Sick. Heavy. Tired.
Lily just wanted to curl up into a ball and let the world pass over her. Her brain pounded inside her skull. She felt hungover and unfamiliar. Where was she? What had happened? She grumbled and called for Dana hoping that her roommate might be able to offer her some medicine or something to get rid of the awful feeling that had taken over her. But Dana never answered. And finally Lily decided all she could was get herself up off the floor and power through, so Lily took a deep breath and struggled to her feet. But the new found sickness in her stomach quickly made her wish otherwise of her decision. She needed to get out. Find someone. But where was out? Lily was surrounded by darkness. She tentatively held out an arm in hopes she'd find a light switch but instead her fingers felt something hard. She sprang her arm back to her side, then shook off her foolishness and reached out again. Lily soon realized it was a shelf and on top she could feel random objects. Something like a vase and a clock perhaps. Unfamiliar things whatever they were.
Lily staggered away and searched for light, following the slightest difference in her dark vision until finally she stood in a faint blue and yellow glow. Lily felt around the area where the light streamed and realised it was a door with the screen pulled down. She tried the door knob. It rattled but didn't open. She grumbled, illness sinking in and now anxiety too. She beat her fists against the door, but Lily's frustration seemed to go further than that. Her fists never hit the door, never made it shake as it absorbed the force of her desperation to escape. Instead her hands went straight through as though nothing was in the way. Lily gulped and took a step forward and soon enough the darkness melted away and she was outside on a street.
Lily noticed the Church spire first, the one she'd been at just a couple days earlier. And then she saw the old theatre and the small clock tower in the park. She was in town. How on Earth had she gotten there? Some kind of underage drinking party again? Lily could be a bit of a lightweight, especially with the whiskey that Riley liked to smuggle into their dorms. Or was it some kind of cruel prank? She span round and stared at the door from where she'd come from, and then back at the town around her. She shook her curiosities off, formed her hands into fists and ran with all her might in the direction of the school. Lily barely made it to the corner before her body reminded her of how ill she was. She hunched over at the street corner and cried, then gritted her teeth and made the unbearable journey back to school.
It was still dark out when Lily got back, though it felt like it ought to have been noon with all the walking she did. Lily pulled her jacket hood tightly over her head as she snuck in through the front doors, not wanting to be captured on the school's CCTV system. She tiptoed up the stairs to the dorms. Lily cracked open the door to her room and slipped inside, before slowly closing it behind her and making her way to her bed. She fell asleep in seconds and didn't reawaken until the morning.
Bright sunlight streamed in to Lily's room. She turned away from it, determined to get in a few more minutes of sleep, but her logical mind reminded her that if she didn't get up, Dana would force her to get up or she'd be irritated by her alarm. Lily sighed and pushed herself up, kicking her covers back. She rubbed her eyes and crawled forward towards her desk by the end of her bed to turn off her alarm. Her eyes widened. It wasn't there. In fact, nothing was there. No textbooks or notes on Mechanics, no last minute French assignments, no pictures of her and her family at Disney World. Lily sprung up from her bed and began rifling through draws and cupboards. No clothes, no shoes, just hangers. Gone. Gone. All Gone! Lily turned to Dana's side expecting to see her iconic David Tennant mood board but it was nowhere in sight. Both desks were completely empty.
Lily's eyes shifted from the desks to the room as a whole and that's when she realised it wasn't her room. It couldn't be. Her room was refreshing and modern. This room was tacky and dated from the tartan curtain wardrobes to the metal frame beds. Lily stumbled her way across the room to check the room number. It was her number all right. She traced over the gold plated numbers with quivering fingers. She shook her head. This was not happening. This was not happening!
