My dreams slipped away. I was floating away from the sense of reality it had given me. It was a good dream. But the details were lost, and though I tried desperately to remember, every time I repeated the story another part left my mind.

Lily was still sleeping. I put on a coat over my shorts and baggy t-shirt. It was dark outside, but not middle of the night. It didn't have that cold feeling. Perhaps around five or six. Like when Lily woke me up, that one day. The day that led me down this road of knocked out girls and magical wrist tattoos. 

Lily slept so peacfully. Her mouth was open and her breath was slow and deep. Suddenly feeling out of place, I opened the door as carefully as I could and left. Outisde of the room was pretty cold, but I took of in a random direction and let the cool air wake me up. 

I found myself walking to the hallway where we found the girl. There was a staircase at the very far end, and an elevator in the middle. The staircase closer to my room led downstairs to the fake hallway. I took the staircase. Longer walk, but I didn't want to wake anybody up. The elevator was pretty loud last time.

There was a girl in the hallway. Gave me a start. She was sitting in what I had thought was a window, but was just a cutout in the wall. The air blew through the window and I shivered. 

"You found my sister." She didn't turn her head. Her hair blew with the wind. 

"That was your sister?"

I could see the back of her head nod. "My little sister."

"Is she okay?"

"They won't let me see her."

"I'm sorry." She shook her head, I'm not sure why. "What happened?"

"I don't know. I lost her in the dinner crowd. Everybody wants to go to their rooms as fast as possible. Then I hear a scream and the mistresses are keeping everyone away and they won't let me see her."

"Let me help."

She turned around. "You can't." I could finally see her. She had long brown hair and was wearing a dark green t-shirt under a tang top with shorts. Big round glasses with silver rims were perched on her nose.

"I want to." I say. "Anything?"

She thought for a while. "Show me your tattoo." 

I do. She waves me closer and takes my wrist. Traces the lines with her fingers, nails painted white. 

"Wow." She breathed. Smiled. Laughed softly. "I can't tell you what this means."

I huff. "What if I give you ten bucks?"

"That's not how it works."

"Twenty?"

She lets go and rolls her eyes. "I literally can't tell you. Only one person can."

"Who?"

"I don't know. For me it was my sister. Nobody knows the criteria."

"I've been talking to a lot of people that can't tell me or don't know." She smiled at me. "So you know."

"Yes."

"But you can't tell me."

"No."

"How?"

"It's a kind of...reflex. You try and something catches you and you can't. You just know your not the one. And even if you try really hard, you'll just end up holding your breath trying to say something you can't." 

I look at the tattoo. It came with a lot of things I didn't want. 

"What's your name?"

"Aideen." She smirked and started walking away. Her voice echoed off the walls. "I think we'll meet again sometime."