thenebulochaoticwriter

[thenebulochaoticwriter]

Chapter Five: Inconveniences Happen, Too

Stephen sighs, brushing a hand through his hair and leaning up from the oven. It was now spic and span- according to Moira. If it were Stephen’s own oven then he’d definitely put in more effort personally, but he didn’t come here to clean Moira’s oven. The only reason it was so clean now was because he was a perfectionist.

Moira watched from the couch, tapping her fingers onto her knees anxiously. As Stephen seemed to finish up, she spoke up. “Ah, thank you.” She stiffened when he gave her a judgemental look. Returning it with a sheepish smile, she continued. “For cleaning up. Thanks. And saving my life, essentially. I probably would’ve been dead if you hadn’t butted in.”

“I agree.” Stephen comments coldly, tossing the rag in his hand onto the nearby bin with a sigh. “So, do you have an explanation as to why there was a half-full jug of vegetable oil in your oven at 425 degrees?” He asks, turning his back to her as he washes his hands.

Moira sighs, recalling that she still had several questions she needed to answer for herself. “I really wish I did.” She mutters, standing up to examine the oven. Stephen really did a good job at cleaning up all of the oil. She didn’t know if it was because there was oil still spread on the oven or if Stephen really was just that amazing, but she could’ve sworn there was a brilliant shine spread across the oven now.

“It’s actually really confusing considering it all happened in less than five minutes.” Moira explained. After receiving a reluctant but sure nod from Stephen, she began to explain in detail, which took a bit longer than she had liked due to her confusion about the whole ordeal.

“Do you drink, Moira?” Stephen asks immediately in a tone that Moira couldn’t decide whether it was more concerned or more judgemental.

Of course she didn’t. She was sure that he knew that to some extent due to their extensive interviews during shows. “Owch.” Moira chuckled wryly, resting her face in her hand. “Honestly, if I did I still don’t think it would explain everything that happened.”

“Unfortunately.” Stephen adds, looking to the now dark sky outside. “One moment.” He stands up and walks towards the still-open front door.

Moira stands up as well, suddenly. For some reason there was a sharp feeling of fear at the thought of him leaving, which really wasn’t normal for her at all. “Are you leaving?” She asks, putting her hands together with a sheepish smile as he gives her a suspicious look.

“I’m grabbing my bag. I dropped it outside.” Stephen claims, walking out of the door. His bag was set near the mailbox, but fortunately too far for Jester to get to him. Stephen picks up his bag along with the couple of books that had fallen out, simultaneously untying Jester’s leash and allowing him to run inside the house.

Stephen follows, and as he closes the door behind him, Moira speaks up. “Why were you here, anyway? You don’t live on this side of town, right?” She asks, only just now realizing that it was strange that Stephen was able to save her at all.

“Are you avoiding our previous topic of conversation?” Stephen asks, setting his bag onto the counter and sorting through it.

“No! No, I promise. I’m just..” Moira trails off, not having a legitimate answer outside of being curious. “..well… were you coming to visit me?” She asks, despite being shaken up she still looks flattered at the thought.

Stephen sighs at this and turns his attention back to his bag. After a second, Moira turned away as well, assuming that he wasn’t going to answer. After another quick glance her way, Stephen clears his throat. “Yes, I was thinking about it.”

Moira gasps, intertwining her hands with a big smile before Stephen holds a hand up her way. “Originally, I was running an errand. I thought that I could drop by and ask how the book was coming along.”

“The book?” Moira tilts her head to the side. Despite his mention of the book she was still a bit struck that he was actually going to bother to visit her. Suddenly, she gasps again, but her expression was far less happy and far more dreadful. “Oh, the book!”

Stephen raises an eyebrow at her, his expression hardening as he realizes what her mistake was. “Where is the book?” He asks, although based on his expression and cold tone of voice, he already knew what the answer to that question was.

“...it’s.. At the library, I think.” Moira stutters and raises her hands as she continues. “I mean- I- I let Watanabe look at it, and then I completely forgot that he had it because he was showing me something. I’m sorry.”

“Well, it wasn’t my book at least.” Stephen rationalizes, placing his books back in his bag in a newly organized manner.

Moira silently thinks for a moment before gasping suddenly. So suddenly that it nearly makes Stephen jump, and he glares at her. “Sorry.” She whispers, standing up. “I actually have something I wanted to give you..”

Moira quickly walks upstairs momentarily, looking through her bedroom for something. Eventually, she pulls out a book that had been sitting and collecting dust on top of her bookshelf. Brushing it off as she walks down the stairs, she lifts it up to reveal the cover of the book with a proud smile. “Ta-da! William’s Chocolatier in its beautiful paper form!” She cheers, tapping on the cover with her fingernails.

Stephen lifts an eyebrow at her, not necessarily looking suspicious, but more like he wasn’t allowing himself to look surprised. “You didn’t tell me you owned this.” He says, taking it as she proudly offered it to him.

“Would you believe me if I said I forgot I had it?” Moira asks, tapping her fingers together sheepishly.

“I’d take it as seriously as whatever excuse you can make up regarding your near-death experience.” Stephen responds, once again thrusting the conversation back onto the uncomfortable topic that was the fire. He nods his head at her as he looks to the back of the book, as if saying that it was her turn to speak.

“Uh..” Moira sighs. “I can’t really tell you much else.. I’d like to assume that someone started the fire. I mean, that’s really the only explanation. It’s just- the window of time that it happened is so, so small.”

Stephen hums in response and Moira grants him a moment of silence as she exhales and brushes some leftover dust from her dress. She looks to the oven and to the apple pie that was likely warm on the counter. “Is the oven able to be used?” She asked, walking over to her unbaked pie.

“Yes.” Stephen responds. Moira nods, turning and putting the oven back on its original time. She stares at the oven for a moment as Stephen speaks up again. “You said the second floor window was open, right?” He asks, resting his face in his left hand. He rested the other hand on top of the book, not seeming to be able to read at the moment as he thought about Moira’s situation.

“Mhm.” Moira puts her hands together in front of her and takes her fingers together anxiously. “I checked up there when I was opening the windows, but I didn’t see anyone anywhere.”

Stephen sighs, “So from my understanding… This unknown person was…in your backyard, presumably and crawled through a large hole that neither you nor your dog noticed. Your dog chased them, but lost them just as quickly. From what we can guess, this person ran back into your house- hence the open door, tossed a bottle of vegetable oil into the oven- hence the fire, ran upstairs and escaped through the window while you were busy- hence the open window.”

Moira nods, although very slowly due to her hardly being able to process something that sounded so insane. Stephen frowns at her. “The culprit might have gotten caught and they would not have even gotten into the house if your door was locked. I hope you know that.”

“I know, but I was planning on being in and out anyway. The house gets really hot when I bake.” Moira explains briefly, before looking down to the counter with a frown. “I get it, though.”

The oven chimes, alerting Moira that it was at the correct temperature. Moira jumps a bit, and quickly brings a light smile onto her face- a far cry from her previous dull expression- as she adds another layer of egg wash and places the pie into the oven. After closing it, she sets a small timer and places it onto the counter.

“I think a more important subject of questioning is why exactly they would set fire to your house. Or at least try to.” Stephen says, covering his mouth with his hand in thought. “Considering you were busy handling your dog, it’s not as if they would have gotten caught if they’d simply jumped a fence.”

Moira frowns, thinking about that as well. It seemed a bit specific for someone to want to do so spontaneously as an attempt of a distraction. And even so, what are the chances that this person knew exactly where the vegetable oil was? Finding it in such a small amount of time would mean that they were likely looking for specifically that. And what if she didn’t have any oil? What would their random idea have gotten them?

“Do you think it’s a personal vendetta against you, then?” Stephen asks, which Moira immediately returns with an irritated scoff. If Stephen guessed what she was feeling based on her expression alone, he’d guess offended. Unnaturally so for someone like Moira, he thought.

“I don’t think so.” Moira says, tapping her fingers on the counter. “I don’t think anyone has a reason to set my house aflame. Or at least try to.” She frowns again. “And even so, why bother trying when I’m already home? If they wanted to trap me inside it’d be more effective to do so while I’m sleeping.” After a second of thinking, she asks, “What reason would they even have?”

Stephen raises an eyebrow at Moira, almost asking if she were serious. Moira in turn laughs. “I don’t think even you would commit arson, regardless of how annoying I am.” She puts her face in her hand. “I think you’re smarter than that.”

“If I didn’t know any better, Moira..” Stephen comments, “I’d say you were trying to flatter me to prevent that from happening.”

“Gosh, I thought I was more stealthy than that..” Moira blinks rapidly and holds a hand to her heart dramatically. Stephen scoffs, nearly chuckling at her remark. “Speaking of smart..” Moira mumbles, looking at the phone hanging onto the wall, “We probably should have called the..” She trails off, just now noticing something. The wire to her phone had been cut. “...well, I guess that wasn’t an option.”

The critic sighs, likely stressed at having to add that to their unlikely story. “We’ll have to go in person and report this, then.” Stephen comments, standing up to observe the cut phone wire. He then looks over to the oven, “..now wasn’t the best time to make a pie, though, I admit.”

Moira frowns, “Well, you did give me the ok.” She points out, folding her arms behind her back. “I can go after I finish up this pie. There's only half an hour left, I think.” Moira raises her hands again, tapping her fingers together as she smiles sheepishly, “So.. are you going anywhere after this?” She asks hesitantly.

“I am going to walk you to and from the police station, Moira.” Stephen says bluntly. Moira immediately exhales at his response, glad that he was able to pick her brain and prevent her from embarrassing herself. If he hadn’t she’d probably stretch the topic as far as it could go until she forgot to ask him at all.

“Thaaaank you.” Moira hums, smiling. “Speaking of, I haven’t properly thanked you at all, yet!” She claims, looking as if she had a particularly devious plan that obviously wouldn’t slide with Stephen.

Stephen raises an eyebrow her way, as if asking what she was planning with his facial expression alone. “Would you take a kiss?” Moira asks, grinning widely as she taps her lips.

“If it sent you to jail for assault, then maybe.” Stephen quips, walking past Moira to sit back down in the bar stool chair at the counter. “I’d like a slice of pie.” He then states, opening William’s Chocolatier laxly.

Moira claps her hands together. “That’s actually way better!” She says, standing across from Stephen’s spot at the counter. Stephen shot her another suspicious look.

“Explain. If you leave me without context I’ll feel obligated to avoid eating any pastries you make.” Stephen scowled at her, before looking back down to the book.

“I just.. Really want you to try it.” Moira claims, only receiving a disbelieving glance from Stephen. “I’m not lying! I’ve gotten used to my own recipe, and I’ve had others try it, but I don’t know if it’s really all that good.” She turns and grabs a glass plate, excited even though the pie was only half done in the oven. “I know at least that you’ll tell me the truth.”

