BEEP!

BEEP!

BEEP!

BEE- Lilli shut off the alarm. It had blaring right next to her ear.

Cautious of what happened yesterday, Lilli took care to shut off the alarm before she drank her water. Even without her glasses on, she could still see the ray of sunlight playing across the floor of her room. Her hand reached out and grabbed her glasses, placing them on her nose. She blinked as the room came into focus and forced herself out of bed. 

I am going to be on time today. Lilli repeated the thought in her head like a mantra while she walked to the bathroom. 

Lilli washed her face with cold water, gasping as her eyes shot open, suddenly not encrusted with sleep any longer. She did her skin routine and brushed her teeth. Her birthmark was still there, normal and non-glowing. Lilli managed to tame her hair and walked back to her room. 

She opened the window and, like before, stuck her hand out. It seemed warmer than yesterday, and it was sunny. Lilli grabbed the same T-shirt she had worn yesterday, along with a pair of one of her favorite baggy jeans that Todd had washed yesterday. She slipped a red scrunchie on her wrist, grabbed her bag, and went downstairs without a sound. 

Lilli looked at the time on her iPod. She was fifteen minutes earlier than she was yesterday, so she had time for a bowl of cereal while she wrote her note. The piece of paper with her messy scrawl on it was folded and clipped onto the fridge with a magnet. Lilli washed her bowl and put it away. The worn, blue lunchbox that she had packed yesterday night was inside her backpack. Her bag was slung over her shoulder, her earbuds in her ears, house key in hand. She swung open the oak door and locked it, stuffing the key in her backpack. She checked the time on her iPod once more. She still had a few minutes before the bus came, so she walked to the bus stop and placed her iPod in her pocket.

The bus came at the same time as yesterday, which was fine. The sunny day was off to a good start, with little traffic on the way there. When her stop came, she thanked the driver once more and stood in front of her school while the bus drove away. 

Students were still outside, signaling the fact that she still had time before class. Lilli walked over to her favorite spot to sit before school, a large tree close to the building. She set her bag down at the base and made sure that she had picked a dry spot before sitting down. She dug out one of the books she had checked out from the library yesterday and put away her iPod before she started reading. The first chapter was rather short, so she looked up to see if the bell had rung yet. 

It had not. 

Before she continued reading, she noticed a strange symbol in the bark of the tree that she hadn’t noticed before. 

It looked like an insignia, but it was unknown to Lilli why it looked familiar. It had four circles that intertwined with each other. At the bottom edge of the intertwined circles, there was a triangle intertwined as well, one that Lilli believed looked like a dagger. The rest of the insignia was worn away, almost imperceptible in the shade. 

The letter.

“Well, maybe this ‘someone’ isn’t completely full of bull,” she whispered. 

Lilli set down her book. She stretched her finger out toward the insignia. Like a magnet, something was tugging her right wrist toward the tree, she was just brushing the insignia when—

RIIIING!

The school bell rang. Lilli had been so entranced by the insignia that she hadn’t noticed the bell ringing. Everyone had already lined up by homeroom class by the main entrance. 

“Shit!” she swore, scrambling to her feet and shoving her book into her bag. She speed-walked to her homeroom class’s line, right at the end. 

Somehow, Ms. Heath’s class was first to go inside today, earning more than a few dirty looks from the other classes. The line began to walk forward. As she stepped into the building, she gave Mr. Clide a high-five, as was their tradition whenever Lilli was on time. 

When the class all settled down and began to wait for the announcements, Lilli stared determinedly at the whiteboard. She was gonna go back to that tree after school and figure out why the hell she had been so drawn to it. 

School had never dragged on for so long. 

Seriously, it was like each class lasted for days. But that was the weird thing, Lilli guessed. If you look forward to something, time will snail crawl forward. If you have, say a doctor’s appointment or something, then time will become the Flash. Sometimes Lilli tried to trick time, by thinking she wasn’t looking forward to something fun, so the time would go by faster. Not that it ever actually worked, but it was fun to try.

Not to mention the fact that she probably freaked out her classmates. She was bouncing her knee so much that she swore it almost went to Mars. Even Charlie had given her a weird look.

But that didn’t matter now. There were approximately fifteen minutes left of science, and those fifteen minutes felt like fifteen hours. Lilli was lazily typing the outline on her computer, occasionally randomly typing gibberish before deleting that. She sighed. 

Charlie exhaled sharply next to her before kicking her foot. 

“Ow! What was that for?” She lied, it didn’t hurt.

“Stop doing that,” he said turning back to their computer. 

“Doing what?” asked Lilli, typing another line of gibberish into the Doc. 

“That!” Charlie said, pointing at her screen. “Stop typing gibberish!” Lilli raised her hands in mock surrender before sighing. Charlie rolled his eyes. “Okay seriously, what’s wrong? You haven’t complained about our computers the whole class, and you keep sighing like someone died.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Lilli drawled. “It’s just that, class is taking forever and I have somewhere to be after school.”

Charlie made a face of confusion. “I thought you didn’t have any friends?” He laughed as Lilli gently punched them in the arm. 

