________________________________

H o l l o w s I n
T I M E
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"Here." Lexi handed me her jacket with a warm smile. I thanked her quietly and wrapped it around my shoulders as Lexi brushed soil off her jeans. To say the climb up from the ditch was hard would be an understatement.

Alexi reached out and grabbed onto my hand. It was getting dark out, and I felt safe in her presence. Which was a new feeling, though wasn't unfamiliar since I had these exact feelings around Jameson last year.

We walked in silence, listening to the twigs crack under our shoes and birds fluttering above our heads. Soon, we arrived back at the inside grounds of the Academy, and I spotted Jameson waiting behind the glass doors.

Lexi opened the door and held it open for me as I watched Jameson's expression shift from worry to relief.

He approached us with a sudden flame of anger that was directed at Lexi. "You're seventeen minutes late." He said, then he turned to me, the anger quickly fading and being replaced with much warmer emotions.

"Hey." He smiled.

"Hey." I responded in a whisper. Did he know that I had just uncovered his heart? That I had just read his letter from all those months ago?

"I don't know if you've noticed, but I did come back with our Special One." Lexi aimed at Jameson, annoyance in her tone. Jameson didn't take his eyes off me, but I could see the scowl form, even if it was toned down slightly.

I broke the eye contact and started to walk away from them, but they of course followed.

"It's almost like we're a family." I said, a large grin on my face.

Lexi gagged. "I hope I'm your big sister or something, because anyone with more than five letters in their name just wastes my time as soon as the relationship starts." She said, concluding her point with a yawn.

"Is that why you gave me that awful nickname?" Jameson asked with a tone of distaste.

Lexi stifled a laugh. "No, I just did that for fun," I laughed at her quip. "But still, you're not my type—sorry."

"No offence taken. In fact, you're not my type either." Jameson replied.

I shook my head. "Can we stop talking about types?" I asked.

Lexi groaned in complaint. "No! We haven't discussed your type yet!" She nudged her shoulder into mine, a sly glint in her eyes.

I ducked my head. "I don't have a type." I told her.

"Well of course you do," she said, her face alight with a hint of scandal. "You like boys with more than five letters in their names." She told me with a wink.

I gnawed at my lip as the Guardian on my other side suddenly went quiet. "Thanks for that, Lexi." I told her with a clenched jaw.

The silence that broke out next made me grow pensive. It suddenly became so real that I was about to tell my two Guardians my biggest secret.

The secret that made me a monster.

Lexi tried to get me to perk up, but I ignored her attempts the whole way to the dorm. Right up until Jameson pulled out the key and gestured for Lexi and I to go in.

"I may be a lady," Lexi spoke up as I nervously stood by my window. "But I can be the first to kick you in the balls if you try to use that 'ladies first' ruse ever again."

Jameson hummed. "And I thought it was nice to actually be a gentleman these days."

Lexi scoffed. "I don't need a gentleman, I need some paracetamol; you've given me a headache."

"Jameson." I announced. The Guardian in question came to my side instantly.

"Did you tell Lexi about my," I gulped. "My–" I didn't know how to even word it, but Jameson knew exactly what I was talking about.

His face softened as he shook his head.

I smiled, then turned to see Lexi looking a confused as ever. "Lexi, I have a story to tell you."

With that, I got them both on some form of chair so that I could recall the unfortunate killing of my abductor again to Lexi.

When I was finished, Lexi would not let go of me. She kept squeezing my hand and apologising.

I smiled ruefully, "There's more." I told them both. Jameson moved his chair closer to the bed, of which Lexi and I sat on.

"Jameson, I told you that I believed I had committed murder," Jameson's expression turned suddenly into one of dark gloom and melancholy.

"That's because I did."

Jameson frowned, "No, Sky, we talked about this—it was self-defence."

I shook my head, my body trembling as tears fell from my eyes. "No. No, it wasn't." Lexi slipped off the bed and shifted towards my cupboard, pulling out a fleecy blanket. Jameson moved his chair closer in again and grasped onto my hand, squeezing it in order to comfort me.

Lexi draped the blanket over me and then sat beside me once more.

I closed my eyes and sighed. And then I was there. I was pulled under by a sudden drowning feeling of guilt. It reminded me of the act of actually drowning, though this was much more consuming—and it never ended.

Instead, it seeped into every hollow and hole in my heart and mind. It ruined everything. And it never ended.

