Monday began like usual. Nalda gets jumpscared by her mother waking her up.
"Mom?" She looked at her mother as if she was an alicorn with five tails and three propellers instead of wings.
"Are you finally awake?" Her mother sounded awake. Very awake actually.
Nalda looked outside of the window to see that it was still dark. "Mom, what time is it…?" She sat up as she rubbed her eyes.
"It's almost six in the evening." Her mother answered with a slight smile.
Nalda's head stopped working for a moment. She blinked and looked at her mother before she started panicking.
"I missed an entire day of school!" Nalda looked around her room trying to figure out how she slept so much. She could've sworn that she just slept for a few hours.
Those few hours somehow turned into an entire day! Why was her mother still smiling!?
Her mother chuckled. "Nalda, it's still Sunday." She said while shaking her head. "I came to wake you up for dinner."
Nalda blinked at the woman in front of her. "It's Sunday afternoon?" She said while holding her beating heart.
Her mother reached out and calmly brushed Nalda's wild sleep hair away from Nalda's face. "Did that scare you so much?" When Nalda nodded she laughed lightly. "Mave used to do the same. Now she's all grown up and bratty." Her mother shook her head as she spoke. She was reminiscing about the past.
Nalda didn't want to interrupt her mother's thoughts so she just sat there and waited for her mother to finish with her hair.
"There." She stepped back once she was done. "Now you look more presentable."
Nalda looked at her mother and frowned. "I like looking like a water ghost though…"
Her mother's soft expression fell into a scolding look. "Get up before your father and Mave eat your food." With that she left Nalda's bedroom, leaving the door wide open.
Nalda stared at the open door and somehow grew annoyed. "Wow… so this is how Mave feels…"
She got out of bed and to the bathroom to wash her face with cold water because what else could she possibly need on a cold Sunday afternoon?
Afterwards she went downstairs and found Mave and her father deep in a staring contest while her mother ignored the two. Nalda frowned and looked at her mother. "You said they'd eat my food if I didn't come immediately."
Her mother didn't look at Nalda as she was busy trying to find a good series to watch with the family while eating dinner. "You know how they are."
"Mom I'm the one who eats everything, not Mave." Nalda said, her frown deepening.
Mave suddenly cheered. "Look, she admitted to being a glutton!"
Her father looked at Nalda with a look that said 'please don't harm me'. "We weren't actually going to eat your food. Me and Mave were seeing what kind of reaction you would make to your dinner being stolen away by us."
"So mom lied?" Nalda said, sounding stunned while looking at her mother who was frowning at the TV.
"No, Nalda, she didn't lie, you're just stupid." Mave replied with a bright smile.
That got her a warning from the Soleia Masson. "Mave, you're over twenty, stop acting like you're twelve."
Mave's smirk immediately disappeared and her expression turned from mocking to serious immediately after. "Yes ma'am."
Nalda sat down on her usual chair. Now that everyone was at the table everyone began to eat. Nalda and Mave bickered the entire time so it wasn't a peaceful dinner.
By the end of dinner, Nalda felt like she could beat Mave up two hundred times and still not be satisfied.
Logically, to not get scolded and grounded to the fifth, she decided to just go to her bedroom and crash onto her bed. She then proceeded to fight to the death with her pillow and won ten times before finally calming down.
It was only then that Nalda saw the letters above her.
'Do not look outside.'
She stared at her ceiling where the letter appeared. She glanced at her window and then back at the letters that had suddenly grown in size.
"Not ominous at all. Mhm. Perfectly normal thing to say." She said sarcastically as she broke into a cold sweat.
Ever since yesterday, she has been on high alert, worried that the murderer had followed her home or caught on that she was defenceless. She has been doing her best to distract herself but every time she sees something ominous, she immediately gets reminded of yesterday.
She wasn't sure what would happen if the serial killer, Max Davenport, found out about her bluff.
'Nothing good probably.'
Even during dinner, Nalda bickered more than usually because she knew her mind flew elsewhere every time she ate. That elsewhere was very dangerous and meant getting reminded that someone was out to get her.
Nalda sighed loudly. She really needed to grow up and stop whining about everything.
Mave was dealing with bigger threats but she didn't seem to have any trouble. In fact she was pretty content. Being weak wasn't an excuse to act like it was the end of the world every time she thought of something related to the serial killer.
She took a deep breath to calm her beating heart. It was beating far too fast for her to think clearly. It was making her panic for no reason.
Or maybe it wasn't her heart that was the reason for her panic. The reason might've been her short and quick breaths.
It took her a minute to calm down but once she calmed down she finally had a clear head.
'What am I so scared of? I already know where one serial killer is, the other or others won't be far, probably.'
It was reassuring to know that she knew who to look out for. Fighting against the unknown was probably the scariest thing in the world.
The letters then appeared on her ceiling again.
'There are only two.'
"..." She just stared at the ceiling, questioning why she even tried to figure out how many there were when she could've easily gotten the information like this. "If only I could punch you. You're even more punchable then Mave's 'why' right now."
The letters didn't respond to her threat and disappeared.
Of course the letters wouldn't react, why would they? It didn't even care about what Nalda said.
She sat up on her bed and reached for her phone. She needed to ask Irene for some help.
Irene was very knowledgeable about many things, as many rich people were. Usually the things they knew about were things that Nalda wouldn't even dream of touching but luckily Irene knew about certain mundane stuff as well. For example, cats.
That's right, Nalda needed help with Mia. The gray kitten wasn't leaving the front house. The kitten would go for a few hours before coming back and comfortably sleeping there.
