Scarlet Moth didn’t appear again, instead, I sat alone in my dream, in a pitch black room. I could explore if I wanted to but I was afraid of what I might find. The last time I explored blindly in the dark, I ran into my aunt and I’d like to avoid that if possible.

Instead I just stayed where I was, fiddling with my hair, my eyes wandered, watching the endless abyss. As I sat there reviewing what happened today I felt a slight tug in a particular direction.

This didn't feel like my aunt’s magic, it felt sorrowful and painful. Intrigued, I followed where it led me. I saw a dim glow where I was headed and found myself at the foot of a hospital bed. There was a lady laying in it, looking to be somewhere in her 80’s. Her family surrounded her bed behind me.

The lady’s eyes met mine and in a raspy voice, just barely audible, said. “You’re here. You’re here to take me to him right?”

“Pardon me madam? I-I don’t understand.” I made my way to her side, her eyes following my movements. Ignoring her family.

She rested her head back, a small tear making it way down her cheek. “I’ve been ready for a long time now. I’m ready for you to take me.” she looked back at me. “Watch over my family while I’m gone please? I want to make sure they will be alright.”

I gave her a confused look, watched her close her eyes and take a weak breath. I took her hand trying to comfort her but as soon as we made contact, her hand fell limp. I dropped her hand, backinging into the wall startled. A wispy ghost like figure was pulled out of her when I stepped away.

I watched the old lady I just saw sit up and stand on the floor next to her body. I watched years of age wash away from her features until there was a woman in her late thirties standing before me.
Her eyes found me, though the time had been lost from them, they were the same.

“Thank you young lady.” she held out her elbow and I accepted it. “I’m ready for you to take me.” I nodded weary and started walking her to the strange portal I went through earlier.

We entered the darkness and I walked with her. We had no particular direction we were going but forward. I felt like I knew what to do, to just walk.

“You know, it’s been about forty years since I last saw my husband, after he passed away, I never remarried. I wonder if he remembers me.”

“I’m sure he does.” I reassured.

“He was always such a flirt.” she giggled a bit, her eye’s distant in memory. “Everyday he’d pick me the prettiest flower in our garden and on Friday’s he’d take me out dancing. When he got sick, I was terrified, I don’t know how I went on without him.” she looked around before lighting up.

“There he is!” She exclaimed I saw a faint glow before a man emerged, around the same age.

“Honey!” she called, leaving my side to run to him. He saw her and opened his arms to embrace her. She turned back to me, her eyes sparkling. “Thank you.” she mouthed before disappearing into the light with her husband.

Is this what it’s like being death? Seeing other people leave the world I know and then watch them leave again into the next? I felt a bit, happy I guess. It felt a sad sort of special. I disliked seeing her die, but it made me happy to just walk and listen to her. Seeing her reunite with her husband made my heart flutter at their joy.

I started wandering around hoping there both is and isn’t another tug. I don’t want people to die but what I just saw was so heart warming that I guess that I just wanted to see it again.

Instead of feeling a tug this time, I felt heavy and tired, unlike I was in my dream world while I was helping that lady. I sat up, it was dark out and Chloe and Nino were asleep, Adrien was out on the balcony.

The door swung open at my push and Adrien turned to see me coming out. I shut the door behind me.

“Hi.” He gave a small wave.

“Hey,” I yawned a bit. “How long was I out for?”

“Well, you finally fell asleep around noon and right now it’s about 6 in the morning so.”

I did the mental math. “Wait, I was asleep for around 18 hours? There's no way I was out that long.” He just shrugged, smirking.

We stood in comfortable silence, enjoying each other's presence.

“The sunrise is pretty this morning.” I commented, watching as the sky flooded with colour.

“It is, isn’t it?” Adrien replied, watching with me. We heard the creak of the door and the sound of two shuffling feet.

“Morning you guys.” Chloe called walking over to lean on the railing and watch with us.

Nino yawned and stood next to Adrien. “Morning.”

“How did you sleep?” Chloe glanced at me. My eyes widened a little and I looked away as if she could see the memory from earlier.

“Well.” I thought back to the lady meeting up with her husband again. I wish I knew their name.

“Good, considering you slept all day!” She laughed. “It's Saturday, so shall we go pick up Alya and put Adrien back in his body?” I nodded and we all got Ready, Nino using the empty room next door again.

We made our way to Alya’s house, my bag from last time swinging on my shoulder. We almost passed it until we saw the house number.

Chloe ran up to the door and gave a sharp knock on it as we stayed behind on the sidewalk. Chloe stepped back and it wasn’t long before the door creaked open.

“Oh, are you all here to pick up Alya?” Her father asked. We nodded and he stepped out closing the door behind him. “She’s just getting ready right now. She’s been doing fine, and we meant to contact you but it was late, she’s really jumpy at the sound of glass breaking or even against stone. We could set the glass down gently but she will even flinch at that. She’s also running into walls and furniture, it’s like she knows it’s there but forget that it’s solid. We just thought you should know that. We’re trying to give her space to heal, that’s why we’re okay with her going and hanging out with friends around the city, but please let us know if anything else occurs or if those things happen again.”