“I am not a food critic.” Stephen reminded Moira. “Additionally, I don’t eat enough varieties of food to have any impactful opinion.”

No one really knew much about Stephen’s daily life, and Moira was no exception. This could be a good chance to learn a tad bit more about him at the very least. “Yeah? What do you eat regularly, then?” She asks, smiling widely as she cupped her cheeks in her hands.

To her pleasant surprise, Stephen didn’t seem to overthink her intentions when she asked him that. “Oysters and Gray Owl Cheese is my regular breakfast.”

“My God, you have horrible taste.” Moira immediately grimaces, and Stephen scoffs at her sudden change in demeanor.

“It’s healthy.” Stephen comments.

“It’s expensive!” Moira retorts.

“You make far more money than me, Moira. I’m not sure how you find that expensive.” The critic points out, folding one arm over the other as he gives her a judgemental look. He of course knew her net worth because of his amazing ability to strip her brain of everything that was available to grab.

Moira huffs, “It’s too expensive for something so gross. How often do you eat sweets?” She asked, peeking into the oven impatiently.

“I heard it takes longer when you’re watching.” Stephen comments, and Moira laughs, recalling her sister telling her as such. “And my sugar comes in the form of fruits and grains. Nothing else is needed.”

“Sounds like something an old man would say.” Moira mumbles. She immediately looks away with a sheepish smile as Stephen gives her a judgemental look. Their age difference was only two years, so Moira assumed that reaction.

As Stephen returns to reading William’s Chocolatier, Moira turns her attention outside. For some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to sit down or relax. It could be because of adrenaline because of the incident that happened just half an hour before, but Moira personally thought that it was because Stephen was here. She enjoyed having people over and always wanted Stephen to visit, but she never planned any of this. It wasn’t very flattering to be saved from a fire on a first date- especially if the fire and the date itself was completely unplanned. Moira scoffed quietly at her own thoughts. As if someone would plan a house fire for a date.

“Do you think that someone would plan a house fire for a date?” Moira asks suddenly, against her internal better judgement.

“Did you set a house fire in hopes that I would walk by and save you as a sad excuse as a date, Moira?” Stephen states more than he asks, not even bothering to look up from his book. Likely because he already knew the unlikeliness of her question.

Moira smiles, pulling a chair up to the counter to a spot across from Stephen. “Someone wrote about someone doing.. That.” She hesitates as that sentence plays again in her head, but quickly continues talking. “The girl was picking some apples from the tree outside of her house one morning, and apparently she’d knocked a candle over during one of her trips inside.”

“And someone came and rescued her.” Stephen finished.

Rolling her eyes, Moira taps her fingers on the counter and continues. “Yes, someone came at a very convenient time and put out the fire for her.”

Before Moira could continue her attempt at a cryptic storytelling, Stephen spoke again. “Her neighbor. He planned it specifically so that her house would be unlivable and so that she would stay at his house for the time being.” He finishes for her. “Typically gaslighting her.”

Moira kicked her feet a bit and smiled in surprise. “You read the book?!” It wasn’t too surprising that he would read a book, he has to do so to critique things of course. But the fact that he read her sister’s books was a pleasant surprise.

“You did recommend the book to me.” Stephen replies as if it was common knowledge. It was to him and her, but it wasn’t so much so common knowledge that Stephen actually took her recommendations seriously. She wouldn’t, with how much she blabbed mindlessly about her sister's books. If anything, she just uses it as a way to break the ice with new people.

“Yeah, but I didn’t think you’d actually read it..” Moira hums, putting her face in her hands with a smile. “Do you give her any advice? Feedback?”

Stephen looks around the counter briefly, and Moira successfully guesses what it is that he’s looking for. She plucks a nearby coupon from inside of a drawer and hands it to him. After nodding his thanks, Stephen responds. “Critique. Yes.” He slips the coupon between the pages and closes the book, straightening his back. “Her stories have intense potential, she just needs to hire someone else to look at her books before she publishes them.”

Moira tilts her head to the side. “Yeah.. I think she knows that, she just doesn’t want to pay for it.” She responds, chuckling. Smiling, Moira adds. “I appreciate you looking into it, though. She says that despite all her readers and buyers, she’s gotten no critique back. No articles complaining about the bad things that weren’t just unchangeable opinions.”

“Like complaining that a character that the audience doesn’t want to be unlikable is unlikable.” Stephen sighs, as if he’d gone through something similar. “It’s as if the readers believe that consuming the content makes them eligible for altering the story as they wish.”

“Agreed!” Moira laughs. “I can’t stress enough how often good literature brings out the ego in consumers. And I think it’s even worse for artists!”

Stephen raises an eyebrow. “That’s debatable.” He claims, sitting back in the chair a bit. He seemed far more relaxed than when he first arrived. Which was understandable, considering the unlikely circumstances. Even outside of emergencies, though, Stephen was usually more stiff than this. “Did you write, Moira?”

“Huh?” Moira sits up a bit, looking at Stephen curiously.

“How you spoke of readers reminds me of a struggling writer. I haven’t heard of you writing on the side of designing, so I have to assume that you used to at some point.” Stephen explained, “Before you moved here, or else I’m sure I would’ve heard of it.”

Moira opens her mouth immediately to answer, but only a strangled “Uhh..” comes out. “...well.. I, ah.. Feel like that’s a long story.” She says, chuckling more so at the fact that she was taken by surprise at that question. “What about you?”

“Did I write?” Stephen inquires, and scoffs when Moira nods. “I tried for a very short time.” He pauses, before deciding to explain further. “I studied psychology when I was younger- as much as I could. When I was a teenager I had the idea that I could take ancient- or at least old incidents and attempt to dissect the brains of their masterminds.”

“How’d that work out, then?” Moira asked, leaning her face into her hands with a curious smile.

“Well, as I said, it didn’t last very long. I researched every biography- that and auto that I could find. But when I actually looked for the thoughts of my readers, I realized that none of my readers actually thought similar to me. They saw it as some bizarre conspiracy theory. Or even worse, some fictional story.” Stephen scoffed, scowling at the thought.

He exhaled, “I’m going too into that, though. I decided that if people were so set on leaving people’s histories to only the victor’s words, I’d leave history alone. Now, I focus on the present, albeit in an evidently smaller area.”

Moira hums quietly, her eyes half-lidded as she thought over what Stephen had just said. “So, are you.. Content? You said it wasn’t what you studied for, but is it something you enjoy?”

“Enjoyment isn’t my number one priority, Moira.” Stephen responds blandly. After a moment of thought, though, he decides to respond to something that might appeal to Moira more. “I enjoy my psychological input being put to the test. With my original goal, I was only looking into those of the past; those who had passed away. Now I focus on people who are here with me now.”

Stephen pauses for another moment before adding in a quieter tone. “I suppose in that case I appreciate your honesty as well. No one in this town is stupid enough to tell an obvious lie when people know the facts. But when it comes to things that others might be embarrassed about, they not only shy away from the topic but antagonize my thought process, even calling me incorrect.”

Moira chuckles a bit at Stephen’s irritation on the topic. “Well, I feel like any normal person would want to avoid embarrassing things like that. Is the reason you’re so offended because you’re honest?”

“I’ve been told as such.” Stephen says, averting his gaze from Moira’s. “Putting it simply, I expect from others what I give out to them. Which I’m aware is fair, but I’ve also been told that the way I treat myself is too harsh for others to treat themselves.” He looks back to her, “But you’re more honest than others I met. Hence why I said I appreciate how you.. are.”

Moira smiles, tapping her blushing cheeks. “It feels nice to hear that from you since I usually only hear criticism.” She hums.

“Hm..” Stephen looks away, his eyebrow twitching, seemingly embarrassed. “How’s that pie, anyhow?” He asks before placing his mouth in his hand.

“Oh, yeah!” Moira quickly fumbles with the mittens, excitedly looking into the oven as Stephen watches silently. This was certainly a pleasant end to such a chaotic day, Moira thought.

[thenebulochaoticwriter]

Chapter Four: Not Worth The Finest Steel

Moira couldn’t exactly explain to the two that Mavis could be related to a woman’s recently found corpse. Not without dulling the mood and possibly being completely wrong. The victim and Mavis did look alike, Moira noticed- but maybe that was just her getting worked up in the moment. Noting this, Moira wiped her palms down on her dress and smiled. “I’m asking because I thought I recognized the name.” She says, before adding, “Outside of the singer bit, of course.”

Mavis lifted a judgemental eyebrow to Moira, not looking amused, although Moira couldn’t place why. “..I don’t have family members if that’s what you’re asking.” She guessed, and did so correctly somehow.

“Right, right.” Moira chuckled lightly, folding her arms behind her back. She looked away, looking over to Ai, who’d been simply watching Moira as she spoke. Once he noticed her gaze on him he smiled.

“I was planning on showing Moira around the rest of the area. Would you like to join us, Mavis?” Ai offered to the taller woman. The blonde taller woman, that is.

Mavis’ expression changed from confused at Moira to a smug smirk towards Ai. “Ha. Good to know that both me and the time are so forgetful.” She says, rolling her eyes. Mavis lifts a hand to a large clock hanging just left of the welcome sign. It read 2:31 pm, and both Ai and Moira gasped- both of them realizing something.

“Oh, I didn’t realize we were so late..” Ai sighs, looking slightly ashamed of himself.

“And my dog is outside waiting for me right now.” Moira blushes, looking embarrassed at her own forgetfulness. Ai smiles at Moira, chuckling lightly at their similar situation.

“I’m so sorry that we’ll have to cut this short, Moira.” He says, smiling apologetically. “I hope you know that you’re welcome here anytime you want. Just..” Ai pauses, before smiling. “A place like this is invite only- I’d appreciate it if you didn’t invite other people in as you wish.”

Moira nods. “Right. Of course. I’ll just come to you if I really want anyone else here.” She says, and Ai nods in agreement.

Mavis sighs, taking Ai’s arm with a frown. “Can we go? I’ve been waiting for well over an hour.” She asks, putting her free hand on her hip.

“Making a lady wait, Ai?” Moira smirks at him. “Shame on you. I thought you were more charismatic than that.” She shames him jokingly, and Ai raises a hand to his mouth as he chuckles.

“And I suppose constantly inviting people over at night is more ‘charismatic’, Moira?” He presumed. “I guess we’re not too different in that case, huh?” Ai taps Mavis’ hand that was resting on his arm, and she scoffs with a smile in response to this.

“You pervert.” Mavis giggles.

“You make me sound like one, too!” Moira says to Ai, lifting a hand to cover her mouth in embarrassment. She sighs, her face still a bit red, “Regardless, I really should get going. I’ll make sure to come back sometime soon, Ai.” She says, waving to him and walking past him.

