“Initiate Lockdown Procedure immediately. Initiate Lockdown procedure immediately. Initiate lockdown procedure immediately.” I don’t even think, grabbing Daisy’s hand, turning off the lights, pulling my curtains shut, locking my windows, my door, and huddling us into a corner of my room not visible from anywhere even though there’s no way to see into my room right now.

“It might just be a practice,” I whisper to her, pulling her into my side. Daisy is my good friend, a Terre Fae. She’s the kindest person I know, has a big heart and loves everyone for who they are. Dark brown hair and black eyes, a big smile, lots of freckles and the most intelligent mind I’ve ever known. Little does she know I'm in love with her.

Soon enough I let out a sigh of relief as I hear Damien walking down the hall, unlocking doors one by one. Finally the booming alarms have turned off. The drill is over. That’s how it works, lock the doors, close the curtains, and hide. Then Damien comes and gets us out. He comes to our door next, “Time to come out.”

“Why’d the alarm go off?”

“Just precaution. Apparently Grandma thought she saw a Shadow in the woods nearby. She was probably seeing things because of her dreams, you know. But wanted to make sure just in case.”

“I’m tired of staying inside,” I groan. “And yes, Damien, I know. Optimism, look for the best in situations, but I don’t like to do that all the time. That’s all I’ve been doing for a long time. If we ever want to help anyone, we can’t do it in this house. Daisy and I shall go hunting.”

I don’t even ask permission. I get out of my black combat boots, not bothering to change anything about my ripped jeans, fishnet tights, and black shirt, other than wearing a leather jacket for warmth, and put on my hiking boots instead.

“C’mon, Daise.”

Once we get outside, she looks at me with her beautiful deep eyes and says, “Does it bother you?”

“Does what bother me?”

“About The Shadows,” She says, and some thunder rolls across the sky. That happens sometimes, if I feel strong emotion. Something with clouds, wind, air, thunder. That’s because I’m an Air Fae. “About how we could’ve had kinship.”

“Of course it bothers me. It’s just a natural instinct for people to take out everything that happens on others. Just because we’ve had disagreements with the Shadows doesn’t mean we had to go to war with them. I mean, it was their fault too. They killed Margeaux, but in a way we killed Margeaux too. Because if we had tried to make peace with them- it wouldn’t have happened. Margeaux saved me. She was so brave, and I’m tough, but I’m also the girl that can’t kill.”

“You had no control over that.”

“Doesn’t mean it was right.”

After the bell sounds, I wait a moment and then go to knock on the other’s doors. I feel bad for the fear that each person has to go through in these tests. I knock a rhythmic pattern on Daisy and Millie’s room and then unlock the door.

“Time to come out,” I say.

“Why’d the alarm go off?” Millie asks.

“Just precaution,” I reply. “Apparently Grandma thought she saw a Shadow in the woods nearby. She was probably seeing things because of her dreams, you know. But wanted to make sure just in case.”

“I’m tired of staying inside,” she groans.. “And yes, Damien, I know. Optimism, look for the best in situations, but I don’t like to do that all the time. That’s all I’ve been doing for a long time. If we ever want to help anyone, we can’t do it in this house. Daisy and I shall go hunting.”

I nod, then knock and open the rooms until I get to Victor’s. Victor is my best friend, and he’s the bravest, kindest, sweetest guy you could ever meet. I’m also slightly in love with him.

I knock on the door, then open it. “Hey,” I say.

“Hey, man. So, what’s with the lockdown?”

“Grandma’s superstition.”

“Oh. Wow. Didn’t know we would need a full lockdown based on a guess.”

I shrug. “Better safe than sorry.”

He nods. “Well, at least it’s not real. I can’t even imagine how terrifying that would be.” I agree with him, then walk out of his room to go alert the others.

When I’m finished, I go back to Victor, who’s now throwing a rubber-band ball up and catching it.

I sit down next to him. “We have so many rooms,” I say. “So...many...rooms…” He laughs and stops throwing the ball. We’re both silent for a moment, then he asks something that I would never have thought anyone to ask:

“Do you miss the ones who died?”

