Chapter 8

Misty's father dragged her home, where her mother was waiting there in worried, when she and her father gets in, her mother immediately hugged her daughter and start to inspect her, "Where have you been? You're not in bed and you look messy, are you hungry? You haven't eaten breakfast yet" her mom asked in worried, she can't say that she was attacked by a werewolf and that a Skiter saved her and that the same Skiter cook her breakfast, so she just nodded and answered, "yes, I'm okay, mom" she answered, but then her father looked at her with an angry face. "Now, explain, why you know that Skiter?" he asks with an angry tone. Misty is a little scared but she shows no fear, "he's my friend, and will always be my friend!" she answered bravely, "Friend?! And the next thing you'll know is that him trying to kill you!" he snapped before sighing and look at Misty with a softer look, "Misty, Skiters are not our friends" he explained straight to the point.

No, Misty does not believe that. Her father knows nothing about Kyan, unlike Misty, Misty has been friends with Kyan for days now, there's a bond between them that will never break and she knows him better than anyone else. "No! You don't know him!! He's not a monster like what everyone said!" she answered, "Misty Charm! I'm your father, listen to me!! If it's not for me finding you, you won't even be here!!" her father accidentally said, her mother immediately give a warning look to her father. Now Misty is confused, "what do you mean?" she asked, both of them then looked and Misty. Her mother sighed, "We don't want you to know it this way, but you're adopted" her mother explained, Misty was shocked, "And you just telling me this, NOW?!" Misty snapped.

"But we love you so much" her father immediately said, his mood changed 180 degrees. Misty is not accepting this, no wonder she looks nothing like both of them. Not believing this overflowing fact she just know, Misty immediately runs to her room and locks herself there. She slams the door and slides down to the floor, things are confusing, first, she knows the fact that she was adopted, and second, Kyan is now at the castle dungeons, the fact that Kyan is not there anymore for her makes her sad. She closes her eyes and cries slowly when she hears a loud voice like a big drum, the sound gets louder and louder. She opens her eyes and looks around, searching for where the noise is coming from, then she realizes that her bag is glowing, or something inside her bag is glowing, she opens her bag and saw the book, the kind man from the bookstore is as if the book is telling her to open the book.

She grabs the book and opens it slowly, right when she opens it, the first page of the book that's supposed to be blank is covered with black ink, making the page colored pitch black, so black, it looks like you're looking into the void. The book then forms a few words, "save him." said the book, as if the book is asking her to save Kyan, the words slowly start to disappear leaving a tiny cat paw print at the bottom corner of the book. Misty thinks, right, her main goal now is to save Kyan, but how? She thinks before grabbing her bag and she opens her bedroom window, still wearing her cloak, she sneaks out of her roof through the window. There is still some snow in her backyard right underneath her room and with enough bravery and the crazy girl she is, she jumped down from her room landing on top of the snow, thankfully the snow is thick enough for her to land on. She almost got stuck in the snow but managed to free herself and immediately went in the direction of the wall, to get back into the market and back to the bookstore.

{***}

When she arrived at the front of the bookstore she tries to calm down and open the door slowly, for the second time, that place amazed her. It feels like a place she'll wanna spend the rest of her day when she wants to be alone, but she can imagine how scary the place will be at night, it'll probably look like a haunted library or something. She then walks through the maze of books and shelves, she doesn't want to knock off one of the book piles that now already looks like pillars and she knows it'll hurt so bad if those heavy and old dusty books fall on top of her. Finally, after what felt like hours, she arrived at the center of the place where the reception desk is, and it was still covered in books like always as if nothing changed, there was only one difference from her last visit, and it was the fact that she was coming here alone. The last time she came here is with a Skiter who she thought was probably Kyan, but Kyan has blue eyes, if it's now Kyan then who's that Skiter? Misty is trying not to think about it right now, she doesn't have time for it, she needs to save Kyan before he got executed or worse, goes crazy.

She then recognizes the brown curly hair behind the pile of books, and she walks closer, when she was close enough the man looks up from his pile of books and looks at her with the same friendly and happy look. "Hello again!" the man said cheerfully, "I'm sorry for what happened to your friend," the man said as he gets up from his chair and walks over to Misty, looks like he already knows everything as if he knows Kyan for a very long time. Misty didn't even suspect him or even answered him, she just give him a slight smile, not trying to hide the fact that she was sad. "I need something, something that can help me to get into the castle, something like a map so that can guide me into the dungeons" explained Misty immediately, the man looks interested, "and what are you going to do with it, young lady?" the man asked, full of interest but no anger in his voice, "I can't explain it to you, I just need it and I have a feeling that you have one or at least know someone who has it" Misty answered.

The man thinks for a second before saying, "Well... I do have something better than that" he said before walking back to his reception desk and disappearing under the pile of books. Misty waited and a few minutes later, the man pop his head out of the pile of books again and give Misty a roll of parchment, Misty look at it with obvious confusion. She tilted her head and opens the parchment revealing a complete map of Nucatopia kingdom, it might look like a normal map at first, but when Misty touch the map, the drawing on the map moved. She was surprised, she swiped up and down and zoom into the castle, the more she zooms in, she started to see the path inside the castle, all of the hallways, and even where the dungeon is. She was surprised, "this map is made out of magic" the man explained, "thank you, this is more than enough" She thanks the man and was walking back to the exit, "thank you, kind man!" she said, "oh! and who's your name?" Misty asked she knows it a too late for that now, but at least she needs to know his name if she was going to keep on coming to the bookstore. The man looked surprised and froze for a few seconds before snapping out of it by fixing his glasses, "oh! My name? O-Oliver, j-just call me Oliver" he answered, Misty smiles at him and said "See you later then, Mr. Oliver! My name is Misty" before leaving the bookstore, she doesn't want to say that she was Misty Charm, because she doesn't even have any blood related to the Charm family. Oliver just looks at the door where Misty was a moment ago, he smiles but there's a hint of sadness in that smile, "Yeah, see ya later, Misty" he mumbled to himself before closing the bookstore and getting ready for the night.