It was rather late when Larkin arrived home. She knew she had to go to school in the morning, but something had been nagging at her since she arrived at her aunt's home.

That room.

Her usual guest room was locked up. For years, ever since she could remember, she had stayed in that guest room without fail. Why wasn't she staying there now? Something had happened since the last time Larkin visited, and she was determined to find out what it was. The only thing in her way was a locked door. However, locked doors were no issue to Larkin, for she could simply walk through them.

As she walked through the wall and into her room, she made up her mind. She would visit that room. She would find out what her aunt was hiding.

With stealth that could only be achieved by a super, Larkin slinked through her door and out into the hallway. The normal nighttime noises of the house were only amplified by her enhanced hearing. The almost-silent scamperings of mice in the walls sounded like raindrops on a metal roof to Larkin. She could even hear the faint snores of her aunt in the other room, assuring her that she was still asleep.

Larkin treaded carefully on the old wooden flooring of her aunt's home. It was notorious for creaking if one stepped in the right places. However, Larkin knew exactly where she needed to go to avoid making any noise. Or, at least, she thought she did. When she was halfway to the other guestroom's door, she placed her foot in exactly the wrong spot, and the floor let out a sharp groan.

Cringing, Larkin lifted her foot slowly, hoping the floor wouldn't groan again. It creaked a great creak that was only amplified by the previous silence. She bit the inside of her cheek, praying that her aunt wouldn't wake up. Aunt Libby had expressly forbade Larkin from entering the guestroom, and she wasn't about to get caught doing exactly that.

Larkin paused to listen for Aunt Libby's snoring. Hearing that her aunt was still sawing logs, she continued down the hallway to the locked door of the guestroom. She stopped in front of the familiar door.

Larkin walked through. She had no qualms about breaking her aunt's rules if it provided her with answers. When she arrived on the other side, she didn't notice any immediate differences. With her sharp eyesight, Larkin could tell that the nineties floral wallpaper was still pasted onto the walls. A dainty glass vanity sat in the corner with seashells resting on it, and a faux-fur rug sat on top of the carpet. Larkin sighed, remembering all the memories she had acquired while staying in this room at her aunt's house.

She walked further into the room and saw the closed closet door and an open window. The queen size bed sat in the middle of the room.

It was all so familiar to Larkin. It was all the same. It wasn't messy, like her aunt claimed it to be. It hadn't had any changes at all since Larkin had last stayed over.

Then she noticed a difference; a very big difference. Furrowing her eyebrows, Larkin hesitantly moved forward, closer to the bed. The handstitched quilt her grandma had made for Aunt Libby still rested on the bed, but something was off. The bed was not smooth and well kempt. It had a lump on it. It had one very large, person shaped lump on it, underneath the quilt. Larkin was fairly certain it wasn't a pile of pillows.

She took one cautious step forward. She stopped. She couldn't risk the person waking up. Her aunt obviously knew about the strange person sleeping in her house, so the person would probably mention it to Aunt Libby if he or she was woken up in the middle of the night.

Despite her warnings to herself, Larkin took another step. She had to see the person's face. She had to. Who could her aunt be sheltering that she didn't want Larkin to know about? Luckily, the carpeted floors didn't make any noises when she walked, so she took another step, almost standing over the person now.

Her heart was beating too fast and her palms were sweating. This situation was more nerve wracking than stopping bank robbers! She hovered over the sleeping form, and she could tell that it was a man. However, she could not see his face, for it was pressed into the pillow.

Larkin turned around. She began to tiptoe towards the door again, and was halfway there when she heard the springs of the bed compress and creak. She froze. He's waking up, he's waking up, he's waking up. What do I do?

Without wasting another second, Larkin jumped across the room and dove through the wall. Her head and torso were through completely, but her legs were still sticking out into the other room. She dragged herself across the carpet and brought herself completely through the wall. Larkin lay sprawled on the ground, completely and utterly relieved. She only hoped that the man hadn't heard her hit the ground or seen her legs sticking though the wall. That'd be an odd wake-up call.

However, her relief was short lived. Larkin was in her aunt's room. Curse my rotten luck. I jumped through the wrong wall. By this point, Larkin was simply over her ridiculous idea to break her aunt's rule and see what was in the guestroom. It had obviously been an awful idea. She cursed her luck again before pushing herself off the ground. She looked to her aunt, peacefully sleeping, and couldn't help but wonder why she was harboring a strange man in her guestroom.

Shaking her head, Larkin exited through the door and took extra care to avoid the creaky spots on the floor. She wouldn't take the chance of waking her aunt up after she had just burst into her room through the wall.

Larkin made it to her room with no issues and collapsed on her bed. She closed her eyes and fell asleep, still in her clothes. She dreamt.

Her Huck-Finn raft floated upriver, against the current. Larkin didn't propel the raft at all, it moved of its own accord. The water in the river was a deep green, and she peered into the depths, but swirling eddies were the only things she could see.

Larkin sat down crisscross applesauce. She noticed that the raft was made of gold. Faintly, she wondered how the raft was even floating; she also slightly wondered how it was propelling itself upriver, against the current. She dismissed her thoughts quickly, though, and told herself to enjoy the ride. She decided to think of it as a river cruise.

