Anna noticed that every so often after her desk lamp was turned on, she would hear an occasional 'pop.' She assumed it was from the metal or plastic inside the lamp expanding as the heat from the bulb warmed up its casing. She also noticed how smooth the column of metal was that led up the crane-like arm of her lamp and found herself picking at it with the end of her mechanical pencil. The pathetic plastic of her pencil tip was no match for the evidently unyielding aluminum. However, she did notice upon further inspection, that she did leave an ever so faint scratch upon the otherwise spotless surface of the metal. Leaving her mark on the seemingly impervious metal alloy filled her with a bazaar sense of satisfaction, and after several more prods with the business end of her pencil, she just managed a second faint gouge next to the first.
What didn't find the tip of the pencil at any point was her algebra homework. The white paper was just as blank and crisp as when she had laid it out before her on the desk in her room a half hour earlier. Joining a course already a near quarter of the way through its curriculum didn't help her understand the gibberish on her page any easier, and Mr. Joe - while not a bad teacher per se - had around 30 other kids to keep up with. So, like always, Anna ended up falling between the cracks and had absolutely no idea what the hieroglyphics on her page were meant to mean to her.
It was all bullshit anyway. She worked all day at school, just for her crappy teachers to give her more work to do at home. It's like her freaking teachers were almost mocking them by calling it 'homework' to begin with. Because obviously she and everyone else didn't have enough work already. Especially her, between the personal training (personal torture was more like), that freaking Logan was putting her through every day as soon as she got home, then doing damn chores, and of course the fucking homework to put a cherry on the shit cake that was her life.
Anna dropped her pencil, rolled her head back past her shoulders, and stared at the ceiling. She wished more than anything she could call Jess right then and vent. It's not that certain people in her life weren't trying to make her feel welcome, like Ororo and Kurt - and even Logan in a weird way - it's just they weren't Jess. They could never be. Jess always knew what to say, always seemed to have some fun thing in mind to do in their crappy little shit hole of a town. Now though, it's almost like she has to pretend like Jess never existed, or like her folks never existed. It feels like is supposed to just have had this clean break from her old life and just be fine with it. Instead, she feels like she's been cast adrift in an ocean all by herself with nothing but the baking sun above and the sharks below for company.
Anna blinked. 'Speaking of company.' She thought and looked around. In her shared room with Kitty, she found herself alone. The other bed across the room was made the same way it had been that morning, with its mountain of stuffed animals and all. Anna checked her watch. "8:49" She mumbled and looked back at the bed.
Usually, around that time Kitty was in the room blasting tinny-sounding music out of her phone while she messed around on her laptop. Anna begged the 'forces that be,' AKA Ororo and the academy's credit card, for some noise-canceling headphones, and to Ororo's credit, she was quick to deliver. But thus far that night Anna hadn't heard a peep, not only from her room but from any part of the house.
This sort of thing happened from time to time. She figured it was just a big house and the others got up to - well - whatever they did in the rare moments of free time they were allowed. Once she even had the rare sighting of spotting Jean taking a walk around the perimeter of the property. Likely she was leaving the garage, where Anna knew for a fact that Summer Boy spent the majority of his time playing around with his dumb car. The others were usually just as predictable. Kurt and Evan were usually playing some stupid-looking video game in one of their rooms, and Kitty was in their shared room seemingly trying to see if she could make Anna's head explode with her dumb music. She noticed, every so often though, that the three of them would magically disappear just after dinner and be impossible to find.
Anna never really gave it much thought. To be honest, she hadn't even really noticed up till that point that Kitty wasn't even there. But now, all she could think about was what those three losers could have gotten up to. Evan and Kurt obviously had everything in common and spent every damn waking moment together, and presumably, Kitty is with them - but what would she have to do with the two of them?
Curiosity had Anna rising out of her chair and crossing the room over to Kitty's jurisdiction. There was nothing out of place, as far as Anna could tell at least. Girly crap as far as the eye could see on the vanity with the exception of the small oasis for Anna's own personal brands of makeup. It likely wouldn't be hard to tell who's was who's, aside from the fact that Kitty's belongings were scattered all over the small desk, while Anna's were kept upright in a neat corner near the mirror. Anna then crossed passed the bed and looked over Kitty's magenta nightstand. There were a couple of pictures in frames of people she didn't recognize, a couple of tubes of strawberry lip balm, an aux cable with its insulation in tatters and the wiring underneath exposed, and a small box of what looked like little blank photos for a little camera.
Left with little in the way of clues, Anna left Kitty's belongings as they were and left her room for the hallway. The sun outside had set and the long window looking outside was reflecting the hallway's brightly burning bulbs. Anna cupped her eyes against the glass with her hands and saw nothing but darkness in the night beyond. She was about to pull away when she noticed a tiny light behind the garage that looked like a campfire. She asked Ororo once about the perpetual campfire smell and the small licks of light Anna would often see beyond the garage, and all Ororo said about it was 'Ask Logan' followed up by a difficult-to-read scowl. Anna wanted to, but the cryptic fire and message from Ororo never exactly came up naturally in conversation with Logan. Especially when he was shouting at her to give him another twenty push-ups.
