Echoing what I have said alongside my feedback on the discord already, I am resigning from this RP effective immediately. Please do not hesitate to request the deletion of my CS and any posts if it is your preference.
enmuni
Member
- Last Seen: 22 hrs ago
- Joined: 2 yrs ago
- Posts: 140 (0.21 / day)
- VMs: 1
-
Username history
- enmuni 2 yrs ago
-
Latest 10 profile visitors:
-
Most recent →
TokyoPewPew,
RPM,
PrinceAlexus,
ThePigOrcEmpire,
Mole,
CabbageAngel,
Nameless Hero,
abcbcb,
JFK,
Mjolnir
Status
User has no status, yet
Bio
User has no bio, yet
Most Recent Posts
Seluna Temple
From the very moment Céline came into view, Ramona became nervous. Her hand tensed around Elara’s as she fought to avoid any illusion of eye contact. The very presence of others like her, unabashed and honest in their transformations, unnerved her to no end. And then there was the question of Orion. His red eyes were surely unnatural. Yet she could not be assured he too was a blightborn. He was far less afflicted either way, if he was at all. Her grip wavered as she drifted back behind Elara. Hopefully, attention would stay well away from her. Hopefully, she was just observant, and blightborn could not detect their own. But perhaps, so long as Elara did the talking and kept attention away from her, there would be no trouble. The guards provided no sense of safety. They were just more eyes. More ears. More noses to sniff out what didn’t belong. Ramona’s grip slowly waxed and waned as the conversation evolved. She could hardly decide whether companionship was still bringing comfort or just a terrible idea now. But it was far too late to break. It was only getting later.
And now they were heading to town. Ramona could only pray in silence that Céline kept her attention fixed on Elara. There was still a possibility of slipping by and getting back to work without a fuss, if only she remained unobtrusive…
Mentions
Elara, Orion @Qia, Céline @Beard Dad
| Vinnie / Vĩnh History Across the cosmos, many children receive names expressing their parents’ wishes for them. Looking past the fetid waters of the Cấm river to imagine the stars beyond the smog and light-polluted skies of Hải Phòng, Nở Vĩnh’s name expresses her parents’ dream—one shared by much of mankind—that their child might blossom forever. Unfortunately, like many other humans, this dream was smothered in the cradle. Though it was hoped that she would be one of several, the spectre of sickness haunting the Earth kept her an only child—one ever lucky to live at all. She and her loved ones have always been keen to celebrate this victory alone, no doubt, but like billions of others on Earth, these little fortunes are quickly spent. Vĩnh’s earliest memories are of pain. She was diagnosed with juvenile idiopathic arthritis before she could walk. Her family never had much. After forming a basic treatment plan with doctors, there was nothing left. From then on, it was just about managing, filling in the gaps with hope, and trying their best to take the next step. The physical pain dulled over the years as loneliness took the stage. Running and playing was an option for few children in the city. Video games were expensive, and it hurt to play them for long. Vĩnh’s parents were rarely both at home, and she spent many nights with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins when both parents’ work schedules overlapped. Though she helped where she could, ever eager to avoid feeling idle and like a burden, Vĩnh was often set to the sidelines as the needs of daily life overran her. Her primary companion became an ageing tablet handed down to her for her schoolwork. Through it, she found a lifelong love. For Vĩnh, reading became a path to freedom. Through every struggle, she has still found ways to learn. Even as her eyes deteriorated and she went blind in her teens, she embraced screen readers and learned braille to keep up with this love. This stubborn dedication to what she could not lose pointed her in the direction of one the few opportunities the stagnant Earth still offered: higher education. She had one shot, and she pursued it with all her might. Herschel University extended a scholarship—a lifeline—and Vĩnh seized it without hesitation. | ____________________________________________________________ ◤ “Có công mài sắt có ngày nên kim. Diligence makes iron become needles.”  Full Name: Nguyễn Nở Vĩnh Age: 31 Homeworld: Earth Occupation: Steward Affiliation: Yingke-Dentons Law Firm (Formerly) |
On Mars, Vĩnh enjoyed an unfamiliar freedom, not only from university accessibility measures enabling her to live independently for the first time in her life, but also for how the world’s lower gravity enabled her to walk with less pain than before. She studied, enrolled in work-study programs, tutored, and spent countless sleepless nights dreaming of a better life to come—a better life just in reach. She scrimped, saved, pawned, and wheedled at every turn. By her second year, she had enough to put down a deposit on the first of many life-changing augmentations. Student insurance called it a vanity expense. Advisors gave sympathetic nods to Vĩnh’s analyses of the costs and benefits, both objective and subjective, but could offer nothing. To regain her sight, Vĩnh turned to her most reliable friend: research. She found her recourse on Europa, and left the very next break to receive her new eyes. They weren’t the cheapest, but they were close. She awoke from surgery with a repayment plan and black lenses where her eyes once sat. But she could see the world again. And she longed to be able to reach out and experience it all the more. Further invigorated, she set to work the moment she returned to Mars. She researched with new purpose, and pushed herself harder than she ever had before. She took on retail and restaurants—any place that was willing to look past her strange eyes and faltering smile. As weeks turned to months, her world became a web of abstract numbers. Food was an expense to be minimized in favor of painkillers for performance optimization. Leisure was a commodity to be rationed on an availability basis. Sleep was to be calculated, with work and school taking priority every time. At least the sleep-deprivation migraines sometimes dulled the joint pain. Her college years melted into a hazy blur of grades and profits. In a blink, she had graduated and returned home to prepare for standardized admission tests to law school. Back on Earth, she returned to her roots of learning by listening, studying as she worked a revolving door of minimum wage shifts. Though her ambitious schedule endured at first, her joints soon began to buckle under the higher gravity. By the end of her stay on Earth, she was faced with the same ultimatum from her body: Scholarship or break trying. By the skin of her teeth, she made it. She begged and pleaded with admissions agents already familiar with her name and with faculty she’d already worked to impress alike. Soon, she was welcomed back to Mars, and promptly returned to work. By the end of her law degree, she was a shambling husk. She dragged herself across the finish line, and soon after resigned herself to an uncomfortable reality. She couldn’t make it. She had paid off her eyes only two years prior, and still, she could not afford to pay in full for new limbs. She could barely afford a deposit. Her degree was worthless without local certifications to practice. It was an open question whether she could even manage to train under a licensed lawyer and work another job at once. But she couldn’t bear it any longer. She scrounged up loans where she could and leveraged all she had left. Just as with her replacement eyes, her replacement limbs were made for functionality alone, blatantly artificial, yet still better than what she had before all the same. Vĩnh found an unexpected opportunity as she recovered from surgery. One of her recovery ward-mates directed her to look at positions on Callisto upon hearing of her background. Sure enough, there was an intense demand for lawyers willing to staff offices on the moon, and the export market made Federation training an asset. And so, from her hospital bed, Vĩnh began researching, applying, and preparing. Callisto was supposed to be an opportunity second to none—a chance at a decent, stable life. Unfortunately, interest waits for none. As she prepared for local certification, it haunted her. As she apprenticed, it loomed behind her, growing larger by the day. Late fees accumulated. Creative shuffling of bills and meagre apprenticeship wages could only do so much to stop the bleeding. By the time she could begin practicing, her medical debt had grown unmanageable. Her student debt piled on top. A second job curbed the bleeding, for a time. Though some instances were exhausted hallucinations, real debt collectors did begin to back off. Maybe, just maybe, Vĩnh could dig her way out of this too. If only her hardware could take it. She could do without pinkies. She managed with three functional fingers. When she got down to two, her insurance covered bottom-of-the-barrel replacement fingers, made with minimal sensory input and the cheapest materials legally available. But it all still cost her in copays. Vĩnh limped along for months more, scraping together payments and looking for solutions. None came. The walls began closing in, until there were no more reasonable sacrifices to make. Planned obsolescence took the new fingers one by one. Insurance denied her new requests. Vĩnh began grasping at straws. First to go were her medications. The inflammation returned with a passion. Vĩnh crossed her remaining fingers and hoped. She chipped away at her debt as hard as she could. She begged her company insurance provider to approve new arms, hands—even half-decent fingers for the new coverage year. At every turn, she was denied. She received the same garbage as in the year prior. She treated her hands with the utmost care. She minimized wear and followed every maintenance protocol to the letter. By mid-year, she was back to four fingers across two hands. Left with no alternative, she turned to the black market. She had her left hand’s fingers salvaged to put on the right. In doing so, she broke her left hand beyond repair. The next time, she found another mechanic and salvaged her toes to the same end. She barely limped through the year. Cannibalizing her feet for parts placed new strains on her body—strains which were unsustainable, most of all without her medication. As her performance waned, she could lie to herself no more. There was blood in the water, and it was coming from her. It was surely only a matter of time before her superiors identified her decaying performance, if they hadn’t already nailed her on that. Her coworkers had already noted her toe-fingers and broken hand, after all. The clock was ticking. All signs pointed towards extralegal measures. All she could do now was dig down. The black market was waiting with open arms. For the last time, she sold off everything she could, pawned the rest, and clawed out loans. She sent her parents a parting sum, then prepared to buy her way to a better life with the rest. This time, the service providers were simply honest about how little they cared about her. For a small fee of everything she had left, the good illegal merchants of Callisto found her sturdy new arms and legs, jailbroke and secured her cybernetics, defrauded her company insurance as much as they could manage, and sent her on her way with a far greater supply of her medication than strictly legal for a pharmacist to dispense. Vĩnh threw fake doctor’s notes and every other lie she could to her supervisors as she scrambled for her final escape. When she found it, she scheduled a resignation notice to send, and hoped they wouldn’t catch her. Now Vĩnh can only hope that a willingness to do her best and learn will get her far enough to send some money home to her parents. Personality & Reputation At her best, Vĩnh is driven and relentlessly optimistic, always ready to face new hardships with positivity and her best foot forward. She prefers to look for the best in situations and in people, and has worked hard her entire life to keep her best foot forward. She is a passionate learner, both from reading and from word of mouth, and is just as happy to share what she herself has learned. Even in fields beyond her familiarity or ability, she will happily listen to an expert share the intricacies of their perspective and nod along. Few coworkers of hers have gone without her peeking curiously past their shoulder, eager to figure out what they might be up to, and all the more interested to have it explained. Similarly, this enduring interest in the novel has made her an excellent listener, ready to hear another’s problems and joys alike with a steady interest. However, chatty as she may be, Vĩnh does not as readily share as she listens. She is not intentionally private so much as she has little interest in her internal world. Those with the inclination to push will not find it difficult to get her to open up, but she will rarely initiate doing so. As it stands, Vĩnh is scarcely at her best. Recent years still loom large, and her efforts to push the unpleasant down have seen middling success at best. Her smile holds, and a good chat always peps her up all the same, but, in the many moments of silence out in space, when she cannot gorge herself on knowledge and input, she wavers. Her expression maintains a pensive quality past the superficial placid smile. She had never imagined she’d end up here, as a thief, a fraudster, and an associate of criminals. Thirty years of taking the cards she was dealt and playing them as well as she could have only gotten her here. She grasps at straws in her idle moments, trying to imagine a way she could have done it all better—been