Adrien and nino fought from running to intervene as I burned and set the body in the ruin. Perfect. I took my chance and slipped to the side, running to the ruin and starting the ritual, dodging balls of fire my aunt was chucking at me.

“Hey, you're not the Wicked witch of the west, stop it with the balls of fire!” Nino yelled as he and Adrien brandished spell books to defend me.

“What the heck Nino?! You want her to throw worse objects at us?!” I scream above the noise, trying to also concentrate on the spell and not move my right cheek so much. “Is this not life threatening enough for you?!” My face burned and even breathing felt like hell.

The spell wasn’t working, my arms shook, sore, and overworked, my mouth morphed into a grimace of pain from everything. I’ve lost so much blood and I don’t know if I could make it. I know I’ll survive the spell, if it works. But only if, I need to preserve my energy and keep going, I need to fake everything until this is over and then I can get sleep.

The ruins kept lighting up and fading as Scarlet Moth resisted the pull. “Come on, you can do this.” I muttered to myself, my eyes misting at the frustration brewing up inside me. Emily had crawled over to me and squeezed my shoulders.

“It’s okay, you're doing great, remember to breathe.” She comforted me. I took shaky breaths, trying to focus on the spell as Emily whispered words of encouragement.

The spell refused to work and eventually I just rocked back and started crying, my sobs echoing through the chamber. It’s one dumb spell! I can do this spell! I have been doing this spell!

“It will be alright-”

“No it’s not! If I can’t perform this spell then we might as well give up! I should've just given her the responsibility of death!” I growled out of the left side of my face, restraining from yelling and moving the right side as well.

“Well, I have no idea what you mean by that, but we know you can do this spell.” I looked up to see Alya supporting Chloe who was holding her ribs. I didn’t realize we left the trapdoor open. “Sorry we’re late, we had to help Mr. Fu upstairs and didn’t know this was here.” they got down the ladder and made their way over.

“What can we do to help?” Alya grinned, ready to beat up my aunt.

“Emily!” Chloe cried and flung herself into Emily’s arms, minding her ribs.

“Um, help Adrien and Nino I guess?”

“On it!” Alya raced over to them and Chloe nodded a short goodbye to Emily as she followed.

“Your friend’s believe in you, so do I. You can do this. Stop focusing on what’s around you and concentrate on on this.” she backed away to give me space and I tried again. The glow lasted longer this time but I need to work on strengthening it.

I frowned in concentration and after a few hour long minutes, I finally managed to perform the ritual. Scarlet Moth had run out of energy herself and was sucked into her body.

She struggled to sit up as she attempted to summon fire to her hand, only a few sparks popped.

“No! Ugh, I just need more time!”

“Nope, while up there, me and Chloe called the police.” Nino and Adrien escorted her upstairs and we followed, Emily helping Chloe and Alya aiding me.

“You guys did?” I asked, holding my injured arm to my stomach, putting pressure on it.

“Mhm, she was attacking us and we knew you could do the spell.”

When we got out of the basement, we watched my aunt being escorted out.

“Mom!” Adrien’s eyes lit up when he looked our way and dashed over. While he was over with his mom and Chloe, I turned to Alya.

“I don’t feel well.”

“Okay, we’ll let’s get you somewhere you can lie down, just hold out a little longer.”

“No, Alya, I’m going to pass out.”

She studied me before calling over her shoulder. “Hey Adrien?” He looked over at his name and came over. “I can’t carry her and she says she feels like she's going to faint.’

“Oh, yeah, don’t worry.” he said, moving to take me from Alya. he picked me up and I felt so light once my feet left the floor, I was so warm and exhausted that I fell asleep then and there in his arms.

In my dream, I was back in the strange dark room, but I wasn’t alone.

“My goodness, you're slow at being death.” I turned to the voice and saw a woman dressed in a medieval gown, possibly from England during that time.

“Pardon? Who are you?”

“We are the past deaths.” I whipped around to see Iridessa’s dad.

“Y-you!” I pointed to him.

“Yep, I was the death before you.”

“But- Iridessa!”

“She’s still alive, I was in a crash just after she was born.”

“I don’t understand? We all could see you, you got something from my family’s bakery?”

“Well, we need to study who the next death would be, who they are and how long it takes them to pick up the magic. The most recent one has to be the one to watch over them, that means we get a bit extra life. My daughter found me and wanted to help. It was no coincidence you guys met.”

“Well, at the hospital, she was visiting her mom-”

“Yes, my wife was aware of what I did so she decided to be a nurse, she worked hard so the next person I had to take, she could be by their side and help them through it.” I nodded stunned.

“What happens now?” I asked the circle.

“Now?” I looked and saw a pirate decorated in black leather speak up. “Now you will fulfill your duty until you die, then you help the next death.”

“But- I have non death related goals in life, what happens to those?”

“You can still complete them, you just will have extra weight on your shoulders, and strong magic.” A lady who looked to be from Ancient Greece spoke.

“Is there anything else I need to know? Like, how am I ever going to be in multiple places at once? I’m not Santa, I can’t travel all over the world in one day, multiple days!”

I heard a loud snort from behind me and turned to see a vicking. “You think you’re the only death?  No, there are many, you will mainly be working in France and a bit outside of it. There will be times you might work on the other side of the world, but you won’t have to worry about that much.”

“Yeah, just work where you go and if you meet another death, it’s helpful to talk and work together.” I turned to see someone removing a dog-like mask, covered in gold, Egypt I guessed. I nodded.

“Oh, okay then.” I glanced around at all the faces.

“This seems as good a time as ever to send her back.”  A figure stepped into the crowd, like the living person from the night, everyone bowed deeply.

“Who are you?’

“I, my dear, am the first death. I hand picked every death since the beginning of time to aid me. Now it’s your turn, We’ll see you on the other side.”

“Wait! I have more questions now!” Yeah, I didn’t get to ask them because I was woken up by death theirself. I almost fell out of Adriens arms because I didn’t know that we still hadn’t gotten back. My cheek screamed at me, I placed my hand over it.

Adrien gave me a curious look. “That was a fast nap.” I blinked looking around.

“Where are we? What happened to my face- oh, nevermind, I remember.” I remembered the flames flickering in my face, scaring me. Tears trickled lightly down my face, burning worse than the actual flame when they rolled over my burn.

“Oh, we all had to make a statement, since you were asleep, we scheduled a time for you to give a statement at 9 o’clock tomorrow.” Alya turned her head to look at me as Adrien set me down.

“Okay? And what did you say?” they all looked at each other awkwardly.

“Well-”

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I hope you like today's chapters! We have four more left before the end, I'm sad too, i don't want it to end either. But I think tomorrow's chapter, chapter 19, is one of my favorites that I got to write and I can't wait to share it with you! Anyways, that's all I have for today, I hope you have an amazing day!