“I’ll make some ramen noodles.” I offered to Amber when we got back to our dorm. I was getting used to the strangely extravagant and sprawling school facilities now.

We both ate up, although I was pretty sure that neither of us were hungry.

No words were exchanged during the short dinner. I ate as fast as I could, hoping the scorching hot ramen could drown out my remaining concerns.

After a quick clean of dishes, Amber put a healing liquid on her cuts, and we went to bed, still quiet and worried.

I was glad that Amber had left me to silence. I needed time to sort out my own tangled web of thoughts.

Moxie shouldn’t have to go through that. She was only a third-grader in normal terms. Why couldn’t the Mist have chosen Gwen? She has way more skills and she can easily handle herself. I hated admitting it, but Gwen is actually reliable and experienced.

I winced at the pain in my sword hand as I turned to my side. I should work on that move tomorrow, I thought.

I fell asleep to my anxious brain singing a nerve-wracking lullaby. Only seconds before the throes of sleep overwhelmed me did I realize that Max had successfully distracted me from Moxie’s dilemma during our spar, if only for a few moments.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As usual, when I fell asleep I was only welcomed by darkness. Complete absence. There was no sound, no sights, I could feel nothing.

Then something reached out from my body, as if there was some sort of fog coming out of me and suddenly I could feel everything. I couldn’t see a thing but I felt this presence touch my sheets, the floor, and the doorframe as it crept quickly. It stretched down the hall, I felt the fibers of the carpet, the texture of the wall.

It traveled into a dorm room eventually. There I could feel the presence of a sleeping body, and more frighteningly, a much bigger one that was wide awake. It was hard to describe, but the energy seemed tense and anxious, almost like you were about to scream.

As I continued to feel everything around me with this fog, I felt something with a rough, scratching texture. Almost like scales.

My rapid heartbeat became the only sound as I realized what I had just felt was alive.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I woke up with a start. It was 8:17 am according to the clock. A Saturday, meaning that there was no school. A frigid chill sat on my back, and refused to move.

The whole building stirred as I stumbled out of bed in a stupor. It seemed like I was one of the first people to wake up, though Amber had crawled out of bed even earlier than I did.

Amber was already fully conscious and dressed. “How about we deliver Moxie some breakfast?” she offered with an awkward smile on her face. Evidently, she wanted to check up on the little girl.

“Sure, what do you want to make?” I asked, smiling back at her, trying to push my nightmare as far back as my troubled brain would allow.

“I already made it. Pancakes, eggs, bacon, and fruit. Do you want to add anything?”

“Yeah. She can have my very last protein shake. It’s chocolate-flavored, and has lots of calcium. I think Moxie would like that.”

“Aww, that’s sweet.”

“I’m cool like that.”

“Okay, that wasn’t needed.”

“Right, sorry.” We both chuckled softly at the lighthearted banter.

After I took a much-needed bath and changed into fresh clothes, Amber and I ran into Max and his roommate as soon as we opened the dorm door. It seemed like he had been waiting there for some time.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Whatever. Breakfast needed to be delivered, and Moxie needed to be checked on.

“We’re delivering breakfast to Moxie. Care to join us?” I asked.

“Sure. I’m leaving, Ricardo,” Max said to the figure bent over a phone screen next to him as small beeps emitted noisily from the device.

Max’s roommate wasn’t paying much attention. He was deep in his own little gaming world. “Okay, ciao,” he replied with a light flick of his wrist. Max narrowed his eyes and walked to our side.

We walked to Moxie’s building and went up the elevator.

As the rest of the academy flew by outside the giant glass panes, I relaxed a bit. Maybe things weren’t so intense after all.

The speaker suddenly clicked on.

“Students in the Family Suites Building, please evacuate the seventh floor. Stay away from Room 70. ”

The academy instantly lost my interest.

I exploded out of the elevator as soon as it stopped, sprinting straight for Room 70.

In my rampage down the hallway, I heard the crash of the metal tray and the shatters of multiple glass containers as Amber dropped the breakfast plate and tore after me. Max and his long legs were already way ahead of us. We sharply rounded the corner and-

Gwen was crying.

Tension, as thick as oil, hung heavily in the air. Yellow police tape sealed off the halls around us. Mysterious witches in blue cloaks were scattered around. The door to Room 70 laid ajar, but I couldn’t see inside.

Most shockingly, Gwen was in a miserable heap on the ground.