“Thanks for that, dingus,” she said. “And for your information, I do have friends. Well more like a friend. I believe I just punched them in the arm.”

“Aww, I’m flattered.”

“You're welcome,” Lilli shot back sarcastically, but she had a smile on her face.

The bell rang, finally, and Lilli bade a hurried goodbye to her teacher and Charlie before rushing out the door. She took a peek through one of the large hallway windows.

Everyone was hanging out outside, but her gut told her that it would be better to investigate when no one was around. It wasn’t the goddamn voice in her head, so she decided to listen to it.

Lilli turned on her heel and walked to her homeroom class. She knocked on the door and went on her tiptoes to see through the window at the top of the door. Ms. Heath was still sitting at her desk, as usual, typing away on her computer. She looked up at the sound of Lilli knocking. 

“Come in,” she said.

Lilli slowly turned the doorknob and stepped inside, closing the door behind her. “Ms. Heath, I was just going to say that”—Ms. Heath had a small smile growing on her face—“I won’t be practicing today, just so you aren’t worried.”

Ms. Heath’s smile slipped off her face. “Why not? Is something wrong?” she asked.

“No, it’s just that, I landed weirdly on my leg yesterday while practicing, and even though it feels better now I thought I should rest it for one more day,” Lilli lied. 

Ms. Heath nodded. “Alright,” she said, “I’ll let Mr. Steele know. You get some rest alright?” Lilli nodded. “Have a good night, Lilli.”

“You too!” Lilli said, slowly walking toward the door.

She walked down the stairs to the main door and repeated to Mr. Clide the same thing that she had told Ms. Heath. He told her almost the same thing, but he did it with a smile and a little joke. Lilli waved goodbye and shoved open the door.

The school grounds were still crowded, so Lilli, listening to her gut, decided to go eat something while she waited for everyone to clear out. There should be a coffee shop nearby, so Lilli decided to find it.

She walked rather than use the bus because she was saving her money for her food. Lilli didn’t pack as much in her lunch last night (because it felt like her eyelids were collapsing), so she was starving. 

Once she found the shop, she took a peach iced tea and a cinnamon roll over to a table by the windows. She read her book while she waited, bouncing her leg impatiently. She would wait until it was dark to investigate, so people probably wouldn’t see her being weird. 

What if it doesn’t work?

The sun had gone down, so she paid for her food and left.

Lilli was definitely going to get home later than normal, so she prepared an excuse in her head to tell the Spencers. Maybe she got two-day detention for what she ‘did’ yesterday. Yeah, that’ll do the trick.

Lilli had perfected her technique for lying a while ago, when she had managed to convince the Spencers that she was an absolute ‘terrible liar’. Sure, she had to do extra chores to make up for her ‘lies’, but it was worth it. Now they thought Lilli always told the truth. 

She was brought back to the present when she tripped over a rock. Again. She quickly straightened up her back and kept her face relaxed. Her resting face looked like she was constantly glaring, so that was a bonus. Getting jumped in the dark was definitely not on her to-do list.

Lilli reached the school relatively quickly (she had been speed-walking) and stood beneath the flickering red light of the sign. There was barely any light, save for the streetlamps on the side of the road and the occasional still-lit window in the building. The corner where she had been sitting earlier today was shrouded in darkness, so no one would probably see her.

Just to be safe, Lilli took out the small flashlight she always had in her bag. She liked to be prepared, even though half the time she was too lazy to actually prepare. The yellow plastic felt cool on her skin, even though it was probably stifling in her bag. She clicked it on, and a thin beam of pale light spread out in front of her. 

Lilli picked her way into the corner, letting out a small sigh when she crouched down to where she was that morning. She shined her flashlight on the insignia, recalling the instructions from the letter. It looked the same as it did that morning, parts of it worn away. She supposed that’s where the two branches went. She switched her flashlight into her left hand and extended her right.

Just like that morning, something was tugging her right wrist forward. This time, she could trace the insignia, but she was guided by that pull on her wrist. She had to roughly guess where the branches were, but that was fine. She was okay at guessing. When she reached the center of the circles, she stopped and held her finger pressed to the rough bark of the tree. After a few seconds, she stepped back and waited.

Nothing happened.

She repeated the motion again, tracing the insignia, holding down her finger, then stepping back.

Nothing.

She stood there, staring at the tree, before realizing something. She internally swore at herself. Lilli had forgotten the literal key to this whole damn thing.

Light.

She needed light.

Lilli groaned before turning the beam of her flashlight away. She began to walk out of the schoolyard and turned off her flashlight. She kicked a few rocks while she walked to the bus stop.

Why do you care so much that it didn’t work? asked the voice.

Nothing, she tried to convince herself, I was just annoyed that some idiot led me on.

Sure, it whispered, but then why are you so affected? Perhaps you were hoping that something would finally happen in your life, finally, make you feel seen. An escape, from the boring nobody to somebody. You were happy that someone, other than a teacher, was telling you this secret. You can stop trying to convince yourself, you know. Deep down, you know I’m right. You’re selfish and you want to ‘run away’ from the perfectly fine life you have. A waste, truly, when—

Lilli shoved the voice away as the bus screeched to a stop in front of the sign. She gave the driver her PPTA card and took a seat. A playlist was put on, one that she made for calm nights. 