better. The impossible choices of life gnaw at her. A discussion of right and wrong, of just and unjust, of moral and immoral, sends her spiraling into paradox. A lifetime ago, she resolved to address cases as they came, to follow the law and simply try her best. Now, she debates herself aloud and tears herself apart by facing principle against reality. She tries her best aboard The Dullahan, but as she learns more about her crewmates, she grows only more unsettled. Her guilt hurts worse than any of her joints ever did, and yet there are so many people who seem excited to wield weapons against their fellow men. But if nobody got hurt, would it truly be so wrong to steal something back from the entities which poisoned her home and denied her when she needed them most? In her old life, she was not easily shaken. Not anymore. Appearance Even with a little height boost from her cybernetic legs, Vĩnh is still shy of five feet, standing at 149cm. She has a somewhat stocky, if rather underfed build. As far as distinctive biological features go, Vĩnh has a smattering of little acne scars on her forehead and jawline, uses her hair to obscure the fact that the outer half of her right eyebrow is missing and scarred-over, and has a prominent chemical burn scar from around her left shoulder to her mid-waist. These distinctive features naturally pale in comparison to Vĩnh’s obvious cybernetics. Her eyes are entirely black, looking similar to the lens of a mobile phone camera. Her prosthetic arms attach to a port at the shoulder, while her legs attach at ports just above where the knee would be. Both are made of the same natural black of carbon fibre, without any remaining identifiable branding on them. In better economic straits, Vĩnh might prefer to do more for herself than cheap lotion for her scars and two-in-one shampoo-body wash for bathing, but vanity is a luxury. Looking “professional” is already an ask in this economy. Working as a privateer, even that is a waste anyway. Her limbs don’t need to feel heat or warmth, and clothing impedes their modularity functions anyway. Therefore, Vĩnh almost exclusively wears shorts with t-shirts, tank tops, and sports bras. Strengths & Limitations Beyond strengths common to most cybernetic enhancements, Vĩnh’s biggest strengths are immaterial. From years of wandering the internet and databases learning about all manner of things, Vĩnh has become an excellent researcher. If the information exists and can be found by reasonable means, Vĩnh can most often track it down. Even better, so long as she understands what she’s reading, she can often figure out how to apply what she finds. Though she may lack the training, willingness to genuinely try can get one far—and Vĩnh has no shortage of will. She is nothing if not earnest. And for as far as this can take her as a layman, in areas around her adjacent field, she can prove truly formidable. She is intimately familiar with both Federation and Jovian law, and possesses a talent for penetrating bureaucracy. Though all of this education is usually irrelevant aboard a privateering vessel, Vĩnh’s years of double-dipping into minimum-wage work has granted her a more well-rounded base of knowledge from which to work. No problem she can readily address is left to fester aboard The Dullahan. Well-rounded and driven as she is, Vĩnh is loath to decide that something cannot be done. By no means is she averse to help either; rather, she will readily enlist the help of others to try and force the issue, until she harms herself or others in doing so. Her stubborn insistence on doing more than her best has taken its toll on her—a toll her health could never afford to sustain in the first place. She has implicitly embraced a medical race to the bottom, as the years of pushing and skimping on vital medications accumulate on her remaining joints. She forces herself into coughing fits from effort. Her cheap ocular implants sometimes irritate her face and cause tears. She insists on pushing through any pain that she can bear without collapsing. Despite all of her cybernetics, she has a frail core; her joints show the damage of someone far older. Worse still, this inflexibility has begun to cause problems for her beyond the physical. She will not compromise with herself. The world’s complexity eats at her. Her aspirations of morality render her often sickened by the implications of her work. Her will to action and her wish to do right clash violently within, and no solution is yet in sight. It is only a matter of time before she paralyzes herself when she cannot afford to fight herself. Miscellaneous
|
I’m going to put myself down as very much interested. I’ll be on the discord as a reward for finishing stripping the paint off these cabinets 🙏.
Caroline had to stop herself from staring daggers at the librarian. He was just trying to help her, she told herself. He was just getting things together for the guest card. Doing that required typing things and clicking around. He wasn’t reporting; he was priming the printer. The sounds he made didn’t really mean anything. It was weird for someone from out of town to go to the library in Vegas. Her arm hurt. Stop gripping so hard. She released her grasp on her other arm and started flicking her wrist. Had to get the blood flowing so the mark goes away, or the librarian might catch on that there was something wrong.
But there was no mark. She kept flicking her wrist while staring at where it should have been. Did she even still have blood there? The hum of a nearby printer snapped her attention away. Her head jerked around as she searched for the sound. It was behind the desk. The librarian had turned around to fetch the card. He was just getting the card. Had the police not been alerted yet? Were libraries that slow on the news? The librarian turned around. She stared him in the eye, forgetting to blink as her mind continued buzzing. He sighed and gave her the card. She seized it, half-expecting him to yank it back.
“Is there anything else I can help you with?” The librarian’s delivery was flat. He raised his eyebrows expectantly when Caroline failed to respond. He cleared his throat when she began inspecting the card. Her head jerked back up to look at him. He repeated himself. She shook her head. She gave him a thumbs-up, and bounded towards the computers before he could respond.
She looked up to the ceiling, searching for any sign of cameras. She reviewed it twice over before darting for what she felt to be the most private seat in the room. She slapped the library card next to the keyboard and got to work. She typed in her ID incorrectly twice, let out an infuriated wheeze, then succeeded on her third try. She tapped her toe-finger impatiently on the side of the keyboard as it loaded. She clicked and typed at the feverish pace of a movie hacker. Her phone buzzed. She got her authenticator code, entered it, stared as the screen slowly brought her that precious water of knowledge and connection.
She drank in the bright glow of her Facebook home page for a moment. Then her attention shot to the messages. She had 67 of them, unread. She slid the mouse across the desk and clicked. Messenger beckoned. Her heart should have skipped a beat as the urge to find out was teased by the painful speed of the library’s old hardware. She caught glimpses of several messages as she rushed to find what she’d first missed when Sam had her delete her social media apps. There were mundane things at first, nothing out of the ordinary. Some nonsense her grandmother had found funny. A “wish you were here” selfie on the Gulf Coast from a member of one of her backup friend groups. Caroline clicked onwards. A “How’s Vegas?” from an aunt. A scheduling query from a subordinate at one of her social clubs. Then she hit her first bump.
David Li had reached out. ‘If this is a joke it isn't funny. If it's a cry for help, you already know how many people are here for you if you need it. I don't care anymore how poorly things ended between us. I promise I won't be angry - even if you're doing this for attention - but on the condition that you have to say something when you see this message. Anything. Please.’ Caroline rattled with disgust as she reread the message. She broke things off with him. And he, in all his insufferable insecurity, somehow had thought he was the cause of it? Caroline scowled at the screen, then let out a small growl.
She scooted back from the computer as she felt the urge to type clawing at her. She wanted so badly to be honest with him. To tell him she’d snapped at him and told him they were done because she had wanted it for months. To tell him that it was always supposed to be a little seasonal romance, not something serious. He’d long outlived his welcome—what he’d had in the first place, anyway. Even if she had liked him once, he was never in the running. There was too much difference. Exoticism was for fun, nothing more. He had to have understood that. She was so happy when she met his parents and they shot looks between one another. She didn’t know what they were saying afterwards, but she understood the tone. They didn’t know it, but they and their son’s “girlfriend” were on the same page. She had weaseled out of introducing him to her parents and even her siblings for months. And David? David took her excuses and avoidance and everything else to be about him! When he started yelling at his parents over the phone, it was finally the perfect opportunity.
He had apologized for weeks about that dinner. She’d laughed it off. Did everything to make distance. And yet he still felt guilty. He was probably out there right now leaking guilt all over her murder, like she’d gone and gotten herself killed over him. Caroline looked up at the ceiling. Great! What little of a legacy she had, tainted by the gross misunderstanding that she’d gotten that flustered over some parents. Some parents and a boy who’d have gotten the door to Comus slammed in her face. She wanted to scream, puke, and cry all at once. She didn’t have time for this.
Now, did Facebook have any useful information?
After the social club thing was a panicked message from Pearl Scarcello. ‘Look im sorry ok? im sorry what i said to sandra about you really i am. but dont you thinkn this is overeacting a bit?!?! now their getting the cops involved, their putting your face on the news!1 CAROLINE THIS ISNT FUNNY ANYMORE!!!’ Caroline groaned and planted her face in her hands. She wanted to sob. Two people! Two people had already decided that she had gone and got herself killed over them! As she contemplated the horrifying thought that any number of people could be blaming themselves and all but taking credit over something they had nothing to do with, Caroline’s dread was interrupted by confusion. What had Pearl even said? She racked her brain for the answer. Fuck. Pearl thought that an accusation of racism was something she’d kill herself over? What, just because the Comus Ball had an unspoken whites-only policy, that she and her folks did too? It was so easily resolved—it had taken maybe a day to shut down that notion. And here she was, in her pitiful social justice-obsessed arrogance assuming that just because she was a guilt-addled little piece of white-savior porcelain shit, mentally ill enough to off herself over the mere insinuation of her being racist, that Caroline was somehow anywhere near that pathetic? And the thought that she was getting her back for that “slight” was even worse. She wasn’t even worth it. Just because Madison occasionally brought her along on outings like a little queer accessory didn’t make any of them friends.
Caroline stared at the message for a time, trapped in a spiral of bile as she contemplated the increasingly dire-seeming state of her image postmortem. Yet nothing could have prepared her for what was soon to follow.
Her eyes widened. As she read the message from her older brother, she began to shake. ‘If you're doing this because of something we did—or something we didn't do—then enough. We get the message. Do you hear me, Caroline? You can stop punishing us now; you win. Whatever it is that you want, it's yours. Just please, please come home. I promise we can talk about whatever is bothering you peacefully. No yelling.’
She stared at the screen. Her lip quivered. How could her own brother—Did he really think so little of her? She wanted to puke. Her hands drifted towards the keyboard. She jerked back, nearly falling out of the chair. She looked at the ceiling, blinking as fast as she could. She couldn’t cry. She had to keep it in. She’d lose so much blood if she broke now. She ripped off her mask and tried to breathe to stabilize herself.
Why, Paul? Why? Why did he think this? Who had given him this idea? He—he had to have been mistaken! He’d never think so low of her, right? There had to be a reason. There had to be. Why was everyone talking like she was alive? She’d woken up in a morgue. Didn’t they know? Didn’t anyone mourn?
Caroline gripped the armrests. She tensed her neck, trying to prevent any whimpers from breaking her into tears.
She sat in place, mouthing silently to herself.
“He’s just worried. He must not know.”
She needed a distraction. She quickly clicked out of Paul’s DMs. The remainder of the notifications came from two chats. First was Jerry Lucas. Caroline’s state was interrupted not by the message itself, but well before it. Who was this guy?
Jerry Lucas, Jerry Lucas, Jerry Lucas... It just wasn’t ringing a bell. It should have. How many Jerrys in her age bracket even were there?
She clicked on the profile before opening the message. As she scrolled through his profile, she searched for details that might ring a bell. Huh. He had been a grade below her in high school. She scratched her chin as she tried to match the name and face to any memories from those days.
