#I did put a slight indentation for the hatch

[keii4ii]

In memory of

[dragon-fics]

Shruikan's Rider (SR): Prologue: A Broken Bond {Inheritance Cycle fanfic}

Book description: Alys Emmasdaughter is going through the worst pain any Rider can ever go through--her dragon is dying and there is no way to save him.

While she mourns his inevitable death, the Eldunarí at the Dragon Riders' Academy inform her of a dragon who is suffering a similar fate

Alys led her silver steed up the path to the Dragon Rider Academy, high on Mount Arngor. Icy wind skimmed against her bare, almond arms as she focused on the dirt path beneath her. She felt and looked unkept; her frizzy, black hair was like a bird's nest; her clothes torn; and her skin filthy and dotted with scars.

The attack had been unprovoked; all she and her dragon, Ugauc, wanted to do was to visit the Stone of Broken Eggs near Ellesméra.

But that didn't happen.

Several hooded figures had struck them down, all baring spears that glistened with what Alys found out later was Seithr Oil; the product known to be used by the Ra'zac.

Every night, all she heard was Ugauc's cries as spiked nets doused in the erosive liquid dragged him down. The scene played over and over in her head; his cries, the pain, the figures emerging from the night's shadows, and them stabbing him to death as she killed them all with her blade. One by one, they had crumbled to the ground, leaving nothing but their scarlet cloaks behind.

From there, she ran to Ellesméra, seeking the aid of the elves, who insisted on her leaving as soon as Ugauc was stable, saying his recovery would be long and waiting there would render her useless.

But where she was wouldn't matter; without her beloved partner-of-heart-and-mind, she was useless.

Alys paused where she was and looked up, fighting off the tears forming in her eyes—again. It surprised her she had anymore tears to cry after her long journey back. She'd sob as she rode, keen while she ate, and cry as she slept—she was empty without him.

the ball of sadness in her heart was heavy, growing on its own accord throughout the day, causing her to crumble into tears unannounced.

And now was one of those moments.

Alys' throat grew sore and her lip quivered. Why had they done what they did? And why now, of all times, had the sadness grown stronger?

She placed her hands over her eyes, taking a deep, shaky breath. The last time she had walked along this path—or rather had to walk along this path—was when she was summoned, six years ago, by Eragon himself to be tested at the age of sixteen. According to the Eldunarí, her dragon Ugauc was the one for her. And they were right.

She wanted to reflect further, to remember his hatching and their training and his personality and how perfect he was, but she'd just end up wailing halfway up a mountain near people who she was supposed to tutor; now wasn't the time to bawl.

Alys continued her breathing, slowly gathering herself and drying off her eyes. "Kausta, Epona," Come, Epona, she said to her elf horse, putting on the bravest of faces she could muster and continuing up the path.

As she climbed, she thought of ways to distract herself; like what to put in the letter to her family for this month, or which eggs were ready to hatch next month; all the while fighting off any memory of a green dragon that emerged in her mind.

Finally, she stood in front of the large, open black-painted steel gates, looking in at the large sandstone courtyard. A few Riders stood about, talking to each other and preparing their dragons for slights.

Again, her sadness swelled.

Not now, she insisted. Don't think about him.

Alys pushed her head up high, pushing back any tears that were read to form and walked through the courtyard, focusing only on the large oak doors in front of her. On one door was a lifelike carving of a dragon, surrounded by fog at its feet with a tongue of fire escaping its maw. It looked down at the figure carving in the opposite door—its rider. The Rider seemed to be neither elf nor human, male nor female. Its features were pointed, like an elf's, yet its build was broader like a human's.

As soon as she reached the door, Alys turned to Epona and removed her belongings—a small pack of food and a book along with a rolled-up blanket. "Elrun ono, fricai," Thank you, friend, she said, stroking Epona's face.

The mare leaned into her touch and backed away before trotting out of the courtyard and out of sight.

Alys drew in a breath, shoving a new pulse of sadness aside and pushing open the varnished door. On the other side, she saw a few students bustling through the hall, with small dragons following them. She swiftly turned to the nearest set of stairs, jogging up to the dormitories.

From the outside, all the dorms looked like the inside of a beehive, openings in the rock connected by balconies and stairs. Each hole was big enough for most dragons to fit through, just like the corridors in the Academy. on the inside, it was nowhere near as intricate-looking, just three levels lined with average-sized doors and a large open balcony on each floor, so the dragons could fly up to the balconies if they couldn't fit through.