“HELP, PLEASE!” Gwen cried, meeting my eyes. She was still dressed in her pajamas. “Mackenzie! Mackenzie, help! They won’t let me leave! Max, Amber, help!”

We motioned towards her, but three towering blue figures blocked us off.

They were the police, based on how they were dressed. One had a strap of daggers strapped to her waist, another had a quiver of arrows on her back, and the third was equipped with twin gauntlets on his wrists.

“Hey kids, you guys have no business here,” a green-haired woman said, irritated. “Gwen Lars is the verified occupant of this dorm. She's required to stay for an interrogation. You three are not. The last thing we need is three of her random friends bothering our investigation.”

Max spoke up before I could. “We are close friends with the other occupant, and we need to make sure that she’s alright. The last thing we need is three random police witches bothering our investigation. Let us check on her, and we’ll be on our way. No trouble.”

The greenette laughed without smiling. “Children are so silly. Why look for more trouble if you are trouble yourself? If you really want to, I’ll take care of you right here. Right now.”

“Oh, so you’re going to hurt a few kids who were only worried about their friend? I didn’t know that police officers could sink so low,” I retorted, crossing my arms. My thunderous impatience and terror couldn’t be contained any further, manifesting themselves as anger.

The witch glared at me with icy resentment. Her fellow police witches sighed and whispered to her while glancing at me. One motioned at the elevator behind us, gesturing at us to turn tail and leave obediently.

Instead, Amber chimed in. “Please, officers, it’ll only take a minute. We won’t move anything around, we won’t touch a single thing, the scene will stay fully intact.”

Internally, I was freaking out.

What were we thinking, blatantly arguing with police officers like that?

I could take the blame if we get into trouble, I thought, rubbing my wrist nervously. I was the one who ran from the elevator first, right?

There was no sense crying over spilled milk now. I’d do whatever it took to figure out what happened and help Moxie if she was in trouble. Moxie was my friend, and a real one at that.

Plus, there’s really no going back now..

I pushed my worries to the back of my mind and focused on the people in front of me.

“What happened, Gwen?” Max was asking anxiously.

The officers had given up on convincing us to leave and were now conversing softly amongst themselves in front of Moxie’s room.

“I don’t know!” Gwen snapped at him angrily, trying her best to keep her image as a warrior (with no success I might add). “I woke up and the first thing I did was to check on her!” Her ruined makeup ran in rivers with her tears.

It was almost pitiful. Platinum blonde hair tangled messily over the shoulders of her light green oversized pajama shirt. Considering her usual lavish hairdos, the situation is severe.

A brown-haired officer knelt down in front of the distressed student while the other two stood on the side. “Ms. Lars, calm down and look at me. I need you to explain what you did this morning in detail,” he reasoned calmly. “You are not in trouble by any means. We just need info to quickly find your sister.”

Find Moxie? My heart scrunched uncomfortably.

He reached out a comforting arm to pat Gwen on the back, but the distraught girl slapped it away with a tearstained hand. I stepped closer towards her, worrying she would have a violent outbreak again. “Where’s Moxie?” I demanded. The officers looked at me, then back at Gwen.

“I wanted to make sure my sister was fine after all that happened last night! But when I rolled over on my bed, she was gone. The bed was cold, like she’d never been there in the first place!” Gwen shouted to the police witches as she buried her head in her arms. “I called for her, and she didn’t answer! I- I looked everywhere! The bathroom, the kitchen, under the bed, in the cabinets, behind the curtains, everything!”

I froze. Gwen just rattled off an uncomfortably long list.

“I called Bella, Lucille, Andy, and none of them had seen her this morning. I called all of her teachers to see if she had shown up to talk to them or something. I even called Sagewing, and not even she knew! So she’s nowhere near the school. She’s not here, someone took her! Someone took her!”

Another list.

My heart continued to be crushed. Every other place that Gwen looked, every other person that Gwen calls, is another percentage in the chance that Moxie is gone.

It seemed that this explanation was all Gwen could manage, as sobs burst out of her throat and she curled up into a ball. The officers glanced at the girl again before turning away to resume their quiet conversation.

Moxie was taken?

Without a warning, I felt lightheaded. Faint. Helpless. I had been silently praying to every god I could think of, begging to any universal being that Moxie was gonna show up at any moment now.

But I was just in denial. She was gone, and like Gwen had cried over and over again, someone had taken her.