Ai snaps his fingers, grabbing the attention of a nearby worker. “My friend here can escort you out. Right, Eden?” He looked to the young man he’d signalled over. He was tall with dark skin and somewhat awkwardly shaped fluffy hair. But regardless, he did still have quite a cute face. He wore the typical serving uniform with a button down vest and waist apron. The entire color scheme of Ai’s Theatre seemed to be along the lines of rose, red and gold, and Eden’s uniform was one of the ones that took on the rose color.

Eden nods, albeit silently, and rolls down his sleeve before offering Moira his arm. Moira waves to Ai once more as he and Mavis walk off elsewhere. Eden guides Moira to the elevator and stands inside with her, pressing the singular button that activated the elevator.

After less than a minute, Moira found herself bored- or at least feeling awkward due to the silence that had rested over she and the worker as they entered the elevator. “..I used to have a friend named Eden.” She blurts out, tapping her fingers on her lap. Eden nods after a brief silent second, and Moira slowly continues. “He had this white-ish blonde-ish hair, though. And light pink eyes.” She tilts her head side to side in thought. “But other than that I guess he looked like you.” She decides, shrugging lightly.

Eden had dark eyes and hair, which definitely didn’t look like the Eden Moira remembered from her childhood. She didn’t know the kid for long, since he was pulled out of the school they were in and moved out of the town the two of them lived in at the time somewhere in Oklahoma. In short, there was no way the two Edens could be involved, but thinking back on where they used to live reminded her of Oklahoma. Oklahoma was certainly an experience, but nothing she’d want to return to for several reasons.

Moira was suddenly thrown out of her thoughts when a loud sound suddenly erupts from the elevator. A large jolt in the elevator causes her to jump, and after a minute of the elevator seeming to scrape against something, it halts to a complete stop. “..oh, that’s not good, is it?” Moira mumbles, looking to Eden.

The waiter in question seemed more nervous than Moira herself was. Not that he was saying anything- his complexion just suddenly turned far paler than before, and he avoided Moira’s gaze entirely.

Moira leans over to catch a glimpse of Eden’s face, but he turns away again. “They’ll get us out.” He mumbles, but proceeds to offer no explanation about what exactly happened- or what will happen.

“Okay..” Moira sits back down, tapping her fingers on her lap. She wasn’t particularly anxious or anything. The worst that she thought could happen was the elevator falling, but even if that did happen, she didn’t think that they were far enough from the ground to do any fatal damage. What did she know, though? She’d never been in an elevator before.

Moira looks back to Eden again. “So, do you not like tight spaces?” She asks. Eden glances at her, but looks to the floor again. “My sister was the same way.” Moira fishes something out of her purse, and pulls out a watch. “This thing’s kinda broken, but it still ticks and stuff. Apparently focusing on something small like that and taking deep breaths will help calm your nerves.”

Eden hesitates to take it, but eventually rolls his sleeve over his hand and takes the watch. Moira looks to his sleeve, but just assumes that he had some sort of germ phobia, too. “Thank you.” Eden mutters, staring down at it silently.

As he does that, Moira looks up with a huff, wondering when someone would notice that they were stuck. Just as Moira thought that, a voice came from beneath them. “Moira? Are you alright up there?!” Ai called from beneath them.

“Oh, hi, Ai!” Moira knelt down onto her knees and tried to peek down through the bars of the elevator. “We’re totally fine- oh, except I think Eden might be claustrophobic.” She pauses for a second before adding, “But, yeah, we’re stuck.”

Ai lets out a wry chuckle, “I can see that.” He calls up again. “The sheave for the elevator is jammed or stuck, I believe. We’ll get you out as soon as possible, though.” Ai reassures her. “Give me one moment.”

After hearing Ai walk away, Moira turns to Eden. “Y’hear that? They’ll get us out in no time.” She says, smiling and standing up. As she does, Eden suddenly hands the watch back to her, which she returns with a confused expression.

“It’s not working.” Eden says shortly, dropping the watch onto her hand and quickly putting his hands back onto his lap. His gaze returned to the floor and Moira frowned. Rather than sitting next to him, she sat down onto the floor diagonal to him.

“So, when’d you figure out that you had that phobia, anyhow?” Moira asked, tapping her knees as she looked at him curiously.

Eden takes a moment, looking slightly confused as if asking why she was bothering to ask. After a second, figuring she was attempting to lighten the mood, he replies. “..when I was a kid.” He replies shortly, but goes quiet again after that.

Moira tilts her head to the side, but looks away, hoping that he would eventually decide to speak up again. After yet another moment, he did. “..uh, girls would pick on me or ignore me.” He started, but slowly continued when he realized that that didn’t explain much. “They often called me derogatory names because they thought that I looked like a girl. So.. they would shove me into closets whenever the teacher wasn’t around. And no one would let me out until the teacher found out where I was.”

“Damn.” Moira averts her gaze, recalling having mean classmates like that. “They must’ve been hella ugly to be picking on a boy like that.” She comments, twirling one of her curly locks around her finger absentmindedly.

“No, just.. Self-conscious.” Eden leans back against the wall a bit. “There was this one girl who used to pick on me the most. She was the one who came up with the idea to push me into the closet. And whenever I told my mother about it, she’d get mad at me instead.”

Moira shifted her position on the floor, feeling uncomfortable against the patterned bars. Maybe also uncomfortable at the shift the conversation had taken. Or, more precisely, started with. “..where’s that girl now?” She asks.

Eden pauses again, frowning a bit. This question takes him way longer to answer, and for a second Moira thinks that he just wasn’t going to answer. Eventually, though, he does speak up again. “A lot closer than I thought she was.” He mumbles.

“Yeah? Have you spoken to her yet?” Moira inquires. “Or are you still holding a grudge against her because of what she did?”

“I don’t blame her at all, actually.” As Eden replies this, he sits up straight, although he still can’t bring himself to actually look at Moira at all. “I would talk to her, but I.. can’t.. speak to her face to face. We’ve spoken before, but she doesn’t actually know that it’s.. Me.”

Moira blinks, processing the information Eden had given her. She didn’t expect him to speak so much considering his short and mumbled responses just a second prior. “If you don’t blame her, then are you worried that she’ll be just as bad as a person?”

It wasn’t likely that an adult could be exactly the same as they were when they were a child, really. Not without a head injury or something, Moira thought. But an adult can definitely be a worse person than their childhood personality. She hadn’t ever seen this for herself, but it just made sense in her head.

“...” Eden immediately opens his mouth to answer, but his voice falls short, and he ends up closing his mouth again. This time, though, it didn’t seem like he didn’t want to tell her something. Instead, it looked like he honestly couldn’t answer in his own head. “..I don’t blame her for anything, but I think.. That what happened is still enough for me to not want to approach her. I think that.. In the back of my head it’s still labelled as a ‘bad’ thing for me to approach her.”

Moira hums. She looks down to the floor, thinking lightly. It’s not as if she’d ever gone through anything like this. She had some bullies, sure, but nothing that changed the person she was so intensely. Moira hesitates. Her original plan was to try to get him to loosen up, or more precisely try to keep his mind off of the small elevator. He seemed fine at the moment, but now Moira wasn’t sure of what to say. “So, how long ago was this, anyhow?” She asks.

“Twenty-two years ago, I think. I’m twenty-eight now.” Eden replies. He looks to Moira, “How old are you?”

“I’m twenty-eight, too.” Moira says, smiling at the similarity. For some reason it was really fun to have someone around the same age as her. Stephen was older than her and Ai was younger than her. She didn’t really know how old CupKake was; he often kept that stuff to himself so no one learned his “secret identity”. Irene was 32, but she didn’t know how old Louis was. She assumed he was older because of how mature he seemed. “I like to think that if I were there with you I would’ve helped out.”

Eden taps his knees, frowning in thought. “I know.” He said quietly, but somewhat certainly. Moira lifted her eyebrow, wondering why that was, but was interrupted with a sudden jump of the elevator.

“Ooh!” Moira jumped up as the elevator began moving as normal again. “They did it!” She looked to Eden with a smile, “Now you don’t hafta be in this stuffy ol’ elevator, right?”

Eden offers a hesitant smile, and stands up as well. “Yes.” He agrees, nodding lightly. “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be.”

“Ha! You know, my sister used to tell me to expect the worst out of everything so that I’m not surprised when something bad happens. And so that I’m pleasantly surprised when something good happens.” Moira blabbed, her energy seemingly replenished after finally having a way out. She wasn’t claustrophobic or anything, but she imagined that sitting in such thick tension was a similar feeling.

“That sounds familiar.” Eden comments as the elevator finally comes to a stop at the top.

In the doorway, Ai and another staff member stood, awaiting them. “Moira. Eden. I apologize for the inconvenience.” He smiles sympathetically, allowing them both out as Eden follows the other staff member. Moira waves him goodbye and he nods in response.

“I’m really just glad to be out.” Moira sighs, folding her hands behind her back. “Jester’s going to be so upset. I’m sure I’ll have to give him a treat as an apology.” She scoffs.

Ai chuckles, “The wind’s been picking up today. I’m sure he’s just fine.” He says, patting her back and escorting her to the exit of the library. As they reached the exit door, he apologized again. “I am really sorry about the elevator. And for the visit being so short.”

“Don’t you worry about it.” Moira beams at him. “Honestly, the experience on its own was satisfying enough. And I’ll make sure to visit again soon. That might actually be the reason I get out more often.”

“Right. I look forward to it.” Ai gives her a brief wave, “I’ll call sometime tonight.” He nods at her, and returns to the area behind the counter.

Moira hears a sudden bark behind her, and recognizes it as Jester. She turns to him, and sees him impatiently standing as far as the leash would allow him. He wagged more vigorously as she came closer and scratched his head. “I knoooooow you’re mad at me. But it wasn’t my fault.” She claims, untying him.

“The elevator stopped working and me and this guy, Eden, were stuck for, like, five to ten minutes, and...” Moira blabs incessantly, grabbing Jester’s leash and taking him back home.

~*~

Now that Moira was home, she was making an apple pie with apples she had bought just last week. The pie itself should last her a good week, she thought. After she finished cutting up little leaves out of the access dough, she started up the oven and put away the leftover ingredients she had out. As she wiped off the counter, she looked at Jester. Her beloved komondor in question was playing a little game that her sister had taught him.

The game itself included him and the three stuffies that her sister had bought him. When he was a pup, her sister would take a stuffy of some androgynous animal that resembled a fox or predator of some kind, a stuffy of a dog that resembled Jester, and a third stuffy of a leghorn hen.

Moira’s sister would take the stuffy of the hen and set it in the middle of an empty area. First, she would take the Jester stuffy and act as if it were attacking the chicken. And then she would scold the Jester stuffy and toss it out a window or hit it with a hammer. Basically something to scare him, which worked. Alternitevely, she would take the plushy of the predator and have it attack the chicken plushy and have the Jester plushy attack that instead.