Alys loved the layout. It was so simple yet so thoughtful, allowing the dragons and riders to be individual yet have they stay in the stay quarters.

Alys continued her walk to her dorm, slowly opening the door with a quiet creak. She half expected to see Ugauc land on the balcony and make his way towards her, past his nest and her bed and her bookcase overflowing with books to nuzzle her. She closed the door with a quiet click and tossed her stuff onto her bed and looked out through the balcony, holding her arms akimbo and breathing deeply.

Alys shook her head, her sadness growing. A tear fell down her cheek, slowly, as she looked at the bright sun. She looked down at Uguac's nest, a large indent in the stone floor, lined with a thin cushion, littered with green scales and tufts of fur and feathers.

She smiled sadly at it and looked over at the green fragments of Ugauc's dragon egg on her ebony bookshelf. She drifted over to it, picking up the largest piece of the emerald shell, the intact base of the egg, where Ugauc had comfortably sat after he hatched, looking around at the hatchery and his Rider with his curious amber eyes.

Alys sighed sadly, wiping away her tears and swallowing hard, burying the lump in her throat as best as she could. She returned the fragment to its spot and stood back, tears returning to her cheeks again. "I miss you," she whispered.

The heavy flapping of dragon wings came close to her balcony, and a sapphire blue dragon landed on it. Alys looked at her, wiping away her tears. "Hello, Saphira. Eragon," she greeted.

Eragon slid off his saddle, brunette locks bouncing as he landed. His brown eyes softened. "Alys... I got word from the elves as soon as you came to them," he started, coming closer, Saphira following close behind him. "And may I say, I am so, so sorry. I should've sent someone with you." He drew in a breath, smoothing his hair with both hands. "It shouldn't have happened. I promise we'll find out who's responsible."

Alys looked down. "That's thoughtful, Eragon," she said. "But I... I don't think I want to find out; it's not going to change anything."

Eragon paused. "Alys, you can't say that. It's important that someone is held responsible."

She shook her head, fighting off more tears. "I'm sorry. I—I can't do this now," she turned around, holding herself. "Please, let me grieve."

Eragon went to reach for her, but retracted his hand. "I will investigate, to save others." He sighed and glanced at Saphira. "When you're up for it, I'm sure Eldunarí would like your company; they want to talk to you."

Alys nodded dismissively and listened carefully as they left before letting out a choked sob.

*-*-*-*

It took Alys weeks before she could force herself to leave her room to actually talk to people. A few would stop by throughout the day, giving their condolences and offering her the food they had brought. She excepted most of the food but ate little of it.

She plodded her way to the Hall of Colours, keeping her head low as she nibbled on her last apple slice. She ignored everyone that passed, focusing solely on her meeting with the Eldunarí. Finally, she began her climb towards the eyrie—Eragon's sleeping quarters—high in the hold, and at the last stop, he turning into a small side tunnel. She entered the large, disk-like chamber, looking ahead at the many tiered daises that held the array of gleaming Eldunarí. Multi-coloured flecks of light beamed around the room, brightening the cool room immensely.

Alys' mind grazed against the dragons' minds. She found it soothing, feeling their calmness when all she had felt was heartbreak for so long. Her eyes landed on Umaroth's white Eldunarí. He and Glaedr were one of the few she always remembered.

Welcome, Alys-vinr, Umaroth greeted.

Hello, Umaroth and everyone else, she responded, keeping her mind as pain-free as possible. I heard you wanted to talk to me.

Yes, we have some news, Umaroth said elusively.

Alys' heart skipped a beat; could they help Ugauc? Could they save him?

Her joy and thoughts of Ugauc flowed to the Eldunarí.

No, I'm sorry. We cannot help him.

Her heart sank, but she forced herself to push it aside. Pray tell.

We have found a dragon who needs your help, Shur'tugal, Glaedr explained.

Alys sighed, aware they couldn't hear her irritation; she was in the worst shape to help anyone. Though she could admit that she needed a distraction. I appreciate the thought, but I'm not ready to help anyone. I'd only make things worse for them.

You misunderstand, Umaroth stated. This dragon has been without a rider for some time and is lost without them. Please, only you can empathise with him and save him from himself.

[earnest-jumping]

(This is for @galoots LDU, fluffy as requested! It’s a little bit of hurt and a whole lotta comfort. Hope you enjoy, dear!)

