We went to the crypt first. Hiking up the mountain, leather knapsacks on our backs, snow crunching beneath the soles of our boots... Returning to where I had first woken up had given me an ominous sense of déjà vu.
Abbey led us to a spot near the top of the mountain where she had found me passed out on the snow. After recalling the direction I came prior, I moved onwards and lead the others through a small, tunnel-like nook on the snow-ridden terrain. No one spoke once we made it.
Before us was the tall, golden entrance. I slowly approached the door and, after taking a shaky breath, pushed it open. Nothing had changed in the past week I'd been gone. Small torches remained hung on the tiled walls and the stone floor was the same sulfur-colored brick as before. Everything had remained untouched. I walked in first, and the rest followed suit.
"Crikey, Cleo," Lagoona said as she and the others followed me inside. "This place sure is extravagant."
The others seemed to agree, mouths agape as their eyes scanned the small, elegant room.
"Mind s'plaining exactly why we're here?" Operetta asked.
"There's a sarcophagus we need to get," I told her.
"So... what? We're here to pick up some deceased feller?"
I looked back at her, uncertain. "Sort of."
She didn't question my explanation, so I decided to keep all other details to myself. I pointed ahead of me. "There," I said, indicating the opulent sarcophagus beside mine, which was just as open when I was last here. "That's it."
I walked over to the sarcophagus and knelt down beside it. The Egyptian coffin was larger than the one I had woken up in, so it would take time hauling it out. I crouched lower and grasped its edge, the golden surface smooth beneath my fingers. "I could use some help, please."
Jackson walked over. "I'll help," he offered.
Holt scoffed. "I got this."
The other narrowed his eyes at him. "This isn't a competition, Holt."
He raised his hands in mock surrender. "Okay, fine. Go ahead. Just try to lift that thing."
Jackson crossed his arms. "I'm just trying to be polite."
"And I'm tryin' to be reasonable," Holt countered.
The other let out a short, apathetic laugh. "That's a first."
I kind of tuned out after that. Plus, seeing the two side by side was just bizarre; I didn't know if I could ever get used to it. Maybe someday I could ask how they were separated. Hopefully nothing too drastic.
I turned my gaze back to the hieroglyph-etched surface of the sarcophagus, my hands still on its thick, golden rim. Was this real gold?
Jackson and Holt's squabble wasn't getting anywhere, so I tried calling for someone to help me but before I could get a word out the sarcophagus was lifted right from under me. I looked across from me and saw Abbey, who comically heaved it onto her right shoulder.
She smiled. "Glad to help." Then she looked over at the boys, still arguing. I caught them say something about showers, gore knows why. "Time to make of the getting going," Abbey called.
The two immediately fell silent and whipped their heads over in our direction. Jackson's jaw dropped open while Holt scowled.
I walked past them and towards the exit. "Let's go."
-.-.-.-
We dropped the sarcophagus off at Abbey's ice cave, to which she was greeted by a more than enthusiastic Shiver. There, we warmed up and prepped for the hike down the mountain. As arduous as climbing up was, moving down was even more so. I had tripped an embarrassing amount of times, which didn't help my cover as Cleo de Nile, who wasn't near as clumsy as Frankie Stein. Remarkably, no one seemed to worry about it too much.
Eventually, snow turned to sediment, and we were at the foot of the mountain. Abbey made it down first and we followed soon afterward. The area around this part of the mountain wasn't the same one we traveled through to get to Bloodgood's house near the city. I didn't even recognize it from when I accidentally rolled down the mountain and got captured and taken to the Queen.
No, this area was different.
The dirt beneath us was a dark, ashen color, and there wasn't any grass or plants in sight. From here, the mountain jutted up above us, its enormous form looming over us like a tower, blocking out the sun and leaving a shadow over the barren landscape.
This was the path back to Monster High.
Operetta let out a low whistle. "Damn."
"You can say that again," Robecca remarked. "It appears the Queen's fires made their mark."
Abbey looked uneasy. "So this is way back?
"It should be," Lagoona said. "Where did you say we could find a passage under, Operetta?"