All the same, if the fire had something to do with Logan, it was unlikely the boys and Kitty were exactly joining him for smores when they would pull their disappearing act. Anna de-suction-cupped her face from the window and wandered the halls for a while. For the longest time, she only heard her own footfalls on the soft carpet till she came near Jean's room where there was the frantic sound of a computer's keyboard being peppered with fingers. Anna gently leaned in closer to the door and could just hear some soft thumping music just beneath the separate keystrokes.
Anna left the door and wandered into the wing where all the boy's rooms were. She picked the door she knew to be Kurt's and listened but heard nothing but the sound of her own heartbeat reflecting off the wood. She gently knocked and got no reply. Without thinking, she tried the door-nob and it easily gave way to her command. Gingerly, she poked her head between the door-jam and the door to pear inside. The room was dark but light enough to where she could see a fluffy-looking bed spread fallen sideways onto the floor. There were also several pairs of socks, boxers, and tee shirts spread all over giving the floor a strange-looking texture in the low light. On a dresser across from the bed, Anna spotted several little figurines and bobbleheads, as well as a stack of little brick-looking things and a ton of CDs. As softly as she opened the door, Anna closed it again and made sure the bolt didn't make a sound as she slowly twisted the nob back into place.
Next door she knew to be Evan's room and gave it a listen like she did Kurt's. Like Kurt's, there wasn't a sound aside from her own breathing. She tried the door, but she found it was locked. Either Evan was actually inside, or he had somehow found a way to lock the doors from the other side. She gently knocked and listened at the door a second time. There wasn't even so much as a stir.
Anna was about to step away from the door when she heard a laugh - Kitty's laugh. She felt her back straighten like a rod, then listen to the door again - nothing. Then she could just pick up the not-so-subtle murmur of voices. They weren't whispers, but they somehow sounded suppressed. She backed away and stood in the center of the hallway. She heard another voice, and this time she was sure it was Kitty. It was strange though, it didn't sound like it was coming from any door, but instead above…
Anna looked up and could just make out a long hatch with a tinny metal anchor that presumably led to some sort of attic. The anchor was small around round, likely it was used with some sort of rod with a hook on the end to be pulled down. She looked around and saw no such tool around. She heard more voices, a groan, then another laugh.
"What the hell are they doing?" Anna planted her fists on her hips and eyed the hatch as if she stared at it hard enough the thing would simply fall open.
There was never a plan, per-say. She started off by jumping for an anchor, and when she couldn't reach it, she tried a coat hanger. When that didn't supply enough grip, she tried getting a chair from downstairs. When she still wasn't tall enough, she tried jumping on the chair, and when she almost broke her neck, she tried two coat hangers.
After several modifications, a few coat hangers, a coil of wire, and a curtain rod to keep it ridged, Anna had something that loosely resembled the tool that was meant to bring the attic hatch down. Looping her hand-made claw around the anchor the first time, she heaved the door down and a long pine ladder fell into place. Her tool in hand like a saber, she stormed the attic and found herself bathed in pretty blue and green lights.
The attic was more like a room than the crappy pink insulation-infested nightmares she had been in before. Long single-colored Christmas lights draped along the A-framed roof as well as lengths of tinsel and fake yellow and red leaves. A single oval-shaped window had a cute little black drape with yellow moons and stars over it. In the center of it all was a round table with Evan, Kurt, and Kitty sitting around it all staring at her. Beyond their slacked-jawed expressions of shock, they each wore funky little accessories. Kitty wore a shallow little forest green shawl and a little purple wizard's hat that bent near the tip. Kurt wore a single long clip-on golden hoop earring on one ear and a beat-up brown tricorn hat. Behind a weird-looking fold-out screen emblazoned with fiery dragons and scramming lizard people, was Evan in a long black cloak that shimmered in the low, multicolored light.
Anna looked back at them, likely with the same open-mouthed expression they were giving her. She thought back on all the things they could possibly have been doing up here, and not once did any of what she was witnessing come to mind.
"Uh -" She said eventually. "Howdy…" She suddenly became aware of the weight of the tool she had made to get up there and dropped it with a thud behind her.
"Er-" Kurt looked to his fellows then back to her with a lopsided smile. "W-Welcome to The Whispering Woods!" He extended his hands to either side of himself. She found he was holding a foam play cutlass in his left hand.
*
"Dungeons and Dragons, huh?" Anna said while she picked up one of the handfuls of little figures sitting on the round table. It looked like a tiny man whose smooth gray skin had been painted over with a brush that was a little too large. It looked like his face was now intended to be a bright red color, and his little sculpted vest was painted a vibrant purple. She could see in several spots the paint had crossed where it likely wasn't met, giving the guy a single stripy purple ear and his collar looked as if his skin was slowly melting off.
