Chapter 1 - Stupid Noise

'Try your best, Amelia'

Amelia Watson was woken up by the feeling of her dog jumping up onto her bed. Bubba was a small, yellow mutt. His actual breed was completely unknown, even to the vet she'd taken him to.

A ticking noise bounced around her room. She had woken up before her alarm and the clock was still ticking. Amelia turned to look at it, noting that it was about to go off anyway. Bubba had a tendency to wake her up way before her alarm, so this was better than most nights.

"Hey there, Bubba…" Amelia mumbled, trying to sit up in her bed. Bubba walked his way up to her face and tried to lick it. Amelia defended against his attack by holding his head away from her own.

"No, no, not now. I have to wake up first…" Amelia yawned and stretched her hands above her head. This was the opening Bubba was waiting for and he dove in for the kill. Amelia realized her mistake too late and was soon covered in doggy kisses.

"Enough! Enough!" Amelia pleaded with her pet. Bubba only relented once he felt satisfied with his work. Amelia, now fully woken up, spun around on the bed and let her legs hang off of the edge. Her dog laid down next to her, snuggling against her side. She cracked her knuckles and yawned one more time for good measure. A good slap on her clock and the alarm was turned off for good.

But for some reason, the ticking noise didn't stop. Amelia smacked the alarm clock a few more times, but she soon realized that it wasn't what was ticking.

The ticking was in her mind.

Amelia changed the target of her smacking to her own head, giving it a few love taps. The noise still didn't go away. A whimper from Bubba made her stop and sigh. She gave him a few pats on the head to calm him down. He hated seeing Amelia in any form of pain.

She began her morning routine, hoping the sound was just a remmanent from her dream. She couldn't exactly remember what it had been about, but it made her feel off.

The first order of business was normally brushing her teeth and changing, but the ticking noise was beginning to piss her off. So instead, she turned on her TV and tried to let the background noise drown out the sound in her head. There was something about a few break ins and an explosion fairly close by, but Amelia didn't really pay much attention to it.

Now, Amelia could actually begin her routine: straightening her hair, brushing her teeth, changing into her work clothes, and pouring a bowl of corn flakes. Only the ticking noise made this any different from any other morning.

After finishing her routine faster than she normally did, Amelia went into her work room. Well, she called it work, but it was a lot more of a tinkering room than actual work. She grabbed her alarm clock on the way over and sat down at a bench to mess with it. The ticking was nearly identical, so there must be some connection.

She removed gears and plastic pieces until it was completely dismantled. Nothing out of the normal was revealed during her teardown and the ticking remained just as constant as before. She put it back together with increasing frustration.

This better not affect her concentration at work. The last thing she needed was a constant distraction to pull her focus away from her work. If she started slacking, her coworkers might begin to think about surpassing her. That was absolutely not going to happen.

Amelia gave up on fixing the damn clock for now, she needed to get to work soon. With a huff, she placed the clock down and walked over to her apartment door. Bubba was waiting for her there, so she gave him a goodbye treat like she normally did. She then walked out of her apartment, locking the door behind her and proceeded down the hallway and stairs out of the building.

She walked down to the bike corral located behind her apartment building. It was probably her favorite thing about this place since it meant that she didn't need a car. Fresh out of college in her first true job and she didn't need to spend money on insurance or gas.

But when she looked at her e-bike, she saw that the chain was misaligned. She frowned, cursing her luck. After quickly retrieving an allen wrench kit from her workshop, she loosened the rear gear cluster. With a slight amount of jiggling, the chain fell into its proper place.

Theoretically, she could have just ridden it for a bit to try and have it fix itself. She had done that a couple times, but after it threw her over the handlebars when the chain locked up, it wasn't something she wanted to do anymore. She rubbed the slight scar on her elbow from the fall.

After a mild amount of clean up, she unlocked her bike and put on a helmet. She wheeled it out onto the sidewalk and hopped on.

Her apartment complex was located in a downtown area on a slight hill. Her workplace was uphill and one right turn away. It only took her twenty minutes, but the electric motor assisting her made it feel so much shorter.

