Nightmares Vs Magic

Dove got up from her seat and stretched, having finished writing the first few pages of her journal. It had been about a week since she had gotten hired as an intern for this strange building that very clearly has many secrets that the employees are not willing to disclose ever to the public.

"Do other, normal people, know about these agencies?" She hesitantly asked Laurance at one point in the week, not really expecting a clear answer.

"Technically yes, and even the government knows, but it's mostly the dragons that are in charge."

"Dragons are real?" She nearly sputtered out walking beside him as he showed her where to deliver papers and items and such.

"Yeah, it's just best that people don't know, they're introverted. You'll learn more later, but here we are." He said, stopping and showing her to the files room of the detectives' floor.

The door was pushed open and showed stacks of files, organized as best as possible but a bit of clutter is near impossible to avoid. 

Now, ever since she had gotten hired, Dove has not asked many questions, mostly not any questions that pried too deeply about how things worked here. She mostly kept to herself unless she felt it wasn't a bother to ask Laurence for help, or anyone else, though that rarely ever happened, and simply did her job as a paid intern.

Most things were on the computer, but because the documents were so important, everyone from every floor liked to keep physical copies of everything just in case. Her job consisted of taking some of the folders with papers of recent cases, solved and unsolved, and filing them in the room with all the other files.

Sometimes it's going to the other floors to retrieve a requested item, whatever it was for, maybe a case the detectives were working on, maybe to do a little experiment, she did notice, but didn't choose to ask or say a word about them. One time she even had to move a supposed haunted doll into the archives room, wondering during the little trip, whether the doll would do something to her, but she later learned it had already been exorcized.

The elevator, while as nice as its interior was, could be a bit slow at times, and she'd rather avoid the awkward silences with strangers or the forced small talk if they wanted to talk, because she was so unused to frequent company and worried about fumbling. Or, if she were to ever end up by herself on that ride, distracting herself by looking at the artistic design and function of it, the way she was entranced by the 1900s style elevator with its old yet fancy designs, she'd soon succumb to the thoughts of her mind. She doesn't like being alone with her thoughts, at least going up and down the stairs at her pace helps her pass them quickly.

The stairs between the floors were a little difficult to find at first, but the angel of death in disguise she met on the first day- Bence- helped her to find them.

They were in the back, behind the area where the desks of the detectives worked, past the other rooms that she had not been to yet, and there was a neat door, again with the sign explaining the number of each floor, along with even the two letters of the rooftop garden and the basement archives.

"Thank you, I'm sorry for troubling you like this." She told him sincerely, knowing he was supposed to be going out for a recent case soon.

"Oh, it's no trouble, we knew you would need help to find them eventually. Most people think it faster to take the stairs anyway." He said in this smooth, low voice that almost sounded vibrating had he spoken lower.

"Don't trip now." He told her before turning around to go back to his work.

Dove didn't know specifically what he did, or what cases the detectives took, but she saw the ancient looking spell books he would carry around and sometimes explaining to his clients why he can't just simply revive their pet, or their family or friend and just bring them back to life and would send them off to the Alchemists' floor to learn more.

He had a nice voice and normally wore this dark suit with a purple hue weaved in the threads, it almost glowed that purple hue in a way. He wore a skull brooch, sometimes the empty sockets could be seen glowing, and he also had this, watch? Compass?

Dove had never seen the inside underneath the little gold-looking lid that clicks open when Bence takes it out to look at. Either way, he now reminded her of a necromancer in a suit, which is what she was pretty sure he was, though she wouldn't bother trying to confirm it.

The stairs were quicker between floors, and the other interns of the building, the ones she met who introduced her to this place, also liked taking the stairs more.

Joon would sometimes go up the stairs to collect materials from the rooftop garden, or down to send new little ideas or new research down to the floors below. It was only then after they met each other on the stairs a couple times did she notice his prosthetic leg, and he too spotted her first reaction to it. He liked wearing cargo shorts a lot, so it was bound to happen.