She backed away from the room, down the hall and headed towards the dining room. She was going to find Dana and the others there. They were going to tease her for sleeping so long and they would invite her to sit. She was going to sit across from Dana, between Laura and Olivia and Tate would be sat at the ending cracking his usual jokes with Alex. It would be normal. There would be coffee, milk and cereal and it would be normal. Lily felt the echoes of that normality as she entered the empty dining room. It was identical to the way it was in 2009. She could see the ghostly memories of her friends fill the room. It gave her a headache. She turned away from the room and went as far away as she could until she finally found another human being.
There was a man, elderly but not ancient, with round spectacles and a proud stature. He seemed to be waiting for someone.
"Sir!" Lily called even though she didn't recognise him. He was probably one of those teachers that never taught her, like Miss….Gumphrey? Humphrey? – it didn't really matter – She'd never taught Lily and the two had only met at the end of the last school year when Lily was helping set up for a fundraising event, "Please, sir, tell me what's going on?"
He didn't answer, he didn't even look at her.
Perhaps he's deaf. She thought to herself, so Lily stepped closer until she was standing in front of him. He didn't even flinch.
Blind too?
But it seemed strange that a blind and deaf man would be standing alone in a hallway in a school.
"Patrick!" A voice called out from behind Lily.
She turned to see an even frailer man approaching and this clearly caught the other man's attention.
"Donald." Spectacles greeted the frail man with a firm handshake and familiar grin.
Well that certainly seemed to rule out deafness and blindness. Lily felt rude to stand so impotently beside them, but they didn't seem to notice. She said their names. They never answered. She waved at them. Not a single flicker of a gaze. She was invisible to them, but why? Was it all part of some mind boggling dream? The kind where you are conscious of your unconscious adventures? The two men agreed to move, Patrick signalling to Donald to follow. They walked towards Lily and before she had a chance to move out of their way, they had passed through her. She froze and gasped. Her body felt weightless, like butterflies in her stomach had escaped to every other inch of her being.
"Wait!" She cried after them even though she knew it was pointless. In a world where nothing made sense she needed something to latch onto even if that meant two oblivious men. She chased after them.
First they went to a set of wooden stairs leading up to a door marked as 'Headmaster's Office'. Lily furrowed her eyebrows. The Headteacher's office was based on the first floor at her Welton, not the second, located just next to the school assembly hall that doubled as a chapel. The men shut the door before she had a chance to follow them inside and so Lily sat at the base of the staircase and waited until they returned over 10 minutes later. She then followed the two men to the dining hall, but this time the room was different from moments earlier. Tables had been cast aside to make room for a small group of students that carried banners. She recognised them – the banners, not the students. They were part of an old code of conduct followed by the school. Lily remembered hearing from her friend Sophie about how they would make a procession through the school towards the assembly hall at the start of each year to the sound of live music. The instrument varied year to year depending on what the most skilled musician played. Sophie said they stopped the procession in…'76? '77? They redefined the 4 values into 8 new ones, focusing on love and courtesy as well as discipline. The banners still made an appearance at all the school reunions and celebration days, but the ones in front of Lily were considerably cleaner. The ones she was used to were faded and fraying. She jumped at the sound of bagpipes as a boy blew his first practice note. Then laughter caught her attention. It came from a small group of boys, all her age perhaps. Of the three she could see, Lily couldn't recognise a single soul. Teachers were just the same. Lily felt dizzy just trying to process the lack of familiarity in such a familiar place. She jumped at the flash of a camera, sighed and held her head in her hands. What was happening to her? It just had to be a dream, right? A dream that felt so real, one that kept her heart on edge.
"Banners up!" A voice suddenly cried and then the bagpipes kicked in and Lily's head burned. Then she felt people pass through her again. The sensation reminded her of a tickly cough – bothersome but completely inaccessible. She darted out of the way before anyway else to exasperate her feeling of nonexistence. She looked back at the group proceeding out from the dining hall and briefly caught the eye of the boy at the end, the one she didn't catch a glimpse of earlier. He seemed so familiar and yet she couldn't place it. Her morning was too hectic for her brain to work properly and all she could do was watch him. But then she noticed a flicker in his gaze as though he was watching her, but it was just a moment and then his sight was back on his fellow classmates as he followed them out, banner in arms. Had he seen her? Was she not completely alone? She shook it off. He couldn't have. Why would he? He was just looking through her perhaps? But Lily wasn't so sure.