“What’s the meaning of all this, then?”

Donald let out a choked gasp, wobbling from his spot on the bookshelf. There was a series of loud yells from three different individuals as Donald fell from the shelves, his eyes screwed shut as he braced himself for impact. He hit sooner than anticipated, into the soft and clothed chest of his uncle’s butler-best-friend, Duckworth.

There was a grunt of exertion from the man as he teetered towards falling back with the added weight of the young duckling, straightening himself at the last second on the plush armchair of the study. Donald’s eyes began to open from their shut state, to find two different pairs staring back at his with a look that was both parts exasperated and worried.

The young duck let out a weak giggle, trying his best to get off from the scolding he was sure to receive, “Hi, Unca Scrooge. Hi, Ducky.” He put on his best cheerful voice, arms reaching for his uncle with a grin. He knew just how to get them, the little troublemaker.

Scrooge sighed, the breath releasing the tension of Donald nearly breaking an arm from the fall. He scooped up his nephew, too soft to deny the boy of his affection. As the weight shifted from Duckworth to himself, he gave a low grunt of effort- too soon the young bairn would be too heavy and big for the old duck to continue carrying him like this.

“Just what in blazes do you think you were doing, Donald?” He asked with a huff, moving to the armchair to sit and take the extra weight off his sore back. He gave a knowing look to his companion, who simply sighed and moved to take the seat beside him.

Donald’s face had immediately buried into the juncture between Scrooge’s shoulder and neck once he was held, clinging to the older man with a mumble neither could make out. At prodding to his side from familiar fingers, he let out a small giggle and pulled back to look up towards the bookshelf, pointing up to the highest shelf.

“That one has my name on it!” He said by way of explanation, grinning as the two men glanced upwards towards the object in question.

Scrooge’s face immediately drained of amusement, suddenly feeling his feathers puff as if to shield him from a phantom gust of wind.

“Oh, I see.” He answered in a murmur, feeling Donald’s curious eyes on him as Duckworth shared a look of knowing with him. He’d forgotten just how long it had been since they had even laid eyes upon the small ornate book, the sight of it bringing back too many feelings that the old duck had thought long healed.

“Can I see it, Unca, please?” Came the sweet questioning voice of his nephew, arms wrapped tighter around Donald as if to shield him from the offending book.

Duckworth cleared his throat after some time of silence, breaking Scrooge of his incessant staring, “Shall I grab it for you, sir?”

“Hm? Oh- Yes, yes, I suppose so.” He spoke shakily, swallowing thickly around the already building emotions as Duckworth stood, reached, and brought down the object in question: Donald’s baby book.

The ornate, glittery cover depicted a little yellow duckling hatching out of its egg, surrounded by scenes of play and springtime, embellished with silver glitter. Donald ran a hand reverently over the cover, grinning up at Scrooge as his fingers became covered with loosened glitter, “What kinda book is it, Unca?” He asked innocently.

“This is your baby book, Donald.” He spoke in a hushed tone as Duckworth settled back into the chair beside them, leaning slightly towards the two and placing a hand reassuringly on his employer’s shoulder. Scrooge took in a few breaths to steady himself as he opened to the first page. His eyes crinkled at the corners to the sight of loopy and precise handwriting, the deep blue ink set firmly in Hortense’s best penmanship. He remembered her tongue poking out the side of her lip, brow creased in concentration while he looked on with a snicker.

She had been so proud of her writing, nearly as proud as Quackmore had been while giving her photographs of their young son to label and date on each page. He ran a hand carefully over the slight indentation the ink left in the nearly flawless page, a soft smile gracing his beak as he thought back to those first days.

Donald tapped at the corner of the page, his way of asking silently for Scrooge to move on to the next page, “All about me as a baby?” He asked in awe as he squirmed in anticipation.

“Aye, lad. Your Ma and Pa started making it as soon as you were lain.” Scrooge used a free hand to ruffle Donald’s head feathers, flipping the page as requested. The first showed a neat and well documented list of Donald from egg to hatchling- weight, day of first rattle, hours to hatch, official time of birth. Next to each piece of information was a tiny subscript, naming the page on which to find pictures accompanying the list of firsts.

“Ma and Pa did?” The young nephew in question looked amazed, turning up to look at his uncle with a shine in his eyes, “Wow...all that time ago?”