"Cool right? But I bet I can make a better one." He said as they both paused walking down the steps, and he grabbed onto the railing before lifting his knee up, and then grabbing the prosthetic to spin it up, bending it in a way a normal leg definitely should never be bent.

Dove gave his replacement leg a wide-eyed stare before nodding her head and pulling up a smile, acting.

"Oh... Wow! That is cool... But what do you mean you can make a better one?" She asked as he set his prosthetic back down and they continued taking the steps down.

Joon simply giggled to himself, his long sleeves covering his hands as he covered his mouth, snickering.

"It's nothing for now, the guys upstairs still won't let me do any freestyle experiments yet."

Dove could only nod as she spotted the door upon the next flight of stairs.

'Apothecary,' it said.

"Well, thanks for telling me, be careful with your experiments." She waved at him as he kept going down the next flight, holding a box of some sort of prototype to take to the magic store.

The apothecary floor was like a little hospital or a clinic in a way, when Dove walked in, she saw beds or cots, some empty, some being used, walked past them and found her way into the room filled with medicine and vials of pills and such, clutching tightly to a piece of paper with a list of capsules and tablets she was asked to retrieve.

Unlike the Detectives' floor that had colors of beige, brown, and all shades of monochrome, this floor was all shades of blue.

"Ah, you must be Dove." A very pleasant and gentle hearted voice said.

The girl nearly spun around before fixing her eyes on a very tall man with the kindest face she had ever seen, not even his glasses could hide the eyes that looked down at her with such a serene expression she never had before.

In a simple outfit, similar to most of the other people she had seen working through the floors, he wore a white button up tucked into navy blue pants, donning not a white doctor coat like she'd expect of someone working in a clinic.

No, the light, thin blue coat he wore simply looked like a cardigan that drifted behind him as he walked around, like a ghost tail. He was dressed comfortably.

The girl nervously breathed as she slowly, and as politely as she hoped to present herself, handed him the paper with a list of capsules written on it.

The tall man who must've been somewhere around 190 cm at least, gently took it from her as he gave her such a kind gaze and walked around the room of vials and medicine while reading the list.

He hummed and caught her attention as she tensed, starting some light conversation.

"They're asking for more painkillers and sleep inducers. How many field missions could they be going on?"

Dove rubbed and held onto her arm as she drifted her eyes over to all the bottles, so pretty and intriguing.

"I'm not sure... I try not to pay attention to what the papers say." She said before mentally kicking herself and biting her tongue.

For some reason, she keeps unintentionally spilling out the more honest version of what she actually meant to say, and it mostly happens every time she's working in this building. Perhaps she feels too comfortable here.

The tall man simply nodded to him with a gentle grin as he searched through the cabinets. He grabbed a crate box from somewhere, like a caved in, flat dish tray, to put the little jars in.

"It's alright, normally we have to advise our interns not to look, just for their sanity, so your actions are a nice refresher."

She held back, raising an eyebrow at this sentence as he handed her the tray full of capsules and tablets.

"Although, you won't get punished if you ever do decide to be a little curious. We understand."

Dove didn't know how to respond to his words, she could only nod and hum nervously as she avoided eye contact with the kind man, eyes falling to look around the room of all forms of medicine one more time before noticing the door behind him, likely leading to more of the apothecary floor. Probably where the medicines were made,

She gripped the tray, making sure it was leveled in her hands before bowing a little and turning away.

"Thank you."

He walked with her back to the door to the stairs, opening it to find Annabelle who was just about to open it. The tall man smiled knowingly as Dove stood slightly surprised, she hadn't seen Annabelle for a while ever since she dragged the girl to that detective's desk for the internship position.

"Let me guess, you made someone bleed again?" The tall man said teasingly in this parental tone to the girl with blond hair, hands on his hips as he gave her a knowing smirk and arched eyebrow.

