Young Writers Society

Bleffles turned her head, to check on Addie. Shards of glass littered the floor. Painted...painted glass. Okay?

"Is that, uh, is that a good sound? I don't think that's a good sound. What do I do?" cried Bleffles.

His hand shot out through the tiny crack, wasting absolutely no time in reconnecting with the rest of his body. Now possessing both his arms, it was far easier closing the sarcophagus than it had been opening it - he found that he didn't need help from anyone else in the room to pull the lid shut before the mummy could sneak back out.

And, like before, his sleeve slipped off to reveal yet another skeletal arm.

The mummy groaned in frustration several more times, but eventually grew eerily silent. In this time, Griffith had been trying his best not to look at the other people in the room. But his attempts were for naught. The moment he heard Bleffles's question, he was turning around to see what she was worried about.

And then he saw the glass.

The little painted shards were scattered across the floor, all seeming to originate from Adeline. The girl in question looked absolutely miserable at this, and it was only when he looked back at her finger and saw that it was chipped that he understood why.

"You're made of glass," he realized, his voice incredulous. He had seen many things during the time he had been alive, but this-this was something new. He took a step towards her, then immediately hesitated. She was made of glass. That was abnormal. He wasn't normal, either, but he was different. He was scarier - he was the one who caused people to cower and beg for their lives just at the sight of him, and he was the one who had hide under a false persona just to sneak out and get things from the store.

If she knew the truth about him, she wouldn't want him anywhere near her.

He came to a stop, still several feet away from her.

With the shock of all these revelations, Bleffles was torn between sinking to the floor, rushing over to Addie, or sitting resolutely on top of the sarcophagus, just in case.

First Bleffles sank to the floor, then she hastily changed her mind, and leapt up to sit on the sarcophagus, looking worriedly over at Addie, and trying determinitely to think herself heavier.

Adeline braved a glance up at Bleffles, and then over to Griffith. She was now nervously picking at the paint up the entire length of her arm, and would have been having a full-blown panic attack if not for how upset she already was.

"Y- yes. I am." She gave a slow nod and shifted slightly, but wanting to stand and expose the brunt of the damage. She was vulnerable enough. "I'm... I'm okay. This is all fine." Her voice cracked at the end of this, revealing how hard she was trying to convince herself.

"Um... does anyone happen to have, ah- magic-y stuff?" She tried limply, already very much doubting it.

Natalia had collapsed, feeling useless as the others opened the sarcophagus and then as Adeline shattered. Her right side, from her shoulder all the way down to her hand, was cold, heavy, extremely painful and useless. The book lay on her lap, though she couldn't move it. No matter how hard she tried to hide the pain she was in, she couldn't stop crying, it hurt so much. She shook her head. "I'm sorry Adeline. I don't. I really really wish I did." Her voice was weak, and then seeing that they all were looking at her, she drew her knees up to her chest. "I...I can't use my right arm. Otherwise I would help. I'm sorry!"
She knew it didn't make sense, but she was so flustered.

Their group was falling apart, in some cases very, very literally. His suspicion had been confirmed by Adeline's answer, and now he was left trying to figure out how such a thing was possible. How could a person made of glass possibly move in the first place? Did she have a soul? She must have. And then there was the fact that she apparently needed something to fix herself - something he didn't have on him, and didn't even know how to begin looking for.

"I'm sorry," he said, keeping his voice low. "I don't have anything magic on me."

Adeline's situation was bad enough. She was having a panic attack, and Griffith didn't even know how to calm her down. But she wasn't the only one panicking; Natalia's right arm wasn't moving. That was bad. Really bad. He didn't have any of the proper materials needed to fix something like that, and he wasn't even sure how he was supposed to take care of an injury of that nature. His just healed themselves, and he doubted the medical practices of centuries ago were all that good compared to modern ones.

He took a shaky deep breath, and glanced over in the direction of the sarcophagus that Bleffles was now sitting on. The mummy continued to make noises, but they were becoming more and more subdued. If there was something like that here, then wasn't there a chance of other dangerous things being present? They had barely gotten away from the mummy. How were they supposed to get away from everything else?

And why had the mummy's STATUS stated that it had only been dead for a handful of hours, despite it apparently belonging to King Tut?

Natalia looked at Adeline. "I know of someone who can help you, but I'm not sure I'll be able to reach him. I can try, if you want."

