The Butterfly Girl: A Star is Born

Improper Introductions

[Sophia]

I was awoken by Apollo the next morning. I didn't realize how deep asleep I was until I felt my consciousness coming too as Apollo jabbed me, followed by pulling one of my wings and shaking it around until I finally moved my sluggish face and turned to him with blurry eyes.

It was almost 11AM. Apollo told me that the twins were downstairs on the couch, also just waking up. He asked me if I heard them come in at all and if I knew what they were doing here. My eyes snapped open. I told him I didn't hear them come in at all. He let me get dressed, heading back downstairs to start making breakfast. I heard the three of them talking as I slowly trudged downstairs, still tired. I lightly touched the bandaged wound around my stomach. It only hurt if I pressed it hard.

I heard Apollo asking the twins if they wanted anything to eat, before moving on and asking why they had come over. I saw the twins glance at me as I walked into the living room. I could see the nervous look on their faces. I was too. But my face couldn't express it. The twins said they got scared during the night. They thought they saw something out in the forest and were too afraid to sleep. Then decided to come here where they thought they'd be safer knowing me and Apollo were around. Apollo sympathized with them and offered to help make better accommodations for the tree house later, but they were free to stay here and sleep on the couch whenever they felt like it. When he turned away to go back into the kitchen, I saw the twins nod at me. I breathed a silent sigh of relief and turned into the kitchen myself to make my own breakfast.

Afterwards, we all went out to the tree house. The twins climbed up and sat inside while Apollo investigated the area. There are plenty of normal critters that live around the woods. Mostly coyotes, some owls and a couple skunks here and there. They all mainly come out at night, so encountering any of them wasn't uncommon. I made sure to let the twins know about that.

Shortly afterwards, Teri appeared, surprising all of us. She'd been waiting inside the pond for a while to see if we'd show up. Apollo explained that some of us slept in. Teri didn't mind a bit and called all of us over to show us something.

"Here," Teri pulled out a large jar from the water and set it down on the ground in front of us. They were filled with... dozens of those bubble charms she had made for us before.

"I made a whole bunch of these for you to keep. There's plenty for all of you. That way, in case you want to come and swim around some time, you can use one of these in case your planning to dive in deep. If you run out, you can just bring the jar back and I'll mke some more."

"Thanks, Teri! We'll be sure to use them!" said Apollo.

"Yeah, this is really cool! I'll keep them somewhere safe." I added, taking the jar and holding it close to my eyes. The light bounced around through all the bubble charms. I shook it a bit, seeing the the shapes of light ripple on the ground. I felt the twins lean over to look at it too.

We all thanked her again and I let Apollo take the jar back to the house so we could store it somewhere safe. The twins went with him to see if we had anything else to make the tree house more comfortable for them. I was about to get up to do something else too until Teri caught my attention again.

"Um... Sophie? There's... one more thing I want you to see."

"Uh, okay?"

I watched her duck under the water and come up just as quickly, carrying something in both hands. She hoisted it up and set it carefully in front of me. It was the ruined book. I became concerned seeing the wet pages drip into the ground.

"Teri... isn't this...?"

"Yes. I... I want you to keep it. Keep it safe, I mean. I know we can't really... read anything out of it, but... whoever or... whatever came for it before... I just want to make sure they won't come back to destroy what's left of this. I mean... this might be the last clues we have to figure out... everything. I don't know. I just want to... save as much as I can."

"... Are you sure it'll be okay out of the water? Books aren't normally supposed to be... submerged... in the first place."

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Don't worry, it'll be fine. All of the books we have collected in the library are made specially to last in and out of water without deteriorating. It'll be fine. Just make sure to leave the book open when the pages dry so they don't all stick together. That can happen sometimes."

"Oh, okay."

"I can trust you with this, right?"

"Oh, of course you can. Handling books is something I take very seriously. I'll make sure nothing happens to this."

"Thank you. I know we haven't been able to make any sense of it, but I hope you'll be able to find something that we may have missed before."