Larkin leaned back and relaxed. The sun was not in the sky, so she didn't have to squint her eyes, but it was still bright outside. She didn't know where the light came from.

Larkin saw a duck pass her raft along with three little ducklings. She grinned at the little animals, but they didn't acknowledge her.

"You know, the sun's going to erupt soon," a voice told Larkin.

She shot up. There hadn't been any other people with her on the small raft when she checked the first time. However, someone was standing at the front of it, now. She recognized the middle-aged man as George Fredericks. He had on a suit and tie that was dripping wet, along with a snorkel and mask.

"Did you swim out here?" she asked.

"The sun's going to erupt soon. You won't make it. He won't make it. She won't make it. I won't make it. No one will make it. Did you know that? Did you know? Did you know that? Did you? Did you? I did. I knew. Remember that when you don't make it," he rambled.

Larkin let him speak. She listened, but got distracted when the water started to bubble. She peered into the emerald water again, scrunching up her eyebrows. She didn't notice it before, but it seemed like the light was coming from the water.

"The sun's coming up. It is. It is. The sun is coming up. Up. Up. Up!" he screeched.

"Could you be quieter?" asked Larkin. "I'm trying to watch the river."

George kept mumbling "up up up up" over and over again. Larkin tuned him out and stared intently at the water. It bubbled more violently, and Larkin thought she could see something deep below the surface. She squinted as the light around her suddenly got brighter.

"Step away! Step away!" said George. He latched a hand onto Larkin's shoulder and pulled her away from the edge of the raft. He placed his mouth close to her ear. "It'll burn you. Step away!" he whispered.

Larkin wrenched herself away from George and moved back to stare into the water. She would do whatever she wanted.

Before she knew what was happening, Larkin was thrown forward. She landed on the edge of the raft. Her feet were hanging over the edge, and Larkin couldn't help but feel like something was going to come out of the water and grab her legs, pulling her under.

Larkin looked up. The sun was rising. George was right. It had come out of the river.

"Sorry George, for not believing you."

He only responded with another "up."

Larkin was about to pull herself back onto the raft, but she couldn't get a grip on the golden surface. It was slick underneath her fingers, and the rough grooves from the individual pieces of the raft had been smoothed out into a single, solid piece of gold. Larkin screamed.

"Gold gold gold. It's always where you least expect it, huh? Have a nice vacation," said George. He waved at Larkin as her fingers grew weak and she slipped over the edge of the raft.

The water was scalding hot. She screamed as the bare skin of her legs was submerged. She took one last deep breath before giving up and letting go. As she fell into the boiling water, her skin went numb and her she could no longer control her limbs. As she sank into the swirling river, flipping in the currents, she saw her father's face staring at her through the water. He was on the raft. He had used her to pull himself up.

()()()

Three hours and twenty-five minutes later, Larkin woke up. She knew today would be awful. Three hours was not enough sleep for a sixteen year old girl. She figured twelve would suit herself better; however multiple circumstances prevented her from achieving that much sleep.

Larkin vaguely remembered having a dream, but she couldn't remember what it was about. A river maybe.

She rolled out of bed and dressed herself. Sweatpants and a t-shirt today.

Larkin stumbled into her aunt's kitchen to find Aunt Libby already dressed and gathering her school papers.

"Aunt Libby, where are you going?" asked Larkin.

Her aunt smiled, and Larkin wondered how she could operate her face muscles so early in the morning. "I'm heading to school early today. I have to finish planning my lesson. And if you want me to pick you up after school, just text me."

Larkin nodded, barely registering what her aunt was saying as her eyelids started to drop closed. As her aunt left through the garage door, Larkin searched the cabinets for cereal, however she could only find granola. Yuck.

She ate it anyways. Her taste buds weren't awake yet, so they barely noticed the awful flavor of the cranberry granola. Ah she ate, Larkin slowly came to her senses and remembered what she had learned the night before. The man in the guestroom. What if he was still there?

Unable to contain her curiosity, Larkin marched down the hallway and popped her head through the door. The lights were off, and the early morning sun was shining through the open window. She couldn't see the bed from this angle, so she stepped the rest of the way into the room and shuffled along the wall until she could see the bed.

It was empty. The quilt was neatly folded across the end of the bed, and the pillows didn't even have dents in them. Throwing caution to the wind, Larkin stepped up to the bed. She ran her hand across the quilt. She didn't understand why her aunt would let a stranger sleep in her home and not inform her of the guest. Why did it have to stay a secret anyway? Why did Aunt Libby have to lie about it?

Larkin didn't know the answers to any of these questions. She left the room to get ready for school. It would be awful if she missed the bus.

Luckily, she did not miss the bus; she was outside early and had to wait for it to get to her stop.

Larkin fell asleep during the fifteen minute bus ride. None of her friends rode this bus, so she had no one to sit with or talk to, so she sat down close to the front and ignored the crude comments floating up from the back of the bus. Instead of counting sheep to fall asleep, she counted the number of cuss words she heard in one sentence. Seven. How disappointing.