For the time that Jester was with Moira’s sister, he served as a guard dog for all of her chickens, and was properly trained to kill anything that tried to attack the chickens. Thanks to that he’s very well trained. And to this day the chicken plushy is the only one that isn’t torn up, with the predator being the worst kept one. Regardless of the shape, Jester has kept all three of them.

Moira exhaled, stretching her torso over the now-clean counter. “Ah, nothing’s better than the reward for hard work.” She hums, smiling at Jester. “Dontcha think?”

The designer stands up straight and stretches, waltzing over to pet her dog, who was curretnly gnawing on the infamous predator plushie. Instead of doing that, though, her attention is snatched by something in her backyard. Through the glass of her sliding door, she notices a bush shake violently, likely as a result of something ducking into or behind it.

Moira frowns, walking over and sliding the door open. “Here, Jester. You go and take a break out there, alright?” She pats the door as Jester rushes outside, the ragged doll of the predator still being shaken around in his mouth. She hums, looking to the bush that was previously shaking intensely. Whatever it was, Jester would surely be able to take care of it.

Rather than worrying about it, Moira simply dusts some flour off of her clothes and turns to check on the oven. She’s immediately interrupted when Jester suddenly starts barking. A particular bark that means he was shocked by something, but was still on his way to attack whatever that thing is. Moira snaps her head back just in time to see him disappear behind the bushes. The only problem was that he was too big to fully submerge his body into them.

“Jester?!” Moira runs out to the backyard and peeks behind the bush, noticing that there was a large hole just big enough to fit Jester. “Where in the ever-living hell did this come from?” She asked, before reminding herself that Jester was currently out of the fence without her. “Shoot..” She hissed, stepping back a bit. With a bit of a head start, she was able to run and use the fence to jump over. “Jester! Get your ass back here!!”

Moira ran around the side of her house, and spotted Jester running around the mailbox, as if looking for whatever it was he was chasing. As if he’d spot something inside of the house, he ran towards the front door, but Moira was able to cut him off and grab him, sitting on his body to prevent him from running away again.

She exhaled an exhausted breath and looked around, not seeing any sort of motion. No one was walking around and no animal was anywhere nearby. But in all fairness, there were several trees and fences to hide behind, so Moira wasn’t going to act as if absolutely nothing was there. “Jesus, Jester!” She huffed, right before Jester began barking furiously again. He was barking towards her house again, and Moira noticed that her door was wide open. “What the Hell..?”

Not only was the door wide open, but there was a thick smoke coming from inside. “What?!” Moira jumped up, running inside as Jester ran after her. Just as she assumed, there was a fire in her oven, but the door was wide open as well. She looked around frantically, and Jester ran around in circles, struggling to find whatever it was he was chasing and confused by the unwelcome smell of the smoke.

Moira’s immediately thought was water, but she didn’t have anything big enough to take out the fire effeciently. Regardless, she grabbed her largest mixing bowl and put it in the sink with the water running. “Oh, jeez–” Moira coughed, bringing her arm to her mouth and dragging Jester out of the house. She shut the door to prevent him from coming back in, but also opened every available window in the area, still coughing up a storm.

Just as she grabbed the bowl of water haphazardly, a hand yanked her back and grabbed the bowl from her hands, instead tossing it into the sink again. Moira turned her head in confusion, and saw Stephen of all people. “Don’t put water on a grease fire!” He scolded her, looking around her cabinents for something.

Moira looked to the oven and noticed that there was, in fact, her whole container of vegetable oil inside of the oven. She didn’t notice until Stephen pointed it out due to her own panicking, but finally processed what Stephen was looking for. “Oh! Salt!” She frantically ran over to her pantry and tore open the door, grabbing a large container of salt. She shoved it into Stephen’s arms and immediately went back to the pantry to grab some baking soda.

The two quickly poured the ingredients onto the fire, and as the fire died down, she put down the baking soda and grabbed a nearby trashcan. After tossing more baking soda into it, she grabbed some mittens and grabbed the container of vegetable oil from inside of the oven and tossed it into the trashcan, where she poured even more baking soda for precautionary measures.

The fire was now completely put out, which now only left the extensive mess in her oven. “Oh my goodness..” Moira sighed deeply, putting her hand to her head in exhaustion. She walked over to the oven, but was stopped by Stephen, who held his arm out to prevent her from coming any closer.

“I’ll deal with this mess. Go calm down that dog of yours and open any windows upstairs.” Stephen ordered her, to which she nodded, too exhausted to pull out any of her usual banter.

Jester was currently barking up a storm, so Moira rushed out to deal with that. She grabbed his leash, which hung on the front door, and beckoned him over to her. “Okay, Jes, c’mon.” She exhales, kneeling down and scratching his head to help calm him down. Once he did eventually calm down, she brought him over to the nearby mailbox and leashed him up to it. “You just wait here, alright?” She pats him on his head and trots back to the house to open more windows.

As she approached the house, she noticed that one of the larger windows on the second floor were open as well- which she definitely hadn’t done herself. She hardly ever opened the upstairs windows, and hadn’t been home all day to do so.

Several things have caused her inconveniences today. The elevator, which she didn’t particularly mind as that had an explanation behind it. The large hole in her backyard that she and Jester both hadn’t noticed until today, her door being wide open, her oven not only being open but with a whole container of vegetable oil inside, and the window being wide open.

Of course, this could all just be justified with someone having broken in, but how could someone do that in the couple of minutes that Moira was chasing Jester around? None of it made enough sense for Moira to be satisfied, or any less confused.

Something else to add to her plate, it seemed. This day certainly wasn’t as fun as she was hoping it would be.

[thenebulochaoticwriter]

Chapter Three: Watana-Bae's Club

“Doe.” Stephen greeted, even though he had frowned immediately upon seeing her, which was the polar opposite of Moira’s expression herself.

Moira tapped her fingers on her skirt. She always made sure that she looked nice, but regardless of when or where, she always hoped that she would get a compliment from Stephen. Well, not even specifically a compliment, but some sort of comment or acknowledgment- as she hardly gets even that when he attends her shows.

“I didn’t expect to run into you here!” Moira said, leaning back and forth on her heels. “I guess it makes sense that you like books, though, since you judge them all the time.”

Moira had left her house for the sake of meeting with Ai- regardless of if he begged or not. Unfortunately, one of his co-workers informed her that he was busy at the moment, so she’d have to wait. She was a bit disappointed, but all of that was immediately erased when she ran into Stephen.

Stephen hummed disapprovingly, raising a hand to his hip as he arched an eyebrow in Moira’s direction. “I don’t ‘judge’, Doe, I critique.” He claimed.

“Yeah..” Moira paused, pretending to be in thought, but really she just didn’t want to move on to her next topic too quickly, lest Stephen felt ignored. “...sooooo, do you have a favorite book?”

“Your sister’s book is not my favorite, no.” Stephen said, furrowing his eyebrows. Moira immediately sighed, bummed out by the fact that he cut the conversation so short by predicting exactly what she’d say.

“Come on, you’re cutting me off short here.” Moira huffed- and thankfully, Stephen didn’t bother telling her that that was his point. “Do you have a favorite book, at least?” Stephen gave her a look with his infamous raised eyebrow. “I’m asking because I’m curious, don’t worry. I have no ulterior motive whatsoever.”

Moira gives a big grin, raising her eyebrows up and down in an attempt to look as suspicious as possible. This makes Stephen sigh, and he hands her the vhs tape tucked beneath his arm. “I don’t like many books. I’d prefer it if this movie had a book variant for me to read but it isn’t available here.”

“Oh!” Moira gasps, smiling brightly at the movie he’d handed her. “William’s Chocolatier!” Stephen gives her a frown- silently telling her not to raise her voice in their current setting. “I love this movie!” She says in a quieter, albeit still just as excited manner.

“Do you?” Stephen asks, although his voice was dull in what seemed to be disinterest.

William’s Chocolatier was one of Moira’s favorite movies, simply because it was a movie made for absolutely everyone- including a horror obsessor like her. The movie itself follows a young boy who’s taken to a popular chocolatier with his friends. The whole movie is them getting trapped in the underground factory and having to escape while they have a bunch of fun activities with the sentient treats throughout the factory.

What Moira loved so much about it is the constant reminder that the owner of the factory, William, is coming after them. While he comes silently, whenever he leaves a section of the factory while following the kids, he’ll actively destroy the treats that helped the children continue on their journey. He does it in ways that make it confusing for kids and disturbing for adults.

On top of that aspect, while the executions (seen more as simply “escaping” to the kids) of the children are seen as funny for kids watching, it’s made incredibly disturbing for adults who actually know what’s going on.

“My favorite scene was when, that, um.. The gummy worm- I can’t remember his name- but how his little execution was just, like.. Getting his tail and lower body cut off over and over again. You know?” Moira explained, pointing to the gummy worm in the background of the cover.

“His name was Geronimo.” Stephen commented, before nodding. “Yes, I think that was one of the scenes that actually scared the kids who watched it.” He paused, before sitting down in a nearby chair and continuing. “My favorite was the candy cane scene.”

Moira claps excitedly, albeit not actually slamming her hands together so as to not cause too much noise. “Yes! Is it because it foreshadows what happened with William and his wife?” She asked.

Resting his elbows on the counter, Stephen avoided his gaze. He paused for a bit too long, but eventually said. “Sure. Yes, that’s why.”

“Is it cuz the candy cane lady was hot, then?” Moira asked, bouncing her leg in her lap in excitement.

Stephen sighs at her accusation. “No.” He pauses for another quick second, before deciding to explain. “I appreciated the intimacy of the scene. It was far more satisfying to watch than any sexual scenes I’ve seen in adult films.”

Moira cupped her face in her hands and leaned her elbows onto the table. “That’s funny to say considering the candy cane lady was literally getting murdered.”

“Don’t act stupid. I’ll feel obligated to treat you as such.” Stephen warns in a faux threatening manner.

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Moira leaned back in her chair, but then sat up straight, noticing that she had changed her position at least three times, and Stephen had kept his throughout the entire conversation. “Last night I watched this semi-erotica. None of the spicy bits were really entertaining to look at, though. Then again, none really are.”

“I take it you don’t quite like erotic movies.” Stephen guesses, and correctly so as Moira shrugs.

“I prefer to read them. The same with horror. I like watching that kind of stuff, but I don’t like it when it isn’t exactly how I want it to be, you know?” Moira asks, crossing her leg over the other. “Even if the author explains a scene, whether horrific or erotic, I feel like writing leaves enough blanks for me to imagine the scene how I like. But at the same time it’s explained in such detail that it comes off in a really creative way. I think.”

Stephen stared at Moira with a stoic, albeit interested expression as she spoke. “I agree.” He nods, pauses for a moment and then stands up silently. “I’ll return in just a moment.”