Scrooge gave a tight smile, nodding as he began to read down the dates. His hand shook with emotion, a hand coming to settle over his and squeeze with light encouragement. He glanced up to find Duckworth watching him, expression knowing and exuding the comfort Scrooge knew he sorely needed.

“Would you like to see a picture of them?” He asked after a beat, flipping through the pages and the past to find a photo of his sister and brother-in-law. Donald watched as each memory passed by, moments of his life he was too young to remember. There was a sharp intake of breath from him as Scrooge found the page he was looking for.

The photograph had barely faded, shielded from dust and light by the paper it was encased in. Donald gave a small sound of amazement as his fingers traced the faces of his parents, “Wow.”

Scrooge smiled, taking in the looks on their faces. The kind and proud smile on Quackmore’s face, as well as the glint of humor in Hortense’s face from where he could barely see her poking a finger into baby Donald’s side, causing the duckling to laugh and smile for the camera. Scrooge saw a younger version of himself, standing tall behind his baby sister and gazing in awe at the baby she held.

Duckworth’s hand squeezed in his own, breaking him from his silent staring and leaning to get a closer look, “I remember taking this, you know. Hortense- your Ma- was so excited to have a family photo.” His beak broke into a smirk, pinching Donald’s cheek, “And then you decided to get sick all over your cute little suit.”

Donald giggled and shied away from the hand, “Gross, Unca Scrooge!” He whined, looking back at the photo, “Why isn’t Duckworth in here?”

The man beside them took in a breath, both turning to look at him as he stumbled over an explanation, “Well… I wasn’t family, Donald. I was just an employee, that’s all.”

“Nonsense, Benedict!” Scrooge berated, “You weren’t in the photograph because your good suit was out to be cleaned, and you refused to wear anything less than perfect.” He whispered conspiratorially to Donald, “Hortense tried to drag him in. I’d never seen anyone stand up to her like that, besides your Pa.”

There was a scoff and then a hand came smacking lightly down on his shoulder, causing Scrooge to laugh and grin up at the dog while Donald giggled in his lap.

“How come I never seen a picture of them before, Unca Scrooge?” Donald asked after they had calmed, finger still tracing the folds of Quackmore’s coat and the curls in his mother’s hair.

He smiled and picked the photo carefully out of the page, handing it to Donald, “I don’t know, lad. But how about we get a frame for this one, so you can keep it in your room?”

Donald’s face brightened, taking the photo and holding it to his chest, “You mean it?”

“Of course I mean it! Would I ever lie to you?” Scrooge shut the book, setting it on the smooth side table beside him and moving to stand, “We’ll head out this afternoon and look for one.”

Donald hopped out from the chair and pulled his uncle up to be beside him, “And get ice cream?”

“And get ice cream.” He agreed, straightening his coat and smiling down at the duckling in front of him as Duckworth stood from his own chair and quietly cleared his throat. Scrooge looked over to find him holding what they had come here for in the first place: a small notebook of expenditures and sinking funds from the past twenty years.

“Back to work for now, I’m afraid sir.” He held the book with a tight smile, ushering them both out of the home library.

Scrooge scoffed and led the way back towards the study, the little patter of duckling feet following close behind, “Really, Benedict. Making me earn my free time, eh?”

“As always, sir.” Came the quick reply, the duck being able to hear the twinge of amusement in his companion’s voice.

As they headed down the hall, he thought back to the long untouched baby book laying in his library. Maybe later tonight once Donald was tucked into bed, he would return with a cup of tea and look through the pages to reminisce. For now, though, he had paperwork to do, and a duckling to keep busy.

[fxkthatdairy]

Panic Room Chapter Nine: Safe and Sound~ Grayson Dolan

Overview: In the year 2020, to solve the problem of overpopulation. Selected few are thrown into the PANIC ROOM simulation. If the person finds their soulmate in the simulator and manages to survive, they are able to rejoin the rest of the population. If they fail they will become a victim of the PANIC ROOM. What happens when (Y/N) gets thrown in the PANIC ROOM? Will she survive? Or will she fall victim to the simulation?

Warnings: Murder, death, depression, angst, suicide warning 

(Y/N)’s POV

The wall slowly closed the gap between Grayson and I and I was trapped in this empty room. My heart began to pound inside my chest and my anxiety spiked extremely. The room was solid white with indents in the walls. I sunk to the floor and placed my head between my knees. How the hell did this happen? I’m never going to see Grayson again. I’m going to die fucking alone. My thoughts ran through my head.