Nothing.
So what did he send? ‘Ms. Capdevielle, rotting in a ditch.
Pompous, spoiled, nasty bitch.
Rape gone wrong? Vengeance well planned?
Just wish I could shake his hand.’ She wrinkled her nose as she read it. She shook her head. Awful. Just awful. He wasn’t even good at it. She looked back at his picture.
Oh! It was all starting to click. His girlfriend was...what was her name? It was an M name. Maria? Melanie? Caroline tapped her finger idly on the keyboard. Melissa! Yes, that was his, well, formerly his girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend.
Caroline smiled halfheartedly. That’s why he was so happy about her being dead! Oh, that was great. He’d nearly gotten expelled for that little party trick. A little something in Melissa’s food and Julia Nuñez’ sweet sixteen got a show to liven it up! All she had to do to get away with it was say she saw Jerry messing with Melissa’s drink.
Fun times.
So what was left?
The main group chat. It was so sparse without Madison and Haley. But there was still activity. Caroline hesitated to check for a moment. Given everything else she’d seen, she almost didn’t want to know. What would Mallory and Reagan have to say? Did they feel the same as her brother? Even worse? Were they blaming themselves?
Caroline couldn’t help herself. She had to know. Disappointment. If only she could have seen her friends’ DMs and known what their conclusions were. Madison and Hailey both had memorials and events for their funerals. She only had a memorial. Her friends’ pages had a diverse array of responses. Plenty of the people had kind things to say and memories and love to share. There were lukewarm condolences from acquaintances. And, to Caroline’s disgust, there were pockets of hatred. The ensuing dogpile was formidable, thankfully, but it was still just awful to see. Didn’t they know it was rude to speak ill of the dead?
Her own page was so much worse. Her entire social network was eating itself alive. Where Madison and Haley’s pages were posted by their families, her page was Mallory’s doing. Caroline’s parents and siblings were conspicuously silent as even her cousins joined in the free-for-all of comments. Pulled along by morbid curiosity, Caroline trawled through a massive line of replies where Reagan duked it out with several of Caroline’s cousins over whether it was in good taste to even have the page up, since they didn’t have an autopsy. It ended with them all threatening to report one another. Similar stories played out elsewhere, with an array of friends and acquaintances all throwing opinions around. The arguments grew nastier by the hour. Condolences and expressions of concern devolved into name-calling and finger-pointing. Kelsey Garnier threw fuel on the fire by commenting ‘I don’t know which would be worse: If y’all are all just pretending to love her bc she’s dead, or if y’all really do care this much about someone who was so damn vile in life.’
If nothing else, all of her friends could mostly unite behind the common cause of outrage. That was something. But the comment gnawed at Caroline all the same. Paul’s message came back to the forefront. She couldn’t shake it. Even though he unequivocally cared, he—her own brother—still thought so lowly of her as to think her disappearance was some slight or stunt. She could easily cast aside acquaintances. Jerry’s sorry attempt at gloating poetry was ultimately more entertaining than hurtful. But family, but blood—Did Mother and Father, did Mattie and Charlie think this way too? Did they only love her in spite of her?
Were they happier without her?
She couldn’t stop it. She returned to Paul’s message, scraping for any meaning between the lines. Meaning that she couldn’t seem to find. Were they better off without her? Had she never even been good enough? Was every hug a little white lie? Were they all just appeasing her, happy she wasn’t doing coke in the bathroom or otherwise making a mess of everything? Was she, after all this, just some unstable middle child who was just a bomb to keep defused?
What was so wrong with her? What had she ever done that had hurt the family? She’d hurt others, yes, but Paul? Her parents?
She logged out and shut down the computer. She gazed into the black screen, blinking rapidly. Why? What had she even done to him? She couldn’t follow any explanation she grasped for. Her thoughts melted into a nonsensical daze of shock and grief. She whimpered. Her efforts weren’t enough. She was trapped, crying, alone, and detestable. She was increasingly ugly on the outside, and apparently, it was an open question whether she had any inner beauty to compensate for it. She wasn’t enough.
There was no solving it. There was no recourse. She was stuck here, like this, and worse still, she was privy to how everyone saw fit to speak about her when they thought she wasn’t there. She could see her identity being steered into the mud, and yet couldn’t take control and assert it. She wanted to so badly. It was right there. The keyboard was begging her to claw back the narrative, to take the mess and spin it into something tolerable, to fix things. It was as hurtful as it was maddening. She could feel tepid droplets streaming down her face. She needed to leave. She needed to walk away, to not touch the computer again. She just couldn’t bring herself to.
She logged in again. She trawled through her Facebook twice over. She reread Paul’s message. She couldn’t tear herself from the screen. It should have all been a nightmare. She needed to wake up. She clamped a hand over her mouth to smother the sound. She curled back into her seat as Paul’s words sunk in. She wanted desperately to tell him he was wrong. To call him, then her mother, then her father. To apologize a thousand times for something she hadn’t really done, to tell them to bury her in dignity with her friends with a closed casket, and yet what could she say? How could they believe without seeing? And to show them what she had become?
“God.”
She choked out an exclamation as she returned to the same painful conclusion she’d grappled with when she first felt a man’s blood pass her lips, when she felt the primal fear of the sun and the flames it bore, and when she first twisted out of shape. They were better off without her. If not before then now, surely now. She should have done the right thing in the first place and given them a pretty body. She should have played her part correctly, been a good corpse, and gone to Purgatory away from Earth. She should have stayed away from Las Vegas and gotten drunk on the Gulf Coast by the sunset instead, and all this never would have happened.
Should’ve, would’ve, could’ve.
She wanted to punch herself. As she looked down at her hand, she felt a self-directed rage flare. She’d covered herself in blood. She’d made a mess. She was the mess. She turned off the computer, then snarled as she saw the blood smeared on the power button.
A murderer, a deformity, a monster, a depreciated monster of a mess. That’s all she was, logging into the Facebook of someone so much better. She licked her finger and rubbed the blood from the power button. She stumbled up and lurched for the bathroom.
She made eye contact with a janitor. The two gazed at one another for a moment as the door slammed behind Caroline. Her fingers tensed. Her eyes darted between her bloodied reflection and the unexpected company in the ladies’ room. She felt vile. She felt monstrous. And she was looking at her as if she knew she was a monster. A part of her wanted to ask the janitor what about her looked the worst. Was it the blood? Or was it her posture, her shaky stance, the tension in her every muscle? Was it her clothes?
A different part of her knew none of it mattered. She’d been seen for the disaster she was. She needed to fix herself. The woman standing before her was the answer to both problems. She’d feel better. So much better. And she needed to eat before she was inevitably caught anyway. Killing this witness would forestall changes, hunger, and destroy someone who’d seen her monstrous self.
She sprung forward. The two hit the floor. The janitor’s shoes squeaked. This was a terrible place to be doing this. Caroline squeezed the janitor’s throat with one hand as she fished out her phone and then her stylus from her purse. She set the phone on the floor and opened it while sitting on the janitor’s chest. She typed feverishly.
‘Feeding not going well. Can’t talk. Get my stuff & run’
She should have given more details. He needed to know how fucked they were. But the life was slowly leaving her feast’s eyes. She needed it now. She clicked send and plunged her fangs into the janitor’s neck. As she began to drink, the janitor stopped struggling. She released her grip and embraced the moment.
She could never have explained this feeling to her brother.
But there was no mark. She kept flicking her wrist while staring at where it should have been. Did she even still have blood there? The hum of a nearby printer snapped her attention away. Her head jerked around as she searched for the sound. It was behind the desk. The librarian had turned around to fetch the card. He was just getting the card. Had the police not been alerted yet? Were libraries that slow on the news? The librarian turned around. She stared him in the eye, forgetting to blink as her mind continued buzzing. He sighed and gave her the card. She seized it, half-expecting him to yank it back.
“Is there anything else I can help you with?” The librarian’s delivery was flat. He raised his eyebrows expectantly when Caroline failed to respond. He cleared his throat when she began inspecting the card. Her head jerked back up to look at him. He repeated himself. She shook her head. She gave him a thumbs-up, and bounded towards the computers before he could respond.
She looked up to the ceiling, searching for any sign of cameras. She reviewed it twice over before darting for what she felt to be the most private seat in the room. She slapped the library card next to the keyboard and got to work. She typed in her ID incorrectly twice, let out an infuriated wheeze, then succeeded on her third try. She tapped her toe-finger impatiently on the side of the keyboard as it loaded. She clicked and typed at the feverish pace of a movie hacker. Her phone buzzed. She got her authenticator code, entered it, stared as the screen slowly brought her that precious water of knowledge and connection.
She drank in the bright glow of her Facebook home page for a moment. Then her attention shot to the messages. She had 67 of them, unread. She slid the mouse across the desk and clicked. Messenger beckoned. Her heart should have skipped a beat as the urge to find out was teased by the painful speed of the library’s old hardware. She caught glimpses of several messages as she rushed to find what she’d first missed when Sam had her delete her social media apps. There were mundane things at first, nothing out of the ordinary. Some nonsense her grandmother had found funny. A “wish you were here” selfie on the Gulf Coast from a member of one of her backup friend groups. Caroline clicked onwards. A “How’s Vegas?” from an aunt. A scheduling query from a subordinate at one of her social clubs. Then she hit her first bump.
David Li had reached out. ‘If this is a joke it isn't funny. If it's a cry for help, you already know how many people are here for you if you need it. I don't care anymore how poorly things ended between us. I promise I won't be angry - even if you're doing this for attention - but on the condition that you have to say something when you see this message. Anything. Please.’ Caroline rattled with disgust as she reread the message. She broke things off with him. And he, in all his insufferable insecurity, somehow had thought he was the cause of it? Caroline scowled at the screen, then let out a small growl.
She scooted back from the computer as she felt the urge to type clawing at her. She wanted so badly to be honest with him. To tell him she’d snapped at him and told him they were done because she had wanted it for months. To tell him that it was always supposed to be a little seasonal romance, not something serious. He’d long outlived his welcome—what he’d had in the first place, anyway. Even if she had liked him once, he was never in the running. There was too much difference. Exoticism was for fun, nothing more. He had to have understood that. She was so happy when she met his parents and they shot looks between one another. She didn’t know what they were saying afterwards, but she understood the tone. They didn’t know it, but they and their son’s “girlfriend” were on the same page. She had weaseled out of introducing him to her parents and even her siblings for months. And David? David took her excuses and avoidance and everything else to be about him! When he started yelling at his parents over the phone, it was finally the perfect opportunity.
He had apologized for weeks about that dinner. She’d laughed it off. Did everything to make distance. And yet he still felt guilty. He was probably out there right now leaking guilt all over her murder, like she’d gone and gotten herself killed over him. Caroline looked up at the ceiling. Great! What little of a legacy she had, tainted by the gross misunderstanding that she’d gotten that flustered over some parents. Some parents and a boy who’d have gotten the door to Comus slammed in her face. She wanted to scream, puke, and cry all at once. She didn’t have time for this.
Now, did Facebook have any useful information?