I turn my head towards his. “What?”

“Do you miss the ones that died,” he repeats.

“Yeah. Especially my parents…”

“Oh, Damien! I’m so sorry! I forgot! I’m so stupid!” He curses under his breath multiple times.

“It’s fine, Vic. Do you miss anyone?”

He thinks for a moment, then answers. “Yeah. I miss Sara, and Jac. Did you know that Jac was my first kiss?”

I roll my eyes. “I’m your best friend. I know things about you that you don’t even know about.” I wiggle my eyebrows.

He playfully shoves me and I fake groan. “Ah, my weak body!” I say. He laughs. Then his face falls. “I...I liked Jac. A lot. I kissed him, and then he--he died in front of me.” His face crumples. “The shadow, it--it killed him. And I just stood there in shock. Damian, I killed him! I killed Jac!”

He slumps to the ground and starts sobbing. I kneel down next to him and grab his hand.

“Hey! You did not kill him! The Shadows did!” I shake him. “You did not kill Jac! Snap out of this BS!”

“I’m a murderer!” He shook himself away from me and went into his bathroom, locking the door. I stood up and pounded on it.

“Vic, let me in!” I yelled.

“No!”

“Victor! Let me in to the bathroom or I will get in there myself!”

“Leave me alone!” I heard a hiccuping noise and more sobbing. I give myself ten seconds before I take a bobby pin out of my pocket and stick it into the door handle. After some silent struggling, I hear a click and the door unlocks. Victor is standing at the sink, hands covering his face.

“Victor. You did not kill Jacques. It wasn’t your fault.” I say firmly. Vic shakes his head. “I—did it!” He hiccups. “I just—stood—there!” I turn Vic around and hug him. He stands there, stiff for a moment, then returns the hug. I squeeze him tightly, and he slowly calms down. I pull away and bite my lip, thinking of what to do. “Okay,” I say. Do you want to go do something to get your mind off of it??” He nods and holds out his hand. I grab it and walk out of his room and to the rec room. Inside there’s a foosball table and a training version of a Fae Hunt, along with some couches and books to relax and enjoy.

Victor chooses the foosball table and goes on the other side. “Thanks, Damien,” he says. Jacques’ death is obviously still on his mind. “So,” I say jokingly. “did you see any cute guys when you were last hunting?”

He laughs at that, then actually responds. “There was this one guy. He was human though, and I almost broke the Blinding Spell to go talk to him.”

My eyes widen and I laugh. “You would’ve been killed for that. If Grandma had found out...grounded for weeks!”

He nods and continues with his story. “So then he walks to the woods, pretty close to where we are, and I’m like ‘Crap! Did I do something?’ But he just kind of looked really confused, and I figured out that the Blinding Spell did something to him, probably just scrambled his thoughts for a moment. Either way, it was terrifying.” I win the game, and stick the ball in to start another.

“Nice story,” I say. “Oh, I got one! So I was doing the checkup of people’s rooms, and I found something—”

My story is interrupted by a loud siren. “Initiate Lockdown Procedure immediately. Initiate Lockdown Procedure immediately.”

I furrow my eyebrows, then realize that this is a real attack. I grab Vic’s arm and run to my room. Once we get in, I lock the door, then I am struck with a horrible realization: Daisy and Millie are still outside.

Daisy lightly touches my shoulder and points to a beautiful deer in the distance, twenty or so yards away, looking me in the eye. “I can’t kill a deer, no matter how desperate I am, Daise.”

But she’s already walking towards it, in amazement. I have no choice but to follow her, and she’s walking at such a brisk pace it’s almost jogging. We get to a clearing where the trees are all a good distance from each other. I feel cool air tickling me by blowing my hair around my face.

And the deer is gone, and I have this awful feeling creeps up my spine, like somebody has grabbed inside my body and made every limb of mine go cold with fear. Daisy isn’t smiling anymore. “Millie? Millie, can you hear me?”