One of the first things she did when she got a bike was start looking into e-bike kits to mod it with. The hill wasn't too steep, but it was enough to have her more worn out than she wanted to be getting into work. Also, she just wanted to change everything around her to be how she wanted it to be. Most of the time, that meant not affecting her in any negative way.

The large motor finished its main duty once Amelia reached the top of the hill. From there, she had her own bike lane and another mile until work. A smooth 25 mile per hour ride was ahead of her.

She wished she could enjoy it how she normally did, but the damn ticking noise was still there. Amelia could have sworn it got louder to push through the wind noise.

She ended up becoming a little too distracted by the noise and didn't notice the car ahead of her drifting into the bike lane. Amelia yelped when she saw the rear bumper fast approaching and was able to maneuver out of the way.

With her middle finger extended and a few choice words shouted at the driver, she continued on. The adrenaline in her blood made her heart pound harder than the ticking noise at least.

The rest of her trip there was uneventful, as Amelia tried to not get distracted like that again. She locked up her bike and helmet and headed inside her work building.

It was large, but her company only had one floor, the seventh. She worked at a small, freelance detective agency by the name of UnderCover. She had giggled slightly when she heard the name the first time. It was a little too on the nose for her.

When she reached the company's floor, she was greeted by several coworkers. She gave a polite hello back before moving in the direction of her desk. She grunted when they were out of earshot.

In total there were 28 of them that worked at UnderCover. They were pretty spread around in terms of expertise, with only Amelia and two others being on scene detectives. Amelia knew she was the best out of them and wasn't shy about it. She constantly pestered her boss and even the CEO about raises and promotions.

Amelia had once again become too enveloped in her own thoughts that she wasn't paying attention to where she was walking. She ended up walking straight into someone who was also not paying attention.

It was only a light tap, no papers flying dramatically everywhere, but it did wake both parties out of their mind fog.

"Oh, sorry," the other girl said quickly. Amelia was initially angry at them, hypocritically upset that they weren't paying attention. However, she soon recognized the coworker to be the only one that she respected.

Anni May, a forensic scientist who worked just a few desks away. They had joined the company around the same time and had been on many field assignments together. She was very talented at picking up on small details around her and seemed to be able to recreate crime scenes near perfect accuracy. It made Amelia's job infinitely easier and that's why she respected her so much.

"Nah, don't worry about it. I wasn't exactly paying attention either." Amelia scratched the back of her neck in embarrassment. Anni quietly nodded before quickly proceeding to her desk. She was a quiet person, only speaking up when she had something to say. She would have never imagined being work friends with such an opposite natured person.

Amelia sat down at her desk and looked over a new case file that had been placed there. Her other detective coworkers and boss liked to just pass difficult cases onto her. She didn't hate it, though. All it meant was that she could do what they wouldn't or couldn't. It made her proud of herself, inflating her ego.

She opened the file and saw it was for the break ins that had been happening around. She tried to remember what the news had said to avoid having to rewatch it, getting a good enough picture from her memory.

There had been four break ins, all of them occurring the previous night. They all shared one characteristic that made them into one case: nothing had been taken.

The shops were close enough to her workplace that she could just walk. So Amelia grabbed her holster and pistol from her locker, along with a clipboard and notepad. She tucked the case file under the clip and walked over to where Anni was sitting at her desk.

"You working on something important?" she asked casually. Anni jumped slightly in her seat. Amelia hadn't even tried to sneak up on her. She giggled to herself. Anni turned after a moment.

"Do you need me for a case?" Anni was used to this. Since she was the only one Amelia liked working with, if she could drag her along she would. She usually didn't have much to do anyways, as she finished everything given to her very quickly.

"You know it!" Amelia gave her a nice thumbs up. Anni sighed, shaking her head with a smile. She stood and gestured for Amelia to lead the way. They walked out of the office and into the elevator.

The weirdest thing about Anni's forensics work was that she never needed to write anything down. She did for documentation of course, but never to keep notes for herself. Everyone was so impressed with her memory because of this. When she had first joined every boss in the building got onto her about it, but once they saw her work they looked the other way. She was just that good.

