Elektra's pov*

-I think I slept about as well as Liam, last night. Every sound, every shadow, was some-one outside, or even inside, trying to kill us. -By morning, it hurt to breathe, from all the screaming I'd been doing. -My throat felt raw and jagged, my hair in unnatural knots, finger-nail marks trailing down my face and round red circles framing my eyes. -It's Monday, as well. Monday=school, and school is the last thing I need right now.

-Of course, due to the ear plugs, no-one knew I'd been sleep-'tortured' and so when I walked down the steps and into the kitchen (with smooth hair), it was a major shock for every-one.

"Woah, Elektra, have you been crying?" Tyler asked me, to which I replied

"Aw nah, got attacked by a cat." Which set him off on a round of giggles, and because he has a contageous laugh, set every-one else off too.

-Of course, things aren't always that easy. When Mike, Gina, Tracy & Lol saw it, they all refused me going to school, so they could get me cleaned up, as apparently 'Some of those cuts could get infected.'

-So here I am, on the edge of the sink, waiting until Lol can get whatever he needs from the office to clean my-as he calls it- battle-scars. -Liam's not at school too, as he has a councillors appointment until 12, and then he returns. It's 11:52 now, according to the clock, and so I stand up, bored, just as Lol rushes in and applies the stuff. Halfway through, Liam walks in, and, seeing Lol in a close distance from my face, starts to walk off.

"Oh, hey, Liam! -Just cleaning some cuts! -You wanna game of footie afterwards?" Lol says, causing Liam to come closer.

"Yeah, sure!" He hops up onto the bench beside me, looking at my face intently. "Woah, what happened to you?"

Liam's pov*

As soon as I see them, I'm frozen. Fingernail marks. All over her face. Dried blood just below some, and just beside. Little bruises, up and down her arms, eyes a bit wider than usual.

"What... happened?" I manage out, swallowing a little.

"Cat attacked me." She says blankly looking ahead.

"That's what's she claims happened;" Lol laughs."Reality is, she had a nightmare. -Real bad one if you ask me. -But she's too tough to admit it!" He pokes her gently with each word of the last sentence, making her roll her eyes and hop off of the bench, starting to walk off.

"What, aren't you playing footie with us?" Lol calls out behind her.

"I s'pose." She groans, heading towards the door.

We meet Tracy by the brick wall that acts as our goal posts, deciding to play gender against gender, child&care worker, then Careworker vs Child. -Lol and I win the first game, of course, but only by a bit, and surprisingly, Lol and Elektra win by miles in the second one.

-We're just about to play the third now. Elektra and I take our places, Elektra narrowing her eyes at me as she passes. -I'm sorta wondering whether she's going to throw the game for us. -Lol whistles to start us off, and she's up there, wrestling the ball from his feet, sending it flying towards me. -Of course, even Elektra wouldn't throw a competitive game for a grudge. -I dribble it up to the goal line, where, unsurprisingly, Tracy is waiting. -Sending it back to Elektra, who's just managed to duck under Lol's marking arm, and she kicks it between Tracy's outstretched legs. -Score one to us!

-The next few goals are pretty good, but it's down to the last goal now. Whoever scores, wins. I can see Elektra contemplating throwing it, so I call a team talk, and grab her by the scruff of her shirt as soon as we're out of sight.

"Don't mess this up, okay?" I stress the 'don't' looking her dead in the eyes. "You have a grudge, okay! -But don't ruin a perfectly good game cos of it!" I scold her, as she pushes me backwards.

"What's the big deal? -It's just a football game!" She shakes her head at me.

"Just a football game? -Elektra, we're playing Lol Bykova of all people in a football game! -The Elm Tree footie legend! -Lol Bykova!" I end up shaking her by her shoulders, making her look slightly disorientated.

"Eh, okay..." She murmurs, walking off towards the game.

-We end up winning, Elektra looking guiltily at me every time Lol or Tracy got the ball, despite me knowing that she wouldn't throw the game now. -I think she knew that if we lost, I'd blame it on her, thrown or not. By the end of the game though, we're all too exhausted to celebrate our win, sweat dripping down our foreheads, Elektra wincing when it makes it's way to her cuts.

Puffing, we trudge back to the house, we're surprised to see the others all sitting in the kitchen, eating a fresh plate of cookies. -In a flash, Elektra, Lol, Tracy and I are upon the plate, Elektra and I managing to shove Tyler out of the way hard enough so he knows that he's still dead meat for what he's done. -Chocolate chip? -No, raisin. -All of us spitting them out in sync, we stagger into the kitchen to scavenge for beter food. -The others just watch in fascintation, finding us utterly hilarious. Soon enough, Lol's located Mike's secret biscuit tin, and we're all shovelling them into our mouths.

By the time we've finished, Mike and Gina have found us, and they just sit on the barstools, mouths open at our piggish behaviour.

-We're in our rooms 'till tea-time. -I can hear Elektra throwing things every couple minutes, and so when we walk out for tea, I bump my shoulder into hers, hissing at her to "Keep it down!"

-Tracy cooks for tea, and so the majourity of us don't eat well. -Even Lol, who seems to have the hots for her, can't help but push his plate away after a bite. -This serves as high entertainment, along with Tyler's 'Waiter, waiter, there's a fly in my soup! -Some-one get Beaker out of the kitchen!' jokes. When tea's over, we trudge into the 'family' room, and start to watch tv, when the power goes out. Shoot.

-Okay, so we're now getting into the heavy stuff a bit. -The power cut is not the one on Shadows, by the way. -I just thought it'd be good to see the 2 (normally) strongest characters in Elm Tree freak out about a small power cut. -

Okay, once again, thanks to every-one for reviewing, reading, favouriting, following etc. -Thanks also to my mate, Tiaan, who can't be bothered to make an account so I just have to write her name down, for getting annoyed at me for constantly nagging to read her stories until I could be bothered to do my own.

Peace out,

Rhys.