Library of Rain

Caught

Rain Scrambled off the couch. Or she tried to. The moment she moved her head, pain shot through it, and she ended up collapsing to the floor. Her eyes burned like they had been dipped in lava, and her stomach churned. 

Rain could feel tacky moisture on her cheeks. Gingerly looking down confirmed that her front was soaked in blood. Carefully feeling herself, Rain found no injury on her body. That only left the head. Warily, Rain lifted her hands to her face. 

The pain was immediate. Any time she touched near her eyes, the lance of pain would return. 

She needed to see what happened. Which meant that she needed to get to the mirror in her bedroom. It wasn’t far, but it felt like an ocean away. Regardless, Rain gathered her resolve and slowly crawled through her sitting room to her adjoining bedroom. 

Every time she moved too fast or jostled herself too hard, the pain would spike, and the bile in her throat would threaten to come out. Still, she pressed on. 

Eventually, she made it to the mirror. Rain's cheeks were stained from bloody tears accompanied by the scarlet handprints from when she had felt her face. The rims of her eyes were caked in dried blood, and her whites - they were crimson red and laced with dark veins. 

Rain closed her eyes, enjoying the brief relief from their burning.

Was this corruption? 

Rain asked Mr. Purple to show her her information. 

Opening her eyes, Rain saw Mr. Purple hovering in front of her face with her information displayed. There was no change, so this wasn’t corruption. Rain closed her eyes and tried to figure out what happened.

It couldn’t be a hidden effect of the Enter Dream skill because she had used that skill on Mr. Mirage, and nothing had happened. So, was this all a result of Rain changing the dreamscape? She had felt pain in her dream head at the time, but she never expected it to be affecting her real body.  

Why had that hurt her so badly? Thinking back on the description of the skill, Rain had Mr. Purple pull it up. She groaned when she realized she would need to open her eyes again to see the message.

With a great display of strength, Rain pried her burning eyes open and read the message Mr. Purple was showing her.

[Enter Dream: You may forge a connection to anyone who consumes a portion of your body. This connection will allow you to enter their dreams and communicate with them while they sleep.]

It said nothing about changing dreams. Whatever Rain had done, it hadn’t been a skill. The implications behind that were more than Rain wanted to think about right now, so instead, she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Rain managed to get a few hours of rest. Her nightmares tonight weren’t the violent type. Instead, she dreamed that she and the Estoms were a proper family, only for the Estoms to melt from being around her. 

When Rain ran from the bubbling corpses, horrified by what she had done, she caused one of the maids who got too close to her to scream as her skin dripped from her body. Sour smoke rising from her discarded skin. 

In the end, Rain found a giant hole at the bottom of Estom Manor, and that's where she spent the rest of the night curled up, far enough away from everyone that she couldn’t hurt them.

It was far from the worst dream she'd had lately. And by the time she woke, her head felt better. When Rain tried to open her eyes, she found that they were gummed shut. Using her hand to scrape away the gunk and dried flakes of blood, Rain opened her eyes. They still burned, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been. 

Looking back into the mirror, Rain saw that the color of her whites had faded to a dark pink. The veins had also shrunk quite a lot. Rain groaned in relief. It looked like there would be no permanent damage. 

Now Rain had another problem, though. How was she going to clean all this up? She hadn’t brought any water to the washroom, and if any of the maids saw her in this state, then the cursed child nickname would spread even further. 

Rain couldn’t warp out into the middle of the city like this, either. 

Lucus’s room. If she could get across the hall without anyone seeing her, she could use the water in his washroom to clean off the blood. Then she could replace his water, and no one would know what happened. 

Rain looked out the window to check the time. It was mid-day. Lucus would be in classes. Rain slowly got to her feet and retrieved the coin she had stashed in the empty servant room. She cautiously walked to avoid causing more pain; then she went to her door. She closed her eyes and listened for signs of servant activity. 

Hearing none, she opened the door and walked across the hall. Trying the handle, Rain found it locked again. Glad she had thought to bring her coin, Rain slid it under the door and warped to it. 

The warp was surprisingly easy on her head, not causing any pain. Slowly looking around to ensure no one was in the room, Rain headed towards the washroom to one side. 

“What are you doing in my room?”

Rain whipped around at the words and almost dropped at the stab of pain. There, standing in the doorway between the sitting room and the bedroom, was Lucus.

No! He was going to see Rain covered in blood! 

Rain pivoted sharply, turning her back to Lucus and closing her eyes as if that would help.

“Classes of Arkit! Is that blood!”

No! No! No! No! Why had she come here? Why was he here? he should be in classes!

Rain couldn’t warp away; she was holding the only coin in the Manor that she was bonded to. What to do? What to do? What to do!

“Are you hurt? Let me call the servants!”

“No! - I don’t want anyone to see me like this.”

“Then why are you in my room?”

“I needed water to clean myself off, and your room was the only place I thought I could get to unseen.”

“Don’t you have water in your own room? Never mind, let's get you cleaned up first. Are you sick? Are you hurt? What's going on?”

“I had a bad dream, and when I woke up, I was like this.”

It wasn’t a lie, but Rain really didn’t want Lucus to realize she was a classer, so she didn’t tell him everything. Hopefully, it would be enough. 

“Come on!”

Rain felt a hand grab her arm and pull. Opening her eyes, she saw Lucus holding her arm and pulling her to the washroom. Not saying anything, Rain allowed herself to be drawn. Lucus grabbed a cloth, soaked it in water from the washing basin, and handed it to Rain.

“Can you clean yourself?”

Rain nodded, immediately realizing it was a mistake, and answered. “Yes, thank you.”

Taking the cloth, Rain started scrubbing the dried blood from her face. Soon, the fabric was stained red as Rain felt the relief of having the blood pulled free of her skin. 

That didn’t stop her eyes from burning. Looking in the mirror over the basin, Rain could see that her face was clean, but her eyes were still pink. With no better idea, Rain dunked her face in the basin, letting the cool water sooth her eyes. 

Wiping her face again, Rain started to clean the blood off her neck and chest. However, when she got to her chest, it was to find the previously blood-drenched dress perfectly clean. 

Grateful for that blessing, Rain cleaned off the blood stuck to her skin and hesitantly turned to look at Lucus, who was standing in the doorway with his arms folded. 

“Um, could you ask a servant to bring a bucket of water for me?”

“What for.”

“So I can clean the blood on the floor of my rooms.”

“Why don’t you just ask them? Or, better yet, have them clean it.”

“They don’t listen to me or clean my room. And if they saw the blood, they would start worse rumors.”

“Fine,” Lucus said, walking towards the door to yank on a corded rope. “But while we wait for them to come, you're going to explain what's going on.”