Kookaburra's P.O.V

Everyone was exhausted after the ball last night, including me, that doesn't happen very often, at least tomorrow half of us will get the day off.

It was my day off the next day, along with Gildar, Madeva, Skabb, Thorne and Ballista. I wanted to spend the day with Hannah, but I couldn't find her around the castle anywhere. Skabb, Thorne and Madeva were in the lounge, maybe they've seen her somewhere.

"Hey, have you guys seen Hannah?" I asked.

"Yeah, she's in the courtyard." Madeva replied.

"Okay, thanks."

I left through the main doors and immediately saw Hannah, sat on the courtyard steps, she had on her lap something that looked like knitting, or crochet.

"Hey sweetheart." I said as I sat next to her. "What are you making?"

"Just a crochet scarf. There's not much for me to do around here and I can't just sit in my room all day, I did enough of that at Splazzer City."

"There's nothing wrong with time to yourself."

"Except my room's a bit creepy, it's freezing at night and I'm hearing voices."

"Voices?"

"Yeah, I sometimes I think that there's someone whispering to me."

It couldn't be...could it? I thought that we'd sorted that problem. I have to tell her about it, but maybe not right now, I don't want to freak her out.

"Are you okay Kook? You've gone all quiet."

"Err...yeah. I'm fine. So what do you want to today? We could go for a walk."

"Yeah, a walk sounds good. Let me just put this back in my room."

Hannah jumped up from the step and disappeared inside, she came back five minutes later.

"Okay I'm ready."

Hand in hand me and Hannah walked out of the castle gates and into the forest, I didn't say much the first few minutes of the walk, I couldn't believe that he's back, I'm sure we got rid of him for good.

"Are you okay Kook?" Hannah asked. "You've not said a word since we came out here."

"Yeah I'm fine. I was just thinking about what you told me about your room, it's got me wondering."

"Why?"

"It doesn't matter, it's probably nothing."

Hannah stopped and just looked at me.

"Kook, are you keeping something from me?"

"No, if I've got something to say, you know that I'll always tell you."

"Okay, but first it was the special dance last night, and I've just got that feeling."

"Sweetheart don't worry about it." I held her hand gently. "Now come on, I've got a great idea of where we can go."

I picked Hannah up onto my shoulders and carried her to an open clearing. No one else knew about this place and it's where I usually go for some alone time, I put Hannah back down and held her hand again.

"What do you think?" I asked.

"It's beautiful." Hannah replied. "I didn't even know that this was here."

"No one else knows about out this place, I discovered it by accident one time I was out here and I mainly come here when I want to be alone...and now, it's great that I can share it with someone."

Hannah smiled and sat down on the soft grass, I sat next to her as she laid back looking up at he clouds, while I looked down on her, the sun shining beautifully off her black and red hair.

"What are you looking at?" She asked.

I chuckled and moved a stray strand of hair from her eyes.

"How did I get so lucky?" I asked. Hannah giggled and put her right hand on my shoulder, with the other she slowly lifted herself up towards me until she was centimetres away.

"I should be asking you the same." She whispered.

I put my hand on her waist and kissed her gently on her soft lips, Hannah sighed and wrapped one arm around the back of my head, I moved my hand up to the top of her arm, Hannah giggled as I began to kiss down her neck.

"Kook stop." Hannah blurted.

I immediately stopped.

"Sorry, was I coming on too quickly?"

"No, I was just going back too far and I thought I was going to topple back."

We both laughed, I laid back onto the grass and looked up at the clouds, some of them forming into unusual and funny shapes.

"Hey look at that cloud there, it looks like Knightriss telling off Tinkor for being naughty, ha!"

Hannah didn't reply, I looked over to see if she was okay, she was just sat there looking into the distance.

"You okay babe?" I asked.

"Yeah...I'm fine."

I could tell she really wasn't, I looked at the horizon and I could clearly see Splazzer City in the distance.

"Oh, sorry Hannah, I forgot that you can see Splazzer City from here."

"It's okay, I'm still recovering from the whole ordeal." Hannah replied, holding my hand. "God, I had my whole life planned out there...it's gone now, there's nothing for me to achieve at the moment."

"What was your plan?"

"Basic things. Finish college, travel the world, get a job, find the perfect man, get a place if my own, start a family."

"Well you've got some of those things already."

"True. Splatalot's like my new home now, and I think I've found the perfect man."

"Gildar?"

"No, you."

"You're just saying that. Gildar's the perfect one."

"You're perfect to me."

I could feel my cheeks burning. "So what were you going to do for a job."

"Well there's the dream job, which is to be a famous artists or a writer, but there was another job I wanted, but apparently I didn't have the right qualities for that job, so I decided that I'd want to work with animals."

"What was the other job?"

"Well...I really wanted to be for a long time a defender."

"A defender?"

"Yeah. But apparently at Splazzer City it's really difficult, you need the right qualifications, skills, you have to be agile and fit, but I didn't have most of those, so I couldn't apply."

"Well you know, it's much easier to become a Splatalot defender. You just need basic qualifications, be able to aim good, fight with swords and just have enough energy."

"Are you saying that I could be a Splatalot defender easily?"

"Yeah. If you train for a bit and wait until you're nineteen."

"Let me get this right, so you're saying that if I start training, I can become a defender when I'm nineteen?"

"Yep. We can start your training now if you want."

"Yeah, of course."

"Okay. Let's go."

Hannah pretty much leapt in the air has was so excited, I grabbed her hand and we dashed back to Splatalot.

The training grounds were locked, but the keys were nearby, none of the equipment was out at the moment, so I got the mannequins and targets out while Hannah went to get the weapons.

