I'm back! :)

Hope you liked the last chapter, and here's #8. Again, you have no idea how frustrated I am for not putting this up when I said I would. Writer's block sucks!

Disclaimer: I do not own W.I.T.C.H. or any characters, symbols, etc. Nina, however, is a product of my imagination, and therefore she is mine!

Someone shook me awake sometime around eight o'clock. At first, I rolled over onto my other side, groaning in warning to whoever was waking me up. But they wouldn't give up, and I opened my eyes to find Mom standing over me, a bright and happy I'm-in-a-good-mood-this-morning-so-don't-screw-it-up smile on her face. "Nina, come on. You need to get ready for the public interview at the exhibition."

I mumbled a weak protest against waking up so early, but when she took one of Will's shoes and threw it at me, I shot out of my sleeping bag. "I'm up!"

"You'd better be." Mom said as she woke Will in the same manner as she had with me and began picking up clothes around the room. "We need to be there by ten. And for God's sake, clean up in here, you two!"

When Mom left the room, Will fell back onto her pillow and pulled its sides up so they covered her ears. "I hate mornings." I heard her mumble tiredly.

"Yeah, well me, too. But you're already awake, so just come on." I had already changed into jeans and a graphic t-shirt before she finally swung her legs over the side of her bed and stood, rubbing her eyes.

Will shuffled over to where I was by the mirror, taking the ponytail out of my hair. She reminded me of one of the zombies in those apocalypse movies. While I brushed my hair, she sat in her desk chair backwards so she was straddling the back of it. She rested her arms on it and let her face fall on top of them. "What did you paint, anyways?"

Finished messing with my hair, I turned to face her. "You'll see." At her bored expression, I frowned. "You are coming, right?"

"Yeah. Mom wants to see it. Mind if the gang comes, too?"

"Not at all." I turned my face away from Will so she wouldn't see the guilt all over my face. I had told Andrew Hornby where I was going today. He might be there. And Irma would be there. And...

I mentally scolded myself for jumping to conclusions. He probably wouldn't show, and even if he did, I doubted he would talk to me. I bet he was just trying to carry on our conversation the day before.

I still couldn't help feeling bad, though.

Meanwhile, on Meridian...

The rebels, exhausted from their raid and the celebration they had held for its success, had slept until well past sunrise. It was deserved, or course, but Caleb still wasn't too intent on being one of the only five guards who had bothered to wake up at the normal time.

He watched one of his oldest friends, the big, blue mutant, Vathek, stare as dawn broke over the hillside. Caleb didn't understand what it was that his friend found so captivating about the dim light of a forgotten sun beginning to shine weakly through the dark, dreary clouds of Phobos' magic. Even with the light, the world was still so cold and forsaken. Yet Vathek continued to do what the rest of the rebels had done for as long as Caleb could remember: hope.

Caleb tried to hope, but it usually just turned into doubt. Doubt that the next raid would go well. Doubt that his men would ever overpower Phobos and his army. Doubt that his world would go back to the way it had been before. That was Caleb's weakness: he thought too much. His imagination was too vivid, too wild.

"Caleb," a familiar voice pulled Caleb out of his thoughts. He turned to find Aldarn, his closest friend and second-in-command of the rebels. "Tynar has valuable information from the castle."

"How? He's been out of castle gossip for almost twelve hours. He would have told us already if he did."

Aldarn shook his head. "One of his comrades, another palace guard, just stopped by. He was too afraid to talk to anyone but Tynar, and he left in a hurry. I think Phobos is keeping tabs on his soldiers to look out for any more traitors." He motioned for Caleb to come inside with him.

Looking at Vathek, who now stood at attention, Caleb said, "I'll be right back. Hold your post."

At Vathek's obedient nod, Caleb followed Aldarn back into the rebel base. They descended into a cave that was lit by the torch Aldarn carried. Caleb wondered where the Earth flashlight he had given him was and why he never used it.

Aldarn broke the silence. "I heard about what happened in the dungeons last night. I assume everyone's okay?"

Caleb ran a hand through his shaggy brown hair. "They're okay enough. I was mostly worried about Will's relative. But they all got through the portal, so I'm pretty sure everything's fine."

"That's good."

The two approached a large wooden door built into the stone at the end of the passageway, and Aldarn pushed it open. Inside, Tynar sat on a thin straw mattress on the floor, staring at the wall across from him. He didn't look up when they entered the room, and he mumbled something that neither Caleb nor Aldarn caught.

"Excuse me?" Caleb asked.

Tynar finally set his gaze on the rebel leader. "The Horn of Hypnos has been found. My friend Gobias told me that Cedric plans to use it on one of the rebels he captured last night to find out where the base is."

Caleb stopped short. "He captured a rebel? Who? I thought we did a head count when we got back!" He gave a puzzled look to Aldarn, who shrugged innocently.

"We don't know who, just that it was a man." Tynar wiped his face with his hand, then went back to staring at the wall. "I'm sorry that I can't be of any more help."

Aldarn scratched his arm awkwardly. "Actually, we need a few more men to guard the perimeter. You could help with that...if you feel up to it."