Moira nodded, and true to his word he did come back, holding a book he must’ve grabbed from off one of the many shelves in the library.

“I hear you’re religious.” Stephen states bluntly, sitting across from her once again. He was usually pretty stiff, but he seemed far more stiff and uncomfortable as he handed her the book.

“Mhm. Does this book have something to do with it?” Moira asks, tapping the cover and looking up at him. As if awaiting him to give her any disclaimers.

Stephen nods, furrowing his eyebrows, although not at her. Rather, to the window showing outside- not that there was anything other than nearby buildings in that regard as well.

Seeing as Stephen didn’t seem as if he was going to elaborate any further, Moira turned the book to examine the back. From what she read, it featured two young kids, both religious, both under similar families, but still being completely different in their own right. One of the kids, the boy, is unnecessarily rebellious against their religion, and the other, a girl, was unnecessarily strict with their religion.

“So is this inappropriate in any way, Steph?” Moira asked, leaning her face in her hand, trying her best to immediately address the elephant in the room- the elephant itself being Stephen’s strange stiffness. Stephen frowned, seemingly less nervous as he glared at her.

He swiftly snatches the book back. “Don’t insult me, Doe.”

“I’m just asking!” Moira says, stretching her arms out to slowly pick off each of Steph’s fingers from the book. In the end he just let go of it, acting as if he was disgusted by being touched by her. “You were stiff. I wanted to attempt to address the problem.”

Stephen simply huffs, although the return of his somewhat stiff movements seemed to indicate that he was less upset at Moira now. Part of Moira assumed that he was worried about there being some sort of misunderstanding, but additionally, Moira wasn’t that stupid. And neither was Stephen, of course.

Moira tilted her head to the side. “Well, in any case. Can you give me some insight into what the book’s about? The back of it only says so much.” She asks, attempting to shift from the topic that made Stephen uncomfortably quiet.

Stephen looked back at her for a moment, eying her in a somewhat suspicious manner. Moira in return smiled, and Stephen scoffed, although she didn’t know exactly why. He opened his mouth- either to ridicule Moira or to elaborate, as she asked, but Moira wouldn’t figure that out as a light voice rose from behind her.

“Omo- ah, Moira.”

Moira turned her head, and Ai stood behind her. “Sorry for the wait, Moira.” He bowed his head lightly. “We’re ready for you now.”

“Ah.” Moira turned back to Stephen, who was already standing up. “You’re free to call me and visit whenever, Stephen.” She offered, as she did often, despite the fact that he always denied. She stood up as well.

“I’ll make sure to not do that.” Stephen said, turning away from her as her shoulders fell in disappointment. He briefly flicked his wrist in a lazy goodbye and parted from the two.

Ai allowed Moira to sigh before smiling sneakily. “You seem quite quick to invite him over to your house, hm?” He asks in a kidding manner.

Moira scoffs, throwing her hands up. “I invite everyone to my house. It means I can stay inside more often.”

Ai gasps dramatically and Moira realizes her mistake. “Everyone?” As Moira opens her mouth to defend herself, Ai adds. “And yet you exclude me? Shame on you, Moira. After everything I’ve done for you?”

The designer’s attempt in defending herself immediately switches to laughter and she covers her mouth as to not laugh too loud. “I..” Moira sighs, taking a second, before deciding to not comment on that. “..I don’t? Are you sure?”

“If you did, I'd probably be over. At all.” Ai responds, raising a hand to grab a nearby book in a lax manner.

It was true, now that Moira thought about it that Ai hardly ever came over. It was weird why that was. It’s not as if she specifically excluded him, of course, if anything having Ai around was always something she enjoyed in the back of her mind.

Moira raises a hand to her chin in thought. “..that’s weird, I feel like I invite everyone.” She says, before allowing that fact to drift from her mind. She smiles, “It’s probably because whenever I speak with you I feel, uhh…” Moira thinks for a moment. “..full?”

She knew that that didn’t make much sense, but she was trying her best. It was often that whenever Moira visited Ai in the library, they’d usually talk for a lengthy amount of time. They would start topics of conversation and finish them to their entirety in that length of time, so there was no need for any other questions or alternate answers. Maybe extra comments, but Moira felt like Ai made sure to properly finish the topic of conversation before the two parted ways, where that was intentional or not.

Ai chuckles at her sloppy words, putting the book back and instead looking to the one in her hand. Moira hands it to him as she continues speaking. “It’s like eating a bunch of baked potatoes. Or a bunch of boiled eggs. With a side of salad, or something.”

Lifting an eyebrow at Moira, Ai reads the back of the book she previously had. “I make you feel healthy?” He guesses sarcastically. Before Moira can retort, he chuckles. “I’m joking.” He tucks the book beneath his arm. “I’m glad I, uh, fill you up.”

“I-” Moira sighs, placing her face in her hands. “-okay, where are you leading me?” She asks, looking up at Ai in an attempt to look upset, but only being able to smile at his smug grin.

“It’s actually underneath the library.” Ai leads Moira to the front desk, and opens the counter’s swinging door for her to walk through. “After you.” He bows his head lightly, and Moira gives him a small curtsey in return before walking through. Ai places down the book beneath his arm and leads Moira to the behind the desk area.

Inside, there were a couple other staff members, doing their work as per usual. A woman nodded at Ai and then waved to Moira with a smile, before returning to her work. At the end of a short hallway, there looked to be a fancy looking elevator door. It looked a bit too old to fit in with the library’s general appearance, but it seemed to be painted and decorated to blend in at least a bit. Ai pressed the singular button, and the door immediately opened to them.

Once the two had entered, Moira admired the decorative carvings of the inside. Floral patterns seemed to be a regular pattern found everywhere in the libraries decorations. And it seemed that the same could be said about this unknown elevator shaft. “It’s weird to see an elevator like this in a library.” Moira claims, tilting her head as she looked at Ai curiously. “This has been here the whole time?”

Ai smiled, looking proud. “It was here even before I became the owner of the library. The elevator used to be broken, but we decided to fix it up- along with the area beneath the library. I think you’ll like what we’ve done with it.”

“Well, now I’m excited.” Moira said, smiling and tapping her fingers together excitedly. “Do you know what the area used to be, then? A basement or bunker?”

Ai hums in thought, folding his arms behind his back. “Well, it’s worth noting that this building used to be a luxury hotel before the top floors were burned. A year or so later it was renovated into the smaller building that we know and love as the library.”

Suddenly, a golden light spilled between the textured metal gates of the elevator. As Moira stepped forward to get a better look at the area- that was much larger than she expected- Ai continued. “We think it used to be a large casino or auction house.”

Below, there were many people dressed in fancy clothes, some donning masks. Many that she didn’t recognize at all- with or without the mask. They must all be visitors from outside of the town. The area was large, with several large chandeliers lighting up the top of the high ceiling, and more light sources climbing down the wall to continue the shining gold that reflected off of the room.

“Oh, wow..” Moira folded her hands together, an even more exciting smile on her face as she blushed lightly in excitment. Truthfully, she didn’t expect something so grand to be held anywhere in the small town she lived in, just due to its simplicity. Not that the simplicity was bad by any means, but even the library’s comfy atmosphere didn’t match the extravagant one that this area shone onto Moira.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” Ai asked, smiling at Moira expectantly, although her face showed enough what she thought of it.

“I..” Moira paused, her face suddenly going red. “..jeez, I feel underdressed.” She says, raising her hands to her cheeks in embarrassment. What she’d put together was a black and white striped dress that hung off her shoulders, with similar stockings, and slightly more cute-looking white heels.

Ai laughs lightly as the door opens to the elevator, allowing the light to properly shine into the elevator shaft. “Welcome to my clubhouse.” He joked. He lifted his hand up to large letters encrusted on the wall above the large stage.

“Watanabe’s Bun-ra-ku-za.” Moira spelled out slowly, looking to Ai just in case she pronounced it wrong, which from the proud look on his face, it didn’t seem like she did. “What’s that mean?”

“Theatre.” Ai replied simply. “I only call it that because I’m most proud of the operas, performances and plays we hold here often.” He said, offering Moira his arm, which she gladly took as they walked through the large room. “As you can see, there are many different kinds of people here from all over the world. We have stands available for said people to rent to sell their valuables, as well as for others to buy from.”

He raises a hand to the stage, which was currently playing a snazzy jazz tune that Moira swears she’d heard before somewhere. “If it’s not a performance of some sort, we also hold auctions when we have a large amount of valuable items to sell.”

Moira recalled going to all sorts of auctions with her grandmother when she was younger. A lot of the things that she bought were old, rundown things that her grandfather would take and make it look new again. As a child, Moira never understood the value of such things or why her grandmother would pay so much for it. When she got older she was taught about how much people would pay for antiques and how valuable old things were to some people due to its age alone. Now she realizes how valuable things like that were. Her house, for instance, was considered pretty old and valuable, and had a less modern build than other houses in the town. To Moira it was valuable due to its unique design, since it was the same kind of house she grew up in.

Moira looks around, trying her best to be discreet and not stare too long at any of the beautiful fabrics or people around her. She hums a bit in thought, noticing something. “..you know, this is a small town.” She looks to Ai, “I feel like I would’ve realized that we had so many visitors. It’s not like we have any fancy hotel to hold all of these people.”

“That’s because the hotel is down here.” Ai said, holding his other arm out to large doorways on either side of them. “Plenty of room for the amount of staying guests we have. And of course a great deal of food to offer them as well.”

“Jesus..” Moira raised her free hand to her chest with a nervous but excited frown on her face. “And- and how long has this been around? There’s no way you just put this together last night!”

Ai smiles at her. “Of course not. If you want an estimate of how long it took, I’ll say it’s much longer than you’ve been in town.” He uses his free hand to pat Moira’s hand that was resting on his arm. “And, no, I’ve never mentioned this to you.”

“Oh, thank God.” Moira exhales loudly, causing Ai to laugh. He did expect her to be worried about that, but not quite as animated about it as she had been at that moment. “I honestly might’ve cried if you had- might’ve become a hermit, too.”

Ai raises a hand to his face, quieting down his laughter as he looks down and away in order to hide his face from her view. Moira scoffs, bending down a bit in an attempt to look at his face, “Well, why haven’t I known about this? I feel like I would notice a big.. Organization..? Like this, regardless.”

“Because it was only yesterday that we finished all of our preparations.” Ai claims. Moira takes another second to look up and around at the large area. On a higher balcony, it looked like one of the employees had just finished shining the wood railing. “..with small fixer-uppers.” Ai speaks, bringing Moira’s attention back to him. “I waited quite a while to get this perfect enough for you to come and see, but in that process I suppose I got a bit impatient.” He admits.

