The Butterfly Girl: A Star is Born

Take 5

[Sophia]

We all retreated back to the tree house as fast as we could fly. We didn't even look back, we were too afraid to. The Twins were frightened, Apollo was weak, and my nose hadn't stopped bleeding yet.

"Is everyone okay?" Apollo asked.

"Yeah, we're okay," the Twins replied. I looked over at Apollo and nodded. I touched the blood on my nose, still dripping. Besides that, no other part of me was harmed and neither was anyone else.

Well, the Twins were right when they said something was down there. But, I don't think those were the things chasing them. They didn't really move as fast as I thought they would so there's no way that they'd be able to chase them out like that. And I don't think they made any screeching sounds. Besides my own screaming when my face was about to get dissolved. Plus, I had never seen those things before until now.

When we touched the ground, we all collapsed onto the earth and tried to catch our breath, including me. Running really uses up a lot of my energy more than anything else. I tried to wipe away the blood form my nose, until my fingers were completely stained so I just leaned forward so it wouldn't ruin my shirt.

"Okay... so we know that there's things down there. But I don't think I heard any screeching sounds." Apollo said.

"Well, we're not going back down there." Fleetfoot breathed heavily.

"But they might've been the ones who destroyed the Moonflowers." Flyboy added.

"Yeah, you might be right about that," Apollo said.

When I thought about it, it had to have been right. When that blob latched itself onto my face, I felt like I was suffocating. That thing was trying to dissolve my face. They must've been the ones who destroyed all the flowers, which would also explain all the strange, black substance we found along with it. They might've been the ones who killed the Moonflowers, but no sense as to why they did.

We all sat down and tried to relax a bit. My nose finally stopped bleeding and I took off my jacket and set it on the chair inside the tree house. I let my bag hang on the side of the chair as well. While everyone was talking amongst themselves, I went behind them and started climbing up one of the trees near the tree house. I carefully made my way to the top where the ruined book lay open on a random page. I put it up here so it could get some sun and dry out a bit. I hoped it might be a little easier to read if I let it dry out a bit. Although, I also really hoped that it didn't ruin it any further...

It took me a while to get back down without dropping it or falling out of the tree, but I managed to carefully climb back down, climb up into the tree house and put it on the tiny desk. It looked alright to me, even though it's already ruined. I pulled out the old chair, sat down and opened the book. I tried flipping through a few pages to see if drying it out made a difference. And you'd think I'd find something, but actually... it looked exactly the same. It was easier to flip through the pages though, but everything still looked the same. Scribbled out words, ink blotted pages, and an unreadable language that I couldn't begin to decipher. Even when I held the inked out pages to the light, I couldn't even see through the letters. I sighed, defeated, and closed the book. I grabbed my jacket and my bag and went down with the others.

We were all pretty exhausted and confused, so we decided to call it a day and head home. I just left the book at the tree house and thought nothing of it.