"Where are they?" Hannah asked.

"Just down there of the right."

While Hannah was distracted I saw Gildar.

"Hey Gildar, come here, code red." I called.

"What's up?"

"He"s back."

"Who?"

"In Hannah' room, he's back."

"But we had that room exorcised."

"I thought that, I guess it didn't work. We need to get him gone for good, I'm really worried about Hannah."

"Okay, I'll get some people together, we'll try to get this sorted by tonight."

"Okay, thanks mate."

Seconds after Gildar walked away, Hannah came back with the weapons.

"Okay, what do we do first?" She asked.

"Well how are you with your sword fighting?"

"Not good."

"Then we'll start with that first."

I selected two wooden swords and shields, these are normally used for beginners like Hannah.

"Okay, first thing, stance. You have to stand correctly to have the best chance at winning. So it's left for in front of the right."

"Okay."

"Your shield needs to cover most of your torso for better protection."

"Right."

"And I if I attack from up high." I slowly moved my sword up aiming at Hannah's head. "You can knock my sword out of the way with your shield."

Hannah was already starting to pick this up really quickly, she'll be a defender before we know it.

Next we got out the training dummies for Hannah to practise her aim, I got two slingshots from the weapons rack and handed one to Hannah.

"Okay, so is there a knack to this or not?" She asked.

"Well, there can if you want it." I explained. "If you want to be really accurate, try aiming slightly higher than where you want the ammo to hit."

"Okay."

"Hold it out at arm's length and pull it back as far as you can."

Hannah struggled to pull it all the way back, it gets easier. Hannah released the ammo, a perfect hit!

"Oh my God! I did it!"

"Beginner's luck."

"Ha! You're just jealous."

"Fancy a break?"

"Yeah. Okay."

We put the weapons away and went inside to the kitchen. As we were waiting for the kettle to boil I decided to tell Hannah the truth about her room.

"But the way Hannah, there's something I need to tell you about what's going on with your room."

"Why? Is something wrong?"

"Yeah...erm...you know when you told me about how cold your room is?"

"Yeah."

"I think I know why."

"Why?"

"Your room's haunted."

"What? Who by?"

"Well, this whole thing has happened before. Before I became a defender here, there was one other defender who got fatally injured during one battle with Splazzer City and he..."

"Died?"

"Yeah, when I came here I was put in your room, but soon I was starting to hear things, see things and it was getting terribly cold. So I got moved to my current room while and exorcism was in place."

"Is there something going on there now?"

"Yeah, I've told Gildar and he's sorting some things out, it'll be fine by the time yo go to bed."

"Oh, okay."

Hannah was really uneasy throughout the rest of the day, we didn't do anymore training after that, but as the day came to an end and the exorcism had finished, Hannah finally started to cheer up a bit.

"Okay, I've spoken to Gildar." I said that evening, just before bed. "He said that the priest told him that everything should be fine, he's blessed the whole room."

"So...it's not haunted?"

"Not anymore."

Hannah smiled and let out a sigh of relief, so we could all go to sleep knowing everything would be fine.

I got into bed and tried my best to get some sleep, but it wasn't easy, there was something still bothering me, like this wasn't over. After an hour of trying to sleep, I laid on my back looking up at the ceiling when I heard a loud, blood curdling scream come from Hannah's room. I knew it wasn't over.

I jumped out of my bed and ran down to Hannah's room, I burst through the door along with Ballista, Faetal and Gildar, Hannah was covered with her sheets, sobbing and shaking.

"Hannah, what happened?" I asked as I crouched down next to her.

With a trembling hand, Hannah looked out from under her sheets, her face was white with shock, she looked like she'd seen a ghost.

"I...I...I saw him." She mumbled.

"What?"

"I saw his ghost. It was horrible."

"Hannah, you couldn't have, we just had this room exorcised." Said Faetal.

"Did you get a clear look of what he looked like?" Gildar asked.

"How can I forget? He had scars covering his face, his torso covered in open wounds, and his eyes, they had a look of revenge in them."

"It's him."

"Oh god, I'm never going to sleep again."

"It's okay Hannah, we'll sort this." I said as I helped her out of bed. Hannah flung her arms around me and cried into my shoulder.

"I'm not sleeping in here again, I'm going to sleep on the sofa from now on."

"No you don't Hannah." Said Ballista. "You can have my room."

"But where are you going to sleep?"

"I'll share with Faetal for tonight, we'll call a professional in the morning, it's clear the priest just isn't enough."

I helped Gildar move an extra bed into Faetal's for Ballista before checking on Hannah, she was still in the lounge where we left her, sat on the sofa with a large mug of tea.

"You okay now?" I asked her.

"A bit."

"I'm sorry about all this."

"It's okay."

I wrapped my arm around her as she rested her head on my shoulder.

"Why is he coming after me?"

"What do you mean?"

"I know that my room used to be used as a guest room, if there's been people sleeping there before me, how come they've never complained about seeing him?"

"Well, I've got a vague idea."

"What is it?"

"Well, the person who killed him was from Splazzer City, maybe...maybe be used you're from Splazzer City, he feels like you're all responsible for his death."

"He wants to kill me doesn't he?"

"If he did, he's not going to, I won't let that happen."

Hannah sighed, she was really upset about this, and stressed, in fact, this whole situation has us all stressed out, I can't even remember the last time we all had a day off, maybe now would be a good time.

Once Hannah was calm and relaxed and finally asleep, I could finally get back to my own bed, I closed my eyes and was asleep in a matter of seconds.