They walked in silence with Anni following Amelia's lead to the first shop. Amelia asked several questions to the owner and Anni inspected the shattered front window.

The alarm had gone off only once the intruder had seemingly left. They had somehow disabled it while they broke in. As in the case file, nothing had been taken, but objects had been moved around. It was as if the intruder had been looking for something. Amelia noted that as the most likely objective.

She returned to Anni, who was busy inspecting a drawer that had been pulled open and searched. Something was troubling her about it.

"Everything ok?" Amelia asked. Anni didn't look back at her, instead continuing to investigate.

"I just don't get it." She brushed a finger against the bottom of the drawer, picking up a thin layer of dust. "How could someone be so violent with their search, but also leave no traces? There should be DNA, fingerprints, shoe marks, anything, but there's not…" Amelia nodded to this. That was certainly weird. This person was being extra careful to cover their tracks.

"But it's not like they are covering their tracks either." Amelia rolled her eyes with Anni immediately contradicting her own thoughts. "If there wasn't this much obvious searching and a broken window, it would be like no one was even here. They didn't leave any traces in the first place."

"Let's check out the other places. Maybe there'll be something there. They couldn't be this elusive at four different places." Amelia said thanks to the owner and walked back outside, Anni following soon after.

Amelia was dead wrong. In every place they investigated it was the same thing. No evidence besides the broken front entrances for Anni to piece together a crime scene with. The alarms all went off way too late, but there was no tampering with the system. And it seemed like no one had been there at all, other than the searching.

Amelia threw her head back and yelled in frustration to the darkened sky above. "Damn it!" They had spent most of the day running in circles. Anni seemed equally as frustrated, but didn't lash out like Amelia. She was still busy in her mind, trying in vain to figure out how any of this was possible.

There was something else off about each of those places to her. She couldn't entirely put her finger on it, though.

"Let's grab something to eat on the way back, Anni. I'm so hungry." Amelia grabbed her stomach and hunched over in mock pain. Anni let out a curt laugh and shrugged.

"I could go for something, but we do have to get back and report the nothing we found." Amelia groaned.

"I know right? I can't believe that we're going to have to do that still, ugh…" she whined about her disagreements with policy. She could probably skip the report just for today because of her higher skill. But if someone in power wanted her gone, that would just give them a perfect excuse to call her lazy and unprofessional. Not that she was helping herself by the way she acted.

"Let's try out that place," Anni said, pointing to a small restaurant with an Italian name. Amelia knew her stomach would probably hate her in a few hours, but some pasta sounded damn good right now.

"Absolutely!" she replied with a cheer. They both went inside and were quickly seated. The place wasn't that busy, as the dinner rush hadn't arrived just yet. They looked over the menu and both ordered pasta. Anni had fettuccine and Amelia had ravioli because she hated her stomach that much.

They sat in an awkward silence for a few minutes after the waiter left. They were really only work friends, so they didn't know what to talk about besides work. Amelia didn't want to sound too abrasive, as she actually kind of enjoyed her current friendship with Anni. It was the only thing she could look forward to at work, right next to dominating in her field of work.

"Have you been feeling ok today?" Anni surprisingly spoke up first. Amelia heard the ticking in the back of her head and really wanted to answer no. But…

"I've been feeling fine, Anni. Thanks for asking," Amelia answered. A small silence developed between them again. "Uh, why do you ask? Do I look off?" Amelia didn't like to admit it, but she cared a lot about how others perceived her. She wanted to come off as cool and uncaring about what others thought of her.

"Umm, you just seemed off coming into work. You don't normally space out like that." Anni referenced their earlier collision in the office. Amelia laughed it off.

"Yeah yeah, I normally don't. I was almost hit by a car on my way to work because they drifted into my lane. Maybe that has something to do with that," Amelia deflected to another topic. Anni gasped when she heard Amelia's tale of almost tragedy.

"Oh my goodness, I'm glad you're ok," she said with genuine concern. Amelia shrugged.