After the social club thing was a panicked message from Pearl Scarcello. ‘Look im sorry ok? im sorry what i said to sandra about you really i am. but dont you thinkn this is overeacting a bit?!?! now their getting the cops involved, their putting your face on the news!1 CAROLINE THIS ISNT FUNNY ANYMORE!!!’ Caroline groaned and planted her face in her hands. She wanted to sob. Two people! Two people had already decided that she had gone and got herself killed over them! As she contemplated the horrifying thought that any number of people could be blaming themselves and all but taking credit over something they had nothing to do with, Caroline’s dread was interrupted by confusion. What had Pearl even said? She racked her brain for the answer. Fuck. Pearl thought that an accusation of racism was something she’d kill herself over? What, just because the Comus Ball had an unspoken whites-only policy, that she and her folks did too? It was so easily resolved—it had taken maybe a day to shut down that notion. And here she was, in her pitiful social justice-obsessed arrogance assuming that just because she was a guilt-addled little piece of white-savior porcelain shit, mentally ill enough to off herself over the mere insinuation of her being racist, that Caroline was somehow anywhere near that pathetic? And the thought that she was getting her back for that “slight” was even worse. She wasn’t even worth it. Just because Madison occasionally brought her along on outings like a little queer accessory didn’t make any of them friends.
Caroline stared at the message for a time, trapped in a spiral of bile as she contemplated the increasingly dire-seeming state of her image postmortem. Yet nothing could have prepared her for what was soon to follow.
Her eyes widened. As she read the message from her older brother, she began to shake. ‘If you're doing this because of something we did—or something we didn't do—then enough. We get the message. Do you hear me, Caroline? You can stop punishing us now; you win. Whatever it is that you want, it's yours. Just please, please come home. I promise we can talk about whatever is bothering you peacefully. No yelling.’
She stared at the screen. Her lip quivered. How could her own brother—Did he really think so little of her? She wanted to puke. Her hands drifted towards the keyboard. She jerked back, nearly falling out of the chair. She looked at the ceiling, blinking as fast as she could. She couldn’t cry. She had to keep it in. She’d lose so much blood if she broke now. She ripped off her mask and tried to breathe to stabilize herself.
Why, Paul? Why? Why did he think this? Who had given him this idea? He—he had to have been mistaken! He’d never think so low of her, right? There had to be a reason. There had to be. Why was everyone talking like she was alive? She’d woken up in a morgue. Didn’t they know? Didn’t anyone mourn?
Caroline gripped the armrests. She tensed her neck, trying to prevent any whimpers from breaking her into tears.
She sat in place, mouthing silently to herself.
“He’s just worried. He must not know.”
She needed a distraction. She quickly clicked out of Paul’s DMs. The remainder of the notifications came from two chats. First was Jerry Lucas. Caroline’s state was interrupted not by the message itself, but well before it. Who was this guy?
Jerry Lucas, Jerry Lucas, Jerry Lucas... It just wasn’t ringing a bell. It should have. How many Jerrys in her age bracket even were there?
She clicked on the profile before opening the message. As she scrolled through his profile, she searched for details that might ring a bell. Huh. He had been a grade below her in high school. She scratched her chin as she tried to match the name and face to any memories from those days.
Nothing.
So what did he send? ‘Ms. Capdevielle, rotting in a ditch.
Pompous, spoiled, nasty bitch.
Rape gone wrong? Vengeance well planned?
Just wish I could shake his hand.’ She wrinkled her nose as she read it. She shook her head. Awful. Just awful. He wasn’t even good at it. She looked back at his picture.
Oh! It was all starting to click. His girlfriend was...what was her name? It was an M name. Maria? Melanie? Caroline tapped her finger idly on the keyboard. Melissa! Yes, that was his, well, formerly his girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend.
Caroline smiled halfheartedly. That’s why he was so happy about her being dead! Oh, that was great. He’d nearly gotten expelled for that little party trick. A little something in Melissa’s food and Julia Nuñez’ sweet sixteen got a show to liven it up! All she had to do to get away with it was say she saw Jerry messing with Melissa’s drink.
Fun times.
So what was left?
The main group chat. It was so sparse without Madison and Haley. But there was still activity. Caroline hesitated to check for a moment. Given everything else she’d seen, she almost didn’t want to know. What would Mallory and Reagan have to say? Did they feel the same as her brother? Even worse? Were they blaming themselves?
Caroline couldn’t help herself. She had to know. Disappointment. If only she could have seen her friends’ DMs and known what their conclusions were. Madison and Hailey both had memorials and events for their funerals. She only had a memorial. Her friends’ pages had a diverse array of responses. Plenty of the people had kind things to say and memories and love to share. There were lukewarm condolences from acquaintances. And, to Caroline’s disgust, there were pockets of hatred. The ensuing dogpile was formidable, thankfully, but it was still just awful to see. Didn’t they know it was rude to speak ill of the dead?
Her own page was so much worse. Her entire social network was eating itself alive. Where Madison and Haley’s pages were posted by their families, her page was Mallory’s doing. Caroline’s parents and siblings were conspicuously silent as even her cousins joined in the free-for-all of comments. Pulled along by morbid curiosity, Caroline trawled through a massive line of replies where Reagan duked it out with several of Caroline’s cousins over whether it was in good taste to even have the page up, since they didn’t have an autopsy. It ended with them all threatening to report one another. Similar stories played out elsewhere, with an array of friends and acquaintances all throwing opinions around. The arguments grew nastier by the hour. Condolences and expressions of concern devolved into name-calling and finger-pointing. Kelsey Garnier threw fuel on the fire by commenting ‘I don’t know which would be worse: If y’all are all just pretending to love her bc she’s dead, or if y’all really do care this much about someone who was so damn vile in life.’
If nothing else, all of her friends could mostly unite behind the common cause of outrage. That was something. But the comment gnawed at Caroline all the same. Paul’s message came back to the forefront. She couldn’t shake it. Even though he unequivocally cared, he—her own brother—still thought so lowly of her as to think her disappearance was some slight or stunt. She could easily cast aside acquaintances. Jerry’s sorry attempt at gloating poetry was ultimately more entertaining than hurtful. But family, but blood—Did Mother and Father, did Mattie and Charlie think this way too? Did they only love her in spite of her?
Were they happier without her?
She couldn’t stop it. She returned to Paul’s message, scraping for any meaning between the lines. Meaning that she couldn’t seem to find. Were they better off without her? Had she never even been good enough? Was every hug a little white lie? Were they all just appeasing her, happy she wasn’t doing coke in the bathroom or otherwise making a mess of everything? Was she, after all this, just some unstable middle child who was just a bomb to keep defused?
What was so wrong with her? What had she ever done that had hurt the family? She’d hurt others, yes, but Paul? Her parents?
She logged out and shut down the computer. She gazed into the black screen, blinking rapidly. Why? What had she even done to him? She couldn’t follow any explanation she grasped for. Her thoughts melted into a nonsensical daze of shock and grief. She whimpered. Her efforts weren’t enough. She was trapped, crying, alone, and detestable. She was increasingly ugly on the outside, and apparently, it was an open question whether she had any inner beauty to compensate for it. She wasn’t enough.
There was no solving it. There was no recourse. She was stuck here, like this, and worse still, she was privy to how everyone saw fit to speak about her when they thought she wasn’t there. She could see her identity being steered into the mud, and yet couldn’t take control and assert it. She wanted to so badly. It was right there. The keyboard was begging her to claw back the narrative, to take the mess and spin it into something tolerable, to fix things. It was as hurtful as it was maddening. She could feel tepid droplets streaming down her face. She needed to leave. She needed to walk away, to not touch the computer again. She just couldn’t bring herself to.
She logged in again. She trawled through her Facebook twice over. She reread Paul’s message. She couldn’t tear herself from the screen. It should have all been a nightmare. She needed to wake up. She clamped a hand over her mouth to smother the sound. She curled back into her seat as Paul’s words sunk in. She wanted desperately to tell him he was wrong. To call him, then her mother, then her father. To apologize a thousand times for something she hadn’t really done, to tell them to bury her in dignity with her friends with a closed casket, and yet what could she say? How could they believe without seeing? And to show them what she had become?
“God.”
She choked out an exclamation as she returned to the same painful conclusion she’d grappled with when she first felt a man’s blood pass her lips, when she felt the primal fear of the sun and the flames it bore, and when she first twisted out of shape. They were better off without her. If not before then now, surely now. She should have done the right thing in the first place and given them a pretty body. She should have played her part correctly, been a good corpse, and gone to Purgatory away from Earth. She should have stayed away from Las Vegas and gotten drunk on the Gulf Coast by the sunset instead, and all this never would have happened.
Should’ve, would’ve, could’ve.
She wanted to punch herself. As she looked down at her hand, she felt a self-directed rage flare. She’d covered herself in blood. She’d made a mess. She was the mess. She turned off the computer, then snarled as she saw the blood smeared on the power button.
A murderer, a deformity, a monster, a depreciated monster of a mess. That’s all she was, logging into the Facebook of someone so much better. She licked her finger and rubbed the blood from the power button. She stumbled up and lurched for the bathroom.
She made eye contact with a janitor. The two gazed at one another for a moment as the door slammed behind Caroline. Her fingers tensed. Her eyes darted between her bloodied reflection and the unexpected company in the ladies’ room. She felt vile. She felt monstrous. And she was looking at her as if she knew she was a monster. A part of her wanted to ask the janitor what about her looked the worst. Was it the blood? Or was it her posture, her shaky stance, the tension in her every muscle? Was it her clothes?
A different part of her knew none of it mattered. She’d been seen for the disaster she was. She needed to fix herself. The woman standing before her was the answer to both problems. She’d feel better. So much better. And she needed to eat before she was inevitably caught anyway. Killing this witness would forestall changes, hunger, and destroy someone who’d seen her monstrous self.
She sprung forward. The two hit the floor. The janitor’s shoes squeaked. This was a terrible place to be doing this. Caroline squeezed the janitor’s throat with one hand as she fished out her phone and then her stylus from her purse. She set the phone on the floor and opened it while sitting on the janitor’s chest. She typed feverishly.
‘Feeding not going well. Can’t talk. Get my stuff & run’
She should have given more details. He needed to know how fucked they were. But the life was slowly leaving her feast’s eyes. She needed it now. She clicked send and plunged her fangs into the janitor’s neck. As she began to drink, the janitor stopped struggling. She released her grip and embraced the moment.
She could never have explained this feeling to her brother.
This trip was meant to be a celebration. This was the first summer that felt free from COVID. This was the first summer she and her friends could legally drink. They’d pulled out all the stops. They were supposed to be crowded together here, getting ready for another night out, chatting about plans, people, and everything else. It should have stayed that way. It was going so well. Things were looking bright. Now, everything felt wrong. Now, everything looked wrong. Now, there was no sound except for those vanity lights. Their hum was getting maddening.
She had to try again. She wiped her face clean. The deathly reflection glared back at her again the moment she looked back at the mirror. Her phone was propped up on the counter. The zoomed-in screenshot of her driver’s license picture on LA Wallet felt like it was mocking her. She felt more like a mosquito trapped in a bug zapper than the twenty-one-year-old version of that girl there.
