Kate was mostly just focused on getting to the bottom of her blackout, and she rushed out the door of the girls' dormitory straight into Victoria's arms. "Woah there, sweetie, slow your roll!" Kate was sure she looked a little manic, despite how hard she tried to calm herself before coming out onto the dorm quad. But the moment she thought for even a second about her nightmare, her blackout, or that prophecy, she began to panic again.
"S-Sorry, Tori, um..." Her brow furrowed and she looked at her girlfriend a moment too long. The butterfly... The butterfly! Augh, Kate, you idiot! "I've just got kind of a vibe, I guess? Anything weird go on during class?"
Victoria had a way of looking both amused and concerned, and it was the kind of thing Kate would have loved to admire for a few hours, but there was work to be done. "Hmm, not really? If I were more of a bitch I would say that Max Caulfield read my mind and stole my answer in class. But... someone dorky being smart isn't exactly weird. I dunno, I guess she was a little distracted after waking up from her mid-class nap... Now that I think about it, Principal Wells and that security guy both looked really confused about the fire drill, like it wasn't planned. Maybe someone was pulling a prank. Would a prank fire off your..." Victoria almost said 'spider-senses', Kate knew, but she would allow herself to go there in public. "...vibes or whatever?"
Taylor was standing just behind Victoria and piped up eagerly. "She was like... really excited to get out of the room, like... she had to go to the bathroom bad, but... Like, I know an excuse when I see one. I think she was looking to get into some serious shit. You think Max could be doing blow in the bathroom or something?"
"Somehow I doubt it..." Kate sighed and looked off toward the rest of the quad.
Almost on cue, Max appeared. Of course, there were at least two butterflies at Blackwell. Probably more, considering how Kate's luck usually went. But unlike Victoria, Max looked like a woman on a mission with a secret or two. She also looked... scared. Kate was friendly towards Max, but not exactly friends with her yet, and she knew there was pretty much no way to do this subtly or quickly. She put on her warmest smile and jogged up to her.
"Max!" She stopped short as there was a brilliant flash across her vision like a camera going off, and her headache began to return. But she tried again regardless. "Um, are you okay? You look a little freaked out" Have I said this before?
"Just in a rush. Need to fetch Warren's USB and get it to him in the parking lot. I've already kept him waiting long enough." Kate's ear twitched slightly. It sounded faintly as though somewhere under Max's voice was a continuous white noise composed of four or five very similar voices not so much whispering as talking with the volume turned low. I don't really have time Yeah I'm just freaked out from that fire drill Not now Kate Wanna get tea later It made it incredibly hard to focus on what she was saying, and as much as she tried, she couldn't get Max to hang around. "Talk later!"
Kate found a tree nearby and leaned up against it trying to catch her breath. Whatever the hell had just happened, it seemed to be gone now. Unfortunately, that meant that Max was at the center of it. That was bad. A hand on her shoulder caused her to jump just a little, and she saw Victoria looking at her with genuine concern now. "Katie, you really don't look too good... Let's get you to bed" Victoria grabbed for her hand and she yanked it away unthinkingly. The look of horror on the blonde's face was enough to break her heart.
"S-Sorry, um... I just have one thing I have to do over in the academic building, and then we can relax, okay?" Victoria took her hand again, but didn't attempt to lead her anywhere.
"Seriously, you could collapse any second. I'm not letting you out of my sight. No one will accuse Victoria Chase of being an uncaring girlfriend." There wasn't much room to debate, but Kate couldn't say no to that face anyway, not when she got all pouty and concerned.
In the time it took to get to the other part of campus, it seemed that the fire marshal had finally declared the alarm a prank, and was letting people back into the building. Kate found her way to photography room and looked back and forth down the hallway. She intended to hunt down the closest bathroom, but she didn't have to. There was a definite tug back down the hall and she trailed after it.
She walked through the door, and for a moment it looked for all the world like a crime scene, blood all over the wall. And then it was gone, and everything was totally normal. "Tori, you know I don't generally use harsh language. But something fucked is going on here..." She looked over and noticed Victoria rubbing the back of her neck anxiously.
"I've used this bathroom, like, dozens of times and I've never wanted to get out of here so bad before... What the hell?" Victoria wasn't especially attuned in any way, and even she was feeling it. At the expense of sounding repetitive, yes, this was bad. The blonde released hold of her hand and bent down, finding a torn picture. It didn't take much work to recognize the subject as Max. Not long after that, she noticed the broken glass around the fire alarm. "Why in the hell did a goody goody like her do this? You think it's a mental breakdown?"