"I gave them a good telling off, so it all worked out in the end." Anni seemed to become restless. The ticking in Amelia's head grew louder for a moment before fading. She put a little pressure on her temples to soothe the slight headache that developed after.

"A-Are you sure you're ok?" Anni was worried about something. It scared Amelia slightly. Was something actually wrong?

"I do have a slight headache, but I'll manage. I just need some food." Amelia looked around the restaurant to see if their food was maybe coming out. Unfortunately, it wasn't at the moment. She sighed and slumped her shoulders.

"If you say so. I can give you some Advil when we get back to the office." Ah, Amelia could really use some of that. The combination of the ticking sound and being unable to solve the current case was going to give her a migraine. And she had to make sure her alarm clock still worked, fuuuuu…

"Yeah, that would be greaaat…" The waiter returned just a few seconds later with their food. Amelia and Anni both dug in, but Amelia soon stopped. Her ravioli was slightly too hard. She could eat it, but after the day she had been having…

"Hey! Hey!" she flagged down the waiter who quickly walked over.

"What appears to be the problem, miss?" he asked politely. Amelia pointed down at the bowl and frowned.

"This crap is undercooked. Remake it properly, please." Amelia 'asked', passive-aggressively. The waiter blinked a few times, steadying themselves.

"Of course, I'll have that out as soon as possible for you, miss." Amelia smiled a fake, hollow smile.

"Thanks and don't call me miss." The waiter didn't respond and instead just took the bowl in front of Amelia and walked off into the kitchen.

"Uh, Amelia…" Anni said, jaw nearly hitting the floor. Amelia turned and looked at her coworker.

"Hm?" Anni picked her jaw up and cleared her throat. After a steady breath, she was ready to talk.

"You probably shouldn't be so rude to him. He didn't do anything wrong," Anni said. Amelia waved her off.

"They did something wrong and I let them know. I'm not going to be polite just for the hell of it," she explained, "It's just like that stupid driver early, people fuck up and I let them know. Maybe not in the way they want, but that's not my job."

"You could be nicer. It wouldn't take much…" Anni protested quietly. Amelia hummed for her to speak up, only making her sink into her chair more. Amelia genuinely saw nothing wrong with what she just did. Anni didn't like people like her, being rude to random people for no reason was just awful.

"When they don't inconvenience me, maybe…" Amelia lent her chin into her palm. She stared at some art on the wall in silence until her food came back. She said a nicer thank you than she normally would have and dug in. Within minutes the entire plate was destroyed and she was full. They paid and walked out without saying another word to each other.

The ticking had been fading in and out during their whole meal. It was honestly freaking her out. When she got back to her apartment she was going to figure this shit out, maybe even take a few days off if she had to.

"Looks like we have some overtime to clock in before we finish." Amelia leaned her head back into her hands. Anni sighed, wishing that she didn't have to go back and write a report. Her mood had tanked.

"Yeah…" she responded quietly. Amelia stopped her arrogant posturing and took a deep breath.

"Look, I'm sorry that I made you upset, Anni. I've just been having a rough day and I guess I took it out on that guy," Amelia told a half-truth. She would've probably still been rude to the waiter even if her day had been fine. Her day hadn't made her attitude any better, though. Anni only looked slightly less sad. They walked the rest of the way back in silence.

The ticking in her head stopped fading and growing and instead just started growing. Slowly but surely, the ticking was getting louder in her head. It made her very anxious. Anni noticed and also became nervous.

"I'll get you some Advil," she said once they finally got back to the office floor. By this time of day, most of the employees had left. Only a few remained, but they were on their way out. They tried to engage the two girls in any conversation, but neither were in a mood to talk.

Anni grabbed two of the tablets and gave them to Amelia. A placebo effect immediately kicked in, taking her headache down a notch. The ticking still grew louder, though.

"Thanks." Anni sighed and pulled her lips into a thin line. She looked very worried about Amelia's current condition. Was it that noticeable?

"You should take the next few days off. I'll come see you tomorrow after work," Anni extended an offer for some help. Amelia thought for a moment, the headache and ticking pushing her to accept.

