Shattered Realities (Chapter Eighteen: Betrayal)

The large, double doors to the monastery opened with a hard slam as Laurie swept her arms out in front of her. A few of her father's younger students stood in the central room of the building and they jumped back, startled. "Whoops...sorry, kids," the former ninja apologized, gingerly turning to close the doors behind her. "Didn't mean to scare you guys. I'm just in a bit of a hurry and I...I didn't think it'd be that loud..." A few of the children shared some questionable glances, flustering Laurie further. "Just...carry on," the girl finished, clasping her hands behind her back and making a beeline towards the long hallway that led towards the more residential section of the monastery.

"Oh goodness," came a voice from the kitchen, causing Laurie to stop in her tracks. Her mother emerged from the kitchen, a cup of tea gripped in one hand. "Was that you that made that awful noise?" Her dark blue eyes searched Laurie's face and she noticed that her daughter was not making eye contact with her. "Is everything okay? Kai called a few minutes ago to see if you had made it home yet, but I didn't even know that you had decided to cut your day with him short."

Laurie raised a single eyebrow. "Didn't think I had to tell you little things like when I was coming home," she argued, her hands now at her sides, drumming nervously on the sides of her thighs. "Besides, it's not like there's any Serpentine or stone people running around the city. There's no danger anywhere anymore, mother."

Tucking a loose, grey hair behind her ear, Misako narrowed her eyes. "I don't appreciate that tone of voice, Laurie," she said with reserved anger. "I'm your mother and I care about you."

"Yeah, thanks, mother," the red head continued, memories of being forced to leave Lloyd behind suddenly flooding back. Separated from her only sibling shortly after their father had disappeared from their lives without an explanation. It always seemed like Misako was trying her hardest to still steer Laurie back towards her affections, but the girl tried to pull away every time it happened. With a flood of frustration now swimming in her veins, Laurie turned away from Misako and started heading back towards her bedroom.

"Wait, Laurie."

She felt her hands flex impatiently as she stopped where she was and glanced back over her shoulder at her mother. Misako looked down at the cup of tea in her hands and sighed, offering it to Laurie. "You just look like you're a bit stressed and when Kai called, he sounded a bit worried about you. I know that tea has always been a comfort to Wu and it helps relieve my anxiety sometimes too, so...I wanted to make you a cup."

Keep the peace, just keep the peace. "Sure, mother," Laurie caved, turning around and taking the cup from the slowly aging woman before her. "Thanks." With that final word, the red head hurried to her room, finally.

The door shut hard behind her as she felt a wave of relief finally overwhelm her. It always felt odd, finally having her own bedroom and whenever she was able to just come back to it, permanently in the monastery, there was a huge sense of comfort. Stability. Her eyes drifted to the tea in her hands and she saw her distorted reflection in the browned liquid as the tingling sensation of rising steam sent a shiver down her spine. With a quick sip, Laurie set the cup down on the small nightstand near her bed before heading towards her desk.

Papers were strewn across the polished wooden surface, papers that Laurie herself did not necessarily remember seeing before. Her mind was muddled and always missing bits and pieces of, well, everything. What Kai had said about daydreams was still eating at her. It almost seemed to ring true in her mind. What was it about this that was real? Every other dream that she was always being sucked into seemed real too, so what had her convinced that this world around her right now actually existed?

"Because it's just real," she whispered to herself, pulling the chair out and sitting down, running her fingers through her hair. Everything around her was peaceful. Everyone was happy and safe. The world was just perfect. Her eyes widened. It was perfect. "Nothing...nothing ever works out perfectly," Laurie continued, feeling a cold sweat break out along her brow line. "Life just doesn't work like that."

Laurie rubbed her eyes quickly before lazily messing around with the papers that cluttered her desk. A piece of sickeningly sweet lilac stationary popped out at her and she grabbed for it, truly curious as to where it came from, what it was for. No one she personally knew used paper like this in correspondence, but something about the color drudged up an unsettling and heavy feeling in her stomach. Yawning, the girl raced her eyes across the heading of the paper.

From the office of Rod Voler.

Scoffing, Laurie took the paper and smashed it into a ball before haphazardly tossing it towards the wastebasket that lay in the corner of the room. The trash missed its target, falling to the floor and skidding across the stained wooden floor. "Dr. Voler," she huffed, leaning back in the chair and staring up at the ceiling above her. "From the office of the brilliant Rod Voler."

Her blood ran cold in an instant. "Wait a second..."

Laurie scrabbled for a pen and she took the nearest piece of paper and flipped it over, blank space starting back at her. She wrote down the psychologist's name and just stared at it for a second. Something had struck her when she was thinking, but she had not actually known what it was. If there was thing Laurie was certain of, it was that Dr. Voler might have been on to something when he was telling Laurie to try and discern reality from imagination.

But what was it? What had suddenly given her this feeling?

She stared straight ahead, the tip of the pen pressed down firmly to the paper. Her vision blurred for a moment, but with a hard blink, the red head managed to clear it. It was time to start taking control of what was happening to her instead of just going along for the ride. Another yawn ripped through the girl's body and she shook her head, realizing that she felt tired. This was no time to sleep though. She had to figure things out.

Or, maybe, she already had.

As Laurie focused her eyes down on the paper in front of her once more, she gasped. While her conscious thoughts had been distracted, grasping for some sort of logical answer to anything, her unconscious mind had given her something to work with. Of course, Laurie was not sure that the word that lay before her was a good solution in any way. It made her feel a bit more frightened than anything.

The name of the doctor was still written in her usual bold handwriting, but now there were little lines underneath every single one of the letters, criss-crossing over one another, unscrambling the psychologist's name, and leading to a single word underneath. Laurie inhaled deeply as her vision blurred yet again and she blinked in succession, clearing everything away. It made a lot of sense to her when she stared at the word, but she did not want to believe it. There it was though, staring back at her.

Overlord.

What about the Overlord though? Why was she making this connection? The doctor was not the Overlord. The Overlord was dead. He was gone. Laurie rested her head in her hands, feeling her eyes droop heavily. She did not want to sleep. She wanted to try and figure out what was happening. Something was off and she needed to figure out what it was.

You just look like you're a bit stressed. Her mother's words came flooding back to her and Laurie felt her heart skip a beat. "No, no, no," she growled, picking herself up from the desk and inadvertently stumbling back over to the bed. Laurie flopped herself on the comforter which made her sudden fatigue feel ten times worse. She did not want to move, did not want to think. Laurie just wanted to sleep. Her eyelids felt like lead now and she glared over at the object on the nightstand before she was forcefully plunged into darkness.

I wanted to make you a cup.