Suddenly, just for a moment, the world goes black. And then it’s back, but it’s a million times worse than before. A million times worse than I thought possible. Horrible images filling my head, horrible thoughts. Like thought spirals I used to get when my anxiety was worse, and it’s still pretty bad, but not as bad as before.

Images of Margeaux being killed right in front of me (blood, so much blood, oh, Margeaux-) and my parents laying in the ground looking up at me with their distorted-from-battle faces from a casket (I’m so sorry-) and Images of Daisy’s disappointed face staring at me when we got into an argument (I didn’t mean to hurt you yes I did I’m an awful person I didn’t mean to yes I am an awful person what’s happening) the crying face of my brother after our parents died and me not knowing what to say to console him (I should have helped you but I was helpless but I should have helped you) all the misery from any point in my life piling up and crashing down on me in one wave. Awful things, so many more awful I can’t describe. Things that physically hurt me to think about that make me want to collapse like my whole body is burning it hurts so much even though nothing’s happening to my body.

No, no no no. I can’t let this happen to me. A little voice above the chaos It’s just the shadow’s. Daisy is right there holding your hand she’s right there. It tries to drag me away from the anger the pain. Snap out of it. Think of Damien and Vic and Daisy and Grandma and Cillian, your best friend that’s not dead think of all these people. They love you.

And just like that I crash to the ground sobbing but Daisy pulls me up. We run and run and run and run. The images are gone from my head, I can control my thoughts now, but I can still remember them and they’re so, so bad. There’s an underground entrance to the house. We climb down into it and pull the door shut above us, locking it. Daisy’s still holding my hand as we find a hiding spot in the bunker behind boxes, in a dark corner, underneath the rooms of our cave-like house.

I’m shaking really hard from all those things that were in my head and I’m trying to keep my sobbing quiet so we’ll be safe. “Hey,” Daisy whispers, pulling me into her tight, holding me in a hug.“You’ve been taking care of me for so long. I’m going to take care of you now. I’m going to protect you. We’ll be okay.”

After about another hour, after a few scares of hearing, more like feeling shadows up above us, the warning lights stop. Everything is safe. I hear Damien letting out Cillian in the floor above us. “Where’s Millie?” And then muffled words I can’t hear.

Soon enough they figure out we’re in the bunker because Daisy knocks on the trap door. They come let us out and Damien, Vic, and Cillian all realize what's happen to me and Damien tries to hug me, but Cillian gets there first. After he lets go I keep a hold on Cillian’s arm. “We’re letting people out of their rooms but nobody can leave the house. And nobody can get in either.” Damien says. “Everyone meet in the kitchen at seven.” Him and Vic walk back down the hall.

“You okay?” Cillian asks me, rubbing my arm.

“I’m fine,” I tell him sternly. I’ve always been like that, haven’t I? Always lie about being okay. He raises his eyebrows. “I’m fine. Let’s just go chill until seven.”

We go back to Cillian's room and chat for a little while as Cillian makes popcorn and then they squish me in the middle of them on the cozy blankets of his bed. "Millie-" Cillian starts, then stops. "Never mind."

"What?" I ask.

"I was just gonna ask….what did they show you? The shadows?"

"Nothing," I say too quickly. "Just, Marguex, my parents, Daisy after a fight, and…..some stuff."

Oh, yeah. Horrible images of what could have been in the future. Awful images, terrifying images.

They just filled my head and poured into my soul.

We sit and talk until seven o’clock comes. Damien warns us about Shadows, lets us eat dinner, and then releases us to our rooms.

While Daisy and I are walking to the rooms, I feel a sharp pang of fear. I suddenly need someone to rely on. I’m terrified.

“Daisy?” I ask.

“Yeah?”

“Can you...stay with me tonight? I’m scared.”

Daisy blushes, then nods. “I’ll sleep on the floor.” We head to my room and get ready for bed.

“Thanks, Daise,” I say gratefully.

“No problem, Mil.”

I close my eyes and drift to sleep.