When she felt calm enough to function, Lily followed the group out and into the assembly hall, Sophie's voice filling her mind with every step.
The group came to stop at the end of the assembly hall and an elderly man brought the room to attention.
"Ladies and gentlemen, boys, the light of knowledge." His words merited applause and another man, one of the two from before, stepped forward and lit the candle of a young boy in the front row. Lily slipped into a spare seat on the back row and watched the ceremony take place with great curiosity. She peered over the crowd in hopes of capturing the boy's attention. She was desperate to remember his name. It seemed so stupid; it was on the tip of her tongue.
"100 years ago in 1859"—the words brought Lily to standstill. She hadn't a care of what else the man had to say. It all sounded like gibberish from there on out anyway.
Lily, even with her seemingly non-functioning brain, could work out that basic maths and it left her feeling uneasy.
1959.
She protested. She was being silly. She was dreaming. She'd misheard him. This was all one big exaggerated prank. Lily held her head between her knees and took deep breaths because none of it made sense. No fucking sense at all. She resurfaced and ran fingers through her hair. Sat up, sat down, examined her nails, concentrated on her feet. It put her only slightly at ease. She got up again and walked closer to the man speaking at the podium, watching his mouth move, but not listening to a single word he had to say. She felt as though she was listening to the world around her from underwater, drowning in the realization of her newfound discovery.
She shook her head, shook her head at everything he had to say even though she couldn't hear it. It was lies. All lies. The entire world around her was lies. Some cruel trick being played by her subconscious self. She backed away from the front of the assembly hall, but caught her foot on the other, stumbled and fell. Lily slammed into the flag stone floor and the pain was real. She yelped and whimpered, but upon inspecting her hand she noticed there was no mark. Not a single graze. Lily hauled herself up, grimacing and then she realised someone was watching her. She was sure of it. She looked up and saw the boy staring at her with eyes as wide as saucers, mouth ajar. Who was this girl that no one could see? She could easily empathise with his astonishment. And suddenly it clicked.
Neil.
In front of her was a dead boy and yet he was still very much alive and that was the final straw for Lily. She could feel her stomach tossing every which way; she was going to be sick. She sprinted from the hall and to the entrance. Passing through the door without bothering to actually open just like the previous night. She raced down the drive until she finally reached the front gates. She began retching and spluttering but nothing came out. And why would she? If she was able to fall and not graze would she even be able to vomit? She fell to the ground in a pathetic heap, crying and cursing. She tore up grass in her hand and kicked at rose bushes and tree bark.
"Why?" She snivelled aloud. She mumbled it over and over again, banging her fists into the ground until finally she was able to calm down. She wiped away her tears and dragged a hand across her runny nose and breathed deeply.
She didn't know how she was supposed to get back, but Neil Perry certainly seemed like her best bet.
I really hoped that you enjoyed the latest chapter :) Thank you to everyone that has responded to this story so far. x
Guest: Neil is such a wonderful character and I am so glad to hear that you feel that way about my writing. I hope that you continue to enjoy this story x
joyandhope99: Thank you so much for enjoying both my stories and I am amazed at how far the reader base is! It's always great to hear that I have managed to understand a character, especially when it comes to Charlie, someone who treads the line between an idiotic sleaze and a man of honour (though we all still manage to love him either way!) x
CastleRockGirl: Aw thank you! I've been wanting to return to DPS fanfics for a while (I briefly did but then deleted the story) but I've wanted to have the right story. I am glad that you like this concept and hopefully I don't push the suspension of disbelief too far when approaching this story. :) x