There was no fixing this. No amount of contour would do the job. Whatever was wrong with her, it had destroyed years of dental work. She dragged her hands down her face. Ugly wasn’t good enough. It just looked so stupid. It was an unfixable overbite. Sam wasn’t stuck with his fangs, but Caroline? The oversized fangs that practically jabbed her lower gums weren’t even the worst part. Between them, she had these oversized incisors. And they were orange. It was like someone had jammed nutria teeth in her mouth. It was freakish. They forced her lips forward. It looked like she was holding an orange slice in her mouth. It was hard to even speak properly.
She wasn’t sure if she wanted to scream, cry, or slam her head into the mirror.
This was a waste of time. She was already an hour behind, with nothing to show for it. But if her plan was going to work, she needed to find a way to compensate for the deformities. The security at a few casinos had done double-takes. They weren’t even giving her money. Whoever at the check cashing place would be checking her ID needed to be damn certain she was who she said she was.
The mirror gave her an answer. COVID. She looked sick. If she just stopped by the CVS on the way, got a mask, and made a little show of acting and sounding as sick as she looked, they just might buy it...
For her entire walk to Moneytree, Caroline went over the plan with herself. Greet the clerk. Play meek about it. Use hand sanitizer liberally. Apologize and chatter about being “Not shure what I’be got, but I’m being ekshtra cautioush.” Offer the check, wait for them to check her identity. Ask for twenties. Only remove the mask if asked. Only give a reason for the $9,000 check if asked. Keep it short. Keep it sweet. Look sick, exhausted—just not nervous. Remember: You want to get this over with. They just don’t need to know why.
She grasped at memories of sickliness to keep her motions delicate and shaky as she pushed the office’s door open. The clerk greeted her warmly. Caroline nodded and gave a languid little wave in return. Looking around, there were no people ahead of her. The clerk invited her forward just as it registered.
“How can I help you today, ma’am?”
For a moment, Caroline could almost believe her own act. Sam’s paranoid ramblings crashed about in her head, bringing a disoriented haze about her not unlike that of illness. It felt like she was staring. She jolted herself into action. She approached the counter properly.
“I’d like to cash a check, pleashe.”
The clerk cocked her head. Caroline quickly repeated herself more loudly to compensate for the mask. She fumbled around in her purse for some hand sanitizer as the clerk requested the check. Caroline delivered the cautionary song and dance about “not knowing what she had,” and then delivered the check once the clerk reassured her. The clerk requested ID. Caroline apologized again, offering her LA Wallet.
“Any other ID, ma’am?” the clerk drawled. Caroline hesitated, fumbled around in her purse, and then told the clerk she “just had the one.” She apologized again. The clerk eyed her, looking between the mobile ID and Caroline. She was quiet for a moment, then prompted Caroline to step back and take off her mask. When Caroline did so, the clerk nodded, sucked her teeth, dropped a little “Mmhmm,” then told Caroline she could put her mask back on. The clerk started typing, and started making small talk with Caroline as she did. Caroline murmured out minimal answers. Caroline could swear the clerk kept shooting glances at her as they chatted. It was wrong. It was all wrong. She was taking too long on that computer. Why was she squinting like that at the screen? What did she see? She got up. Why was she getting up?
Caroline felt her gut retreat in on itself. It felt like her insides were collapsing. Should she run? No, that would only look more suspicious. But what if the clerk came back with cops? What if she’d already called them and was buying time? What if that was why she’d taken so long on the computer? She wanted to book it. It was like that time she’d seen that street performer breathe fire. She’d seen the flambeaux plenty of times. She hadn’t flinched at the heat since she was a kid. And yet that time? She wasn’t even that close, and she wanted to jump into the nearest fountain. She had to force herself not to break into a sprint. She caught something in the corner of her eye. She snapped her head to look at a corner of the ceiling. Was this how Sam felt? Had that camera caught something? Was she screwed? She needed to get out. This was a terrible idea. She’d ruined everything with this stupid move. She needed to grab her phone and go. But she had to do it slowly. Carefully. Like she wasn’t fleeing.
Caroline’s hand crept forward along the counter. She grasped her phone and withdrew slowly. She turned and began to walk away, playing as calm as she could.
“Ma’am?”
Caroline froze. She turned slowly.
“Is everything alright?”
Caroline let out a nervous chuckle and began to fumble for an excuse—anything to pretend she wasn’t just about to run. As she laid eyes on the clerk, she saw no police. No gun. The clerk had an envelope. Caroline stopped stammering on the spot.
“Did you get your phone, ma’am?”
Caroline nodded. The clerk continued. Everything was in order. The clerk apologized for the wait, claiming she’d needed to go in the back to access the safe due to the amount Caroline had requested. Caroline stared at her blankly. The clerk delivered an expectant nod and shook the envelope.
“This is your withdrawal.”
Caroline approached hesitantly. The clerk gave her a confused squint. She set the envelope on the counter and slid in forward. Caroline pulled it towards her suspiciously, gave it a look, then looked again at the clerk. She muttered a sheepish thanks, and hurried off.
She darted off in an awkward half-gallop—the closest imitation of a jog she could muster with her cloven feet and digitigrade ankles. She kept on for several blocks, only stopping at the light. She kept wanting to breathe heavily, yet she felt neither the need to do so nor the relief of air when she did. She ran her hand through her hair. She needed to find somewhere private to check the envelope. They had to have known. They must have put one of those paint bombs inside or something similar—something to catch her red-handed as the undead, money-laundering freak of nature she was. No, that wasn’t right. They probably thought she was her own murderer, now masquerading as their victim to wring more money from her account. She looked in every direction, certain one of the cars would reveal police lights, a siren, and she’d be charged as her own murderer. Her entire family would be there. Her friends would be there. The image came together so easily. Everyone still living crowded the courtroom. All their eyes—their judgemental eyes staring at her. Picking her apart. Putting everything on her. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t her fucking fault. She hadn’t wanted to go to that shady private casino and get scammed. She’d told her friends as much. Her friends. Their ghosts were judging her instead of judging with her. She wanted to go home to her car and her family and everything else. She wanted to deposit everything and go home. But she’d get caught and arrested and charged and probably blamed for her friends being dead, like they weren’t her only real friends in the world. And then everyone would hate her. Like that was even the worst of her worries. They’d take her outside and make her look at the sun, and they’d laugh as she bubbled and burned and turned into cinders instead of getting a loving burial from her great-grandkids in seventy years. She didn’t even get to be a ghost with her—
Walgreens. It was right there. It probably had a bathroom. A single room, hopefully no cameras. She could wash the money. Make sure the paint, dye thingie—whatever!—wouldn’t get everywhere. Then she might not get caught. She forced herself back into a walk. It was still just as awkward as her run; it all looked sort of like she was unfamiliar with heels. She did two laps around the inside of the store before confirming that the bathroom was locked. Of course it was. They probably thought she was an addict, just like all the other vagrants who used the bathroom for God-knows-what. She had to prove she was normal—that she was a normal woman making normal purchases who used bathrooms for normal reasons. Her eyes went to a bottle of Coke. She could pour it out in the dirt and throw away the bottle afterwards. She could get it with a plastic bag so she could put her envelope of cash in there while she washed away the ink. Perfect.
She went to the register to check out. She requested a bag, then hesitated to leave after she’d gotten her habitual $100 of cash-back with her purchase. She asked for the bathroom key; the cashier then led her back and let her in. Caroline felt like she should have seen Sam in the mirror by the way she looked at every corner, in every nook, and in every cranny for hidden cameras. There were none that she could see. It was Walgreens. It was a bathroom. She hit herself in the forehead to try to get it through. Surely there wouldn’t be any cameras. Why was she looking! There wouldn’t be any cameras; that would be such an invasion of privacy!
Her attention returned to the sink. She stopped the drain with paper towels, then started filling the sink with hot water. While she waited, she poured the Coke out in the toilet and flushed it. When the sink was full, she shut the tap off, then put the envelope in the plastic bag and plunged it all under the water. Treating the bag as a shield, Caroline opened the envelope as if she were defusing a bomb.
Nothing went off. Bill by bill, she fished out her cash. $20, $40, $60... A stack she balanced on the edge of the sink. She felt her shoulders twitch with tension every few bills. How long was she taking? She tried to rush herself. But she needed to be careful, or she’d end up with a bunch of unusable bills. But she needed to hurry or the staff would come knocking, thinking she was doing drugs. Why hadn’t the dye pack gone off?
$9000. She recounted three times. How tiny could the dye pack be? She couldn’t have just gotten away with this, could she?
Caroline doused the money several times before an employee knocking at the door finally snapped her out of it. She stuffed the shredded remnants of the envelope and the plastic bag into the trash, washed her hands, then wrapped her money in paper towels and stuffed the wad into her purse. She opened the door and saw the employee who’d knocked looking like she had been bracing for something. When Caroline muttered out an apology for taking so long, the employee let out a relieved sigh, then asked her if there was anything else she could help her with. The bathroom wasn’t trashed; Caroline didn’t need anything. They parted ways.
This had to be a trap. The cops hadn’t come because they must have been trying to get her to let her guard down. Previous murders flashed through her mind. Many were fairly close to ATMs. Had she been caught on camera? Was she a suspect in a bigger case? Standing at the stoplight, Caroline’s mind raced with explanations for the calm. It had to be a trick. It had to be. They were gathering evidence, preparing their case. Her body was gone. She was stealing evidence from a murder case by walking around! She’d get charged for killing everything. She’d probably get nailed for Sam too. But then they’d try to bring her into the sun and she’d burn. On camera, she’d burn in the sunlight and people would call it CGI while the feds would douse her and bring her inside, never to be seen again. Could she die? Could she even escape it? She’d be an experiment erased from everything. Nobody would remember her name. Nobody would pray for her, not even her mother. Did they even know what had happened to her now? Did anyone even know she was dead? Did they mourn her? When was her funeral going to be? Did she even get to have one, or was she just some terrible cold case slated to get rehashed on some television show or another, her only sympathisers relegated to some losers in sweatpants listening to podcasts and really, probably wanting to be her so they could live out some stupid fantasy of getting murdered by the maladjusted freaks that did this type of thing to people. Like Jeffrey what’s-his-fucking-name. The only people who’d know her story would be the audiences of true crime podcasts. Caroline wanted to retch.
She needed to get somewhere to check her social media, Sam’s advice be damned. If anyone knew anything, surely they’d have at least sent out feelers on some site or another. She’d resisted the temptation many times before. She’d deleted Facebook, Instagram, and anything else that she could log-in to from her phone. Checking what other people had to say about her death was vain and stupid. She knew that, even if it really did feel important. But this? This was different. This was fact-finding. This was finding out what people even knew about what had happened to her. And the perfect place to do it? It was tantalizingly close.
Clark County Library was literally across the street. She’d considered going there many times before. Now she was looking right at it, with all the reason in the world—in her mind—to take a look. Sam did online investigations on his personal laptop. Wasn’t she being more careful by using a library computer? If only she could speak as fast as the excuses came to her. She needed to know.
She had to try again. She wiped her face clean. The deathly reflection glared back at her again the moment she looked back at the mirror. Her phone was propped up on the counter. The zoomed-in screenshot of her driver’s license picture on LA Wallet felt like it was mocking her. She felt more like a mosquito trapped in a bug zapper than the twenty-one-year-old version of that girl there.