“Why was it so important that I saw it when it was completely finished?” Moira asks. Sure, he could want to show off the place when it’s finished, as anyone would want after working so hard on something. But if that were the case, then why open the place up at all if it weren’t 100% complete?

Ai smiles a bit mischievously. “Because I value your opinion, Moira. Obviously.” He says simply. Moira huffs out a laugh and comments, “You say that as if this isn’t more extravagant than anything else in town.”

“Well, don’t feed my ego. I’ll pull this up in every argument.” The shorter man says, tugging on Moira’s arm lightly. This pulled a light laugh out of her, as the two never argued at all. In all honesty, Moira doubted that it was possible to argue with Ai- in the couple years she’d known him, it seemed impossible to be able to argue with him simply because of how agreeable he was.

“Oh, please. He already does.” Another voice suddenly popped up behind the two- the deep-ish voice of a woman. Moira turned to face the unknown woman, but Ai already seemed to know her quite well. He walked up to her and hugged her tightly, and she was happy to return it as well.

The woman herself was shorter than Moira herself- as were most people- but still taller than Ai. She couldn’t tell if it was due to the woman’s heels or not. She was dressed in the same fashion as the other guests, but stood out slightly due to her lack of a mask. The woman’s dress was nice, but it also looked really simple- something that Moira might use for a base dress. Of course, Moira wouldn’t dare say this out loud. And what the woman’s dress lacked in charm, her makeup and hair- even just her face made up for it just fine.

“Mavis.” Ai greeted simply, patting her on her back after their hug. “I’m elated you could make it- I was hoping I could introduce you to my favorite patron.” He looked up to Moira and smiled brightly.

Moira held a hand out to the woman with her usual smile. “A pleasure to meet you! I’m Moira Doe-”

“- the designer, I’ve heard.” Mavis smiled casually, taking Moira’s hand for just a moment before taking her gloved hand away quickly. “I’m Mavis Marter. Popular singer where I come from.” Moira blinked, her hand still held out as she processed what Mavis had just said. Mavis lifted an eyebrow at her and Ai tilted his head lightly, confused by her own confusion. Moira clears her throat, muttering a quiet ‘sorry’ before straightening her back. “..Mavis what?”

[thenebulochaoticwriter]

Chapter Two: Incidents Happen

Jester was surprisingly calm when he and Moira arrived home, even with the guest over. Of course, the detective was no CupKake, but Jester was still usually on edge when a stranger was in their house. It’s not as if the detective convinced him to stay calm with a treat or anything. He’d just given the dog a nod and sat down.

“I would totally make you a cup of tea, but I cracked my favorite tea set and the others are dusty, so..” Moira sits down across from the detective, “..I hope you don’t have a sore throat.”

“Don’t worry about me.” The detective pulled a couple of envelopes and spread them across the table. “I’d be more worried about yourself due to your lack of an alibi.” He comments, “How sensitive would you say you are to seeing real photos of corpses?”

Moira tilts her head to the side in thought, “I grew up watching horror movies if that means anything.” She states, smiling. Although, when the detective gives her a serious look she shrugs. “I can look at them.”

“Good.” Masashi fingers through one of the folders, before slipping out three separate pictures and a printed information page. “If you don’t recognize this woman, I don’t blame you. She’s one of the many visitors from outside of this town that were last seen alive here. Her name is Minnie Marter.”

Moira looks down at the three seperate photos. Even in death the woman died in a strangely graceful position, as if she were some sort of actress. Her face was unrecognizable, with her eyes being completely plucked out of her sockets. Apart from some sort of worm crawling out of her agape mouth, her skin was a dull and pale gray color. Her lips looked swollen and some residue of make up was apparent on her face.

It looked… gross. Moira was glad that the movies she watched were so unnecessarily gruesome, or else this might actually make her physically sick. “What did you say her name was?” She asked, her eyes not leaving the pictures.

“Minnie Marter.” Masashi repeats. He pauses, and Moira nearly swore at how obviously pale her face had gotten. “It looks like you know something.”

“Uh. I know that exact name from a book series that I read, like, religiously.” Moira admits, standing up and walking over to a bookshelf built into the staircase leading upstairs. She picks at a couple of them, before pulling out one and sitting back down.

Masashi examined the book’s cover as Moira slid it over to him. The cover showed that it was the very first volume of a series called ‘’Home’s Lack of Rhapsody’’. The picture was that of a woman in front of a large house that seemed to be comically sentient in an old-fashioned rubber hose artstyle. He skimmed the first chapter as Moira began speaking.

“It’s meant to be a romantic horror about a woman who moves into a new neighborhood with a, uh.. very strange routine. Not that that matters, actually.” Moira fiddles with her fingers, her expression uncharacteristically blank as she thinks. “Right, but the main character is named ‘Minnie Martyr’. Martyr spelled like the religious definition. It’s meant to be a big.. foreshadowing thing for the rest of the story.”

Masashi nods, seemingly understanding Moira’s awkwardness as she gives small details and tidbits of the story that stands out to her. “And does this woman die?” He asks.

“The series isn’t finished. She could die in the future, but she hasn’t yet.” Moira fiddles with her fingers as she pauses, “..the only real resemblance I see with this Minnie and the Minnie in the story is that they have the same name, although spelled much differently. Nothing else really lines up, it’s just..” Moira looks down to the gruesome pictures. “I’m certainly no writer, but I just assumed that the word ‘martyr’ was just that. A word with a meaning, not a name. It seems kind of strange.”

“If that were the case then the name we were given could have been fake. But that would mean that this young woman’s loved ones lied about her identity, which wouldn’t benefit them at all.” Masashi reasoned, tapping his fingers on the cover of the book, before holding it up. “Do you mind if I take this with me for further inspection?” He asks.

“So long as you return it.” Moira’s lax smile returns to her face. “Creepy coincidence or not I do still want to keep up my collection.” She says, nodding to the other similarly colored books on the shelf behind the detective.

“Well, moving on.” Masashi slips the book back into his bag and swaps the photos of Minnie’s corpse with a few photos of the entire scene. It showed the familiar sight of an old abandoned theater that the town was familiar with. The theater was off the side of the highway. No one really ever bothered going there, but kids did sometimes hide there for the sake of the ultimate game of hide and seek.

“I recognize that theater.” Moira comments, resting her cheek in her hand as her elbow sits on the table. “Not many people go there outside of kids sometimes. I guess technically that would make it a pretty decent place to hide a crime.”

“I thought so.” Masashi crossed his arms as he looked at Moira seriously. “This building is by no means off limits to the town, so can you explain to me why you couldn’t have gone there and hid the body of this young woman?”

Moira points outside the window to her mailbox, “Well, for starters, I don’t have any form of transportation.” She begins. “That’s another reason I don’t often leave the house unless I need to run errands.”

She lifts a finger up to play with a loose curl of hair near her hair. “My house is located in the middle of the town, so regardless of where I went or when, I’m sure I’d be seen by anyone.”

“That would be if the only way to kill her was from your home. You did say you have guests over often, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that she was one of your guests.” Masashi scribbles a couple of notes on his notebook before continuing. “You also said that you only usually go out on Thursdays. I assume this means there are exceptions?” He asks.

“Yeah, but not too often. I have a common daily routine. So much so that the only time I ever leave is whenever I have plans with my clothes. I’d like to say that that only usually happens once every two months or so.” Moira hums, tapping her foot on the ground. Masashi’s eyes darted from her leg to her face. Her constant moving could mean that she’s getting increasingly nervous or increasingly bored. If the former, it would probably be best to push his current line of questioning.

“Is that not unhealthy? To stay at your house all day? Do you only socialize via telephone?” Masashi asks, tapping his pen on his notepad as he awaited Moira’s response.

“I do have a dog.” Moira chuckles, nodding to Jester, who was sprawled on the couch and watching them. His tail wagged a bit when he saw Moira looking at him. “I often take him out to my backyard in order to keep him active. And even when I don’t need to tend to him, I’m out on my porch often.” She points to her telephone, “As for the phone, if it’s not a quick conversation I prefer to invite people over to chat.”

Masashi nods, taking in her demeanor once again. He opened his mouth again to speak, but was interrupted by the shrill ringing of the phone. “Oh. One second.” Moira stands up, and waves to him, “Feel free to look around or whatever.” She says dismissively as she answers the phone, “Yello?”

“I told you to listen to my show. Did Clown hate my dancing that much?” CupKake sighs dramatically.

“His name is Jester.” Moira corrected.

“Same thing.”

“Very different things!” Moira sits back down, the wire of the telephone stretching a bit, “And anyway, I’m busy getting interrogated by a cop.”

“Detective.” Masashi corrected, “And don’t go spilling information.” He hisses, plucking a couple more volumes from her shelf.

“My bad, a detective.” Moira emphasizes, sticking her tongue out at him.

“I knew you were a murderer!” CupKake laughs victoriously, not even giving Moira a chance to reply as he continued. “But, anyway, Stephen wants to talk to you.”

Moira gasps before a familiar voice speaks up. “No I do not.”

“Oh my God I’d know that sexy voice anywhere!” Moira cheers, causing Masashi to give her a strange look and CupKake to choke on whatever he was eating and start laughing.

“I’m calling the cops for sexual harassment. Get that detective on the phone, Doe.” Stephen ordered, although she at his words only twirled the wire of the phone around her finger.

“He’s busy investigating me, but you can always talk to meeee.” Moira hummed, hearing the pure irritation radiating from his sigh.

“Stephanie and I were just talking about how excited he was to attend you and Victor’s show here in a couple weeks.” CupKake claimed, and despite the fact that Stephen didn’t bother commenting on CupKake’s several incorrect claims in that statement, Moira could tell the truth from the joke.

“So, you’re coming, Steph?” Moira asked, twirling the phone wire around her finger, as if trying to mimic a happy-go-lucky housewife on the phone with her husband.

Stephen often attended any fashion, literary, or movie-related get together, regardless of if it had anything to do with Moira or if he was invited at all. That was simply his job and hobby as a critic as he was also the only legitimate critic in this small town. He was overall well-respected in the town, despite the fact that he found a reason to complain about everything, even if it was only his personal preference.

“Yes, as per usual.” Stephen claims dismissively, his voice as monotone as it always is. “Someone said you were going to light yourself on fire. I’d like to see that.” He said, clearly having her Bea and Lys’ radio show that morning.

Moira smiles at Stephen’s surly response. “Maybe. I heard that dryer sheets are hella flammable.” She says, crossing one leg over the other laxly. The detective gives Moira another confused look, but climbs the stairs to her second floor once she waves him off.

“..dryer sheets.” Stephen repeated, obviously trying his best to keep his voice even despite his clear confusion at her statement. CupKake butts in loudly.

“So you’re actually gonna set yourself on fire?! Like forreal?!” The sound of him accidentally hitting his microphone and hitting his microphone were evident through the call as he attempted to get his words together. Truthfully, Moira couldn’t quite tell if he was loud in pure excitement or worry. “Okay, like… like, will you die, though?”

