Chapter 4

Clouds On The Horizon

"I think I've found-"

"Ow!" I jumped awake from the sound of someone crying out in pain. Looking around I see Spear on the ground curled up in a ball, holding his head in pain.

"Um, Spear, what happened? Are you okay?" I ask in concern. He rolls over and looks at me with pain plastered all over his face.

"Do I look okay? I literally fell off the top of the goddamn bunk bed! And take note that that's three beds up. THREE BEDS!! It hurts like hell!" Spear screams in pain.

"Oof. Just don't die or that would be lame," I get out of bed and head over to Grandma Sen.

"Heyya Pumpkin, how'd you sleep?" Grandma Sen asks as she lifts me up into her arms.

"I slept amazing! Though I didn't have any dreams sadly," I answer while hugging her.

"Well I'm sorry to hear that," Grandma Sen then starts walking over to where everyone else is and listens to what they're saying.

"Okay, we have 24 hours until the Day of Unity begins and Belos activates the Draining Spell."

"And everyone on the Boiling Isles is taken out in one fell swoop," The man with the purple cape then proceeds to knock down the little wooden people. I don't like this, I don't want anyone to die.

"Well, not everyone. The speel targets those with Coven Sigils, using the nine types of magic as ingredients for the spell itself. It's channeled through each of the Coven Heads during the duration of the eclipse," the man in the glasses said. Man, this is starting to hurt my brain. I don't think I can process any of this.

"So, what's the plan? Do we hide one of you?" Lulu asks.

"We can't count on that after my stunt with the bats," The man in glasses answers.

"Belos made sure we all have replacements. We can't stop the Draining Spell, but we can corrupt it. That's where the Owl Lady comes in," the man with the purple cape gestures towards Eda.

"Huh?"

"The curse, Eda."

"That's right. My curse warps magic. Huh? Did quite a number on you two, if I remember correctly," Eda says as she starts to point at purple cape man.

"You remember incorrectly. I was completely unfazed."

"He's lying," I say as I sense that he wasn't telling the truth.

"Hush it you. Anyway, Eda would have to sneak into the tower, and here's how. I'll control a pair of abominations to release Eberwolf's flesh-eating beetles into the crowd. It will create a distraction so big, we can get Eda up with the Coven Heads," The man makes a mini presentation of what it would look like.

"The spell will halt when it comes to contact with the curse, and the day will be saved. No problem." Then the mini-presentation soon exploded with abomination goob everywhere.

"What? Only a few people would get eaten. Even then, just the small ones." The purple cape man said.

"If we must do this, the safest bet is to have Eda tap into the spell by taking someone's place as Coven Head. My place. Sigil and all." Glasses man said. I actually don't know what their names are so those are my nicknames for them.

"As Head Bard, you'd also be flanked by me and Eber, where we can keep an eye on the others." Purple-caped man explains.

"Why are we acting like Edalyn's the only one with a curse here? Please, let me do this as a--" Lulu was then cut off.

"No. You haven't had your curse that long. You don't know how it would react. But I do. And how can I say no to sticking it to Belos one final time? Not only that, but I got the Raine Whispers watching out for me," Eda says, standing up.

"Heck yes, Owl Lady!" A person cheers. Then everyone else also started to cheer.

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Luz, King, and I were outside watching the ships fly away. War was coming and it scared me. That's when I heard a familiar voice.

"There you are. Look what I got. The coat's finally dry," Eda comes walking towards was and pulls out an egg.

"I thought you'd carve something cute like a tarantula. Why an egg?" Eda asks Luz.

"I got to decide what my future looked like when I chose to be a witch, and I want them to have that option too. Until then, I'm willing to wait," Luz answers.

"Try to play them music sometime. They can hear you," Eda pats Luz's head.

"I love you already," Luz says, kissing her palisman.

"Can you believe I gotta pretend to be a Coven Head?" Eda says looking up at the sky.

"Eda, are you sure you want to do this?" Luz asks with concern. All this sad talking was starting to make me feel bored since I still had zero clue about what was happening. Fidgeting with my hands I decide I should leave these three alone to talk. So I quietly walked away without anyone knowing I left to go back inside to building.

Walking in I can see Spear making potions and his palisman sitting on his shoulder. Grandma Sen was also there but she was talking to the adults. I walk over to Spear and wait for him to notice me.

"Heyya big bro!" I poke his shoulder causing him to flinch and accidentally drop something on the ground.

"Y/n! You scared the crap out of me!" Spear turns to look at me and then bends down to get the item he had dropped on the ground.

