Chapter 16.5 from Testing For Hope - New Tidings Week Breaking

Hysteria never expected anything from life. She was a kid after all. She didn't really expect anything as far as she knew. All she could even depend on was her mom being there and the cold nights when she would stare at her ceiling for hours on end long after her mom had tucked her in for the night. She has always done this, or at least she has since she met her.

The most beautiful girl in the world. Sofia. Even though she was as mysterious as she was gorgeous, Hysteria still fell hard and fast. The girl would call her over for tea and some sweets, Hysteria bringing biscuits and jam from home to fill the stomach after they were done. They would talk all through the day and then when they were about to leave they would hug and go their separate ways, never daring to ruin what they had by following the other home.

It was a nice system and Hysteria was content with keeping it the same way forever, but she couldn’t help herself. Her curiosity got the best of her and she was about to pay the price. That is all she knew when she watched her friend walk through the trees, dodging each one with ease. She had a backpack on that was no doubt filled with the supplies she had brought along with her card to the mysterious pen pal Sofia knew.

Sofia had been walking for quite a while and she was getting closer and closer to the nearby village. They had always talked about when the mask would be done and they would be able to walk through that village together without having to worry about being spotted by guards. Why is she walking towards the danger? I thought she was a siren. Aren’t they usually kidnapped when they walk in there? Hysteria thought with worry as she watched her friend pass the threshold into the town. She grabbed her hood and put it over her head with a sigh, evident from the gust of white wind coming from her mouth.

Hysteria had to think for a moment before she decided to follow Sofia into the town with a heavy heart. She shouldn’t be following her friend like this. She most definitely shouldn’t have come here either, but here she was anyway, about to enter a bar, following her friend like some creep.

She took a deep breath, made sure her hood was on securely and entered the tavern. When she got inside, she was entranced by what she saw. The whole place seemed to sparkle so much for something man-made in its entirety. Maybe they get shipme- Hysteria’s thoughts were cut short by someone yelling in the back.

She made sure to not draw attention to herself as she sat at a table and took out some of the sweets from earlier, trying to look natural. It probably wouldn’t have worked if they weren’t focused on the bar showdown going on across the bar from her. She took the chance to look around and see if she could find Sofia, but she ended up dry on luck at the moment.

She had come to the solution that Sofia must be watching the fight. She did seem to get a rise out of drama from all she told Hysteria about the siren city in their own lake. She put the uneaten sweets back in her bag, along with the wrappers from the eaten ones, and got closer to the fight. As she got closer the fighting became clear enough to get a few words out of the chaos. From what she got, the fight was about someone not wanting to leave the bar and they were refusing to get up from their seat and go home. The person yelling seemed pretty adamant, but Hysteria saw no point in watching or listening to much because it wasn’t where Sofia was.

As Hysteria started losing hope of finding Sofia, she also started thinking about how dangerous this was. The yelling was making her uncomfortable from up close and she really wanted to just give up and leave. But Hysteria had come this far and she wasn’t leaving without finding her friend. The person yelling was losing their temper and it was getting on her nerves as she was forced closer to the fight by people fighting to watch it all go down.

When she got to the inner ring of people, she used it to look around the other side of the half circle formed around the people. While doing so, she caught sight of the person yelling. It was wearing shiny armour. It was a guard. And she was this close to them. The panic started to settle in when she also caught sight of the person in the chair. She was worried about who it could be. Now all she felt was confusion and a hint of betrayal. The person that was being talked to as a noble was none other than the girl she had come all this way for.

Sofia was seated in front of a drink that looked like hard liquor and a plate of seasonal cookies the tavern did for fun around this time. She was swirling a straw in the drink and then picked it up and took a big chug of it. The guard looked at her with bewilderment as she swallowed it all down and looked her dead in the eyes and calmly said, “Where to newbie.”

She stood up at some point in the conflict and was now pulling the guard’s arm out the door while it watched in shock. Not that Hysteria could blame her. The girl was walking perfectly fine.

When Sofia finally left, Hysteria left shortly after them, running for the woods, then for home. When she walked inside, Hysteria’s mom walked around the corner. “How did you meet with your friend to go bumblebee?” She then took a good look at her daughter that was covered in dirt. Whose cheeks were red. Whose heart was broken on New Tidings Week.