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It was the middle of the night at Blight Manor.
Amity, sleeping soundly in her bed, heard a series of footsteps coming from right outside her bedroom, disturbing her peaceful slumber and causing her to awaken. One might imagine that she would be startled and panicked when she hears footsteps in the halls of her home. On the contrary, she was all too familiar with what was going down.
Annoyed and groggy, she forced herself out of bed and went to her door, opening it to reveal her older brother, Edric, slightly startled at the sight of being discovered wandering around Blight Manor at this hour.
“Hey, sis,” he said, hiding his fear of possibly being tattled on by his sister. She was always the most no-nonsense of the three Blight children. Never broke rules. Made perfect grades. Always tired of her siblings’ rule breaking and mischievous antics.
On the other hand, Edric, along with his twin sister Emira, was pretty much the opposite. Fun loving. Goofy. Impulsive. Hardly thinks about consequences. Never one to turn down an opportunity to mess with people.
Despite their differences, they still cared for each other deep down, and they all knew it. However, it was easy to forget when their differences always put them at each other’s throats, ranging from minor annoyances regarding their clashing personalities to full-scale arguments over the outcome of a crazy antic.
“Edric, what are you doing out of bed?” she whispered, annoyed yet lacking any surprise.
“Oh, you know,” he quietly replied with a nervous grin and a little sweat on his forehead. “Just getting a sip of water . . . I was feeling kind of parched; you know?”
“Another midnight burger run?”
There was a pause. About ten . . . maybe fifteen seconds.
“No . . .”
“Will you just go back to bed?” she asked, clearly about to snap.
“Okay, fine,” he said. His face relaxed as his grin faded into a look of disappointment. He began to head back in the direction of his bedroom.
“Thank you,” she replied.
Amity turned around and entered her room, glanced at the time on her wall clock, and closed the door behind her. After taking a few steps towards her bed, she hears her brother’s footsteps moving past her room again, but this time, they were at a much quicker pace. She’s getting close to her breaking point. She turns toward her door and opens it again to find an empty hallway.
That’s not good.
He’s already gone, isn’t he?
She rushes towards her window and peers into the night sky.
Of course, there he is. He took his mother’s magic staff and flew off towards his favorite place to eat in Bonesborough.
“Yep, there he goes again,” she says to herself as she sighs in annoyance, but she knows that there’s nothing she can do about it now, considering that he’d be about a mile away by now. “He’d better bring me back some tater tots or something.”
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With a thick coat on and his wallet in his pocket, Edric was soaring and zooming through the Boiling Isles, navigating through the thick forest and the first few blocks of Bonesborough. His mother had invested in an incredibly fast magic staff, and she had already paid for him and his twin to have flying lessons on training staffs. It was always the best of the best and nothing less for the Blights.
He had slowed down a good bit in order to remember the directions and properly navigate through town. Staying clear of the troublesome and shady witches that lurked through the Night Market, he took notice to anything that helped him remember how to get there: street names, houses of old friends, buildings that stood out from the rest, and basically anything else that he used as a point of reference for where to turn.
After Edric made one final right turn by a local potion shop, he was finally there.
Boiling Burgers was, in Edric’s opinion, the best fast-food joint on the Isles. He could never pinpoint what specifically makes this place his favorite. The food was alright, but it wasn’t too amazing or special. Perhaps it was the simplistic atmosphere that drew him in, or maybe it was the simple delight in treating himself to some comfort food. Regardless of why, he still loved the place with a slightly odd passion.
He pulled up to the fly-thru window (it’s like a drive-thru but for magic flying staffs), but he then saw something quite out of place. He would usually be greeted by a cashier in a lukewarm tone. This time, the lights were off, and there was no cashier to be found. Edric was puzzled, so he flew around to the front of the building. He hopped off the staff and walked toward the front door. He noticed a flier on the front of the building. He read to himself:
Due to the incredibly low demand of dining late at night, we at Boiling Burgers have decided to cease operating 24 hours per day. Our new hours will be from 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. We wholeheartedly apologize for the inconvenience, but we are also somewhat not sorry due to the fact that some of us have home lives that we long to return to.
Sincerely,
Boiling Burgers Management
Edric was shocked. It couldn’t be. How could this be happening? He was taken aback. A flurry of emotions stormed in his head: surprise, anger, disappointment, annoyance, sadness, gloominess, confusion, and other sorts of emotion.