"I was absolutely terrified." When I closed my eyes next, I saw it. Incandescent particles flitting across my vision. The stench of smoke, even if you were sprinting in the dawn air.

"I thought that what I had just done was a crime, and we all know that the only way to avoid punishment is to cover up the crime." I told them as my eyes opened, but I never stopped seeing the scene. The incandescent particles, the smoke in the dawn air.

"I needed to destroy the evidence that I was the murderer. I came to the conclusion that to destroy the evidence that I committed the crime, I had to burn the body and the weapon." I stared out ahead of me and watched it all play out in my vision.

"Starting the fire was the easiest part." I whispered, a tear running down my porcelain skin. Easily shattered, that's what I was.

I watched as vivid memories played out in front of me—an evocation. I darted around the room, trying to find one method of starting a fire. Then there it was. The dead man's cigarette lighter.

"But the fire got out of control," My voice shook. I wrapped my arms around my body, as if I was trying to protect my skin from the inferno.

"The people, the abductors, had left bottles of alcohol out, and they had leaked onto the floorboards. But I have a feeling that even if they weren't there, we'd all have been doomed anyway." I whimpered, watching the memories, though they did not deserve such a sentimental title.

"The fire spread. I barely made it out alive." Jameson and Alexi listened so intently that I forgot that they were even there as I recalled the events, both speaking them and seeing them.

"Suddenly, as the fire spread down the corridor and down towards the basement, I heard screams." I span around, trying to follow the sound. But it wasn't hard; I just needed to follow the trail of fire.

"It was like...the dead. The dead wailing. Calling out." I felt goosebumps appear on my skin, even though I was remembering a scorching hot memory.

"I followed the shattering shrills and cries. And I reached stairs—down to the basement." I closed my eyes, remembering that heart dropping moment. The moment I knew.

"There were people in the house."

I pounded across the room, reaching the stairs just in time to see the door fly open. Hands upon hands reached out. Helpless hands.

I had trouble breathing. "I saw them all. All the people. They were innocent people. And I didn't know they were there." I was aware of someone holding me, saying something. But I couldn't hear it over the shrieks.

"They kept screaming and screaming and screaming." My face crumpled. "They were in pain."

Despite the sky-high temperatures, I was frozen in my spot.

"I couldn't do anything. I stood there, uselessly. I knew that I was the reason that they were suffering, but I didn't know how to save them." I wept.

"There were children." I lamented as I cried.

Finally, I came back into my room. Lexi was hurrying over to my window, then tried to force it open, holding a bottle of water in her left hand.

And Jameson was holding me, saying things I couldn't hear.

"I killed them." I whimpered.

"I killed them all."

__________________________________

"911 what's your emergency?"

"Sorry wrong line I'm British"

And you my friend, are A MURDER

TF SKY ?????

WHY

SKY

WHY

I'm shooketh

So shooketh

That
I
Don't
Know
What
To
Author
Note

BUT WAIT

TODAY IS THIS BOOK'S SIX MONTH ANNIVERSARY

so tally time is a bit sad today

Because by the looks of it I missed out Decembers anniversary ??

Tf why what who am I

Anyway

Half a year is here now

And tally time returns

The One Month Tally (before posting this):
#663 In Mystery/Thriller
504 Reads
30 Votes
96 Comments
15 Parts
(14 Chapters)

And now

The Two Month Tally (before posting this):
#663 In Mystery/Thriller (I've probably had a better rank but I can't remember it so here's last months one)
659 Reads
64 Votes
171 Comments
29 Parts
(28 Chapters)

And now now

The Three Month Tally (before posting this):
#663 In Mystery/Thriller (I've probably had a better rank but I can't remember it so here's July's one)
761 Reads
78 Votes
239 Comments
43 Parts
(42 Chapters)

And now now now

The Four Month Tally (before posting this):
#663 In Mystery/Thriller (I don't really check for the rank oops)
872 Reads
94 Votes
275 Comments
59 Parts
(57 Chapters)

And now now now now

x rest in peace five month tally x

And now now now now now

The Six Month Tally (before posting this):
#133 In Mystery/Thriller (yay a rank!!!)
1.59k Reads (seriously don't ask I'm shook)
183 Votes (we lacking here guys c'mon 😂)
307 Comments
75 Parts
(73 Chapters)

TA DAHHHHH

until later

-dance for five hours

____________
Next update: why, it's the anniversary; what do you think? ;)
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CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE SPOILER:

Down the rabbit hole and into the past.

For to escape your dark secrets, you have to run fast.