“(Y/F/N) (Y/M/N) (Y/L/N),” A voice echoed through the room.

“Who’s there?,” I questioned.

“Welcome to the second part of the Panic Room simulation that tests the individual strengthens against troubling times. You will be put through some of your biggest fears and saddest memories to see if you can overcome them. If you pass this test, you will be released into a waiting room to see if your partner can make it through as well, if they do you shall be released back to the public but if you shall fail, you will be murdered or you shall become part of the simulation. Outside this room, your darkest fears and follies will push you to your limits. Good luck and God bless America,” the voice echoed off and a door opened to the side of the room.

I stood up and grabbed my bag. It was time to man up and be strong for myself, Grayson, and my mom. I took a deep breath and walked through the doors. The hallway was long and dark. The air was very humid and honestly, it was hard to breathe. I kept walking, even though I had no clue where I was going. My shoes began to feel like they were getting soaked so I looked down. I slowly realized that the floor was filled with water and that water was currently rising. I began picking up my pace as I looked for an outlet out of the hallway. I’ve had a fear of being drowned by water since I was a child due to the fact that I was never properly taught how to swim. My heart pounded against my chest as the water was now up to my knees and I haven’t found any way out of this hallway. It was harder to speed through the hallway as the water rose up higher and higher. My anxiety started getting worse as the water now was up to my chest and it was getting harder to fight through the water. This is how I’m going to die, all alone, in a dark hallway being drowned. As the water rose, I began trying to swim with it up. The water now almost completely filled the hallway and I took one last deep breath before completely submerging underwater. Right before I was going to accept my fate, I noticed a hatch on the ceiling. I swam up towards it and began pulling with all of my strength. The lack of oxygen was starting to affect me as I began slipping in and out of consciousness. I pulled one final time and the hatch door swung open and I was able to breathe again. There was a ladder that led up into what I could only assume was an old manhole that belonged to a sewage system. I climbed the later to the top and pushed the metal cover off and pulled myself out of the hole

When I stood up, I was standing in the middle of the street. Not just any street, the street that my childhood and current home resided. My once soaked clothes were now dry and not tattered anymore. I smelt clean and my hair was nicely done. I walked down the street and noticed the blue Volkswagen bug that used to belong to Mrs.Schmidt before she moved to Florida. It would have been impossible for that buggy to be in that driveway because Mrs.Schmidt moved when I was 15. I then began noticing other small things. The swing set that belonged to the children across the street stood in the front yard was missing and so was their mother’s minivan. Instead, a bright red convertible was parked in the driveway. Before the children were born, their parents were extremely sporty people and loved their sports cars but after the kids were born when I was 14, they switched out their sports cars for something more suitable and safe for their children.

“What year is it?” I thought to myself as I found a lone newspaper on the ground.

The newspaper read: November 26th, 2014, which would’ve made me 13 years old. The date was also very familiar to me but it couldn’t have been. This newspaper had to be old, so I just dropped it back where I found it and continued to walk to my house. As I approached my house, I saw a girl, no taller than 5’0, leaving my house. She closed the door quietly and threw the hood of her hoodie over her head and began to quickly walk away, steering clear of all of the street lights.  

“Hey, why were you at my house and who are you?” I called out loudly to the girl and she didn’t even acknowledge my presence, so I picked up my speed and continued walking after her.

“For real, who are you? I promise I won’t call the cops!” I said as my fast walk slowly began to turn into a jog as the girl began taking more complex turns and staying in the dark.

The girl still continued to ignore me as if I weren’t real or something.

“Okay, this isn’t funny anymore, please answer me,” I said as I was now running to catch up to this girl.  

The girl stopped in her tracks looked back very quickly as if she was checking to make sure that nobody was following her before she continued on her way. In the quick few seconds that she turned around, I was able to recognize who she truly was. The girl that I had been chasing and who walked out of my house was me.

I caught up with myself and found that I had snuck out to the park. The memories flooded back to me as I watched the younger version of myself search around the park.

“Caroline! Where are you? I came to play,” The younger version of myself called out and I desperately tried to stop the younger me from seeing the scene that haunts me every single day. The reason why I never allowed people to get close to me or for me to get close to others. I rounded the corner of the tree and stopped as I saw the younger version of myself frozen with the look of fear etched on her face. The scene in front of us was something that still haunts me to this day.