But Kate was still staring at the wall next to the door. "There should be blood..." She couldn't stop thinking it, and if she didn't get a hold of herself, she'd be repeating it out loud until she was blue in the face. Luckily, something flashed in the corner of her eye and she saw a beautiful insect flapping its way about the bathroom. "How in the world did you even get in here?" Without missing a beat, a shining blue butterfly fluttered down to land on her finger so she could get a better look at its wings. "...Butterfly... No, too literal. You wouldn't destroy the town, would you, little one?" It took flight once again but seemed to constantly hover within a foot of the witch at all times.
"Did I just get replaced by an insect?" Victoria strode back over, pouting playfully. "Wait, destroy the town? Who's doing what now?"
Despite her best attempts to let the butterfly go free, it remained steadfastly attached to her. There had been a time not too long ago that Kate assumed it would always be just herself and Alice. But now she had Victoria, and that meant she also had a plethora of other friends. And now, the mysterious butterfly that was more than it seemed. Well, no, that wasn't right. The butterfly was exactly what it seemed, which was a glowing, living omen, probably some kind of spirit or something, if she had to wager a guess.
Alice was settled into Kate's lap, the butterfly perched between the bunny's ears, as Kate attempted to explain things to her poor, bewildered girlfriend.
"Remember the first time we met, and I told you that tea reading was as much an art as anything else?" Victoria nodded her head dumbly, obviously unsure what to even say at this point. "Well, that's true of pretty much... everything. I've read a lot, and I've even done a few things, mostly just at the level of, say, party tricks. But today has been a crash course in real-ass stuff. I should have known something was off when I saw your aura. It was my first time, and... your First Time, and I was caught up in the moment. Then I have this nightmare about the town getting wiped out, and I wrote this in my sleep." She showed Victoria the note, and then the backside with the creepy prophecy on the reverse.
"And Max, well... I don't even know what's happening there, except that it's not good. Like she's meddling with something way too big. But all I can see are the effects, not the causes, and..." Kate suddenly stopped talking and realized Victoria was looking even more lost than before. "...sorry, it's confusing enough for me, I can't imagine how crazy I must sound..."
Victoria sighed and nestled in against her, resting her head on Kate's shoulder. "I should be freaked out and worried, I guess. I should be questioning your sanity. But there's definitely something magical about you Kate Marsh. I feel like everyone should secretly or even openly hate my guts, but you mellowed me out so fast it's not even funny. I know it's not much to go on, but even when you're making it up you seem so sure and ready. So either something bad is going to happen, or my girlfriend is a tad paranoid. Either way, we'll get through it together..." Victoria took her hand, and Kate almost felt like she was going to cry. In a good way, but still.
"I'm just going to need a bit of time to put it all together. Even if I'm totally wrong about everything else, there's something... spooky going on. And not Halloween spooky. Like... 'stench of death' spooky." She shivered and held Tori a little closer. "Something... something happened in that bathroom, and then all of a sudden it didn't happen." She sighed and took Alice from her lap, putting her back into her cage, causing the butterfly to flutter up to the top of one of her bookshelves and take up residence. "And now I'm being followed by magical lepidoptera! Totally normal, average, every-day occurrences that every teenage girl deals wi- Aaaahhhhhh!"
Kate's head felt like it was being split wide open and she fell back into Victoria's arms. She was more aware this time, of both her own situation but also whatever she was seeing. Only her girlfriend's surprisingly strong grip could keep her from having a full on spasm. The lighthouse... a deer... That storm again... A wrist with bracelets... A bloody nose... A sleeve tattoo... "Blue butterfly!" Kate shot up to a seated position and gripped her head as it roared in pain. "Gods, yes, I get it, there's a storm coming, I'd like my brain to stop getting fried, thank you..." She was agitated and angry, but there wasn't really anyone or anything to get angry at, so she was just generally irritable now.
It took her a moment to realize that she wasn't alone, and that despite her freak-out, there was something else threatening to steal away Victoria's attention. She followed her line of sight to the window. "Oh. Snow. Great. Good." She walked to the window and placed her hand against the glass. Freezing cold when it had been in the high sixties just an hour or two before. "Nope. Yup. This is happening. Our very own mini-apocalypse. Excellent. Always wanted to see one of those up close."
She sighed and thumped her forehead against the frigid glass. "We have to find Max..."