The Butterfly Girl: A Star is Born

Hide and Seek

"This way, guys! It's just over here!" said Teri as Apollo and the twins swam behind her, moving quickly down the hall. Teri was leading the twins to the library first before she and Apollo moved onto her Mother's room. They reached a pair of large double doors at the end of the hall and Teri pushed them open. The twins pushed themselves into a large room full of tall bookshelves. A large light source on the ceiling illuminated the entire room. Apollo managed to glance into the room, confused as to how such a place even had a library.

Normal books shouldn't be able to survive underwater. But it was up to the twins to do the looking around.

"So... this is a library?" the twins asked.

"Have you really never been to a library before?" Teri asked. The twins shook their heads.

"What sort of clues should we be looking for around here?" they asked.

"Well... my Mother brought me here all the time for lessons. And if there was ever anything else I wanted to know, I know I'd find it here. I haven't read every book here, but I think if there were to be any hidden clues, we might as well look here."

"Hmm..."

"I guess we can give it a shot..." the twins replied, still unsure.

"Apollo and I are going to look in my Mother's room. We'll come back and check in soon. Let me know if you find anything."

"Will do."

Apollo and Teri swam off, leaving the twins alone to admire the towering rows of books. They both looked at each other.

"So... where should we start?"

"Um... maybe let's... start from there and... look through all the books? Maybe something is hidden inside of them?"

"I guess we can try that."

The twins approached the first bookshelf to the left and picked up a pair of books and started flipping through the pages, still confused as to what they should be keeping an eye out for.

Apollo continued to follow Teri through the halls, heading towards her Mother's room. He hoped Sophia and the twins would be okay looking around on their own. While he couldn't help admiring the architecture, he tried to stay focused on the task at hand. He used his wings to push himself around to get beside Teri.

"So... do you know how long exactly your mom has been missing?" Apollo asked. Teri thought for a moment.

"Well... honestly, I'm not sure. But it's been a while. I know how worried and... scared everyone is, and I've been doing my best to keep everyone calm until we sort this out, but... I'm just as worried as them. Sometimes I'm not sure if I'm doing things right."

"I think you are. I mean, you can only do the best you can, and I think that's all that matters. I think your mom would be proud of you for everything you've done."

"You think so?"

"Yeah, I do."

Teri flashed a wry smile before looking back ahead.

"I just... I still don't understand why she left. Or for what reason. It's just not like her. Sometimes I can't help but think... maybe something happened to her? Maybe while she was out, she wasn't able to relay a message. I... I don't know, I just-"

Apollo put a hand on her shoulder and stopped her.

"Teri, you know we all believe you. She doesn't sound like the kind of person who would just abandon you. However long it takes, we'll find out what happened. That's why we're here to help. We'll help you get through this."

Apollo gave a warm smile and Teri took a deep breath to calm her nerves.

"Yes, you're right. I'm sorry if I sound like I'm freaking out. We'll figure this out..."

They continued down the hall until they finally reached a large door in front of them.

"Hey, you said that you've looked everywhere before?"

"Yes?"

"So why are you coming back to look here again if you know you didn't find anything the first time?"

"Well, I'm trying to think differently. I wanna try re-tracing her steps. I think if I can figure out what she was doing before, maybe we can piece together what happened that led to her disappearance," Teri explained. Apollo nodded.

"Yeah, that sounds about right. Let's see..."

Teri put her palms against the door and pushed it open, but upon moving inside, she gasped and her face became stricken with horror.

Meanwhile, Sophia continued to wander the opposite side of the halls, going at her own pace and admiring every detail she could lock her eyes onto. She didn't want to miss a single piece. She walked slowly on her toes along the smooth floor, her wings and arms helping push her forth. She turned a corner and found a door along the side of the hall, probably worth checking out. For some reason, Sophia felt nervous about entering. She expected someone else to come along and call her out before she could see what was inside. She managed to shake off the thought and opened the door.

The room inside felt familiar to a large living room, of course, being underwater, the architecture and furniture within the room was very different from what one would expect.

Instead of a long couch, there were multiple cushions on the floor, which looked to be made of more sea sponge. They sat around a carved stone table that sat in the center of the room. Around the walls, there were spots of coral growing outwards and upwards, full of color. Looking closely, Sophia could spot tiny fish swimming calmly through them. It was almost mesmerizing. On either sides of the wall were shelves also seemingly carved from stone. There weren't many items sitting in them though, they looked to be more decorative.

Sophia walked further into the room, pushing herself up and letting her whole body float down onto one of the cushions. Tiny bubbles escaped her lips as she noticed how oddly silent it was. It wasn't off-putting, it just felt... calm.

Sophia just sat there for a moment, admiring everything. She felt like she was inside a fish tank. She let herself get lost in the feeling for a while.

Eventually, she snapped back to reality. Remembering what she was supposed to be doing.

Sophia pushed herself up and was about to walk out of the room, until something quickly caught her eye. There was a lone book standing upright in one of the carved bookshelves. Sophia turned around and swam towards it. She pulled it off the shelf and flipped the book over to its front cover. There was clearly a title for the book, but... of course, it wasn't in English. It was an unknown language that Sophia couldn't begin to understand. She opened the book anyway, doubting she'd find anything useful. But as she flipped through the pages, something slipped out and began to float downwards. Sophia quickly scooped it up in between her fingers. A slip of paper. Looking closely, Sophia could see it was a handwritten note. But she couldn't read it. It had the same unknown language, like the book. Confused, Sophia decided to keep it and take it to Teri, hoping maybe she could make sense of it.

Back in the library, the twins were still looking through book after book upon each shelf, but they didn't find anything of particular interest. They began skipping thinner books, not really understanding what was written within. It only made them more confused and they began to question whether the clues they were looking for were really here. They took a moment to sit in the center of the room, around a large stone-carved table.

"I know we're supposed to be helping, but I don't think we're going to find anything here."

"Yeah, I'm not really seeing anything either. Maybe we should look somewhere else? Maybe go find Sophie and see if she's found anything?"

"Yeah... I think..... Wait..."

One of the boys looked off to the side and noticed something from behind one of the bookshelves. He leaned back to get a better glimpse. His brother noticed and followed his movements.

"Hang on, I think I see something back there..."

The boys pushed themselves upwards and swam to the back of the room. There was a large pile of sand in the corner, as it it had been swept up, but there was something sticking out of it. One of the boys swept away the sand and revealed that a stray book was lying inside the sand pile. They pulled it out and swept away the remaining grains. It was a thick and heavy book with bold lettering on the front cover and a symbol just below it.

But the twins didn't know what it said, nor what the symbol was supposed to represent. They gave each other a quick glance before turning the book over, seeing that the edges of the pages were... stained. They brought the book over to the table and upon opening it, were surprised to find that the whole book... had been vandalized.

Whole sentences and paragraphs were messily scratched out. Entire pages looked like someone had spilled bottles of ink over the pages and stained the pages below it. The twins were confused. Out of all the books they searched through, they had never seen one as damaged as this. What kind of person would do this? And why?

The twins went back to looking through all the other books on the shelf, but they were all in pristine condition. Why this book in particular? They couldn't read anything that was inside to figure out what kind of book it was. After sitting back down, the twins thought about showing this book to Teri when she came back to see if she knew anything about this.