen was more under the Queen's control than I thought. She pulled out a key and began unlocking the cell door.
"How did you know I was here?"
The door swung open. "Well she wasn't going to give you a nice, comfy room in the palace," she said matter-of-factly.
I was a bit disappointed Clawdeen didn't overhear the conversation, but maybe it was for the best. "Why would Nef— I mean, Frankie send me here? Am I going to..?" I gulped, dreading her answer.
"You're not going to die if that's what you're so worried about," said Clawdeen. "No one ever stays here long—that's why all the cells are empty. The whole 'death sentence' thing is just a rumor. You know Frankie. She wouldn't kill anyone."
I let out a relieved sigh. Then a thought occurred to me, and a smirk tugged at my lips. "Did Spectra start that rumor?"
She laughed. "No, but she likes to say she did as a joke. You know what happened with her and her blog."
"So that's what Spectra does?"
The werewolf nodded and grinned widely. "Same blog from high school. Well, after the whole 'haunting' fiasco."
I smiled. "What does everyone else do?"
"You remember Valentine, right? He got his powers back, so Frankie made him in charge of the law enforcement unit." She bristled. "It's full of vampires. If I wasn't letting you out right now, Valentine or one of the other vamps would be releasing you soon. Still don't know why we bother to call it that, I mean, it's a mouthful. Law enforcement unit. Valentine is actually better at managing it than you'd expect and, as much as I don't like him, at least he's on our side." Clawdeen giggled.
I giggled, too. It kind of felt like old times, even though she looked a bit older and everything else about this situation.
"The hybrids live here, too. Honestly, I'm still confused about what they do, but Neighthan's the only one of the four who wears the uniform and the others help him out sometimes. Frankie also lets Twyla live here because she's trying to cope with not having normies to take nightmares from, so she's finding a new source to satisfy her. It's just not the same with monsters.
"I live here, too, but I help out. I'm a professional designer, but I'm still working on building my fashion empire. Andy guards the front of the palace itself but nothing really happens so he usually fangs out with the rest of us."
"What about your siblings and Draculaura?" I inquired.
"Clawdia's a screenwriter for boovies in Hauntlywood nowadays, and Howleen can't keep a job. She keeps insisting she can make it without college. As for Clawd and Draculaura..." A sad look came on her face. "I don't know where they are. I looked all over the city but... I've never found them."
"Oh, Clawdeen." I wanted to comfort her, but this was news to me. Two monsters I've known for a while now... gone.
She sniffed and put on a quick smile. "Hey, don't worry about it. It's been years since I last saw them. You need to go."
I hadn't budged. "What? I can't stay with you?"
"No, we wouldn't want Frankie finding out."
Frankie? Right, right the Queen: Nefera. I'm Cleo. Get it together, Stein. "Right." I needed to get back to Abbey's cave before it was too late.
"If you walk up those stairs," Clawdeen pointed down the dark hall; I didn't see any stairs in the gloom, "the door at the top will lead you outside and you can go from there," she handed me a torch from the wall beside my cell door. She smiled. "You didn't think I'd forget you were afraid of the dark, did you?"
I was about to tell her that the dark didn't scare me until I remembered that I was in Cleo's body. Cleo was afraid of the dark.
"Thanks, Clawdeen."
"Hey, what are beasties for?"
The torchlight reflected the glimmer in her eyes. She looked ready to fall apart. I hung the torch on the wall and hugged her.
She sniffled into my shoulder but remained quiet otherwise. The crackling of the torch's fire was the only noise in the silence. Clawdeen pulled back. She ran a hand over her eyes and managed an encouraging laugh. "Go ahead."
I flashed her a thankful smile, grabbed the torch, and sprinted to the direction she told me to go, leaving Clawdeen in darkness.
-.-.-.-
The door at the end of the stairs led me outside the palace, and I made my way to the edge of the city. Looking back, I noticed that the palace was sort of triangular shaped. I assumed Nefera wanted to make it pyramid-like.
I needed to get out of here. Though it was still dark outside, I saw the mountain in the distance and, torch in hand, ran toward it as fast as I could, my headache disappearing with each step I took away from the palace.
-.-.-.-
After a long trek up the mountain, I finally made it to Abbey's cave. I was relieved to see Venus and the others still sleeping. I made my way to my cot, careful not to wake the others or trip over Venus' slumped-over figure. As soon as I settled down under the covers, I checked the clock by my bed for the time. Midnight. I blew out the torch and set it by the clock. Tomorrow would be day two in this wrecked world and I could definitely use the rest Abbey had coaxed me about. I let out a yawn before my eyes closed, easing me into a blissful sleep.