"I think that's a good idea." Amelia walked over to the lockers and placed her gun and holster in it before locking it shut. "I really am starting to feel like shit now…" Anni gave her a sympathetic smile.

"A lot of rest is gonna help."

"I'm sure, but right now I have a report to file," Amelia said depressingly, making her way over to her desk.

"I can just write one for the both of us. You can go home, Amelia," Anni tried to help again. This time Amelia denied it.

"I might have a decent headache, but I'm not crippled. The Advil should be kicking in soon, so I'll be fine for a couple hours to get this thing banged out." Amelia tried to sound as confident as possible. Anni shook her head, but conceded nonetheless.

By this point, all of the other employees had left the building. Besides the pretty loud ticking in Amelia's ears, the rest of the office was very quiet. Even outside sounded like someone had turned the volume to mute. It unsettled Anni, like when a forest gets quiet because a predator is near.

"Alright, w-well if you think you-"

The air suddenly shifted, like a window or door had just been opened nearby. Anni shoved Amelia to the ground and leapt backwards.

Amelia opened her mouth to complain, but a deafening explosion right in between them stopped her. A plume of dust and smoke obscured her vision. She was suddenly grabbed by something and thrown across the office. Anni appeared next to her, cushioning her landing. How the hell did she move so fast?

"Don't resist, Priestess of the Ancient Ones." A dark, distorted voice called out to them. A dark form slowly emerged out of the smoke in front of them. They had a hooded cloak draped over them made of what seemed like pure darkness. In each hand, they held a dagger, one silver, one dark gray, that vibrated with some kind of energy. Amelia couldn't discern any identifiable features, as they were all hidden beneath their dark cloak.

"Don't call me that!" Anni spoke with intensity that Amelia had never heard before. It sounded like her normal voice was being mixed with thousands of others. Amelia noticed a slight purple glow emanating from her coworker.

"Oh? Would you prefer to be called by Ina'nis then?" the figure taunted. Amelia got the sense that they were smiling at them. A deep chill ran up her spine. This was bad, really, really, bad.

"I don't know who the hell you think you are, but-" Anni, or Ina'nis, stopped her sentence short, grabbing Amelia and lunging as far from the figure as possible. Another explosion ripped through the once quiet office, tearing desks and filing cabinets to pieces. Amelia didn't even see it coming.

"W-What the hell is going on…?!" she stuttered out once Ina'nis landed. The other girl looked down at her.

"If we make it out of this alive, I'll tell you. I owe you that much at least," she said before facing their assailant. "So it was you that broke into all of those places, huh?" Amelia was confused as to what Ina'nis was talking about, but she soon realized that she was talking about their current case. This being was the one responsible and now they were after them.

"I had to turn over a few rocks, but I found who I was looking for." The figure threw the dark gray dagger at Ina'nis, who dodged it. Amelia watched as the dagger suddenly shifted course and flew back the way it came.

"Behind!" she warned Ina'nis. The other girl maneuvered herself so that she wasn't hit by the return shot either.

"What are you?!" Ina'nis yelled at the figure. They didn't answer, only snickering in response. "This… This energy…" Ina'nis seemed incredibly apprehensive about attacking, preferring to remain defensive.

"What the fuck are we going to do?!" Amelia asked in a frenzy. The ticking was pounding in her ears now. Her adrenaline was also pumping hard, forcing her into some kind of action. Would she fight or run?

"You're going to run while I stall. She doesn't want you." Ina'nis didn't leave much room for negotiation. Amelia gulped and acknowledged her agreement. Ina'nis took a breath and screamed, running headlong at the figure.

Amelia watched as blurs of black, white, and purple danced around the room. The two of them were moving too fast for her to see, but she could tell the purple was slowly fading. She was stunned by the shock of everything around her, preventing her from running. Explosions and debris flew by her face until Ina'nis was sent flying into her.