Nalda's mother almost had a heart attack when she woke up yesterday to Mia jumping on her while down stairs was absolute chaos. Nalda was chasing Mave down in the living room while her father was mourning his favourite timer.
Everyone got a good scolding and Mia was sent out again because no one in the house had a sense of responsibility. Everyone except for her mother but both her and her father weren't at home usually because of work.
They usually had to go for long trips around the country. They only came back after hearing about Nalda's troubles and even that was in a rush. Apparently they had to be back at work on Wednesday which meant they had to leave a day in advance. They were leaving again on Tuesday.
Back to Irene, Nalda needed Irene's advice to know what to do with Mia. It hurt her heart that a baby cat was sleeping outside in the cold when their house was warm and comfortable.
She sent a message to Irene to explain the context and why she needed help. Then she hummed happily because her mood was much better than earlier.
Cats really were the best at making people feel better.
She got up from her bed feeling very refreshed.
'I should go look for Ma-'
The door to her bedroom was slammed open and an out of breath Mave was standing there. She looked around Nalda's room and then glared at Nalda.
Nalda was confused because she was pretty sure she hadn't done anything that warranted a death sentence. Mave on the other hand approached without saying a word.
"H- hey-" Nalda was about to ask for an explanation when Mave all of a sudden put her hand on Nalda's eyes.
"Don't look. Leave the moment I tell you to leave." Mave spoke in a grave tone.
Nalda realised that something was incredibly wrong. Hadn't the letters warned her not to look outside as well.
Nalda felt Mave's hand move away but she stayed frozen in place with her eyes tightly closed. "What's happening?" She whispered quietly both for herself and for Mave to hear and hopefully answer.
But an explanation didn't come and her sister stayed quiet. "Go!" That was the only thing Mave said and Nalda didn't even think twice before running out of her bedroom.
Or better said, she tried to run out her bedroom, she didn't know where the door was and she felt incredibly disorientated. She didn't know what happened but she tripped and fell on the ground.
She wanted to open her eyes and look at what had caused her to fall but was immediately stopped by a familiar and unfamiliar voice.
"Do not open your eyes."
Nalda's head started spinning after hearing that voice.
She tried to think where she even heard that voice and whether it was trustworthy but realised that she couldn't even remember properly what the voice sounded like. The other option to figure out whose voice it was was through speech patterns.
She had no clue who said 'do not' instead of 'don't' thought.
Then she suddenly got hit with a strange wave of deja vu. Didn't she receive a similar command earlier?
"The letters…?" She muttered to herself. She then felt something twist underneath her hand. When she traced the shape of the twisting something she realised it was a word.
'Stay still. Do not move. Do not open your eyes.'
However it wasn't repeated hundreds of times, over and over and over again. The exact same letters.
At first Nalda thought that it might've been the letters but that couldn't be it. It was wrong. Completely wrong.
The voice she heard earlier, was really the letters…? What was even going on…?
It became really difficult to form a proper line of thoughts and she started to get very sleepy. She tried her best to fight against sleep because she realised something wasn't right.
Sleep wasn't supposed to come until later, she just woke up! How could she possibly be sleepy already after only eating and bickering with her older sister!?
"-da! …-ald…! Na-…!" She heard a voice calling for someone. "-a! Nalda!" The voice wasn't calling for someone, it was calling for her.
She tried to open her eyes but someone's hand was keeping them firmly closed. "Come with me." The person who had been calling out to her realised that she was finally awake.
She was helped to her feet and then dragged to who knows where.
"What's happening?" Nalda whispered her question.
The person that was taking her along spoke up. "I feel sorry for meeting you again while you're facing another crisis." The person's voice sounded familiar and this person claimed that they had met before in a bad situation.
'Is this one of my teachers? Why would one of my teachers be here all of a sudden?'
It was very unclear to her. She was given a hint by the person who noticed that she was struggling to identify him.
"A little over a week ago. Don't look too far."
That's when it hit her. It was the male officer from the Winter Treewell body discovery!
He continued to speak. "Please just call me Himi and follow me as much as possible, okay?" He sounded just as kind as a week ago.
Nalda was hesitant at first because she didn't trust the 'police' officers from last week but then again she didn't have much of a choice. She just decided to trust this guy for now.
"Don't worry too much, I'll keep you safe while Miss Akili handles the dangerous stuff." It sounded more like he was trying to reassure himself.
'...Does he not have any confidence in his skills?'
She was a bit confused as to why someone like that even proclaimed that he could protect her when he didn't even have confidence in himself.
"Uhm, sir, you still haven't told me about what's going on." Nalda said a bit more firmly than earlier.
Yes, only a bit more firmly because she was still very disorientated and dizzy. It was a wonder that her dinner still hadn't come out to say 'hi' yet.
At Nalda's statement, the male officer went quiet. "...I can't explain. You'll have to ask someone else later…" It sounded like he was trying to brush it off, like he was scared of pissing someone off.
Nalda almost opened her mouth to ask why when she was suddenly pulled somewhere and then she was falling. It all happened so quickly that all she could do was open and close her mouth while gasping for air.
"Damn it!" She heard Himi's voice.
She had no clue where they were as they continued to fall and fall and fall and if she wasn't mistaken the falling was only getting faster.
'This is definitely not my house…'
She couldn't see but she was fairly certain that even if she fell off of the roof of her house, she wouldn't be falling for this long.
Nalda really wanted to open her eyes but her gut was against it. It was causing her to feel chaotic and confused. Like she was somewhere she wasn't supposed to be which caused her body to try and self destruct or something like that.
The pressure was only becoming bigger as she fell and just when she thought he had reached her limit, someone caught her.
"Got you." This time it was Mave's voice.
Her sister had come to rescue her.