I nodded. “We will, we just want to help her adjust as well and get in a sense of normality.”

“Thank you.” the corners of his eyes crinkling with a smile. Alya opened the door and walked out with a spring in her step.

She noticed her dad standing out here with us and gave him a hug. “Bye, see you later dad.” She grinned cheerfully, waving back at him as she ran down the steps to meet us.

He said nothing and just gave a small wave, watching as we made our way down the street. Once we were far enough out of hearing rang and he went back inside, Alya turned to us.

“Okay, so me and Nino are just going to walk around looking for, you know, Skarlet Moth while you guys perform spells?” Alya checked. We nodded. “Okay, then we can wait at the bus stop with you guys and then split up.”

We sat there for a long while in awkward silence.

“Soo, how does it feel to be back home?” I asked directed at Alya.

She shrugged, “It’s fine, but it’s kind of uncomfortable, I’m so used to just being at the school and not seeing my family that it feels a bit weird. And it’s hard when they’re trying to help me adjust but they have no idea what happened.” we thought about it and Alya’s eyebrows shot up. “Marinette, can I talk to you real quick?” I nodded and followed her away from the others.

“I found this old fox tail, jeweled locket to hold the flower.” She showed it to me “Will Adrien need a peice of the flower? I don’t remember you having an extra and I can give a sliver of mine.-” She asked hurriedly, eyeing the bus turning on to the street we were on a ways down.

“Don’t worry!” I waved my hand, brushing off her concern. “He’s just in a coma so I’m fairly certain he’ll be fine.” She bit her lip and nodded. Her brow furrowed, thinking.

“Alright then, you can miss the bus now.” we hurried back and I made it on after Chloe. The bus was crowded with people and Chloe and I had to squish ourselves between two loud, pushie groups of 6ème and 3ème students.

Chloe started to get fed up with them and opened her mouth to yell at them to be quiet. I gave her a stern look and she closed her mouth with a ‘hmf’, I couldn’t really be mad at her though because I was tempted to do the same thing, she just almost did it first. It just really hurt when ever one would bump into me and cause my arm to throb in pain. I definitely wanted to cry long after we got off the bus, it was still healing and the pain was excruciating.

We got off at the stop near the hospital and entered.

“Um, I’m here to see Adrien Agreste.” I said to the lady at the front desk.

She gave a deep sigh. “Again, I don’t care if you're his ‘friend’” she put the word ‘friend’ in air quotes which I think annoyed me more than the fact that she wouldn’t let me in. “I’m sure you're just a fan and we don’t need any crazed fans of him disturbing the place.”

Chloe stepped forward to give the lady a piece of her mind. “Excuse me, who are you?”

“Pa-pardon?”

“Why won’t you let her in?”

“Because she doesn't have his parental guardian’s permission yet.”

“But I do and she’s a friend of both of us. While it would be all too fun and entertaining to have my dad fire you in my eyes, I’m feeling nice today and perhaps we can avoid that unfavorable outcome for you by being let in.” She grinned maliciously.

The nurse at the front desk nodded nervously. “Ye-yes madam. Uh-um he’s in room-”

“We know where it is!” Chloe snapped, cutting her off. Chloe flipped her hair over her shoulder and sauntered down the hall, not pausing for me to follow so I had to jog a bit to catch up.

“My goodness that woman was irritating.” She muttered to me once I caught up. I just bit my tongue, not wanting to anger her anymore than she already was nor did I want to speak badly about someone behind their back.

“Okay, here we are, you both go on in, I’ll sit out here I guess.” She shrugged, pulling out her phone to distract her as she sat on the cold bench just outside the door. I nodded, giving them a reassuring smile and entered. Adrien found a nice spot for himself in the corner, watching curiously as he wasn’t there to watch me draw the ruin the first time because of having to help Nino with Alya’s body.

I studied the floor, it looked clean and spacious enough, his dad really paid a lot of money to get him a nice room. I swung my bag in front of me, ruffling through it for the knife and bandages. I propped the book on the right page against the bed.

I took a deep breath in , holding the knife above the back of my left hand and did a quick slice as I exhaled. I heard Adrien suck air between his teeth sharply. I took a quick peek at him and he was starting at where I sliced.

The shock of the injury kept the pain at bay for a while but if I wanted to finish this before the pain comes so I had to act fast. I grabbed a fresh sheet and started drawing the ruin on it.

“Okay, I’m an amiture at this but I’m going to try experimenting with this spell because I think I’m already pushing my luck by being in here and I’m not sure of how okay the doctors and nurses would be if I took out the needles.”

“I trust you Marinette.” Adrien said looking me in the eyes before glancing at my hand and looking away. Once the ruin was completed, I threw the sheet over his body and started the ritual which felt weird. It felt weird to experiment with magic and to stand while performing necromancy. The spell seemed to work fine and Adrien was less resistant to the magic than Alya so that was helpful. Everything ended normally, there was a brillant, blinding explosion of light and Chloe ran in panicky. Adrien sat up, pulling the sheet off of him.

“It worked!” He chuckled as I wrapped my hand with the bandages I brought. A nurse ran in within a moment, fear stricken across their face.