                             (THROWBACK)

After my father’s death, I refused to leave the house because I wanted to watch after my mother at all times. She went through a huge depressive phase where I would come home from school and find pills scattered across the kitchen island, or I would find a bloody knife followed by bloody footprints. My mother tried to kill herself multiple times but she was never successful. Often she wouldn’t cut deep enough or she would immediately puke up the pills that she swallowed. I tried removing all sharp objects and pills from our house but she always managed to find them. Every time I came home, I would comfort my mother and tell her how much I loved her and that we were going to get through this. One night, after I had gotten my mother to sleep after she had attempted to cut her wrists and bleed out, I needed to get out of the house and get fresh air. I pulled a black hoodie over my clothes and quietly exited the house. I walked to the nearby park and sat down on the swingset. Tears fell down my face as I slowly pushed myself back and forth on the swing. I missed the way things used to be before my dad passed away. I missed when my mother was happy and she would play with me instead of crying herself to sleep every night. I missed when I was able to play like normal kids my age.

“Why are you crying?” A girl around my age sat down beside me on the swingset.

“I’m just sad and lonely,” I said as I stared at my feet as they dragged through the wood chips.

The girl got off of her swing and wrapped her arms around me and rubbed my shoulder in comfort.

“What was that for?” I said as the strange girl pulled away.

“My mother said hugs always make people feel better. I’m Caroline, let’s be friends.” She said as she grabbed my hand and pulled me off the swings.

“I’m (Y/N),” I said with a slight smile on my face. We walked around the park for about an hour just talking and playing until I decided that it was time to head back home. I quietly entered my house and walked upstairs to my bedroom. For once, since my father’s death, I felt happy. I planned to see Caroline the next day and fell asleep feeling like I was normal again. We met up every night around 7:00 and we would hang out for a few hours and then both go home. I told her everything about my mom and my dad and she never judged me. She always supported me and made me feel like I was human. She became my best friend.

A year and a half later, I was getting ready to go hang out with Caroline and my mother went through one of her episodes, so I was running a little on meeting up with Caroline. I finally got my mother settled down and I quietly snuck out of the house and began walking fastly away from the streetlights to get to the park before it was time for Caroline to get home. I approached the park and I didn’t see Caroline at the swings where we always met.

“Caroline! Where are you? I came to play,” I yelled as I walked around the park.

I assumed she would go to our secret spot behind the tree and to the creek so I decided to go there. As I approached the area, I began hearing slight noises so I was positive she was there. When I rounded the corner tree, I froze in my place and my heart dropped to my stomach and my lungs forgot how to breathe. A dark man kneeled over her body, as he pulled a knife from her chest. Her head had rolled over to the side and I saw my best friend’s lifeless eyes and her tattered face and I placed a hand over my mouth and I ran. I ran faster than I ever thought I could run and I ran straight into my house and locked my door and went upstairs to my room. I slid down my door and brought my knees up to my chest and sobbed so hard my whole body shook. I grabbed my trash can and puked my guts up and cried some more. I cried myself to sleep for a whole month. I had lost the one person who I loved more than anyone.

(End of Throwback)

I saw her lifeless body lay there as that man kneeled over her. I saw the younger version of myself run away. I stood there frozen and filled with sadness and anger. The man stood up and dropped the bloody knife in his bag and began to walk away. I ran over to Caroline’s lifeless body and sank to my knees beside her. I pulled her head into my lap and I ran my fingers through her matted hair as tears streamed down my face. Her favorite One Direction shirt was soaked in blood and her once beautiful skin was tainted with bruises and cuts. I held her body in my arms and cried. If I was never late on this day, I could’ve prevented this, I could’ve saved her life. This should be me in her place, she had so much to live for.

“I’m sorry,” I let out with a sob, “I’m so so so sorry Caroline, I failed you.”

I grabbed some of the flowers from the meadow beside the creek and placed them over her body. She always seemed to adore those small flowers. I kissed her forehead and gently sat her head down on the ground. I stood up and grabbed my knife from my backpack. Filled with rage, I walked in the direction of the bastard who did this. I saw him perched up against a rusty dented up car, taking a long drag from his cigarette.

“Hey Bastard,” I said as I approached him and he looked up and my fist collided with the side of his face and he fell to the ground. I got on top of him and continued to punch his face to the point where his blood stained my knuckles and his face was so bloody you could barely tell who he was.

