Chapter 15 : Burnout Artist

Dawn’s POV

I woke up the next morning just as Candice had exited the bathroom. “Look who’s back from the land of the dead,” she greeted me, and I felt my head hit the pillow again as soon as I heard her voice. There was a split moment, maybe five seconds or so, where I would wake up and have my mind completely blank.

In those few seconds, the world was peaceful. Right up until the sixth second when everything from the previous few days came crashing back to me. I thought about everything that had happened from my encounters with Craig, to the men who had attacked us in the studio apartment and then, finally, stopping on remembering that I had been passed onto the next round of the competition.

“How did your examination go?” I asked Candice from the bed, my head still covered by the blanket just enough so that my face was poking out. I watched as her thumb struck out from the cupboard door that was open.

“Pretty chill, if we’re excluding the part the examiners ripped apart my en