Apocalypse: Fairy System by Macronomicon (fox in socks read aloud txt) 📕

“…Yeah, that’ll be fine,” Nancy said, unable to admit to wanting to sneak around.

She headed back to the door and went back inside. Nancy snuck a peek over her shoulder as she entered the room and noticed that the melas maid was still watching her.

Making sure she went back into her room.

A shiver went down Nancy’s neck as she shut the door behind her.

Something felt wrong. Nancy didn’t know what it was, but it felt like something was tightening around her and making it hard to breathe.

She leaned against the door and slid down to her butt, breathing rapidly in and out as her heart began beating in her chest like a caged animal trying to escape.

Like a caged rabzi.

“Nancy?” one of the boys, Richard, asked, coming closer to her and putting a hand on her forehead. “Are you okay? You don’t feel like you have a fever.”

“I don’t know. I was going to go…get a drink, and the maid bumped into me,” she said.

“Yay, snacks!” Richard said, fist pumping.

Nancy frowned. “How did you know she would bring snacks?”

“When she bumped into me, she brought everyone snacks. Remember a couple days ago?”

“Oh yeah, when I ran into her, she brought snacks too,” Penny said, the dark-haired girl frowning thoughtfully before breaking into a smile. “Awesome!”

Something felt wrong. It whirled inside her, and Nancy put every ounce of focus she could into listening to her gut, slowly teasing out the dreadful question.

“Did anyone…ever get to the stairs?”

The children glanced around at each other, shrugging and shaking their heads.

“I guess not,” Richard said. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” Nancy said, shaking her head. “It just feels wrong. Like we’re trapped here.”

“But…the door isn’t even locked.”

“Nobody’s ever gotten past the stairs without running into the maid! Isn’t that weird?” Nancy asked. “How could she accidentally run into everyone who tries to leave every time?”

The children frowned and fell silent, not sure how to react.

“Yo,” a boy named Thomas said, waving his hand from his bed. “Over here.” The blond preteen lifted his heavy oak bed frame up and set it aside, revealing a trap door in the floor.

“There was a girl here a couple weeks before me who could make anything into a door,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve been using it to explore the castle.”

“Really!?” Nancy crawled over to the door and ran her fingers over it. The smooth stone of the floor was marred by hinges and a stone knob. She twisted the handle, and with a smooth motion, the heavy block of stone lifted up, revealing a void-colored black hole in the floor.

Nancy couldn’t get any sense of depth, because the weak light of the room stubbornly refused to penetrate its depths. For a moment, she thought it was a doorway into death itself, until Penny brought a candle nearby, revealing a marble floor a few feet under the opening.

“Jerk,” Penny said, punching Thomas on the shoulder. “This is the kind of thing you’re supposed to share.”

“It’s the space between this floor and the rooms underneath us,” Thomas said, rubbing his arm. “Head straight that way, and you’ll get to the next door.” He pointed toward the side wall. “Leads to the roof.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem, kid.”

“Don’t act like the grown-up just ‘cuz you’re ten,” Penny said, punching Thomas’s shoulder again.

“Ow, quit it.”

“Make me.” Penny stuck out her tongue.

“I’ll be back soon!” Nancy said, dropping into the pit and orienting on the direction Thomas had given her.

“Oh, by the way, stick a piece of cloth or something in the roof door so you can find it on the way back. It took me hours to find it again from the other side,” Thomas called after her.

“Okay!” Nancy dropped to her knees and started crawling, the opening above her head shrinking into the distance until she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face.

After about three minutes crawling through the dark, Nancy ran face-first into stone, bopping her nose good.

“Ow,” Nancy whispered, rubbing her nose. She reached up and scanned the odd, tilted stone with her hand until her fingers came across a handle.

When she twisted it, the door revealed itself, spilling moonlight into the darkness. Nancy pried it open and clambered out onto the sloping shingles of the castle.

Gotta remember where this is, Nancy thought, taking off one of her twine bracelets and wedging it in the door frame. She gently shut the shingle-door and made her way to the edge.

Nancy almost gasped at how beautiful everything was at night. The moon was huge, a mottled pink and blue, casting a pale purple light over everything.

No, I can’t stare at the pretty moon. I gotta see Jake again. She just had to see him off. See him safe and okay, then all her doubts would go away, and she would be sure they were safe.

Nancy creeped along the rooftop, keeping as quiet as possible and listening for anything that might tell her where Jake and Mr. Surpey had gone. She had spent a lot of time on the roof at her house, and it came naturally to her, especially now that she was a lot stronger than before. Her fingers clung to the shingles, each digit strong enough to carry her by itself.

Nancy didn’t know this, but a professional rock climber would have been insanely jealous before the Stitching. Afterwards, the sport lost a bit of its luster.

Suddenly, she heard voices.

Nancy cocked her head and strained her ears.

“…Now make sure you always address him as ‘sir’, as he’ll be your sponsor during your time in the academy. And once you graduate, you may be expected to work for him for a time. Think of it as a student loan repayment.”

“Got