Amelia crashed into a wall with Ina'nis on top of her, knocking the wind clean out of her. She struggled to get air into her lungs for a moment, before finally catching her breath. Ina'nis was panting and wheezing like a rabid animal. Amelia tried to move her, but a cry of pain stopped her. The ticking in her head rang loud, as she began to really feel the weight of their current situation.

Amelia looked down and saw that Ina'nis was missing her right forearm; her left leg was bent at an angle it shouldn't be; and her chest was severely dented.

"Oh fuck…" was all she could manage.

They were going to die.

"G-get o-out of h-here-re…" Ina'nis coughed out. She had major internal bleeding as well, judging by the amount of blood leaking from her mouth. Slowly, she somehow lifted herself from the ground. Amelia only now saw the several tentacles slithering out from pockets of dark purple mist around Ina'nis.

"Don't think I'm so foolish as to let a witness escape," the voice spoke once more. Ina'nis reacted to another blast that Amelia couldn't see coming directly at her. She countered with some kind of beam fired from her remaining hand. They collided and seemed to cancel each other out. A sound of slight frustration came from the figure.

"Amelia, RUN!" Ina'nis screamed at her, the thousands of voices behind her exploding in rage. Amelia felt her legs pick her up from the ground and carry her as far away as they could. She ran across the obliterated office floor towards the fire exit, the ticking reaching a crescendo in her head.

But just before she reached it, a sharp pain dug into her right shoulder blade. She collapsed to the ground in agony with searing pain seeping into every corner of her body. Everything felt like it was on fire at once. Her body convulsed and writhed on the ground until it subsided.

A swift kick to her side rolled her onto her back, looking up at the cloaked figure above. They held a bloodied and beaten Ina'nis by her hair in one hand and the silver dagger in the other. Amelia saw the dark gray dagger firmly planted in Ina'nis' stomach.

"Tell me where the book is and I might let her live." Amelia initially thought the question was for her, but a twitch from Ina'nis indicated that wasn't the case.

"D-d-don't d-do-o th-this-ss…" her words spilled out of her mouth, along with a copious amount of blood.

"Anni!" Amelia fought against the residual pain to move towards the other girl, but a foot slammed her back onto the ground. It dug into her sternum, causing her to cry out in pain again. The figure's hand that held the silver dagger slowly began to make its way over to her.

"Tell me, Ina'nis. Otherwise, I'll just have to keep killing until I find that book." The figure almost seemed to be reveling in their position of power. The dagger crept closer to Amelia's throat.

"M-my office, I-it's in-n a d-drawer w-with-th a-a f-f-fals-se b-bott-tt-ttom…" Ina'nis coughed out. The figure stopped moving the dagger, letting Amelia take a deep breath of temporary relief.

For a moment, the office was dead quiet. No sounds from outside or within the walls of the building. A lull in the action that only made everything more tense. Ina'nis attempted to calm Amelia by giving her a small smile. The amount of blood on her face and in her teeth did not help. The figure then shifted their grip on the dagger slightly.

Amelia was forced to watch as they drove the silver dagger into the side of Ina'nis' skull. She wailed a haunting cry of loss, as the life from her coworker's eyes faded. Her body began to crumble to dust, but an attempt at a reassuring smile still remained on her face.

"Let's see if she was lying." Amelia was grabbed by her hair and dragged, kicking and screaming, away from the disintegrating corpse of Ina'nis. Amelia fought against the grip of the figure in vain. "If you value your life, tell me which desk is hers." Amelia's hair was yanked on one last time before she was released. Amelia saw Ina'nis' desk, now severed in two pieces with only three legs. She slowly raised her arm to point at it. The figure walked over and began to tear out each of the drawers.

One of them ripped open and a purple book flew out. The figure caught it with amazing reaction time. They looked it over before nodding to themselves. Then, they looked back over at Amelia's collapsed and now sobbing form on the ground.

"W-why…" she cried and slammed the cold ground with a fist.

"I assume you won't keep this a secret then?" the figure asked, tilting its head slightly. Amelia gritted her teeth in pure rage.