Annabelle returned his expression with a 'guilty as charged!' face as she walked into the room, revealing the person behind her whom she was dragging gently by the wrist, the poor soul holding an ice pack to his eye, pursing his lips.

Dove tried not to look at him, fearing she may somehow disrespect him if she even glanced or uttered a word at him, and brushed past them quietly with apologies and a nod of her head.

"Oh! Before you go, tell Laurance that I want him to be careful, and to sleep more often." The tall man told her right as she stepped out.

"Oh, sure." She turned around to face him once more. "Umm..."

"Leon, that's what I have the others currently call me." He said, giving her another gentle smile before he turned his attention to the poor soul with the wound on his eye while Annabelle shrugged in a guilty manner.

Dove began walking back upstairs, minding her own business but remembering his words on the way back, repeating them to herself.

The stairs are quiet, and the flights go up in a square each floor, thank goodness. Had it been circular, many people would have gone dizzy.

She went back through the door to the detectives' floor, carefully holding the tray in her arm before beginning to turn the doorknob, just before someone else opened it on the other side for her.

There was a woman standing there, she had a very stoic, almost military stern-worthy face. Any person with this face made Dove nervous in two ways.

1. The normal kind of nervousness she feels with most people.

Or

2. Made Dove nervous in wanting to be up to their standards.

The beautifully stern woman with her long black hair, loose and out in the open unlike Annabelle's hair bound and braided into rope, stepped to the side to let Dove through.

"Thank you." The girl said more quietly than she wanted.

The stern woman nodded her head as she then left through the door, going downstairs.

Dove exhaled a breath she didn't know she was holding, going over to Laurance's desk, resting the tray of capsules down for a minute as he looked up at her curiously.

"Oh, good, is that all of them?"

"Yes, and the guy at the apothecary floor, umm, Leon? He wanted me to tell you to be more careful and sleep more."

Laurance pursed his lips as he had Dove follow him to the little area where the detectives and other employees would make their coffee or heat up a quick mug. He had taken one of the bottles to put in a cabinet.

Dove raised her brow at this, as a painkiller, while nearly common to use, is not suited for everyone, but she still stayed silent, and just made a mental note to avoid them if ever offered to her.

"He's always worried about me, especially back when I just started working here." The man sighed briefly, brushing a hand through that handsome light brown hair of his as the other moved to grab things one at a time to make a cup of coffee.

One hand to simply pop open the sugar to pour into his cup, and then the creamer, casually tossing a stir straw in before grabbing the kettle full of premade black coffee and pouring it in.

"He's actually kind to all of the newcomers, so if you ever need help, don't hesitate to go to him."

He darts a curious look from his cup to Dove, who is clearly listening although she makes no response.

Dove awkwardly rubs her arm and responds quietly.

"I s-see" She said, her tone sounding out as if she was scared to have an opinion, much less share an opinion of someone to someone else who knows them better.

Laurance simply chuckled lightly, smiling softly as he took another cup and put it on the counter, gesturing for her to make herself a drink as well.

"I know that may not sound very certain, but you can trust me. He is probably the most patient person I know."

He leaned back against the counter, scanning the rest of the office within his view as he held the hot cup, waiting for it to cool.

It was a slow day for the ones in the office, there were some working out in the field, one of them being Bence, the necromancer, and one of the alchemists, going out to research some dug up corpses.

The desks and computers were lined up against the walls typically for convenience, and there was a hallway to lead into all of the separate rooms of this floor.

Dove had explored them during her first couple of days when she didn't have much work asked of her yet.

The mirror room, or the interrogation room, considering the disturbing honesty it pushed out of her during her time there.

There was a room where Bence has told her that Laurance would sometimes be cooped up in during those difficult cases from clients, it had the whiteboards, projectors, maps of only a few of the states near Maine, and all those other supplies needed to just appear somewhat insane when utilizing them; red string, lots of sticky notes, those tacts, and of course those markers of every tip size.