How was she so stupid that she forgot that light had to be present? She leaned her head back against the side of the bus while chewing her tongue, a bad habit she had developed a while ago. 

Lilli had spent so long trying to convince herself that she didn’t care about failure. That it didn’t matter when people and things disappointed her. But as the bus stopped in front of her stop, she couldn’t help but think one thought, stuck replaying on loop.

What if the voice is right?

✺✺✺

Lilli slept badly that night.

She finished her homework late at night, and she couldn’t fall asleep after. Occasionally she fell into a small period of blissful sleep, but then she randomly awoke sweating like crazy. Lilli probably drank most of her water just because she couldn’t sleep. (Not her fault that 3 AM water hits different) She did that a lot, drinking water because she was bored. Probably not a good thing, but Lilli didn’t care at this point.

When she awoke after her third random sleep period, Lilli rolled over and looked at her clock. The display read 4:30 AM. Lilli rolled onto her stomach and pressed her face into the pillow, sighing. She slowly raised her head and snatched her glasses. The room slowly came into focus, along with the little amount of light seeping in from the beams of light barely peeking over the horizon.

Lilli heaved herself out of bed and opened the blinds. The world was mostly dark, with little beams of light slowly appearing.

Something was tugging her wrist.

It was the same feeling as whenever she was near the tree, only fainter. Lilli slapped her right wrist, just to see if it would stop. For a moment, it did. 

Then it kept going.

Lilli groaned in frustration before going to the bathroom.

She clearly wasn’t going to get more sleep, not with this stupid tugging in her wrist. She decided that she was just going to humor the tug (and the letter) because she had nothing better to do other than stare mindlessly at the ceiling for three hours. 

Lilli got dressed in a navy T-shirt and a different pair of baggy jeans. She tucked in the shirt before shoving her hair back into a sad-looking bun. It wasn’t even a bun at this point, since like half of her hair was springing out of the ‘bun’. It was soon going to be time for a washday, definitely. Lilli’s hair always started to go flat and straight as washday loomed closer. 

She swung her bag onto her back and crept downstairs.

She carefully opened her front door, wincing as it creaked. She shut it as quietly as she could before slowly walking to her bus stop. She sat down before rubbing her eyes. They felt like two pieces of leather. To keep her awake, Lilli played another playlist, this one jarring enough to keep her awake. 

By the time the bus came and Lilli hopped on, the world around her was slowly getting brighter, minute by minute. The closer the bus got to her school, the stronger the tugging on her wrist became. 

Soon enough, the bus squealed to a stop in front of the sign across the street from Lilli’s school. Lilli hopped off and made her way across the street. The only people in the vicinity were an old lady tending to her garden and a guy leaning against the bus stop sign talking loudly on a call. Hopefully, they wouldn’t notice Lilli being weird. She stuffed her iPod into her bag.

Lilli slowly walked over to the same place she had been standing the night before. She glanced at the window to the left of the tree before freezing. 

A woman was sitting at her desk.

She was typing on her computer (probably a secretary), not even bothering to look around every once in a while. Lilli carefully walked over to the window. It began right at the same height as the base of her neck. Lilli was studying the other windows to make sure no one else was in the building yet when a loud noise cut through the quiet of the morning. 

A dog began to bark.

Lilli swore before pressing her back to the wall beneath the window. She prayed that the secretary couldn’t see her wisps of hair. Then again, the woman would probably just think Lilli was some idiot child wandering around at five in the goddamn morning. 

Lilli slowly lifted her head to the window and, seeing that the woman was still typing on her computer, went back to the spot where she was standing five minutes ago.

The insignia was still there, in all its faded glory. She took a deep breath before crouching down to be level with the symbol. It was a foot or so from the ground, which is a ridiculous place to put an insignia, but Lilli assumed it was because no one bothered to look that far down. 

Now that there was light all around, Lilli could see the faded grooves that could have been the branches of the insignia. She looked around one more time, just to make sure no one could see her. 

The tugging on her wrist was becoming more aggravating than annoying, so Lilli relaxed her hand and let her right pointer finger trace the insignia.

The bark felt rough and bumpy beneath her finger. When she pressed her finger into the center of the circles once more, a sharper piece of bark was poking into her finger. She winced, but held her finger in place.

After a minute or two, Lilli stepped back a few feet. 

A minute passed, then another.

Lilli just about had enough. She had just turned away when a precise beam of sunlight hit the ground at her feet.

That was weird. There was barely enough light to allow her to see, let alone actually be above the tree. Lilli looked up at the tree before her eyebrows flew up to her hairline.

The beam of sunlight was coming from a leaf on the tree.

Then more beams began to hit the ground, each at quicker intervals than the last. Lilli scrambled back. Eventually, the beams molded together to form an almost-perfect twenty-pointed star.

There was exactly one thought going through her brain at the moment.

What. The. F—

Then the ground opened up at her feet.