"Fuck no!" her anguish turned to anger in that moment, "I hate you, you bastard! FUCK YOU!" I HATE-" her rage was cut short by a stabbing sensation in her back. This was different from earlier, though. It felt like something was eating her from the inside out. Her back felt like it was falling apart, turning to dust like Ina'nis. Amelia screamed until the sensation slowly stopped. A noise of surprise came from the figure.

"Incredible…" they mumbled to themselves. They held out a hand, the dark gray dagger flying by Amelia into it. "I never got the sense that you had an affinity for Light magic, let alone one this potent…" They stalked over to her, readying the other dagger to truly finish the job.

"W-who a-are y-you…?" Amelia said with what she knew would be her last breath. The figure's hood faded away, revealing heterochromatic eyes. One was purple and the other blue. They were seemingly female from their facial structure. A sorry frown fell on their face, almost conveying the emotion of regret.

"I'm humanity's last Hope." Her voice was softer now. Gone was the distorted, dark tone, replaced instead by a high pitched feminine voice. Amelia would have probably enjoyed listening to it, if she wasn't about to die.

With a swing of the dagger, Amelia felt her throat torn open. She convulsed on the ground, bleeding until there was no blood left. Her final breath rattled out of her lungs. "I'm sorry it has to be this way," were the last words the woman left with her.

The ticking sound in her head wound down to a whimper, until it finally disappeared.


Amelia jumped awake from her bed, screaming bloody murder. Bubba, who was just preparing to jump onto her bed, squealed and scampered away from the sound. Amelia grabbed her neck, putting so much pressure on it that she was almost suffocating herself. Once she was sure that she wasn't bleeding out anymore, she slowly pulled her hands away.

Bubba jumped up onto the bed after she stopped screaming and ran over to her, worming his way under her arms and getting as close as he physically could. Amelia pet him out of muscle memory, but her mind was somewhere else.

"That was a fucked up dream…" she said, breathing heavily and drenched in sweat. She turned and stared at her alarm clock. "And fuck that noise!" She grabbed it and threw it across the room. It exploded into hundreds of pieces, silencing its ticking.

But the ticking in her head didn't stop.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…" Amelia grabbed the sides of her head, and pulled her legs up to her chest. Bubba continued to try and get close to her face, pawing and licking at her the best he could. Amelia suddenly jumped out of bed and turned on the TV. Bubba jumped off the bed and followed.

A few break-ins and an explosion. The same news as the dream.

She checked her phone and the date was the same with the same notifications.

She ran down to the bike corral and saw her e-bike had the misaligned chain from her dream, too.

That hadn't been a dream. Bubba jumped at her legs as she slowly began to walk back inside.

She was stuck in a loop.

Her and Anni, Ina'nis, were going to die tonight.


Author's Note: Well, I've been taking the short break from my other story well. I might have written this in a frenzy after getting the inspiration to write something new. I've had this idea in my head for a few months now, but I only just started writing it seriously.

Amelia, Ina, and IRyS are going to be featured prominently with the other EN girls playing supporting roles. The exception is Kronii, since Amelia's time reversing is going to involve her. This is more of a prologue than the first chapter, since the main story hasn't really been revealed yet. Maybe that second chapter will come sooner so that I can actually tell you guys about it.

Something I can say right now, Amelia's ability is definitely inspired by Re:Zero. It is one of my favorite shows and I highly recommend it if you like fantasy or horror or just anime in general. It is so good! The story might seem similar to it in a few ways, with a few other ideas taken from other popular anime. The characters in the story (as you've hopefully seen) aren't going to be the Hololive girls we know. They are from a different timeline/dimension (if you want to tie it in with Amelia's lore) and are going to act a little different. You're going to enjoy them, though, trust me :)

Just a couple other things: This is going to be a secondary work until Corrupted Timelines is finished. That is going to be a while, so regular, schedule-based updates are probably not going to be a thing. I'll let you all know if I do make a schedule for this, but for now it is just whenever I feel like it.

I hope you all enjoy this new story as much as I do. Look forward to more and drop a review to help me out!

Next Chapter: Learning from your past? future?

Any feedback/criticism is appreciated!