The archives room was more like a calm, safe, and quiet space from it all since it could be locked from both the inside and out.

The little area they were in, where Dove was standing comfortably next to him, almost fully relaxed for once as she poured pure black coffee into her cup and leaned against the counter with him to drink it, still fully hot, it was like the little break spot. Not exactly a break room since there were no walls to separate the employees from seeing their work computers.

"Hey, easy there." The man said, tilting his body a bit to warn her.

"Don't worry, I get cold easily, so this is fine."

"Cold or not, you could still scald your tongue that way."

"Probably for the best, sometimes I can say the wrong things. So that's an upside." She said back in a forceful joking tone she usually takes with others, despite not facing him.

Laurence had this sort of pained look on his face. There were things he wanted to tell her but now was not the right time.

About a couple hours later, Bence was seen coming through the elevator doors, dusting some graveyard soil off the nice, dark purple fabric of his suit, his dark hair, usually all neat, was also tousled up a bit.

Dove, out of her own anxiety and awkwardness, slowly strolled up to offer him a towel to use, offering to make something for him. He gently rejected but accepted the towel, giving her that same stoic face but clearly mustering it to come off more gently so as not to scare her.

"I'm going to make a strong drink that only I know how to make, thank you, there's no need for you to be concerned with me." He said as he walked past her, and Dove could see scratch marks at the back of his sleeve.

"Umm, arm... Your arm,,, sleeve." She stuttered, hesitant to point it out.

He sent her a wave without looking back, already knowing.

"I'll get a new suit later."

"I can fix it, if you want." She said nervously, again wanting to bite her tongue and slap her own mouth shut.

Bence stopped and turned around to her, giving her a quizzical look but then letting out a small scoff and a smile.

"I mean, I can sow, o-only if you need me too?" She shrugged awkwardly.

"Don't worry about me, really, soon enough you'll be so busy you'll miss these complacent intern days. Besides, you have no idea how many times this outfit has been hemmed." He said, pulling at the hem of his collar, showing her some threads that at first glance are fine, but then upon the closer inspection that he visibly allowed her to look, she could see how the threads were different shades, almost matching the fabric but not completely.

Bence stood back straight after tilting a little for her, fixing his collar as he waved her off.

During the lunch break, she did suddenly get busy.

While helping one of the rare field agents she would meet, a kind Dutch woman named Merel, search for some specific books, neither of the active people realized it was lunch break until a familiar, overtly happy voice, followed by a familiar sassy and confident voice filled the room, sending chills of surprise down both the Women's spines.

Dove ran out of the little files room and down the hall to act as a hand for them, seeing Annabelle and Joon standing in the space in front of the elevator, Vernon was also with them, looking a little surprised and staring blankly as if he had just been teleported there, as he was still holding a pot with nothing but soil.

He likely was teleported-or more- suddenly dragged there all the way from the rooftop garden. When he blinked and noticed the other two were waving at Dove who then appeared so go see the noise makers, Vernon joined them in excitedly waving and beckoning Dove over, even though he didn't know the full reason why as Annabelle and Joon never explained it to him.

"Hey Dove! It's Lunch time! Let's go out!"

"There's an Asian food court place nearby, I'm ordering for everyone if you're driving."

"Hello Dove."

Dove stared at the group, bewildered and almost slouching, she was slightly unnerved.

"Do you guys, need something?" she said, having not been able to process their earlier words.

She did indeed hear them, but their words went into her ears too quickly and could not get processed correctly to understand.

The necromancer, who had also come out from the whiteboard room to see what the ruckus was, relaxed himself as he saw it was simply the other new interns and hire.

"Kindly be a little quieter when on this floor, some of us aren't used to working with noise." He huffed and told them, crossing his arms as he relaxed his breathing, evident by the rising and lowering of his broad shoulders.

Annabelle nodded but didn't seem to take in his words.