There was no fixing this. No amount of contour would do the job. Whatever was wrong with her, it had destroyed years of dental work. She dragged her hands down her face. Ugly wasn’t good enough. It just looked so stupid. It was an unfixable overbite. Sam wasn’t stuck with his fangs, but Caroline? The oversized fangs that practically jabbed her lower gums weren’t even the worst part. Between them, she had these oversized incisors. And they were orange. It was like someone had jammed nutria teeth in her mouth. It was freakish. They forced her lips forward. It looked like she was holding an orange slice in her mouth. It was hard to even speak properly.
She wasn’t sure if she wanted to scream, cry, or slam her head into the mirror.
This was a waste of time. She was already an hour behind, with nothing to show for it. But if her plan was going to work, she needed to find a way to compensate for the deformities. The security at a few casinos had done double-takes. They weren’t even giving her money. Whoever at the check cashing place would be checking her ID needed to be damn certain she was who she said she was.
The mirror gave her an answer. COVID. She looked sick. If she just stopped by the CVS on the way, got a mask, and made a little show of acting and sounding as sick as she looked, they just might buy it...
╠══⬩═══⬩═══⬩═══⬩═══⬩═══⬩═══⬩═══ ◇ ⯁ ◇ ═══⬩═══⬩═══⬩═══⬩═══⬩═══⬩═══⬩══╣
For her entire walk to Moneytree, Caroline went over the plan with herself. Greet the clerk. Play meek about it. Use hand sanitizer liberally. Apologize and chatter about being “Not shure what I’be got, but I’m being ekshtra cautioush.” Offer the check, wait for them to check her identity. Ask for twenties. Only remove the mask if asked. Only give a reason for the $9,000 check if asked. Keep it short. Keep it sweet. Look sick, exhausted—just not nervous. Remember: You want to get this over with. They just don’t need to know why.
She grasped at memories of sickliness to keep her motions delicate and shaky as she pushed the office’s door open. The clerk greeted her warmly. Caroline nodded and gave a languid little wave in return. Looking around, there were no people ahead of her. The clerk invited her forward just as it registered.
“How can I help you today, ma’am?”
For a moment, Caroline could almost believe her own act. Sam’s paranoid ramblings crashed about in her head, bringing a disoriented haze about her not unlike that of illness. It felt like she was staring. She jolted herself into action. She approached the counter properly.
“I’d like to cash a check, pleashe.”
The clerk cocked her head. Caroline quickly repeated herself more loudly to compensate for the mask. She fumbled around in her purse for some hand sanitizer as the clerk requested the check. Caroline delivered the cautionary song and dance about “not knowing what she had,” and then delivered the check once the clerk reassured her. The clerk requested ID. Caroline apologized again, offering her LA Wallet.
“Any other ID, ma’am?” the clerk drawled. Caroline hesitated, fumbled around in her purse, and then told the clerk she “just had the one.” She apologized again. The clerk eyed her, looking between the mobile ID and Caroline. She was quiet for a moment, then prompted Caroline to step back and take off her mask. When Caroline did so, the clerk nodded, sucked her teeth, dropped a little “Mmhmm,” then told Caroline she could put her mask back on. The clerk started typing, and started making small talk with Caroline as she did. Caroline murmured out minimal answers. Caroline could swear the clerk kept shooting glances at her as they chatted. It was wrong. It was all wrong. She was taking too long on that computer. Why was she squinting like that at the screen? What did she see? She got up. Why was she getting up?
Caroline felt her gut retreat in on itself. It felt like her insides were collapsing. Should she run? No, that would only look more suspicious. But what if the clerk came back with cops? What if she’d already called them and was buying time? What if that was why she’d taken so long on the computer? She wanted to book it. It was like that time she’d seen that street performer breathe fire. She’d seen the flambeaux plenty of times. She hadn’t flinched at the heat since she was a kid. And yet that time? She wasn’t even that close, and she wanted to jump into the nearest fountain. She had to force herself not to break into a sprint. She caught something in the corner of her eye. She snapped her head to look at a corner of the ceiling. Was this how Sam felt? Had that camera caught something? Was she screwed? She needed to get out. This was a terrible idea. She’d ruined everything with this stupid move. She needed to grab her phone and go. But she had to do it slowly. Carefully. Like she wasn’t fleeing.
Caroline’s hand crept forward along the counter. She grasped her phone and withdrew slowly. She turned and began to walk away, playing as calm as she could.
“Ma’am?”
Caroline froze. She turned slowly.
“Is everything alright?”
Caroline let out a nervous chuckle and began to fumble for an excuse—anything to pretend she wasn’t just about to run. As she laid eyes on the clerk, she saw no police. No gun. The clerk had an envelope. Caroline stopped stammering on the spot.
“Did you get your phone, ma’am?”
Caroline nodded. The clerk continued. Everything was in order. The clerk apologized for the wait, claiming she’d needed to go in the back to access the safe due to the amount Caroline had requested. Caroline stared at her blankly. The clerk delivered an expectant nod and shook the envelope.
“This is your withdrawal.”
Caroline approached hesitantly. The clerk gave her a confused squint. She set the envelope on the counter and slid in forward. Caroline pulled it towards her suspiciously, gave it a look, then looked again at the clerk. She muttered a sheepish thanks, and hurried off.
She darted off in an awkward half-gallop—the closest imitation of a jog she could muster with her cloven feet and digitigrade ankles. She kept on for several blocks, only stopping at the light. She kept wanting to breathe heavily, yet she felt neither the need to do so nor the relief of air when she did. She ran her hand through her hair. She needed to find somewhere private to check the envelope. They had to have known. They must have put one of those paint bombs inside or something similar—something to catch her red-handed as the undead, money-laundering freak of nature she was. No, that wasn’t right. They probably thought she was her own murderer, now masquerading as their victim to wring more money from her account. She looked in every direction, certain one of the cars would reveal police lights, a siren, and she’d be charged as her own murderer. Her entire family would be there. Her friends would be there. The image came together so easily. Everyone still living crowded the courtroom. All their eyes—their judgemental eyes staring at her. Picking her apart. Putting everything on her. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t her fucking fault. She hadn’t wanted to go to that shady private casino and get scammed. She’d told her friends as much. Her friends. Their ghosts were judging her instead of judging with her. She wanted to go home to her car and her family and everything else. She wanted to deposit everything and go home. But she’d get caught and arrested and charged and probably blamed for her friends being dead, like they weren’t her only real friends in the world. And then everyone would hate her. Like that was even the worst of her worries. They’d take her outside and make her look at the sun, and they’d laugh as she bubbled and burned and turned into cinders instead of getting a loving burial from her great-grandkids in seventy years. She didn’t even get to be a ghost with her—
Walgreens. It was right there. It probably had a bathroom. A single room, hopefully no cameras. She could wash the money. Make sure the paint, dye thingie—whatever!—wouldn’t get everywhere. Then she might not get caught. She forced herself back into a walk. It was still just as awkward as her run; it all looked sort of like she was unfamiliar with heels. She did two laps around the inside of the store before confirming that the bathroom was locked. Of course it was. They probably thought she was an addict, just like all the other vagrants who used the bathroom for God-knows-what. She had to prove she was normal—that she was a normal woman making normal purchases who used bathrooms for normal reasons. Her eyes went to a bottle of Coke. She could pour it out in the dirt and throw away the bottle afterwards. She could get it with a plastic bag so she could put her envelope of cash in there while she washed away the ink. Perfect.
She went to the register to check out. She requested a bag, then hesitated to leave after she’d gotten her habitual $100 of cash-back with her purchase. She asked for the bathroom key; the cashier then led her back and let her in. Caroline felt like she should have seen Sam in the mirror by the way she looked at every corner, in every nook, and in every cranny for hidden cameras. There were none that she could see. It was Walgreens. It was a bathroom. She hit herself in the forehead to try to get it through. Surely there wouldn’t be any cameras. Why was she looking! There wouldn’t be any cameras; that would be such an invasion of privacy!
Her attention returned to the sink. She stopped the drain with paper towels, then started filling the sink with hot water. While she waited, she poured the Coke out in the toilet and flushed it. When the sink was full, she shut the tap off, then put the envelope in the plastic bag and plunged it all under the water. Treating the bag as a shield, Caroline opened the envelope as if she were defusing a bomb.
Nothing went off. Bill by bill, she fished out her cash. $20, $40, $60... A stack she balanced on the edge of the sink. She felt her shoulders twitch with tension every few bills. How long was she taking? She tried to rush herself. But she needed to be careful, or she’d end up with a bunch of unusable bills. But she needed to hurry or the staff would come knocking, thinking she was doing drugs. Why hadn’t the dye pack gone off?
$9000. She recounted three times. How tiny could the dye pack be? She couldn’t have just gotten away with this, could she?
Caroline doused the money several times before an employee knocking at the door finally snapped her out of it. She stuffed the shredded remnants of the envelope and the plastic bag into the trash, washed her hands, then wrapped her money in paper towels and stuffed the wad into her purse. She opened the door and saw the employee who’d knocked looking like she had been bracing for something. When Caroline muttered out an apology for taking so long, the employee let out a relieved sigh, then asked her if there was anything else she could help her with. The bathroom wasn’t trashed; Caroline didn’t need anything. They parted ways.
This had to be a trap. The cops hadn’t come because they must have been trying to get her to let her guard down. Previous murders flashed through her mind. Many were fairly close to ATMs. Had she been caught on camera? Was she a suspect in a bigger case? Standing at the stoplight, Caroline’s mind raced with explanations for the calm. It had to be a trick. It had to be. They were gathering evidence, preparing their case. Her body was gone. She was stealing evidence from a murder case by walking around! She’d get charged for killing everything. She’d probably get nailed for Sam too. But then they’d try to bring her into the sun and she’d burn. On camera, she’d burn in the sunlight and people would call it CGI while the feds would douse her and bring her inside, never to be seen again. Could she die? Could she even escape it? She’d be an experiment erased from everything. Nobody would remember her name. Nobody would pray for her, not even her mother. Did they even know what had happened to her now? Did anyone even know she was dead? Did they mourn her? When was her funeral going to be? Did she even get to have one, or was she just some terrible cold case slated to get rehashed on some television show or another, her only sympathisers relegated to some losers in sweatpants listening to podcasts and really, probably wanting to be her so they could live out some stupid fantasy of getting murdered by the maladjusted freaks that did this type of thing to people. Like Jeffrey what’s-his-fucking-name. The only people who’d know her story would be the audiences of true crime podcasts. Caroline wanted to retch.
She needed to get somewhere to check her social media, Sam’s advice be damned. If anyone knew anything, surely they’d have at least sent out feelers on some site or another. She’d resisted the temptation many times before. She’d deleted Facebook, Instagram, and anything else that she could log-in to from her phone. Checking what other people had to say about her death was vain and stupid. She knew that, even if it really did feel important. But this? This was different. This was fact-finding. This was finding out what people even knew about what had happened to her. And the perfect place to do it? It was tantalizingly close.