“Who are you?” He asked, his voice trembled.

“Your worst enemy,” I growled as I spotted Caroline’s blood stained on his shirt.

“Please, I don’t even know you, lady, I haven’t done anything to you,” He pleaded as I reached behind me and pulled out my knife from my back pocket.

“Oh but you have, you son of a bitch, and I hope you rot in hell,” I said and plunged the knife deep into his chest. I saw the fear in his eyes as he began stuttering for air. I plunged the knife back in his chest and I repeated this action. I closed my eyes and continued to stab his lifeless body. I saw him murdering Caroline over and over again in my head and I felt his blood splatter against me. I pulled the knife out of his chest and sat it down beside me. I opened my eyes and my whole heart dropped and it felt like the world was spinning. The man who killed my best friend was no longer there and in his place was the love of my life.

“Gr-Gr-Gray,” I let out a small sob and pushed his matted hair from his forehead. His lifeless brown eyes stared into my own and I started to attempt to do CPR. His blood was all over my body and the knife laid beside his body.

“NO, PLEASE, YOU CAN NOT LEAVE ME, GRAYSON I NEED YOU,” I sobbed as I continued to do compressions. Nothing happened, and I gave up. I laid my head on his lifeless chest and sobbed. His once calming heartbeat was absent. My whole body shook as the sobs raked through my body.

“What have I done?” I muttered under my breath. I reached for his once warm hands and brought it up to my lips. I kissed his hands and placed a kiss on his cold lifeless lips. My tears fell on his face. I took a deep breath and picked up the knife that laid beside him. The same knife that I thought I killed Caroline’s murder with but instead it was my lover, my soulmate, the one person who completed me and made me feel like I belonged. I looked at it and only one solution ran through my head.

“I’ll be with you soon baby,” I said through the tears and raised the knife up towards me but before I could plunge it through my heart someone tackled me.

Grayson’s POV

As I was waiting for (Y/N) to walk through those doors, I paced up and down the room. I sat down and placed my head between my knees and began to pray in hopes that it would work. I heard the doors open and my head immediately shot up expecting to see her walk through the doors. I expected to wrap her in my arms and kiss her all over her face and lips and tell her how much I truly love her. I expected us to walk out hand in hand and go see our families and tell them that we were safe and introduce them to us. But when that door opened, she didn’t walkthrough. I got up and walked to the door and looked down the dark hallway. I heard a faint sob that sounded like (Y/N)’s and I took off running through the hall towards the sound. I got closer and closer and finally, I turned into a room and there she was kneeling on the ground sobbing and holding a knife.

“I’ll be with you soon baby,” She said and lifted the knife up as she was going to plunge it in her heart. My heart dropped and I reacted quickly. I tackled her and grabbed the knife from her hands and I threw it across the room. I held her in my arms as I felt her whole body shake from her sobs. She looked up and her eyes filled with hope and her face changed.

“Grayson?” She questioned.

(Y/N)’s POV

I was tackled before I could plunge the knife in my heart and the knife was yanked from my hands and thrown across the room. A pair of arms brought me close to their chest and just held on to me as sobs raked through my body. When I looked up, my heart began to beat again. Grayson was right there and alive and he was holding me and he was real.

“Grayson?” I questioned.

“Yeah baby girl, it’s me, I’m right here,” He said and placed his lips on mine. I kissed back and wrapped my arms around his neck. Tears continued to fall down my eyes. I pulled away and looked over to where Grayson’s once dead body laid and it was gone.

“You are here, thank god. I thought you were dead, I thought I killed you,” I said through my tears as I kissed him again.

“I’m right here baby, and I’m going nowhere. You are stuck with me for the rest of your life because I love you (Y/F/N) (Y/M/N) (Y/L/N) so much and I will love you till the day I die. Now let’s get out of here so that we can see our families again.” Grayson said as he grabbed my hand and pulled me up. We held hands as we walked back through the hallway and to the exit.

———————————————————————

Chapter nine is done! I hope you guys enjoy this series as much as I enjoy writing it. Feel free to let me know your thoughts on how the series is going so far. As always let me know if you have any requests, concepts, or blurbs. Chapter ten will probably be up in the next few days. Part tenof The Principals Office should be up within the next couple of days as well. Sorry for my inactivity lately, I promise I’ll be better about posting. Love you guys 🥺😊💛

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Week 7 – Drawing Skills

This week’s class was a very interesting one. In this class, we focused on improving our hand drawing skills, especially surrounding perspective drawing, rendering by hand, as well as right back to the fundamentals.