It took a moment for Operetta to register what she had asked. "Oh, right, well." She paused and surveyed our surroundings. Then she nodded over in front of us. "There."
She walked ahead and we followed her about twenty feet, where the red-haired ghoul stopped and crouched onto her ankles. Palm down, she brought her tattooed arm to the ground and brushed off a layer of dirt. A rusty, copper manhole was revealed beneath it. Operetta slipped her slender fingers under its circular edge and tugged it open.
She glanced back up at us with a grin. "All in."
-.-.-.-
One by one we lowered ourselves in and were instantly swallowed by darkness, soon engulfed by the underground's musty, earthen odor. There was some fumbling at first, but, once we had fished out flashlights from our knapsacks, we had no trouble moving ahead. Each step forward was a soft thump in the seemingly never-ending tunnel. Walls of dense rock sloped upward at our sides as we treaded onward on dense earth, our artificial lights scarcely illuminating what lay beyond. Time soon became obscured, like mist settling in a graveyard. Just how long had we'd been here?
Somewhere along the way to nowhere, the boys had begun bickering with one another. Abbey, Robecca, and Lagoona were keeping as much distance as they could in this slim space, while Operetta would sometimes glance over her shoulder and threaten them to keep quiet like a mother would to her children. The technique proved unsuccessful until she ultimately turned around, approached them, and let out a sonic scream. A small compressed one, but a sonic scream nonetheless. That kept them quiet for a while, but, because of the unchanging scenery, I couldn't tell for how long.
It felt like seconds before the two were at it again but quieter, so as not to irritate the phantom ghoul ahead. Now they sounded less bitter and instead shot complaints at each other. I could barely make out what they were saying.
"If he said you should..." I heard Jackson say.
"No way," Holt hissed. "I don't see her complaining."
Jackson sounded irritated. "That's because—"
"Fine," Holt sighed. "I'll do it. But you ask."
Their conversation ceased; so did their footsteps. I kept following behind Operetta beside Lagoona and Robecca until,
"Hey, Cleo," Jackson called from behind me. I turned around, the light from my flashlight catching him and Holt. "Would you like to be carried?"
I furrowed my brows. "Uh, what?"
"You know, carried. Your servants would do stuff for you and Holt said Deuce would like you to be as comfortable as possible—"
"Oh, that's not necessary," I cut in. "I'll do fine walking on my own. Thanks."
Holt let out a sigh of relief and Jackson looked confused. Then he shrugged and started walking again. I did, too.
"You don't want to be treated like royalty, Cleo?" Lagoona asked.
"What do you mean?"
"You were just offered to be carried—to not walk all this way."
"But what good would that do?" I argued. "I'd just be slowing down the person carrying me. I wouldn't want to bother anyone."
Lagoona didn't say anything, but she looked a little stunned. The realization hit me like a wave. It seemed to be the little moments like these that made my cover as Cleo de Nile questionable. I had no idea how long the amnesia excuse could hold out.
"Fear no more, folks," Operetta called up ahead. "We've made it."
"Made it where..?" I trailed off once I saw what was in front of me. The tunnel opened up to a wide and cavernous space littered with rubble. Stone walls soared high into a shattered ceiling and dusty, purple tiles hung from the large cracks, leaking in rays of soft sunlight into the dim area.
"Above us is where the library used to be," Operetta explained. "Now it's all crashed in right here."
I was astonished. "Wow."
"Understatement," Operetta commented. "I'm not too fond of this junk messin' up my catacombs like it is." She sighed. "Let's just get to lookin' around for those books you wanted us to find, okay Cleo?"
I nodded, then I split them up. Operetta and Robecca went to find one book, Lagoona and Abbey another; I let Jackson do what he came for, which was searching for books for his research back at the camp. They took off, leaving me with my self-proclaimed guard dog, Holt, who hadn't moved since we left the tunnel. The others had already run off in separate directions, so I moved ahead in an attempt to get him to follow. It didn't do any good.
"Holt?" I called out cautiously.
"Yeah?" he replied suddenly, snapping out of his daze.