“Aren’t public executions illegal?” Moira asked. Masashi made his way down the stairs again, holding a couple of items that Moira recognized.

“That’s not… how that works.” Stephen paused, “..at all.” Moira could almost feel him shaking his head in disbelief from across the phone.

“Oooone second, I’m still getting interrogated.” Moira says, pressing the phone against her shoulder and looking at Masashi in a questioning manner.

Masashi holds up some letters and sits down at the table. “You didn’t tell me you were in contact with the person who wrote this series.” He says, handing Moira letters she received from her sister.

“Oh, right. She’s my sister.” Moira states casually. She looks down to the book, though, and is reminded that her sister’s direct name wasn’t on the cover at all. “How’d you know? Did you read through all of these?” She asks, skimming the letters in search of what he saw that made him come to such a conclusion so quickly.

“Yes. Your sister talks plenty about the books. I saw that she updates you on certain facts about them constantly. I simply connected the dots from there.” Masashi points to several parts of the paper which did successfully support his claim.

“Oh.” Moira puckers her lips thoughtfully, her eyes lit up in curiosity. “Detectives are so cool.” She muttered, folding one of the letters and grabbing a nearby pen to scribble something down on the back. “That’s her number if you need it. But, just as a disclaimer, she does live, like… all the way in Oklahoma. I’m not sure how she could be involved at all with this.”

Masashi nods, giving Moira a small thank you as she spoke and slipping the paper into his bag as well. “You and your sister share different surnames. Are either of you married?” He asks.

Moira barks out a laugh, making Jester flinch a bit. “Sorry. I wish, but no. Since I’ve last spoken to her- about a month ago- she hasn’t told me about being in a relationship.” She pauses, realizing why he asked. “Oh, right, the ‘Doe’ surname I use isn’t my actual birth name. It’s sort of a pseudonym, although this is moreso true for my sister with her ‘Mz. Marionette’ name when she writes.”

“Right, noted.” Masashi stands up, fastening his bag. “It’s late so I won’t keep you up any longer, but..” The detective looks back at her. “Out of curiosity, is there anyone you can think of that has an interest in your sister’s series?”

“Weeeell..” Tilting her head back a bit in thought, Moira attempts to think of anyone off the top of her head. “Um- the fella who runs the library in town. His name’s Ai Watana-bae– I mean, Watanabe. His library’s closed right now, but you can check and see if he’s still there.”

Moira smiles a bit, thinking of the librarian. “We both love the series, but he’s more notorious for dissecting the stories page by page. I’m sure he’ll have some interesting facts to tell you about the story. Especially if something aligns with this whole… case. Of yours.” She says, standing up as well.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Masashi nods, grabbing his coat that was hung on a nearby coat racket. “Thank you for your time, Miss Doe. I might drop by sometime tomorrow if I find anything worth asking about.” He says bowing his head to her as she holds the door open for him.

“Mkay, have a nice niiiight!” Moira waves to him, before closing and locking the door. She turns to Jester with a sigh. “What was I doing..” She wonders aloud, pulling a hand up to her chin. She spots the phone, which she just realizes that she hung up while speaking to Masashi without realizing it. “Ohhh, yeaaaah.”

Moira looked up to her clock, which hung above her tv. “Well, it’s probably over by now anyway.” She reassures herself, and instead decides to fish out the vhs that Ai had given her. With that in hand, she throws some popcorn into the microwave and turns on her tv.

“You want some popcorn, Jester?” Moira asks, smiling down to the dog, who was sleeping on the couch. He opened his eye to look at her when she mentioned a snack. “Cool, I’ll make sure to accidentally drop, like, seven pieces just for you.” She teases.

As she kneels down to insert the tape into her vhs player, her phone suddenly rings, as shrill as ever. “Eee..” Moira sighs, standing back up. “I should find a way to mute that thing..” She says, before picking up the phone. “Yello?”

“Moira.” Ai greets. “I’m glad to hear you’re awake.”

“Watana-bae!” Moira chirps, “I didn’t think you’d be up this late, actually. I expected CupKake to bother me in all honesty. But what’re you callin’ for?”

Ai hums, “Well, I was listening to CupKake’s show and heard that you got a visit from a detective. Are you alright? Did anything serious happen?” He asks.

Moira pauses in thought. Misashi did tell her to not go spilling information about the case like she most certainly would be doing if he hadn’t said that. “Well, he told me not to tell anyone. I’m totally fine, though. If you’re curious, it’s best to ask him, though.” Moira paces back and forth slowly, as far as she could without damaging the phone wire. “Speaking of, are you still at the library? I actually just directed him that way because my sister’s books popped up, and I was sure that you’d know about it.”

“Oh, did you?” Ai asks, his voice an oddly curious tone. “Thank you for telling me. I am at the library right now, so it’s nice that he won’t be able to take me by surprise.” He claims, chuckling lightly. “One second.”

Moira hums in response. She totally wasn’t trying to listen in, but she overheard Ai speaking to someone else. Maybe it was CupKake, or one of his co-workers, since he was still at the library. Moira’s eyes scanned the living room as she waited for Ai to finish speaking.

“Sorry about that, Omo-sha.” Ai comes back to the phone. “If you’re okay, then that’s lovely.” He says, “Have you watched that movie yet in all of that interrogation business?”

Moira looks to the microwave as it beeps. “No, but my popcorn just reminded me that I was just about to. Are you sure you don’t want to give me any spoilers before I sit down?”

“Hmm.. spoilers.” Ai pauses for a second, humming in thought. “Well, I can’t say that this is a spoiler about the movie in particular, but.. it carries a lovely amount of foreshadowing. Both in the movie and in real life.” He says, his voice clearly showing that he was smiling on the other side of the phone.

“Real life? How is that?” Moira wondered as Ai made an over exaggerated stretching sound.

“Ohh, gee, would you look at that. Is that the detective pulling up?” He asks, “It looks like I should hang up now, doll.” Ai claims in faux distress. Moira imagines him throwing his head back and tossing his hand atop his forehead in a dramatic manner.

“Seriously?! Ah, jeez, you’re such a little punk, you know that?” Moira sighs.

“You’ll thank me for not properly spoiling you, doll.” Ai laughs. “Oh, but, on that note.. Are you free tomorrow, perchance?” He asks, before continuing. “I’d like to introduce you to some people who I think you’d like.” He pauses for but a brief second, before quietly adding. “Additionally, I’d also like to show you something I’m quite proud of.”

“Hm.” Moira smiles smugly. “After that little cliffhanger? You might have to beg me.” She claims, flipping her hair over her shoulder and just hoping that Ai could hear her hair hit the phone. His laugh doesn’t quite indicate that he heard it or not.

“I’m more prone to do so in person.” Ai claims, his tone getting a tad bit lower, as if he was trying to keep someone from hearing him. “If you want me on my knees tomorrow, I might just oblige.”

Moira chokes on air for a quick second, slapping her hand over her mouth in an attempt to keep Ai from hearing it, although it seems that that attempt was fruitless. Ai giggled, “Oh, not like that, you pervert.”

“I.. refuse to comment on that.” Moira says, quietly but stubbornly.

“You’re a doll, Moira.” Ai laughs, before someone on his side of the line calls him about something. “If you don’t wait a–” He pauses, remembering that Moira was still across the phone. “Kuso..” He mutters something in Japanese and sighs. “Well, my offer still stands, doll. I have a couple of pests to attend to.”

“I’ll think about it.” Moira hums. “Good night, Ai.”

Ai pauses. “Right. Yes. Goodnight.” And hangs up.

Moira lifts an eyebrow at his sudden rushed farewell, but ultimately shrugs it off as she grabs her popcorn and plops on the couch next to Jester. Jester sits up and stretches, before hopping down onto the floor and sitting next to Moira’s leg as she began the movie.

The movie itself seemed to be pretty recent, although it looked to be filmed in pretty low quality. The acting was subpar when it came to everyone but the main antagonist for some reason. If anything, the most unsettling part was just how perfect her acting was compared to the rest of the cast.

It was as if she was the only one who put in any effort, or the other cast members just.. weren’t experienced enough. It was weird, and gave Moira a strangely uncanny feeling- not that she hasn’t dealt with such experiences before, of course.

As for the plot, it was interesting, but carried out poorly by everyone but the main actress. Moira hums in thought, tossing a piece of popcorn on the floor for Jester to scoop up. As another poorly-executed heated scene came up, Moira reached over and grabbed the cover for the vhs tape. Looking at the list of actors, she didn’t really recognize any of the names given, until she ran across one of them.

The main actress, once again stood out to her, but for a far more chilling reason. She paused, reading the name once more, twice.

“Minnie Marter.” Moira whispered underneath her breath, tapping her fingers on the cover. She looked up to the tv, where the actress’ face was clear in a psychotic-stalking scene. Every shot of her paid grave attention to her eyes, which mastered the unhinged stalker look by nearly bulging out of her head. Her face was growing red, likely due to her angered reaction to whatever was happening. More than that, though, it looked as if Minnie was staring at the camera- at the viewer- rather than the man she was stalking.

Moira let out a shaky breath. Oftentimes whenever she was scared, it was just her imagination making things worse than they are, but..

Her mind flashed back to the picture of the corpses that she was shown. “..jeez.” Moira sighed, pulling her legs up underneath her. She looked up to the tv, before realizing that the screen hadn’t changed from Minnie’s face; her eyes were still bulged out in anger and staring at the camera- at Moira.

Moira shivered, feeling an odd sense of dread, before the screen and background ambience suddenly started again with Minnie moving towards the camera. Moira gasps at the sudden movement, and looks down at Jester, who had his paw on the remote in a curious manner.

“Jester!!” Moira hissed, tossing a handful of popcorn at him. Jester immediately ignored the remote to lick up each individual piece of popcorn, and Moira groaned. “Jesus..” She sighed, leaning down and grabbing the remote. She put it on her lap, away from Jester and his devious paws.

Thankfully, the Movie was only around an hour and a half long, so she finished it rather quickly. Moira let out an exhausted breath. “I’ll be honest, Jester, I didn’t expect the horror to erotica ratio to be so vast. I should’ve known.” She sighs, slumping further into the couch. “I mean, it is Ai we’re talking about here.”

Moira sighs, retiring for the night and heading upstairs to her bedroom. Knowing Ai, he’ll definitely expect whatever her theories are for the movie. But Moira wondered if she would be able to think of anything outside of the actress’ corpse.

Her rotting, bloated, real life corpse.

[thenebulochaoticwriter]

Chapter One: Daily

Moira was an enigma to Louis. Louis Valentine was the mailman well-known around Doe’s neighborhood due to his skillful and swift deliveries. Outside of his work- which is whenever 12 pm hits- he’s hardly ever seen again. Of course, this is because he made it his job to avoid everyone and anyone he knows at all costs after work- but no one really knows why.

