2.2 - Crazy Town

Amaya awakes suddenly drenched in sweat and wishing she could get a full nights sleep for once. Her dreams have gotten more detailed since the run-in with the blind woman, and more terrible.

She involuntarily shudders as she recounts her foray: she was pointing a sharp knife in the direction of a faceless man, her hands slick on the handle with sweat. What was more disturbing, however, was that Amaya knew she was looking through someone else's eyes. It was a stranger's hand clutching that knife, a stranger's hulking form lunging forward violently with the weapon and taking the victim by the throat.

"No!" The man chokes. "Please, stop this!"

The killer doesn't let the man plead for long, plunging the knife quickly into his chest and letting the hot blood spill from the wound. "It will never stop." He mutters. "Not until you're all dead."

Back in the present, Amaya curses under her breath and punches her knee in frustration. The crazy woman's gibbering has messed with her head somehow. What she's seeing isn't real. It's just her mind's fucked up manifestation of... something. The lie she tells herself grows more unconvincing as the days go on.

A muffled scream from Bellegere's room distracts Amaya from pursuing that train of thought. Not surprisingly, she finds her cousin in much the same predicament as she was just moments before. Over the past week, it has become routine for one of them to come slinking into the other's room for comfort.

"You okay, Belle?"

Bellegere shakes her head feebly, wiping away a few stray tears.  She turns her back on Amaya in embarrassment, cradling her aching head and wishing the dull throbbing would just stop already.

Amaya sits down gingerly on the edge of the bed and gently traces circles on Belle's back. She may be having bad dreams that were keeping her up at night, but Bellegere was experiencing bouts of either physical pain or severe discomfort. Out of the two, she supposes Belle is getting the worse deal. "Maybe that old coot really did put a curse on us."

Bellegere grimaces, trying her hardest to suppress whatever it is that is pushing its way painfully to the surface. She had always had this underlying feeling, of something inside her trying to get out, but now it is a raw pulsing energy sending electric volts through her veins. "I think she was warning us."

"Of what?"

"I don't know." Bellegere admits. "But I think I think it has something to do with Moonlight Falls. I've just gotten worse since moving here."

"So let's pack our things and take the next train out of here. We'll go back to the way things used to be and everything will be fine."

"Do you honestly believe that?" Bellegere snaps, immediately feeling guilty for yelling. "Sorry. It's just, I think the old woman was right. We're supposed to be here. Don't you want to find out what makes us this way? Haven't you ever been curious?"

"No." Amaya answers honestly. "Not before now, anyway. When I think of all the little things that I predicted - your first kiss with Frankie, how I met my last boyfriend, my mother bringing home that kitten after Tabs ran away - those were all so easy to hand-wave as simple coincidence. But then there's the bigger things, like when I saw my father's death just days before or knew you were going to have a run-in with that gypsy."

Bellegere turns to face Amaya with surprise. "You saw the blind woman in your dreams?"

"I didn't see her clearly and she was much younger, but I do remember that tattoo on her forehead. That's a detail difficult to forget. I thought it was just me being overly paranoid about you being on your own, but I had this persistent resolve that I needed to be here with you and make sure you were okay. And then when I actually saw her..." Amaya frowns, "I still tried to rationalize it instead of coming to terms with whatever the hell I am and what I'm apparently capable of."

Bellegere joins her cousin on the edge of the bed. The dark circles under Amaya's eyes are harsh in the lamp light, and she feels a deep pang of guilt for moving here and getting her cousin into this mess. "We need to find the old woman." She says, resolutely.

Amaya laughs hollowly. "How? She moved from her site days ago and we haven't seen her since."

"We'll ask around. Go into town and look her up, I don't know."

"I don't think she'll be so easy to find, Belle." Amaya lays her head tiredly on Bellegere's shoulder, unable to stay awake much longer but also frightened to go to sleep. "If this is what you want to do, then I'll help."

Moonlight Falls transforms into an Autumn paradise seemingly overnight.  Normally, Bellegere would be celebrating her favorite time of the year, but her focus is occupied with finding the only person she knows of that can hopefully help them.

She and Amaya make an early day of their investigating. Amaya, a former Police Academy student, puts her investigative skills to use; albeit at a severely less effective state given her lack of sleep.

Their first stop is the library archives, which disappointingly, are limited and read like a local gossip newspaper featuring mythical creatures. A whole section is dedicated to werewolves, vampires, and faeries that supposedly lived and have descendants in Moonlight Falls.

"I think I've moved to crazy town." Bellegere looks quizzically at yet another story about some zombie infestation that purportedly happened years ago due to a failed magical experiment.

"Took the words right out of my mouth." Amaya grimaces.

They continue on their search, visiting the town center park and the surrounding areas hoping to spot the familiar caravan. Finding nothing, they decide to call it quits - but unwilling to give up completely, Bellegere insists they walk home to cover more ground.

The chilly air and stars momentarily perk both girls up, until they reach their front yard again and realize they didn't make any meaningful progress in their search.

"Do you remember what she said to us when we left that night?" Bellegere asks, dissecting the words in her head.

"Yeah. It was pretty straightforward. 'When you're ready, we will come.' How 'ready' do we have to fucking be? I mean, look at us!"

Bellegere is so tired that the absurdity of the whole situation makes her laugh.

"Yes. Look at you." A foreign voice snaps both girls to attention. They were so immersed in their walk, that they didn't notice the strangers waiting on their front porch.

The blue haired girl smiles when they stop in their tracks. "You've managed to see most of Moonlight Falls in a matter of hours, I'm impressed."

Amaya is about to retort when Bellegere draws her attention to the very familiar woman sporting a triangle tattoo on her forehead. She smiles crookedly at their apparent recognition. "May we come in?"

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I was asked by a couple of people if Bellegere is available for download. She will be - eventually - but for right now, I want to get her story/character established before sharing her. I'll be sure to give an update as soon as she is though. ; )

I had some weird photoshop issues while editing these pictures, so some look considerably more sharpened than others (in case anyone is truly bothered by it). I clearly wasn't enough to go back and re-edit. :P

I had originally planned to drag this out for another two chapters, but I want to get moving with Bellegere's generation and get the story going so everything has been compacted into this one chapter. I'm impatient.