"Hehe, nice. Anyway, I'm bored and everyone around here is either talking about Belos, being sad, and other random stuff that seems really boring." I walked over to a chair and plopped down on it.

"Oh, well, that's because you're just a kid. You're only 8 and it wouldn't really be safe having you help with taking down Belos and the Day of Unity. You probably don't even understand what exactly is happening," Spear explains in concern.

"But I do want to know what's happening. I do want to help, just tell me what's happening. I'm bored and I'm also really powerful when it comes to magic. So please let me help!" I beg, making puppy eyes. Spears looks into my eyes and then quickly looks away, thinking. He then turns away and heads over to the adult. It seemed that he was explaining something to them and then they all looked my way the went back to talking.

Suddenly Spear and Grandma Sen walk up to me and they both sigh. They look at each other and then back at me.

"I've spoken to the others and they decided that…you're going to stay here. It's too dangerous to have you helping. You can get hurt or even worse!" Spear explains. I turn away with anger.

"Look pumpkin pie, I know that you really want to help us but we want to keep you safe. We don't want you seeing things that can scare you or traumatize you for life," Grandma Sen says.

"Fine, just leave me alone," I say as I get up and walk away from everyone else. I'll show them. They can't just leave me here.

While I was walking away, everyone else left the building to go save the world I guess without me. I can't believe them, what about King? They're taking him but not me! I want to help. I don't want to be useless. Or maybe I am useless. Maybe they don't like me at all. Maybe because they have a really strong bond while I'm just here, in the way.

Lost in my thoughts I had started to cry again. Tear after tear fell from my eyes and all I could feel was sadness and pathetic. Maybe that's why I'm not with my real family. It's cause they truly didn't want me and that I was pathetic to them. I curled into a ball and cried into my knees and eventually, I fell asleep.

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Opening my eyes to see that I'm dreaming and that I'm back in the same place I was in my last dream. Why am I dreaming of the same place? What even is this? Walking around I felt the wet floor with my bare feet til I heard something or someone?

"But-but you said. You said you'd let me out. I hate it here!" That voice. It's the same voice I heard before.

"Just a little longer. We have to wait till after the Draining Spell," Another voice said. I walk over to where I hear the voices and notice someone else is in front of me.

"King, is that you?" The person in front of me jumped at the sound of my voice.

"Y/n? You're also he-" King was cut off by the same voice again.

"You better not be fibbin'. You pinky-swore me."

"Patience, Collector. You can trust me." That's when King scoffed and rolled his eyes causing the person to hear us.

"Hmm? Who's there?" Suddenly King disappeared leaving me all by myself again. I look up to see a shadow thing look at me. I slowly walked backward with small fear and that's when I slipped on the floor by accident. Closing my eyes, I prepare for impact and fall.

"Hey! Are you okay?" I quickly opened my eyes to see the shadow figure in front of me.

"Y-yeah but um…who are you?" I stand up and look at the shadow, waiting for an answer. Only for it to just look me up and down with a skeptical look.

"Watcher? Is that you?!" The shadow figure says with excitement. The thing proceeds to spin around me with joy on the ground.

"Um, excuse me, but I don't know who this Watcher person is. I'm Y/n and you are?" I explain to the shadow.

"Stop joking around Watcher. It's me! Your best friend!" The shadow figure spread his arms with joy but as they saw my face they realized that I wasn't joking. They looked hurt and it made me feel guilty.

"Y-you're not joking. Y-you really d-don't remember m-me," They proceed to move away from me and sit on the floor? It was hard to tell but it did hurt me seeing them in pain. I walk over to them and sit next to them.

"Hey um, I'm sorry that I don't remember you. I just woke up one day, forgetting about everything. I don't know who you are or what I am but maybe you can tell me," I say to the shadow figure who looks up at me.

"W-well to start things off. I'm your best friend, Collector! And we have been friends for thousands of years. Oh and your name wasn't Y/n, it was Watcher. You watched over time and space but most of the time we would play tons of games! I was the best of course!!" Huh, so there're the Collector. That's why I was calling out to them.

"What else? Did I have a family?" I ask.

"Of course! The Elders!"

"So I do have a real family out there! But wait, why don't they come a get me? And why can't I remember any of this?" I continue to ask more questions.

"Wel-"

"Huh? What's happening to me?!" I looked at my hands to see that they were fading fast.

"No! Don't leave me! Watcher! Listen closely, I want you to go to the Titan's Skull. There you would find me!"

And suddenly everything went black.

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"The Answer To My Questions."