"Over here," I said, and he looked over in my direction. "We have to start looking."
He blinked. "Right," he said, approaching where I stood. "Lead the way."
-.-.-.-
"How about this one?" Holt asked, kneeling down and pulling out a paperback from a fallen bookshelf. "Psychics of the Centuries?"
I shook my head. "That's not it. The one we're looking for is called Beyond Psychic. That one sounds like a history book."
He cringed and tossed the book back into its former place, dust rising into the air like smoke. "How long is it gonna take us to find this thing?"
"Just be patient," I coaxed, kneeling down toward a pile of books. "We haven't been here that long," I said as I began sifting through the pile. "We just have to—Got it!" I exclaimed as I raised a thick, leather-bound book in my hands. I hurriedly rubbed the dust off its cover. "Beyond Psychic," I said victoriously.
"Sweet. Mission accomplished," Holt said. "Let's go back."
"Okay," I agreed. I took off my knapsack and tucked the book inside. I slipped it back over my shoulders and followed Holt back to the tunnel's opening.
We walked silently for a while until I spoke. "So what was the big deal earlier?" I asked him. "You looked like you were frozen."
"What?" It took him a moment to process what I was referring to. "Oh, that." He looked ahead sheepishly. "I just never saw the school all beat up like others have. Hell, I didn't even know about the wreck 'til a year after it all."
"Huh?"
Holt shook his head. "Uh, forget what I said."
"Does it have something to do with you and Jackson being separated?"
He avoided my gaze. "Yeah, but I don't wanna talk about it."
I nodded, upset that he wouldn't divulge any further. It bewildered me that the monsters I knew had changed so much over the past years, but Holt was—
"There you two are!" Lagoona and Abbey were waiting for us, along with Jackson. "We found the book, but I have no idea where Operetta and Robecca are."
"I hope they're okay," I said. Then came a soft hissing sound.
"Oh, we're quite alright," Robecca assured, the hissing noise ceasing once her boots touched the floor.
"Problem is," Operetta said, walking up behind her. "We can't find that book nowhere."
"So my suggestion is," Robecca piped in, "that we make a detour to my father's laboratory on our way to the swimming pool. He studied a variety of subjects. I wouldn't be surprised to find a book on telepathy there."
"Great idea, Robecca!" I praised.
"We'd have to go up somehow though," Operetta said. "Y'all are lucky I know a way."
-.-.-.-
After treading through piles of fallen books, splintered wood, and shattered ceiling tiles, we walked up a long, dangerously steep spiral staircase carved into an enormous stone pillar. I choked back sobs as we passed through. I had been told the rubble had crushed many monsters, but I didn't expect to see limp, dead hands bulging from beneath the debris. Cell phones littered about the ground, a wheelchair bent by stone, cloth from a red jacket, and even a monster's broken horn. I felt like I would break down right on the spot, but I was here on a mission and that was what I needed to focus on. Nevertheless, it was challenging to keep a stiff upper lip.
We reached the end of the staircase, and dim light shone through a gap above us. Operetta heaved herself out, and her legs dangled for a second before they were swallowed up with the rest of her. Both Abbey and Lagoona followed suit, then Robecca used her boots to hover out. I let the guys go up before me, so when they were all above ground, Abbey reached down, grabbed my forearms, and hauled me to the surface. My eyes were greeted by a cloudy gray sky and my denim-clad legs collided with long, dry grass.
I glanced up at Abbey. "Thanks."
The Yeti ghoul simply nodded and stood alongside the others.
I rose to my feet and took in my surroundings. The ground was untamed and riddled with weeds. Blocks of smooth rock were scattered about the area.
Headstones. We were in the graveyard in front of the school. Ahead of me, the gates of the school were covered in soot and rust. The bars were bent and twisted like they were ready to break. I half expected them to fall apart.
We were in the ideal place to get to Robecca's dad's lab. Satisfied, I turned back to the others.
"Alright! Let's head down—" That was when I saw the school, or, more accurately, what was left of it.
I don't know what happened next because my legs gave way under me, and my vision was slowly engulfed by darkness.
