Lucy is afraid

>No one had seen Lucy all day.
>She had disappeared into the mists and fog of early spring.
>It was better this way, she thought.
>No one could know that she, too, felt fear.
>Ah, but this was no normal fear, Edwin narrated in her mind.
>It was a consuming dread, an existential fright that crept and crawled with malicious intent.
>It was a terror of terrors, a deathly horror whose hollow-
WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM
>"Lucy! Get out of the vents! Mom wants to talk to you!"
>Lori was not as terrifying as the event-being that she faced.
>Lucy popped her head out of a grate and looked at her elder sister.
>"All the way, Lucy. I'm literally not pulling you out again."
>Lucy complied with a sigh, and brushed dust off of her dress.
>"What does mom want?"
>"Nothing. I lied."
>Lucy quickly tried to duck back into the vents, only to be stuck in place by Lori's hand.
>"I'm not fighting you on this one, either. It's literally way past your bedtime, and you need to eat."
>Lucy struggled against Lori as she was dragged into the dining room.
>"I don't like brussel sprouts."
>"Too bad. Eat."
>Lucy shoveled food into her mouth as Lori watched over her with arms crossed.
>"You're scared of something, aren't you?"
>Lucy became very still.
>"Let's see... You literally don't have any crushes any more, you love snakes and spiders, storms don't freak you out, you don't care about getting dirty... What are you so afraid of?"
>There was no answer.
>There couldn't be an answer.
>So Lucy gave the only answer that mattered: silence.
>"It's standardized testing week next week, isn't it?"
>Lucy choked back bile.
>Lori sat down next to Lucy.
>"Lucy, there's literally nothing to be afraid of... yet. Standardized testing doesn't matter for you."
>"That's what you think. I have a reputation to uphold, as-"
>"As literally the highest-scoring english language speaker in the past ten years, blah blah blah. Yeah, I know, and you're gonna do fine as long as you literally just finish the test.'
>"But what if I fail?"
>"So? That literally doesn't matter. I won't see you any worse than before. I literally can't. I love you too much. And neither will anyone else. If it bugs you, then that means you just have to study harder for it."
>Lucy struggled to retort, but couldn't.
>Lori made too much sense for her to snark or be cynical towards.
>"Thank you... Lori."
>"Now, do you have any last questions before you go to bed? And you have to go to bed. It's literally almost eleven."
>"...How do you study for something?"