"I didn't know people played it for real." Anna placed the little figure gently back down on the plain patch of grid paper where she had found it and rested her arms on her legs where they barely fit under the shallow table. "I thought it was just sort of a meme or something."
"Not at all!" Kurt rolled a chunky-looking dice between the back of his knuckles and looked back at Anna. "It's super fun! It's like a video game where you have ultimate freedom."
Anna scratched her cheek. "Yeah, that doesn't really clear up a whole lot for me. Video games have never been my thing."
"It's, like, telling a story in real time where your characters are the heroes." Kitty leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table. "I've always had a hard time reading books because I just have a hard time sitting still long enough to read them, but I've always really liked stories and storytelling and stuff like that." She gestured with her hand. "It's why I listen to podcasts and stuff like that all the time. But this is so much more fun than that. With this, you get to… you know, engage with the story! Make one up with people around you, and stuff. It's cool!" She stood and planted a foot on the table, making its contents tremble. "I play as Babish the Mighty! I'm a halfling forest wizard with a tiny dragon companion and a rocket launcher as a weapon!"
"And I-" Kurt stood, planted his foot on the table, and adjusted his tricorn hat "Am Zerzer the Bloodless! A Teifling pirate who captains the ship, Dauntless, and will one day find the family stolen from him!"
Anna looked from the two posing then down to Evan who sat to her left. "Who are you supposed to be?"
"I'm the dungeon master. I'm the one that makes the game happen." He said without looking at her, then gestured at Kitty. "She's a druid with a pseudodragon companion. No, she doesn't actually have a rocket launcher as a weapon, it has the same stats as a handheld crossbow, but she wouldn't stop complaining unless I let her say it was a rocket launcher." Evan then pointed at Kurt. "He's a level 1 rogue who hasn't had one successful pickpocket or sneak check yet." Neither person seemed particularly impeded by Evan's apparent reality check, instead, Kurt flexed one of his arms, presumably where a bicep muscle should be, and Kitty dug around somewhere in the shadows.
"I don't have a real rocket launcher, huh Evan?" A moment later she reappeared holding a long tube over her shoulder with a trigger and a strange-looking pointy end aimed at the ceiling. Anna had never seen an actual rocket launcher, but if any movie she had seen could be relied upon if the weapon Kitty was holding was fake - it was awfully convincing.
"Kitty!" Kurt shouted, his whole body tensed. "Where the hell did you get that thing?"
"Downstairs. What?" Kitty pulled the rocket out of its tube and tapped its tip on her foot. "It's not like it's armed, or whatever. Geez, guys - have a little faith in me."
"Faith, right." Kurt breathed. "I think I just found mine there for a sec." He made the sign of the cross over his chest then fell down into his seat next to Anna.
"Anyway," Kitty tossed the weapon over her shoulder where it landed with a clang, and sat back down at her spot to the left of Evan. "Like - not to be like that - but how did you find us?"
Anna sniffed. "I followed the giggles."
"The giggles?" Kitty asked
"You do get awful giggly when we play, Kitty." Kurt rested his foam sword on the table.
Kitty's cheeks began to glow. "What, am I not supposed to laugh or something? That a crime now?"
Kurt held up his hands. "I'd never say that."
"What the hell is all the secrecy for anyway?" Anna looked between the members of the table. "I doubt any of the adults would give a crap about you guys playing a game."
"Because, Anna-" Evan looked back at her. "For just a minute, for a freaking fraction of the day, we wanted something just for ourselves. Something that no one else knew about or was involved with. Not Xavier, not my Aunt, not Logan or Scott or Jean or -" He bit his lip and looked down at his open laptop. "Every moment of our day down to the second is planned out, and we just wanted this for ourselves. Okay?"
"I mean," Kurt shrugged. "You could join us if you wanted. It's not like we're that far along."
"Yeah-" Kitty scratched her head. "It has been kinda hard with just two people."
"It wasn't going to be just you guys." Evan leaned on the table. "I was going to introduce a new character to your group that I would play… then our session got party crashed." He looked at Anna, his last few words through his teeth.
"Hey - fine, whatever." Anna held up her hands and stood. "I didn't mean to interrupt your freaking nerd party, Evan. I'll leave."
"It doesn't matter." He shut his laptop and folded up his colorful divider screen with a flick of his wrist. "We're out of time anyway. Lights out are soon. So thanks so much, Anna, for ruining the rest of our session so you could fulfill your curiosity." He stood, dumped his computer in his backpack, and pushed past the others toward the attic hatch. He kicked the ladder down with a stamp of his foot and it popped into place. He looked back at her. "I sincerely hope you got what you were looking for." He climbed down the ladder and a moment later it snapped back into place.