"Yes yes, sorry, I'll be sure to be silent the next time I come up to tell you that Jalal and Malika are doing fine." She said in a sarcastic, cheeky tone while proceeding to march over, hook her arm with Doves, and repeated in the same motion, "Now then! It's lunch break! We're going out!"

Bence frowned and raised an eyebrow as he asked. "Did they, tell you-"

"Can we hurry up! Lunch break isn't gonna last forever." Joon abruptly said.

Dove blinked rapidly in surprise and then turned her head over to Laurence who was on the phone with someone. He had observed the whole thing, and only smiled as he nodded to Dove, gesturing "Go." To her as he clearly found the group in front of him amusing.

The girl seemed to want to sputter something but was silent as Annabelle pulled her by the arm to go in the elevator with the two boys.

"Drive safely."

"Wait, he was asking you something." She quickly said, but, comically on point, the elevator doors already closed.

Unlike past awkward moments in the elevator, Dove was currently standing in a red velvet room with two talkative people, and the boy who was talking to her about a new hybrid plant he was growing. Whatever Joon and Annabelle were talking about, something about projects and secretly using the gym floor, they were too overwhelming for her, so she peacefully listened to Vernon talk about the new flower he was growing as they waited for the first floor.

It seemed like he needed to talk or else he would just grimace and hang onto the railings on the walls.

"Elevators have a weird bounce both when they start and stop, I don't particularly like either of them." He said as he clutched the plant in his other arm.

Dove threw him a sympathetic glance as she used to feel the same way once, before she just decided to shrug off any discomforts.

"Your hair looks like silver thistle." He suddenly said nonchalantly.

"What?"

"Silver thistle, or is it silver bells? Or artemisias?" He said, asking himself mostly.

She couldn't tell whether he was looking at her or off into the distance, his natural, curly, black hair covered his eyes.

Dove tilted her head at him while reaching a hand up to pat her own hair.

She had this sort of odd shade of hair, had the same fullness and bounce of volume that kept it from looking flat, like her mother's, but it was pretty straight all her life, like her father's hair. She was born with very bright hair, as her father was the type of unfortunate blond that would have some gray roots growing in, even from high school, but her hair grew into a very visible silvery white.

My sister once joked it was because my mother was albino.

Dove stroked her straight hair that was in a ponytail as always, pondering his comment. No one has really compared her hair to something gentle like a plant before.

Some would say it was as silver as metal if the sun hit it just right.

As the elevator stopped, Vernon seemed to almost want to crouch following the odd bounce the lift gave as it halted. While it didn't affect the others, Vernon quickly stepped out and wouldn't stop moving, as if trying to walk off the vertigo he had gotten.

Walking through the magic store on their way out also allowed Vernon to point at some flowers and compare it to hers, until he then compared her hair color to her suit jacket that she often wore to work. Only ever comfortable in formal outfits at work or anywhere else, less likely to be judged in a button up and suit pants.

Joon went on nonstop about this food court place, he told Dove the directions from his phone since there was no way to hook the phone up onto the dashboard.

It wasn't until she drove a good distance away from the building did, they all began to re-register all the nightmares in the area, forgetting how they were all there and that they could see them. Macabre House was like a repellant for these things.

"Dove, I love your car, it's a real epitome of riding in the wind, but you must feel really scared driving at night." Annabelle said as she was casually sitting above the seats, her hands leaned back on the back part of the car.

"It's fine as long as we don't provoke them, speaking of which, please sit properly in your seat or you might fly off."

"Oh! I could build some wings so we could take turns flying like a kite from your car!" Joon said, looking up from the map on his phone.

Dove internally grimaced as she looked for the location.

I know that the way it's described makes it look like I wasn't happy... But I was actually feeling really giddy on the inside, especially when they started chatting with each other, and I could tell I was included in the conversation! At the time I didn't care if maybe they were only socializing with me because I was the only one who can drive, for once, my chest was feeling warm in the moment with how fun the company was.