We began with simply drawing straight lines across the length of the page, free hand, about 10 mm apart. Once we had completed that, we then had to go back and do the same across the width of the page. We repeated this on the back and front of 2 A3 pieces of paper, experimenting with the way that we drew the lines, switching from left to right, to right to left, changing the way we held the pencil, the angle of the paper, the speed and pressure at which we drew the line, our posture, all in the hopes of trying to draw at least a semi straight line without a ruler. I knew this exercise was going to be hard, but somewhere in my mind I thought it can’t be too hard to draw a straight line which I found made this whole process extremely frustrating when pretty much all of the lines I drew looked like I had drawn them with my left hand with my eyes closed. However, I did find that, when I changed the direction in which I drew my line, the first line I would draw would be almost perfectly straight, but then after that the rest would return to being about as straight as a circle. I reckon that, although this task was annoying in how it should be simple but is actually really difficult, it also helped me get get my brain and hand in sync, like a warm up before a soccer game.

The next activity we did was one where we had to put 10 dots on a page and then draw lines to connect them. Seems easy enough? Apparently not. Much like the first activity, this one was easy in theory but hard to do in practice as the lines never seemed to be straight or once I started drawing them, half way through I realised that if I kept going at the angle I was going, the line would miss the dot by a mile. After we had connected our first 10 dots, we got told to draw another 10 dots on the same page, but this time, when we were drawing them we were told to put our pencil on the dot we were starting at and then focus our eyes on the dot we were going to and draw to it, never moving out eyes. This was a hard idea to get used to because I found that naturally, my eyes wandered to where my pen was drawing. Once I was able to concentrate enough and train my brain to draw looking at the next dot rather than where the pen was I found that although the lines tended to end up at the dot better, even though they never felt like they would, the lines usually had a slight valley in them, but were generally straighter than the first set of lines.

After that activity, we graduated from straight lines to circles. We were told to draw circles, 4 down and about 7 or 8 across. Once we had done that, then we had to draw smaller circles in the gaps, and then repeat that once more so we had three different sizes of circles. Throughout this we had to try and figure out the best way to hold our pencil, and where to move from in order to draw as perfect a circle as possible. I found that in order to get a smooth continuous line, it was easiest to draw from my shoulder and keep my wrist and elbow locked. Once we had finished that then it was time to add some dimensioning to create a sense that it was a sphere. If we had more time or I got to do it again I would redo this part as I don’t think I did a particularly good job at making them look 3D, they looked more like a model of an atom or Saturn than a 3D sphere.

Next was perspective work which we did in two parts. One was drawing circles up and down a page as if it were a coin being seen as it was taking above and below eye level. This was so we could get the idea of how a circular object becomes distorted as the perspective from which it is being viewed changes. The hardest thing I found in this exercise was simply getting the width the same across the board as I changed the depth. We also did perspective drawings with regards to cubes. This was so we could get the same experience but as if we were looking at a box with a sphere inside it. This exercise was quite time consuming to get correct as I had to get the perspective of the cube itself correct first, without a ruler which was very difficult.

The next activity introduced rendering into the picture. We combined our work with perspective drawing, freehand line drawing, and curved, to create a picture, except this time we had to render it to create the illusion of lighting. This involved shading all of the areas, which would be cast in shadow to make the image seem 3D and so someone looking at it would be able to imagine where the light was coming from. My first attempts at this weren’t amazing, but I think if I had more time and had have taken more care with it from the beginning then it would have looked much more realistic. I learnt some hand rendering techniques like shading and hatching, which I definitely intend on using next time I have to render something by hand.

The last activity we did was combing everything we did during the lesson in roughly rendering an object as if we were designing our own. I just did a simple water bottle, with a small indent in the middle as a hand hold, with a pop top lid. This activity allowed us to draw from all of the little tips and tricks we had just learnt to create a rough sketch, as if we were real designers creating something. I found this insightful and fun to do because when we used these newly learnt techniques we were immediately able to see how they looked on the paper in a rendering, even down to little things like the kind of writing that industrial designers like to use. If I had have had more time I would have liked to try and add some colour to my drawing, but I was still happy with it just being black and white.