Adeline took a few deep breaths and nodded over at Natalia, wrapping her arms around herself almost in an effort to keep herself together.

"That would be wonderful, thank you. W- why isn't your arm working? That doesn't sound good."

"The mummy ended up grabbing my arm and I wasn't able to shake it off fast enough. I don't know what it did." She closed her eyes and concentrated. Soon a shimmering outline of a person appeared.
"What is it now Natalia?" It asked curtly.
"Knock it off Tiron. I need you to help Adeline."
The outline looked over at the glass girl.
"Why should I?"
"Because I'll kill you if you don't, and you owe me big time."
"Fine. But I'll have to work through you."
Natalia just nodded.
The outline disappeared and Natalia opened her eyes. Shifting the book off her lap she crawled over to Adeline. The outline of Tiron appeared again.
"Pick up a piece." He ordered. Natalia did so, and Tiron began to talk in an unknown language. Pieces of glass began to fly around Adeline, and when it settled, she was whole, except for the piece Natalia was holding.
"You'll have to put that piece in. I'm leaving now." Tiron told Natalia, then paused.
"Why are you so weak?"
"Why haven't you jumped off a cliff yet?" Natalia snapped. Tiron laughed and disappeared. Natalia handed the piece to Adeline and then sank to the ground.
"I hate him." She muttered to no one in particular.

Griffith breathed out a quiet sigh of relief - or did the closest to one that someone like him could do. Adeline was alright. He was starting to suspect that the mummy wasn't the only challenge they would face, and someone being that injured wasn't going to be a good thing if they got caught up in another fight.

Unfortunately, that still left Natalia.

"I think your arm is broken," Griffith quietly said, absentmindedly grabbing onto his recently reattached arm. "The mummy was strong enough to pull my arms off, and I'm...I'm..." He didn't want to admit the truth. He mulled over the best way to word what he was trying to get across without revealing why he was the way he was; he eventually had to settle for saying that, "I'm....usually pretty good at keeping them attached to the rest of my body."

...He didn't think that comment really helped his situation.

Shell-shocked by the sudden appearance of Tiron, it took Adeline a few moments to realize that she'd been healed. Blinking in surprise, she stood carefully, taking the piece from Natalia and inserting it.

"Thank you." She turned to Griffith, opening her mouth to question him, and then close down it again. He was being kind enough to not pester her with questions, so the least she could do was return the favor.

"Um.. I'm sorry I can't do much to fix your arm, but is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?" She gave a worried glance back over to Natalia.

"If Griffith is right, I can handle it being broken. It's the cold that is getting to me." Natalia untied the sash from around her waist. "Can you put my arm into this? A makeshift splint?"

Bleffles was a tad shocked by the spirit-y thing that Natasha was apparently soul frenemies with, but she felt as though it might be rude to ask about him.

She also had questions about Griffith, like wether he was a full skeleton or was it a Skeletor type thing, was he sustained by revenant magic or a more golem-y type of magic, but again she felt that such questions might be rude.

So Bleffles stayed where she was, watched the others, hoped for the best, and kept trying to think herself heavier.
The occasional knocks and bumps from the mummy felt light enough that it seemed like the sarcophagus lid was sealed well enough without her, but this was the only maybe-useful thing she had to do at the moment.

As Natalia and Adeline talked, Griffith put an increasingly larger amount of distance between himself and the other occupants of the room. He couldn't leave them. They needed his advice and his experience with supernatural things if they wanted to figure out what was going on here. But even though he knew staying was the right thing to do, he desperately wished he could slip out of the room right then and there.

His disguise had failed him. The fight with the mummy - if it could even be called that - had revealed the bones hiding underneath his sleeves, and soon someone would be smart enough to infer that the skeletal parts of his body extended much further. It wasn't hard to tell, really. His suit was far too loose on him, and there was something about the way it pressed up against his body that gave the outline of a skeleton instead of someone with flesh and blood.

He walked over to the nearest pillar jutting out of the floor and sat down beside it, staring at his skeletal hand as he tried to figure out just what he was supposed to do next.

"Of course!" Adeline scrambled over and grabbed the sash, gently picking up Natalia's arm and trying to keep it in one position as she made a makeshift sling.

"Does it- does it hurt, or can you just not feel at all?"