Chapter Text
Magica pointed her staff at you, which meant it was time to move. Except, you couldn't. All you could do was put your arm between the staff and your face, squeezing your eyes shut while waiting for the inevitable. But the inevitable didn't happen. Instead, as you opened your eyes you saw a blue glow coming from your friendship bracelet. A few seconds after, Lena suddenly appeared, except, something was wrong. Of course, the flying might have been normal for her, you weren't very knowledgable about the abilities of shadows, but the ones outside seemed to be able to fly. Lena however, didn't quite look like a shadow. The ones outside were dark and scary, evenly coloured with only the red eyes coming out of the darkness. Lena actually looked the same as she always did, just in shades of blue. But there was something else wrong. You had a distinct feeling that you'd seen this all before, and as much as you'd like to accept the situation and feel happier than ever before, knowing that your best friend really was your best friend and your family wouldn't fall apart, something was wrong. Something terrible was about to happen, and you had to move, prevent it somehow.
Except, you couldn't.
You watched, desperately trying to get your body to move, but it felt like somewhere in your brain, the message got lost. A connection was severed. Where usually you were overflowing with thoughts and words and everything else that happened in your brain, everything was blank right now. You knew something terrible was about to happen, but you were helpless to try to prevent it. And then, it was too late. You watched as Lena got hit by Magica's staff, a sickening purple beam shooting right into Lena's stomach. You watched and listened as Lena screamed. You saw her fade out of existence. You were right there, watching your best friend die.
And then you weren't.
You woke up screaming the same way you had when you'd first seen Lena die. Of course, it had repeated itself in your dreams time and time again. But not just your dreams, anytime you saw purple connect with blue, you were reminded of it. That, of course, also meant you had to change your outfit. Blue, pink and purple just wouldn't do anymore. You were determined to keep the pink though, pink was connected to how Lena had been before... well, you didn't like thinking about it too much. You had replaced the purple and the blue, one was magica's colour and the other was still uncomfortable when pink looked so similar to purple. The friendship bracelet was also a problem, but you couldn't take it off. The friendship bracelet and Lena's secret hideout were all that was left and you weren't going to lose any of that. You'd already lost too much. You'd gotten used to the bracelet at least, you knew not to look down too often, and when you did you were prepared.
Some times were worse than others, with images flashing before your eyes, falling to your knees, crying, hyperventilating. At those times, it felt like you couldn't get any air into your lungs, it felt like you would run out and die right then and there. One time, one of the first times when you didn't know what hyperventilating felt like, and there was nobody nearby to calm you down, you passed out. You'd felt dizzy and sick and weak, as if you would fall any second, either from losing your balance or simply from not being able to stand anymore. It only made your panic worse until eventually your vision started going black and all you could do was sit down and scream, hoping someone would hear you. It had been terrifying, but you'd woken up soon enough with the triplets, scrooge and donald looking concerned while your granny was doing the first aid checks. Later, someone explained to you that hyperventilation only makes it feel as if you don't have enough air, when you actually had too much. Either can cause you to pass out, though hyperventilation is a lot safer to pass out from since your body would figure it out from there. After that you'd been able to barely avoid passing out when the really bad panic attacks happened while you were alone. Barely. Just like you were barely avoiding it right now. You felt pain from somewhere in your body, though you were focusing on not passing out too much to pinpoint where. The first step, you remembered, was to do the breathing exercises your therapist had taught you. They made it easier to deal with the hyperventilation, which was your most immediate concern. So you started doing those, 3 seconds for breathing in, 4 seconds for holding your breath, and 4 seconds for breathing out. It felt like it was way too little, but you stubbornly decided to trust your therapist rather than your brain. It wasn't easy, and it didn't always occur to you to use the breathing exercises, but when you could do them, they seemed to help, which made it easier to trust your therapist.
At some point, when you'd dealt with the hyperventilation, you remembered that there was a step two. It was difficult to remember what it was, though you knew you were supposed to keep a list of steps somewhere. You also couldn't remember where that was with all of the pain and panic you were dealing with. You did, however, remember that these panic attacks were always more bearable with someone around to help you. Which just so happened to be step two, even if you didn't remember that part. You should have probably just grabbed your phone and called someone, but that didn't occur to you, so you got out of bed. Even though you were still kind of dizzy and still had tears streaming down your face, you managed to get to the door of your room safely. You opened the door, light streaming in from the hallway. Uncle Scrooge hadn't liked having the lights on at night before but after the first nightly panic attack, he'd decided it would be a lot safer this way.
You stepped out into the hallway, casting a large shadow into your room which had a blue glow to it, not that you actually saw that, your back was turned to your shadow, and even if it wasn't you were too busy with your panic attack to notice. You turned, walking towards your granny's room. It was easy to find her, you knew every hallway of the mansion, even the secret ones. Though, of course, there might still be some even more secret hallways that you didn't know about, that was why they were secret after all. You really should go looking for more secret hallways sometime, maybe the triplets would help you. Clearly your mind wasn't entirely filled with panic anymore, if it had room for secret hallways, and you were glad about that. By the time you got to your granny's room you were still in panic but you weren't even close to passing out, so that was quite an improvement. You knocked on the door, knowing that it would be enough to wake your granny up. Within 5 seconds your granny stood in the doorway, arms opened for a hug. So, of course, you went for the hug. Granny always gave the best hugs, and they helped you calm down, her hugs were warm and tight and they made you feel safe. The effect wasn't immediate and you were still crying for a while, but it helped, and eventually you got to a point where you could talk. By that time you and Granny were fully inside the room, sitting on the couch. Granny had the best room in the house, one of the privileges of being a housekeeper in a house with too many rooms.
"I saw her again... sacrificing herself like the beautiful idiot she's always been..." Granny held on to you tighter at those words and whispered. "You both did the best you could." You nodded, tears forming in your eyes again. You shouldn't blame yourself, even though you kind of did. You tried to speak, though your voice kept cracking. "It's so unfair... Le... Lena was real and- and- Magica is mean! She's a mean-" you sobbed "... a mean liar! And now... Lena... she's gone and-" and there was another sob "and... Magica's not. It's not fair! Why... why did Lena sa-" you hid your face to the best of your ability as the tears streamed down your cheeks. "... why is she gone... I just... I want my best friend back... I don't care if she's a- a shadow! I just... want her to come back..." Granny sighed, "I know. I wish we could bring her back somehow."
You sat there for a while longer with your granny, until you felt calm enough to go back to your own room. You let go of your granny, ready to leave. "Thanks granny, I love you." You smiled, as much as you could anyways, and your granny smiled back at you. "I love you too Webby. Now you should try to get some more sleep if you can." "I will." You turned around and walked towards the door and into the hallway. Your granny walked to her door as well and you turned around to wave at your granny before leaving. Your granny, of course waved back at you, a small smile on your face, probably a sad one if you had to guess, though you weren't good at guessing so you didn't rely on your guesses too much. You started walking to your room, again having your back turned towards your shadow, which turned into Lena, who waved at your granny. You heard your granny gasp softly, though you didn't think much of it, and since you didn't know the reason and didn't look back to check, you forgot about it. Everything about this night was just another night with just another nightmare as far as you knew. The same wasn't true for your granny, but you didn't know that, and you were too busy thinking about the secret hallways again, pulling aside paintings and lifting pots on the way back to your room, just to check. Not that it would be that simple but you never knew if there was a secret hallway with a shifting pattern of entrances that just so happened to be at the painting or pot right now.