Clark County Library was literally across the street. She’d considered going there many times before. Now she was looking right at it, with all the reason in the world—in her mind—to take a look. Sam did online investigations on his personal laptop. Wasn’t she being more careful by using a library computer? If only she could speak as fast as the excuses came to her. She needed to know.
Dreda led Lily away from the scene. First, to the subway. Then onto a train. Then off. She quietly shepherded the younger vampire down the street, keeping close, ready to clasp the girl’s hand.
72 Cedar St.
The building wasn’t much to look at—not quite a slum, but far from nice. Dreda held the door for Lily and beckoned her in from the rain.
The door slammed shut behind them. Two flights of metal stairs later, they arrived at the door. With a click, Dreda unlocked it, then beckoned Lily in.
The flick of a light switch activated the dull lights affixed to the popcorn ceiling. Dreda pointed with her keys towards a well-worn couch as she began removing her coat. She shut the door behind Lily, and finally spoke again.
“Why don’t you get comfy, and I’ll get you fed, alright?”
The rest of the apartment was similarly bleak. Only a few pieces of furniture lined the far wall, leaving the remainder of the studio apartment a barren sight of linoleum floor and beige wall.
Comfy.
The word echoed in Lily’s mind. It slid behind some invisible veil that covered her eyes and slowly disappeared.
What did that word mean?
Her body, slightly slouched, afraid to show herself to the room. It was simple and…
Her mind stretched and reached, trying to find the word for the feeling.
Feeling. She was feeling something. It wasn’t fear, terror, horror. It was needed, though. But, she couldn’t grasp exactly what it was.
Her body folded onto the couch. Slowly, her eyes studied the apartment. There were no dead bodies. No broken mirrors. No screaming memories.
Her hands trembled as she sat on the worn couch. She couldn’t remember the last time slanting had felt so soft against her skin, except —
Their skin. Beige velvet pressed against her lips. Rose colored silk draining down her throat.
Quickly, she buried her face into her hands and began to sob, once again. “We were just…” Her crying became a choked sob.
“Where are we?”
The question lingered like some riddle.
Dreda was crouched, pulling out a small electric burner and a pot from a drawer. As she rose, she glanced behind her at this sobbing creature.
“We’re in my apartment. We took the subway to get here. I’m warming some blood for you.”
She set the burner on the drawer and walked past Lily towards the bathroom. She set the pot in the sink and turned on the faucet. She came out from the bathroom again, crouched, and grabbed a glass jar full of red fluid from the mini fridge positioned nearby. The pot was overflowing. Dreda shut off the faucet and poured some of the excess back into the sink. She crossed the room again, carrying the pot and the jar. She set the jar in the water, and the pot on the burner. She plugged the burner in, turned it on, and removed the top from the jar.
Lily’s eyes glossed. A small smile made a faint appearance and disappeared as soon as it was made visible.
She knew where they were.
She remembered.
“I remember, now,” her head hung low. Her knees pushed together, hands gathering white, torn fabric around her.
Words jumbled in her throat. They were clawing to get out. They weren’t bad words. They were nice. Thankful. Praiseworthy.
Each word wanted its turn, but they choked on each other before she could say anything.
A pause.
She drew in several breaths. Staring at the floor. So plain and comforting. She never wanted to leave.
“Wh-what’s wrong with me?” She finally asked. It was a timid question, waiting for the nightmare to be over.
Was Dre-da her exit?
Dreda stirred the contents of the jar with a thermometer. Its beep punctuated Lily’s question. Dreda turned again to look at Lily. This time, she approached the Spawn. She approached slowly. Her eyes scanned Lily with every step. “You just need to eat something.” She stood a few paces from Lily, and waited to catch Lily’s gaze. When Lily’s eyes met hers, she pointed to the pot. “I’m warming some blood up. It should be enough to get you feeling more like yourself.” She folded her arms and let a warm little smile emerge. “Now, did your Sire ever teach you to hunt?”
Lily’s eyes gazed over the other being. She was listening to the words. They tinkered, like piano keys. Each syllable brought her closer to an answer… that never came.
Her mind riddled. A quivered smile. Broken... holding back something or someone.
“We just try to save them.” Her broken smile cracked even more. Her head tilted. Curious at her own answer and the response of Dreda. “I don’t have anyone.” A moment of clarity. Refinement. Eyes piercing past Dreda and to the blood.
“J-just It.”
Her gaze shrunk into itself. Fear scribbled all over her face. And, her head tilted downwards. Small breaths. In. Out. Hands trying to grasp at something. Close to her chest. Fingers twitching.
She wasn’t looking at anything anymore.
Dreda remained motionless. This would be harder than she’d thought. There was a mind left, no doubt. But the damned thing was a mess. Dreda’s little smile slowly faded. It would take more than a few good feedings to make a coherent vampire out of her.
“Can you tell me more about It? If you feel up to it. Nothing can hurt you here, but I understand if it’s too much for now. We have all the time in the world.”
“She’s not telling you anything!” A roaring voice erupted from Lily. Her face was contorted, angry like a rapid animal.
The seething teeth paused, and her face fell. As if a demon had momentarily possessed her and then jumped to another instrument. Dreda sprung back. Her arms unfurled and her hands formed fists..
The Lily that Dreda was getting to know had returned.
No shock.
No embarrassment.
Yet.
“I have… time…” Dismal eyes melted into the help she so desperately needed. She understood this. Forever had been torturing her for as long as she could remember.
Dreda stepped back towards the pot, without turning her back on Lily. Though her body language softened overall, her hands remained tense. This Spawn was unstable. Her problems ran deeper than hunger. Teasing them out was going to be a headache.
Cowrite with @Mole
72 Cedar St.
The building wasn’t much to look at—not quite a slum, but far from nice. Dreda held the door for Lily and beckoned her in from the rain.
The door slammed shut behind them. Two flights of metal stairs later, they arrived at the door. With a click, Dreda unlocked it, then beckoned Lily in.
The flick of a light switch activated the dull lights affixed to the popcorn ceiling. Dreda pointed with her keys towards a well-worn couch as she began removing her coat. She shut the door behind Lily, and finally spoke again.
“Why don’t you get comfy, and I’ll get you fed, alright?”
The rest of the apartment was similarly bleak. Only a few pieces of furniture lined the far wall, leaving the remainder of the studio apartment a barren sight of linoleum floor and beige wall.
Comfy.
The word echoed in Lily’s mind. It slid behind some invisible veil that covered her eyes and slowly disappeared.
What did that word mean?
Her body, slightly slouched, afraid to show herself to the room. It was simple and…
Her mind stretched and reached, trying to find the word for the feeling.
Feeling. She was feeling something. It wasn’t fear, terror, horror. It was needed, though. But, she couldn’t grasp exactly what it was.
Her body folded onto the couch. Slowly, her eyes studied the apartment. There were no dead bodies. No broken mirrors. No screaming memories.
Her hands trembled as she sat on the worn couch. She couldn’t remember the last time slanting had felt so soft against her skin, except —
Their skin. Beige velvet pressed against her lips. Rose colored silk draining down her throat.
Quickly, she buried her face into her hands and began to sob, once again. “We were just…” Her crying became a choked sob.
“Where are we?”
The question lingered like some riddle.
Dreda was crouched, pulling out a small electric burner and a pot from a drawer. As she rose, she glanced behind her at this sobbing creature.
“We’re in my apartment. We took the subway to get here. I’m warming some blood for you.”
She set the burner on the drawer and walked past Lily towards the bathroom. She set the pot in the sink and turned on the faucet. She came out from the bathroom again, crouched, and grabbed a glass jar full of red fluid from the mini fridge positioned nearby. The pot was overflowing. Dreda shut off the faucet and poured some of the excess back into the sink. She crossed the room again, carrying the pot and the jar. She set the jar in the water, and the pot on the burner. She plugged the burner in, turned it on, and removed the top from the jar.
Lily’s eyes glossed. A small smile made a faint appearance and disappeared as soon as it was made visible.
She knew where they were.
She remembered.
“I remember, now,” her head hung low. Her knees pushed together, hands gathering white, torn fabric around her.
Words jumbled in her throat. They were clawing to get out. They weren’t bad words. They were nice. Thankful. Praiseworthy.
Each word wanted its turn, but they choked on each other before she could say anything.
A pause.
She drew in several breaths. Staring at the floor. So plain and comforting. She never wanted to leave.
“Wh-what’s wrong with me?” She finally asked. It was a timid question, waiting for the nightmare to be over.
Was Dre-da her exit?
Dreda stirred the contents of the jar with a thermometer. Its beep punctuated Lily’s question. Dreda turned again to look at Lily. This time, she approached the Spawn. She approached slowly. Her eyes scanned Lily with every step. “You just need to eat something.” She stood a few paces from Lily, and waited to catch Lily’s gaze. When Lily’s eyes met hers, she pointed to the pot. “I’m warming some blood up. It should be enough to get you feeling more like yourself.” She folded her arms and let a warm little smile emerge. “Now, did your Sire ever teach you to hunt?”
Lily’s eyes gazed over the other being. She was listening to the words. They tinkered, like piano keys. Each syllable brought her closer to an answer… that never came.
Her mind riddled. A quivered smile. Broken... holding back something or someone.
“We just try to save them.” Her broken smile cracked even more. Her head tilted. Curious at her own answer and the response of Dreda. “I don’t have anyone.” A moment of clarity. Refinement. Eyes piercing past Dreda and to the blood.
“J-just It.”
Her gaze shrunk into itself. Fear scribbled all over her face. And, her head tilted downwards. Small breaths. In. Out. Hands trying to grasp at something. Close to her chest. Fingers twitching.
She wasn’t looking at anything anymore.
Dreda remained motionless. This would be harder than she’d thought. There was a mind left, no doubt. But the damned thing was a mess. Dreda’s little smile slowly faded. It would take more than a few good feedings to make a coherent vampire out of her.
“Can you tell me more about It? If you feel up to it. Nothing can hurt you here, but I understand if it’s too much for now. We have all the time in the world.”
“She’s not telling you anything!” A roaring voice erupted from Lily. Her face was contorted, angry like a rapid animal.
The seething teeth paused, and her face fell. As if a demon had momentarily possessed her and then jumped to another instrument. Dreda sprung back. Her arms unfurled and her hands formed fists..
The Lily that Dreda was getting to know had returned.
No shock.
No embarrassment.
Yet.
“I have… time…” Dismal eyes melted into the help she so desperately needed. She understood this. Forever had been torturing her for as long as she could remember.
Dreda stepped back towards the pot, without turning her back on Lily. Though her body language softened overall, her hands remained tense. This Spawn was unstable. Her problems ran deeper than hunger. Teasing them out was going to be a headache.
Cowrite with @Mole
Miss Wrottesley’s morning schedule had developed over the years into a rigid affair, albeit one not unwelcome to those teachers who would have otherwise seen her attending their morning classes. She attended morning prayer all days except Sunday, where she instead made a point of attending a Latin mass further afield. After this, she took breakfast—largely avoiding conversation to the best of her ability. Then, between breakfast and lunch, she confined herself to the library. She had a preferred seat, one far from any entrance and near a window. There, she had cultivated a population of surprisingly well-groomed mice. Since the time of her arrival, she had kept stringent control of the lot of them, as evidenced by their perennially constrained population, aforementioned exceptional grooming, and conspicuous competence in defying most attempts to root them out for good.
