After a long day, Ellie dragged herself home. She fell onto the bed, face first.
“Looks like you had a rough day?” Skully laughed.
The city changed from grey to neon by the time Ellie got up from the bed.
“Sorry, I was really beat. I didn’t know working could be this tiring, or that Dawn has this many roads with almost the same name.” She sighed.
“How was your day?” She asked Skully.
He hesitated. “Oh, same old, nothing interesting, Artemis vacuumed your room for you. Boring day.”
Ellie picked him up.
“Well, now it’s time for adventure, let’s check out the map!” She exclaimed with so much enthusiasm that the whole of Dawn would have felt it.
Both Luke and Artemis were out, so she decided to roll out the map on the dining table. “Let’s see, where to go first?” She peered down at the map.
Four locations, secret crypts under the city, Mr. Fitz had provided detailed information on how to get to each one.
“I say we hit the nearest one first.” Skully insisted; he felt uneasy about this.
“We don’t have to do this, we can find other ways to get the information we want.” He pleaded with Ellie.
“It will be fine, you are just worried for no reason, and don’t forget about what you promised me, this is for me too.” She stated with determination.
“Of course I won’t forget, you help me find my body, I turn you into a vampire. Your biggest adventure ever.” Skully said dryly. He wasn’t sure about it, he felt like he didn’t want her to become a vampire.
“I’m just gonna go change, you wait here.” Ellie muttered as she skipped off.
“It’s not like I’m just gonna go off and leave you here!” He shouted at her.
The map was still laid out on the table, Skully at the edge of the map, holding it down. Skully was not paying attention as a shadow suddenly blocked the light, towering over the table and Skully.
“What is this map?” Luke asked, taking a peek at the map, his eyes shifting to Skully as well.
“This guy! He gives me the creeps.” Skully grumbled, he felt like something was off with Luke, some kind of darkness, though he couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Luke moved aside and the neon lights flooded the table again.
“You are very curious.” He said to Skully, his hand moving towards the skull.
“Oh. You’re back.” Ellie exclaimed as she saw Luke.
He moved back a bit. “Yes, my work ended early today.” He replied.
“Can we go now?” Skully hurriedly asked Ellie.
She rolled up the map swiftly, worried that Luke might have seen it.
“I’m just heading out.” She told Luke. He squinted his eyes and glared at her as she was putting the map in her backpack.
“What’s that map?” He inquired, pointing at her backpack.
“It’s a map of Dawn, I’m just going to see some sights.” She lied.
“Be careful, Dawn is a different place at night.” He warned her as she was leaving. Luke wondered why she had marked all those places on the map, he was pretty sure there was nothing much there? Unless? He shook his head and stared out the window.
Ellie and Skully walked into the neon night, the city bathed in colour and luminance, it truly looked like a colourful sunrise at dawn, downtown emitting as much light as the sun itself.
“Is this why they say Dawn never sleeps?” She marvelled at the sight, Dawn had already found a place in her heart, she felt as if she was meant to come here.
“It’s a bunch of lights, so impressive.” Skully mumbled, as they walked through the busy night time streets. A few turns later the streets were not as busy and the lights were not as harsh.
Ellie glared down at the map. “We’re almost there.” She stated, excited at the prospect of adventure, of actual crypts and things lurking in the dark.
“I can’t believe we’re going down into the sewers.” Skully complained.
“Just for a little while, this is like a proper adventure!” Ellie squealed with the biggest grin on her face. They found the entrance to the sewers, it was well hidden in an alley. She strained to push the cover off.
“That was actually super heavy, my arms died a bit.” She muttered as they started climbing down, pulling a flashlight out of her backpack, there seemed to be no lights at all down there. Ellie excitedly started moving forward once they got off the ladder. “I wonder what we’ll see down here.” She beamed.
“I wonder about that too… Fudging sewers…” Skully grumbled.
He was more concerned about running into vampires. Ellie stopped next to a wall with a moon symbol on it. She marvelled at it for a while.
“This is it. The secret door.” She stared at it in awe. “Now we’re just supposed to push the inside of the moon.” She explained.
“Go ahead. Be adventure.” Skully mumbled.
Ellie lifted her left index finger, nudging the centre of the moon symbol. It gave way, they could see it disappearing inside the wall and the wall rumbled before it gave way as well and opened up to them both. Ellie’s face had a permanent grin going from ear to ear, she was overjoyed, this was just like the books she loved to read. This was just like the adventures of Nova Blackheart, the hero of Violet Cauldron. She sighed happily as they wandered inside. “If I had eyeballs I would be rolling them right now.” Skully muttered sarcastically.
Ellie just laughed. “You’re so funny when you’re grumpy.” She teased.
They abruptly came to another door, it was a larger wooden door with proper handles. Ellie pushed it open, and an open space emerged before them; there were four pillars, one at each corner of the room. At the centre of the room, neatly placed, was a humble stone sarcophagus.
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