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It’s 9pm at Pierre’s General Store and Abigail wished for nothing more than to conquer her fear of the unknown. All her life, her parents had treated her like a child. Sheltered and alone growing up had made Abigail less confident in her abilities as a grown-up. Sometimes a dubious frown would cross Caroline’s face as she glanced at her daughter, wondering why on earth does she love to stay in her room so much. 

But what they didn’t know was that whenever night came, Abigail would sneak out to the mountain lakes alone and experience nature coming alive on its own. Every night would be one huge magic show where night would shadow the mountain valley like a blanket, lake waters rippling with potential and the wind blowing over her skin like a promise. She reveled in the nightly experience and at times, she would even practice playing her flute and pretend she was part of the magic show of nature. Out there in the night next to the lake where crickets accompany her tunes, it was the only place she ever felt like she belonged. Fitting into place like a piece of a long-forgotten puzzle. 

And yet tonight, even as she slunk into the kitchen, keeping into the shadows with her bare toes. There was a roiling restlessness in the pit of her belly. 

Past the kitchen and into her mother’s greenhouse, she carefully made her way behind the bushes on the corner right. Over there was a secret door on the ground hidden by the bushes. Her mom didn’t know that Abigail was using it at a daily basis. And if she did, Caroline never made it known that she knew her own daughter was sneaking out through her backdoor. It led out to a dark tunnel, a quick 2 minute sprint to the end but Abigail made sure her steps were light on the underground dirt floor, taking her sweet time. As she took this path every night, she made every precaution not to wear out a path to alert her own mother about her covert activities. Abigail didn’t have the heart and courage to explain to her mother about how she had to go. 

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She had to. 

There was an arcane atmosphere at night, a mysterious energy about in the wind that invigorated her body to full alertness. How could she even explain that? It sounded crazy thinking about it in her own mind. Though her mother finding out was the least of her worries. There was something about this night, about what was to come, about what was ahead of her that set off her nerves to a dancing electric wildfire.

Danger ahead, her intuition prodded at her. She would have stayed home but she tried sleeping it off and yet her nerves never settled. 

Let’s just get this over with, she thought. Reaching at the end of the tunnel, pushing open its door that connected to an abandoned kitchen of the community center. Cracked tiles were chipping off its walls and the pungent putrid smell of hidden decay wafted to her nose. It was the smell of decaying apples. Yet no matter how much she searched the desolate community center, she couldn’t find its source. So she soldiered on to the front door. Her feet quickly finding the steps on the aging wooden floor where it didn’t hold creaks. Finally, the fresh clean burst of the night greeted her as she pushed the community doors open, settling her nerves for a moment before it thrummed a hectic livewire again. 

Bright lights caught her attention at the corner of her eye and she immediately looked up to the velvet night sky. A gasp fell on her mouth as she spied a purple streak of fire razing a path across the stars. And it was heading dangerously close to the mountains where she and Sebastian would sit by the lakes and take long hours in mutual contemplative silence. 

Her shut-in bestfriend didn’t have a habitual bone in his body.   Sebastian was unpredictable. He could be up there at the lakes right now. Or not. He better not be. Maru was currently at a science camp, Demetrius in a convention at Nova Scotia and Robin got held up at Zuzu city, trying to negotiate her lumber order.

Heart hammering at Abigail’s chest, she sprinted up the mountains at full speed. Falling comets from the sky could set off an explosion that will spark a fire in their forest.  She had to run up there at Sebastian’s to warn him. As far as she knew her bestfriend, he could more likely sleep off a 24-hour parade next to his house without him being the wiser. Heck, as a matter of fact, the guy slept through a full-on earthquake when they went camping as kids. He couldn’t have grown out of that, could he?