What made her control of them most self-evident, however, was that she made use of them during her time in the library. Not one to trouble herself with the business of turning a page, she instead saw to it that the creatures in her command did so in her stead. Every morning, she set several books—most often around three, generally all similar or related in topic—in front of her on the floor. Several mice worked to turn pages as needed, while as many mice as there were books clung to the sides of the chair overseeing the matter. Lydia herself sat with paper and a pen. Scarcely did she look up from her notes, which she wrote in an odd assembly of symbols she attributed to a book written by one M. Jacques Cossard.
Though her mornings did lack explicit oversight from any given instructor, there was little incentive to interfere. Her choices in reading were most often of some academic pertinence, as they indeed were today. As of the prior day, she had begun working through some responses to Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, focusing on Leibniz’s Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain, read in the original French, and Berkeley’s A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, read in English, with Locke’s original work and John Wynne’s An Abridgment of Mr. Locke's Essay concerning the Human Understanding kept for reference. Each had their mice to flip pages. Each had their mice to oversee. Lydia’s brow sat frozen in a furrowed state, as her lips pulled tight. Occasionally, she inhaled deeply, as if she had briefly neglected a breath. She was motionless, save for her right hand’s rapid movement as it filled the page with notes line by line. Her mornings may not have been spent in the classroom, but she was by no means idle.
What made her control of them most self-evident, however, was that she made use of them during her time in the library. Not one to trouble herself with the business of turning a page, she instead saw to it that the creatures in her command did so in her stead. Every morning, she set several books—most often around three, generally all similar or related in topic—in front of her on the floor. Several mice worked to turn pages as needed, while as many mice as there were books clung to the sides of the chair overseeing the matter. Lydia herself sat with paper and a pen. Scarcely did she look up from her notes, which she wrote in an odd assembly of symbols she attributed to a book written by one M. Jacques Cossard.
Though her mornings did lack explicit oversight from any given instructor, there was little incentive to interfere. Her choices in reading were most often of some academic pertinence, as they indeed were today. As of the prior day, she had begun working through some responses to Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, focusing on Leibniz’s Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain, read in the original French, and Berkeley’s A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, read in English, with Locke’s original work and John Wynne’s An Abridgment of Mr. Locke's Essay concerning the Human Understanding kept for reference. Each had their mice to flip pages. Each had their mice to oversee. Lydia’s brow sat frozen in a furrowed state, as her lips pulled tight. Occasionally, she inhaled deeply, as if she had briefly neglected a breath. She was motionless, save for her right hand’s rapid movement as it filled the page with notes line by line. Her mornings may not have been spent in the classroom, but she was by no means idle.
Nesna nodded vigorously in response to Nathaniel and affirmed. No sooner had she done so than Zeph blurted out his greeting.
It was friendly, and yet mortifying. Her smile tightened, her eyes dimmed, and the grey skin of her cheeks and nose darkened in a blush.
“There’s no need to trouble him!” she exclaimed.
She gestured quickly to Nathaniel and then to Zeph, then the reverse.
“Oh, Nathaniel, I should tell you—this is Guard Hale. He prefers to go by Zeph with acquaintances,” she clarified, “And Zeph, Lord Stormlight has kindly escorted me to the Alchemy Chambers.”
Zeph’s gaze shifted to the man beside Nesna, sizing him up with a glance—silent judgments made in quick succession.
“Pleasure.” he said, tone polite but bordering on sarcasm. Spending time with an Aurelian noble ranked low on his list of desires for the day—mentoring an Aurelian was already torture enough.
Having sped through an introduction, Nensa looked back to Eris and fell into a deep curtsy.
Silent and wide-eyed, the Sage stood frozen just behind Zeph’s much larger frame. Her breath caught as her gaze traced the curve of folded wings protruding from the blight-born’s back, then rose to meet not one pair of horrifying pupil-less eyes, but two. Four in total, blinking back at her.
“And my most sincere apologies to you, Lady Hightower, for infringing upon your rights as a host. I am called Nesna.”
While Nesna made her polite gesture, introducing herself to Eris, Nathaniel's attention flicked to Zeph. ”Please.” he said with a small smile while putting his hands up. ”I'm happy just being called Nathaniel.”
Nathaniel's thoughts went back to what Nesna said about Zeph, a guard, but where is the uniform? Perhaps it's his day off. “I am Sage. I was summoned just over a month ago to help, I just arrived a couple of days ago.” giving Zeph a small nod of his head as a way of greeting.
As Zeph nodded in understanding—boredom flickering plainly in his eyes—Eris turned her attention to Charlotte, quietly gauging her new companion's reaction to the blight-born standing before them. Zephyros clearly didn’t see the woman as a threat, which struck Eris as odd, given the circumstances. And yet…
Her gaze shifted to Nathaniel. He had brought the winged woman here. Nesna couldn’t have been the intruder if she was a friend of his… right?
Despite her unsettling appearance, there was something refined in the way she spoke—a precise, deliberate cadence that hinted at a noble upbringing. Her accent differed from Eris’s own, yet it was familiar all the same. As if, in her first life, Nesna too might’ve belonged to a house of high pedigree.
Returning her attention to Nensa, Eris did her best to smooth her expression back into its usual warmth. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Nesna. I assure you, you haven’t infringed on anything.” Somehow, she managed to steady her voice and even offer a small, hesitant smile. Nesna offered a simple nod and smile in return.
In the back of her mind, formality urged her to curtsy in return—extend a hand in greeting, invite Nesna in, offer her and Nathaniel something to eat or drink. But her arms remained rigid at her sides, her body still frozen in place.
“This is Guard Hawthorne.” She gestured toward Charlotte, then looked between Nesna and Nathaniel again. “What brings you both here?”
Charlotte simply nodded as Eris introduced her, unbothered by the company before them but still clearly alert. Among the now grouping nobility, the recruit kept silent. In private, she’d opened up to Eris, but her veil of professionalism had draped across her features the minute they’d stepped outside. Her shield was planted firmly in the snow at her side, still strapped to her arm, while her free hand rested idly on the pommel of her sword.
Nathaniel furrowed his brows at Eris’s question. A strange question. He was about to respond immediately about it but Charlotte's movement caused him to pause for a heartbeat. Something is up, he wondered. His gaze went back to Eris' own, clearing his throat before speaking. “Well, I'll be visiting here regularly to conduct research. a small smile tugged on his lips. “You didn't get a chance to introduce me to the other Sages as they were busy with other matters. Figured I'd try to introduce myself to them today.”
“Nesna here, he turned slightly as he spoke about why she's here with him. “She’s here for her interview with the Prince. As per the decree that all newly arrived blight-born must follow.
Regrettably, heat rose into Eris’ cheeks. She cast a quick glance toward Nesna, trying to ignore how plainly the embarrassment showed plainly across her face. Of course it wasn’t unusual for Nathaniel to be here! Nor Nesna, for that matter! How could she forget that the Prince had intended to do more interviews today?!
“Oh, I—” She offered a sheepish smile, momentarily unsure which of Nesna’s eyes to meet. “Of course. I apologize, I—” She hesitated, glancing up at Zeph, who had glanced back down at her.
“My mind is a bit… scattered.” She admitted as her gaze returned to Nathaniel. “There was a… a break-in this morning.” She frowned, the memory of that daunting shadow lurking in her room flashing behind her eyes. “Nothing appears to be missing, but…”
“Hawthorne and I were just about to check the perimeter.” Zeph cut in before Eris could continue, his eyes shifting to his stone-faced partner. “Shall we?” He asked, nodding once toward the exit.
Without waiting for a reply, Zeph stepped around Nathaniel and veered toward the right of the Alchemy Chambers, eager to leave the nobles to their conversation. Eris seemed safe enough with another Sage at her side—one that she clearly knew.
And yet, despite knowing Nathaniel was more than capable of offering protection, Eris felt Zephyros’ absence immediately—cold and stark, like a shield suddenly stripped away from where his body had blocked her from full view of the blight-born.
Her eyes widened slightly, concern flickering as she watched Charlotte fall in step behind him—leaving another frigid void at her side.
Nathaniel's gaze shifted to Zeph. ”A break-in!?” Nathaniel blurted out, causing Eris to snap her attention onto him. His gaze went back to Eris. ”Are you ok?” he couldn't help but say to her.
Eris offered a small, restrained smile and nodded. “I’m alright. Shaken, but no one was harmed… at least, as far as we know.”
Her gaze drifted toward Zephyros and Charlotte again, a quiet prayer forming in her mind—a plea to Aelios that they wouldn’t find another soldier or civilian lying lifeless in the snow.
As Zeph passed, Nesna offered a nod and a smile. He returned the gesture with a wink—and let out a quiet chuckle as he felt the heat of Charlotte’s gaze burn into his back.
As soon as the guards took their leave, Nesna spoke once more. “Regarding my status here, there was one other detail Nathaniel suggested I might broach with you, my lady. I would, if you would have me, My Lady, offer myself up as a volunteer in any capacity you might see fit for your research.” Nesna stepped back as she spoke. She kept her stance rigid, and her arms and wings pulled in tightly. Her tone verged on apologetic, somehow bothered by her own request.
Eris blinked, her gaze drifting over Nesna—assessing her posture, the softness in her voice, the expression on her pallid face. There was a calmness to her, a measured composure that made her seem far more docile and stable than many of the other blight-born Eris had encountered. Certainly a more promising candidate than Miss Rykker, at the very least.
Nesna wasn’t the first blight-born to volunteer herself for study, and Eris doubted she’d be the last. But still, a thought gnawed at the back of her mind—why had it been Nathaniel to suggest the idea?
Given a moment to regain himself, Nathaniel eased himself. He focused on the other thing that Eris mentioned. ”Strange…” he mumbled cupping his jaw with his cold hand, the gears in his head turning. “Was there anything out of the ordinary that you or the other Sages might—” he paused for a moment as his eyes locked to hers. She was about to explain before that Zeph character interrupted her. ”You found something, didn't you?” he gently asks.
Eris glanced at Nathaniel, momentarily torn between the two. “Why don’t you both come inside?” She asked, turning her attention to Nesna before (bravely) stepping aside and motioning toward the entrance. “It’s awfully cold out and… it seems we have much to discuss.”
As they stepped in, Eris closed the door gently behind them, then gestured to the seating area to the right—where other blight-born would likely gather soon, awaiting their audience with the Prince and his advisor. “Please, sit wherever you’d like.”
Shaking the clumps of snow that clung to his hair and body, Nathaniel took a look at the chairs and the one small makeshift lounger. His cold, slightly numb fingers brushed along one of the fabric on the chairs. “I’ll sit in a moment.” he said softly. “I don't want to get these chairs wet from melting snow.”
Crossing to the far wall, Eris nodded and stopped in front of the hearth, the fire crackling softly. Holding out her hands toward the flames, she let the warmth slowly seep back into her skin. “Nathaniel,” she said, glancing over her shoulder, “How familiar are you with enchantment magic?”
© 2007-2026