It all overwhelmed him so much that he impulsively dropped to his knees, raised his fists to the skies, and let out a loud “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!” at the top of his lungs in a needlessly overdramatic manner.
“Hey, knock it off, will ya!?” Edric’s shriek had apparently woken up one of the citizens. He yelled from his window, “I’m trying to sleep here!”
He slammed his window shut as Edric whispered the rest of his “NOOOO!!!” into the sky, still just as overdramatic but much quieter.
Edric was distraught, but that wouldn’t stop him. He may not see eye to eye with Amity all the time and is quite aware that he’s slightly not as bright as Emira, but there’s something admirable that all Blights have in common: resilience, determination, passion for their goals, and an inability to back down easily.
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Amity was startled awake again by the sound of her door opening and the light from the hallway suddenly hitting her eyes. Standing in the doorway was her older sister, Emira.
“Ed’s gone on another midnight burger run, hasn’t he?” the older sister asked.
“Yep,” replied Amity, still just as groggy but now even more maddened. She always connected with Emira more than Edric sometimes, but the twins were always a dangerous, mischievous, and downright annoying forced to be reckoned with, especially now when they interrupt her sleep so late at night.
Then, Amity glanced up at her clock again. It had been an hour and fifteen minutes since her brother left. She found it odd and somewhat concerning. He wasn’t usually gone this long when he did this.
“Wait, he’s still not back yet?” asked the youngest Blight.
“Nope,” answered her sister with a worried look. “He’s never usually gone this long. Maybe I should call him?”
“Yeah. Go ahead.”
With a twirl of her finger, Emira took a seat on Amity’s bed, summoned her scroll, and began to call her brother.
“Wait, you’re doing it here?” asked Amity in annoyance. “Can’t you call him in your room? I’d like to get some sleep for once, and you guys keep –”
“Ed! Are you okay?”
Amity let out an audible groan as she slammed her face into her pillow.
“I’m good!” he said on speaker. “A little cold and heartbroken, but good.”
“You’ve been gone for over an hour,” said Emira. “You’re usually back in twenty-five minutes. What’s the holdup?”
She then listened, sometimes zoning out, to Edric go on and on to his sister about everything that went down since he arrived: the note, the new policy, his overdramatic devastation, the cranky man in the building next door, his broken heart, and what he decided to do next.
“And now,” he explained. “I’ve decided to stay here all night until they open so I can be first in line. I’ve got so much planned to pass the time. I’ve got a couple of new music playlists and a podcast that I want to catch up on, and maybe I can pass the time just scrolling through Penstagram. I’m pulling this all-nighter, sis. I’m not backing down!”
Emira sat on Amity’s bed dumbfounded at everything that she just heard. She clearly didn’t want to deal with this so late at night.
“Ed, you don’t have to do this,” she said in an incredibly frustrated tone.
“I shall! With some exceptions, nothing can stop Edric Blight!” he declared proudly as he sat, curled up against the side of the building, shivering in the cold.
Clearly done with his shenanigans, an idea crossed Emira’s mind.
“Okay, I’ll make you a deal,” she said. “If you come home now, we’ll eat there tomorrow afternoon. Sound good?”
“Hmm . . . I’m not sure,” he replied.
“I’ll pay.”
“Deal.”
“Good. Now, get your butt back here before Mom and Dad find out.”
“Gotcha. I’ll be back soon,” he says as he hangs up.
Emira lets out a sigh of relief as she stands up and begins to leave Amity’s bedroom. She then turns back to her.
“Do you wanna come tomorrow?” she asks.
Amity, her face still shoved into her pillow, replies with a muffled and cranky “No.”
“Do you want us to swing by the library afterwards and drop you off some tater tots at your secret hideout?”
“Yeah,” she said, still muffled.
“Alright. G’night, Mittens,” she says as she leaves, closing the door.
Amity sighs as she picks her head up from her pillow and lays it back down, facing up and in a more comfortable position.
She then closes her eyes and tries to relax, but everything that just happened just sent a bunch of thoughts racing through her mind. She tried to just let go of them all and drift off to sleep but to no avail. Apparently, her siblings’ antics made it harder for her to get some well-needed and well-deserved slumber.
I am going to annihilate them in the morning, she thought in her anger, but she knew that she wouldn’t go through with it. This was all just the same shenanigans as usual.