A new smile, grim yet reassuring at the same time, creeped onto Tynar's face. "I'll do it."

At the art exhibition...

People flocked in the doors, obviously eager to see what each artist had to say about their painting. I was put into a line with five other exhibitioners. The girl in front of me had short blue hair that she twirled around her finger, and her makeup was a little over-the-top, with thick blue eyeliner and deep violet lipstick. I heard that some artists tend to be melodramatic like that, but I had never been that way. Standing out wasn't really my favorite thing to do.

I could see Hay Lin at the front of the crowd, waving and grinning at me emphatically. I waved back, then smiled to myself at her bubbliness. Mom was somewhere in the back, probably trying to push her way as close to the makeshift galleria stage as she could to take

The blue-haired girl turned to me. "Hi! My name's Olivia." She held a hand out.

Not expecting the introduction, I shook it awkwardly. "Nina."

"Where are you from?" She gave me a second to answer before she added, "I'm from Michigan."

"Um...Venice. Venice, Oklahoma." When I get nervous, my voice gets a little high-pitched and shaky, so I was trying to keep how much I said to a minimum. I most likely sounded like the rudest person in the word.

But that didn't faze Olivia. "Let me guess...you painted that picture over there with the girl and the creepy guy." She pointed to a wooden-framed oil painting.

In the painting, a girl no older than six or seven was in a simple yellow dress, out skipping across a field full of flowers. The sky, clear and bright, was a pretty shade of blue that took my breath away. To the girl's left was an ominous group of trees, above which the sky turned blood red and cloudy. If you looked hard enough, you could see a male-shaped figure dressed in black hiding among them, seemingly watching her intently. I shuddered. "No. But that one is pretty good."

"I know, right? It sends shivers down your spine. So which one did you paint?" Her big brown eyes bore into mine curiously.

I looked around, searching for my art. I found it a few paintings down from the one Olivia had pointed out.

Weeks of nightmares had inspired it, although it looked too bright and happy to be born from a nightmare. But it was what had kept me up at night, drinking Mom's coffee even though I hated coffee, avoiding sleep at all costs.

In the center of the canvas, I had painted a small stone picnic table, shaded by tall, dark trees that made up the background and the sides of the foreground. Little specks of light made it throught the leaves of the trees to give the scene an almost tranquil atmoshpere. The grass around the picnic table was green and beautiful, in sharp contrast to the dead, brown vegetation strewn throughout the rest of the ground. A red rose lay on the table, fresh as if someone had just picked it and set it there. I was almost sure that no one would notice the black boot with a glimpse of white paper sticking out of it, which sat under the table, in the shadows.

I like to make people look for things in my art.

The reason I was so scared (scratch that; terrified) of that place was because of the boot. I know, I know. Boots shouldn't be scary; in fact, they were hilarious-looking sometimes. But it was just one boot. Alone and isolated. Just like the table and its little patch of grass. There was a sense of finality surrounding the scene-whoever left the boot, note, and rose knew they weren't coming back. And I hated not knowing why they did it.

"It's that one." I said to Olivia, pointing to it.

She followed my point and gasped. "Oh my gosh. That's really good. Like, really, really good."

I smiled sheepishly. "Thanks. What'd you paint?"

She was about to answer, but right then she was tapped on the shoulder by one of the interviewers. He motioned for her to stand in the center of the stage, where her incredibly realistic still-life painting of a bunny sat on an easel. She took a deep breath. "See you later, Nina."

"Bye. Good luck." I whispered as she walked away.

Her interview went fast. She answered the questions head-on and honestly, not bothering to hide her matter-of-factness. At the end, she gave a cutesy little wave to the crowd before she stepped off the stage.

It was my turn. Like Olivia had, I took as much air into my lungs as I possibly could and let it out, then strode over to the easel where my painting was displayed. A few people gasped at it. I could see Hay Lin giving me a thumbs up with an impressed look on her face.

"So, Miss Evers, what is the name of this masterpiece?" The interviewer asked.

I cleared my throat and found my mom in the crowd so I could look at her while I answered. "I call it The Point of No Return."

The interviewer chuckled at this, along with a few people in the crowd. "And why is that?"

I looked at him this time, my face guarded. "You have to see that for yourself. That's the mystery of the painting. You don't know why. It's impossible to understand exactly why."

He nodded slowly. "Very well. Could you tell us the inspiration for this mysterious work of art?"

"It came from a dream." I kept my eyes on the crowd, searching the faces of the people gathered there. I didn't see Andrew Hornby anywhere, and I mentally sighed with relief.

"A dream? Care to explain?"

I bit my lip. "It was just a series of dreams that I had. The image wouldn't get out of my head, so I painted it."

The rest of the questions went just like that. It was actually really easy.

Too easy.

On the last question, the interviewer completely threw me off. "What do you think your dream was trying to tell you?"

I froze, unprepared for such a deep question.

But I didn't have to answer.

Because just at that moment, I spotted him.

Definitely not Andrew Hornby.

It was the guy from the bookstore, holding a weird horn-looking thing with a strange glint in his eyes. He wasn't looking at me. He was staring at Will and her friends, right next to the stage.

Then he put the horn to his lips and started to play.