"Yeah, me too. I'll let you know if I find anything."

It wasn't long before Apollo and the twins came back just after I found a place to hide the book. Apollo went over to talk more with Teri, but the twins quietly pulled me aside.

"Um, Sophie...?"

"We just wanted to... apologize... for what happened last night."

"What? But it wasn't your fault. I'm just glad you guys are okay."

"Yeah, but..."

"That thing..."

"What was that thing?"

I looked at them nervously, wondering if I should explain. I glanced back at Teri and Apollo who were conversing happily with each other, not paying any attention to us. I sighed.

"Okay, so... that thing... we saw last night. That's... why we don't go out in the forest at night. Those creatures live... out there. They're technically... always out there, but they're more active and dangerous at night."

"Yeah, but what are they exactly?"

"We- ... er, I... I call them Shadovians. We don't know what they actually are, but I just call them that because we needed to call them something other than monsters, or creatures. I came up with the name a long time ago, but hearing it out loud... it doesn't sound as cool as I thought. Anyway, they're just these dark... shadowy... creature things. We don't know where they come from, but sometimes they just... appear out of nowhere and they stop at nothing to hunt us down and kill us."

I saw the twins' eyes widen at the end of that sentence. I didn't mean to scare them, but it was the truth, and I'd rather they be prepared in case we encounter them again.

"How do you know so much about them?" they asked.

"I don't. Me and Apollo... we've been fighting and running from them for a long time. We really don't know much more about them, we don't even understand what they're supposed to be or how they even exist here..... but they do. We don't know why they're trying to kill us, but they are. It's all they ever try to do."

"So there are monsters out here."

"U-uh... well-"

"You promised us we'd be safe here."

"I, I know, I know. And you are! I promise, you're totally safe here!"

"Then how do you know those things won't come here and kill us in our sleep?"

"Because they won't! They don't come anywhere near the tree house. For some reason... We don't know why, but... we think it's because we're so close to the neighborhood..... But I swear, you're safe here. And I promise I won't let them hurt you. I'd never let that happen."

The twins gave me a hard stare before sighing.

"Okay... we trust you. Please just... don't let them hurt us."

"I won't"

The twims looked like they were about to say something else, but Teri called to us and waved to invite us over. Apollo was also curious to see what we were talking about. I glanced nervously back to the twins before walking towards Teri and Apollo. All of us smiled as we approached them, but I had a sense that my conversation with the twins wasn't over.

Teri had to leave shortly afterwards to return to her kingdom and wished us well. It was just me, Apollo, and the twins having another long conversation. Apollo happened to ask why the twins were so afraid. The twins reminded him that they were afraid of what they thought was up here, and it wasn't until they met me that everything changed for them. Apollo understood how scary change could be. But it was different for the twins. They told the story of how something had chased them from the tunnels just as Sophia came to look for them.

"But you didn't see what it was?" Apollo asked. The twins nervously shook their heads.

"No... All we heard was this... loud scream..."

"I mean, there was definitely something that started coming after us."

"It came from behind. It sounded like it was heading right for us."

"We knew we had to get out of there, we didn't know what else to do."

"Yeah, we're just grateful that Sophia was there to help us."

"Okay... then, how do you know if something was actually chasing you if you didn't see it?"

"We... well, we heard it. We know there was something there."

"I know. I'm not saying I don't belive you, I just wanna be sure that you know what you heard. Sophie, you were there, right? Did you hear anything when they got out?"

"Um..." I thought to myself for a moment, trying to remember if... yeah... there was definitely something... just before the twins appeared.

"Well, I thought I heard something too. I don't think I heard it as well as the twins did. But there was this... noise. It was probably an echo or something, but the twins came out of the hole after that, so I'm not... too sure."

Apollo took a moment to think.

"Well... okay, this might sound a little crazy. But, how about we go check it out?"

"What?" exclaimed the twins and I at the same time.