He himself was an enigma to Moira’s neighborhood- but somehow, not to Moira herself. He didn’t know why or how, but out of all the people he runs into, Moira is the only one he happens to run into without being able to turn a corner and sprint away, as if he hadn’t heard her.

Somehow, it’s never too crowded for him to get away from her and it’s never dark enough for him to claim that she mistook him for someone else.

It’s not as if Moira was following him. He knew that for a fact because she simply didn’t have the time to. Which only left incredible coincidence. That or great or terrible luck- depending on who’s perspective you were looking at.

Every day he approaches Moira’s house, with the feeling of impending doom. Not because her house looked like something from a gothic horror or anything- and not even because Louis despised Moira. Just because whenever he approaches her little American Queen Anne style house- or what she quite literally named “Annie”- both she and that mop-shaped mutt of hers are always trotting out.

As per expected, the front door cracked open, and her komondor flew out of the door. Thankfully for him, Moira had a decent grip on the leash that prevented her dog from running over and snapping at the mailman’s ankles.

“Moira.” Louis smiled his “confrontation smile”- which he flashed whenever he ran into anyone at any point in time. He patiently waited after Moira gave a strained “hi…” for her to lock her door and reel Jester back to herself.

“Jester, if you bite the mailman I’m gonna eat your snacks in front of you.” She threatened with a smile that made Louis wonder if she was even trying to look like she meant it.

Hilariously enough, her dog snapped back with a groaned howl, but calmed down significantly at her threat. Moira fixed her posture before waving to Louis, who found himself having to rejuvenate his smile to make it look less worn out.

“Moira.” He greeted again. “Always a pleasure.”

“I’d ask if you said that to everyone, but that’d be pretty dumb of me to, right?” Moira chuckled. “You know, since the kids down the street made an entire ‘Where’s Waldo’ based game to find you, haha.”

Yes, that made his afternoon hobby of avoiding people significantly harder than usual. “Right.” Louis gave a light, closed-mouth chuckle that honestly didn’t look as if he was trying at all. He quickly brushed off that fact by pulling out a small rectangular package just slightly bigger than his hand. “I believe this is yours.”

“Oooh, this must be my sister’s next installation to her serieeees!” Moira hummed, immediately slicing the tape apart with her nail and opening it. “Mhm..” She hums, smiling happily at the cover.

Just as Louis smiles to get his usual ‘well, I oughtta get going’ out, Moira holds up the cover. “You’ve heard of her, right? My sister? Have you read any of her books?” She asked excitedly.

“I..no, I admit I’m not much of a reader.” Louis responds, tapping on his bag, “I don’t have time to do such things, anyway. I’m busy taking care of my family.” He explains briefly.

“Oh, is your family still visiting? They’ve been there for quite a while, haven’t they?” Moira asks, stepping back onto her porch to place the cardboard box down on her swinging bench. “I don’t think I could imagine spending so much time with my family in such a small house. I dunno how you do it.”

“We’re all fine. I don’t think my family is quite as big as yours, anyway.” Louis assures her, taking a step back to try to emphasize that he was attempting to leave.

“Yeah?” Thankfully, Moira seems to take the hint and smiles as she places her book in her bag. “Well, I guess that makes sense.” She hums, lifting the leash to her hand rather than the crook of her elbow. “Regardless, I’ve got errands to run! See you later, Louis!” Moira waves cheerfully, tugging Jester along the sidewalk.

“Hopefully not.” Louis sighs underneath his breath, going on his way as well.

__

As well known as Doe was known around the town, she didn’t have many friends outside of her dear Jester. Hence why she lives farther from her neighborhood. Rather than an apartment or regular house on a street, she had someone renovate the current house she was living in- just because she liked the look of it.

As it stands, Moira is often choosing her personal likes and petty items over socializing or making friends. Which is why those who are perceptive enough know just how strange of a person Doe is.

“Okay, despite how much I absolutely love my sister’s books…” Moira hummed, “I did promise Ai that I would let him get the first read.” She claims, mainly to herself, but she spoke out loud so that Jester would hear. “And the library is before the market, so you’re gonna have to sit outside for a while.”

Moira could swear Jester gave her a look, but ultimately just enjoyed the walk there. As they walked up to the library, he only stopped once in hopes that she would be too tired to drag him all the way to the doorway. It didn’t work, and he slumped down on the ground as Moira tied his leash around a nearby pole.

“Be good and I’ll go buy some more fatty treats when we get to the store, mkay?” Moira hummed with a smile, and although he didn’t pick his head up, his tail did flick around a bit at the word “treats”.

Moira was immediately welcomed by a cooler temperature when she walked inside the library. She pulled her long hair into a half-assed bun in an attempt to welcome some cool air onto the back of her neck.

“Moiraaa..” A soft voice called to her. At the desk was a black-haired young man with skin Moira admitted she envied a little.

“Watana-bae!” Moira cheered, immediately being hushed by Ai with a finger to his lips. His full name was “Ai Watanabe” but he allowed her to call him that amongst other things in return for the books she let him borrow. “Were you waiting for me?” She hummed in a lower volume, trotting over to the desk.

“Would you be upset if I said that I was waiting for her?” Ai asked, lifting his finger to the book, rather than Moira.

“Oh, my poor heart.” Moira scoffed, sliding him the book. She leaned down, resting her arms on the cool surface, now having to look up at Ai. “I’m sure my sister would be glad to hear that, though.” She hummed, smiling, “Whenever you bother contacting her.”

Ai chuckles, his gaze averting back up to Moira as she stands up straight again. “I can’t help but get nervous in front of good authors.” He claims, skimming the book.

“I can believe that.” Moira hums. Ai was more on the timid side unless he was completely comfortable with someone. Due to his sweet personality and calming occupation, he’s quite favored by many women. Older women specifically. Thanks to that, at least, he’s gotten dozens of raisin cookies.

“Also, Moira.” Ai smiles, “Make sure to get whatever book you’d like now or sometime soon. I’ll be closing up early today.”

“Yeah? For what?” Moira asks casually, digging into her bag for her library card.

Ai pauses, opening his mouth before closing it in thought. “I.. well, you could..” He sighs, furrowing his eyebrows at his inability to decide what he wanted to say.

Moira’s gaze flicks up to him, “How spooky. Are you killing people after working hours? How scandalous.” She jokes.

“Pff.” Is all Ai manages to huff out, although in the end he doesn’t say anything more about the topic. “Is there anything you’re interested in getting right now?”

“Do you have the Phantom of the Opera?” Moira asks immediately. As obvious as it was, she’d been thinking about the book for a while.

“Yes, but.. I only have the original copies.” Ai responds, “All in French.”

“I knoooow.” Moira hums, “I used to study French, like, religiously a while back. I’m sure I can get through it.” She said confidently.

“Well, if you say so.” Ai reaches down and places the book on the counter, temporarily exchanging it for Moira’s library card.

“Did you have it prepared?” Moira asked curiously. “I bet you wanted me out of here as quickly as possible.” She said, pouting in faux distress.

Ai scoffed. “We got a shipment in recently and no one’s gotten to putting them up.” He gives her back her card. “You have quite the imagination, don’t you?”

“I blame the books.” Moira shrugs. “And the movies. Speaking of, what’s your favorite movie?” She asked, tapping her fingers on the counter with a curious smile.

“Hm.. well.” Ai starts, but his attention is snagged by one of his co-workers loudly opening the staff door. He holds up a finger and his co-worker rolls his eyes before slipping back behind the door.

Ai bends down again, “One moment. It should be..” He hums, standing up and turning to the shelf behind him. “...here we are.” He picks up a VHS tape and its case, which is separate from the tape itself.

“..Attraction’s Fatality. Thriller and crime?” Moira smiles, tilting her head to the side. “What’s it about?”

“Hm..” Ai averts his gaze, lifting a hand to rub against his lip. “Well, this man- married, has a one-night stand. Doesn’t matter why or where- what matters is with who.” He explains. “A woman who he thinks is just about as regular as any one-night stand. The conflict arrives when she doesn’t stop calling.”

“So, she’s obsessive.” Moira nods.

“Sure. But to what extent?” Ai hums. Moira chuckles in interest. “Everything’s okay- until the wife finds out. As per the fling’s intentions. On top of the newfound heat between the cheater and the cheatee, one of his children is abducted by said woman.”

“And? What happens to the kid?” Moira asks, leaning on the counter in expectancy.

“Well, from what I remember..” Ai smacks his teeth in faux thought. “..there was like, this text on the screen. And a massive boom sound.”

“Don’t you dare say it said ‘To Be Continued’.”

“Nope.” Ai smiles, looking up to Moira. “It said ‘Watch The Movie Yourself’.” He winks, leaning over and slipping the tape into her bag.

“You. Are going to kill me.” Moira sighs, slumping away from the counter and his close proximity.

“One day.” Ai chuckles, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Omo-sha.” He hums as Moira struts out of the library.

“I dunno what that means but byyyye!” Moira flicks her wrist in a wave as she leaves.

Immediately, she’s made aware of the familiar barking coming from outside the library. As she steps outside, she sees an all-too familiar cupcake mascot. “CupKake?! What are you doing here?”

“Yo!” The CupKake mascot waved a hand to Moira as she walked over and shooed him away from Jester. The mascot itself was a yellow cupcake with white icing and primary-colored sprinkles. Moira herself made it, and despite the great fabric and coloring, along with the perfectly simple design, she herself considers it the worst thing she’s ever made.

“And why are you harassing my dog?! He hates your dance moves!” Moira hissed. “..aren’t you hot? It’s pretty stuffy.”

CupKake shrugged, his voice hardly muffled by the costume. “I mean, yeah. But I’m heading inside anyway.” He claims, pointing to the library. “And speaking of- Ai wanted me to do ‘im a favor, and in return he’s letting me move my office here. It’s cool. Big. Air-conditioned.”

“You’re gonna get heatstroke.” Moira huffs. “If you walked around without it no one would know the secret identity of ‘CupKake’. Soooo, why bother with the costume?”

“Obviously cuz I hate my face.” CupKake says, raising his arms with a sigh. “That’s what people do when they hate their face. They hide it.”

“And.. a cupcake is better than your face?” Moira asked.

“I personally like cupcakes better than people’s faces. Yours, too.” CupKake claimed, and Moira scoffed. “If I had the choice to date a cupcake or you, I’d definitely pick the cupcake. I’d marry it, too.”

“Yeah? Well, you’d probably be arrested for cannibalism.” Moira chuckles.

“Ha! Jokes on you- I don’t even like cupcakes!” CupKake reveals, before adding, “I don’t like eating them, anyway.”

Moira smacks her teeth. “Whatever. You’re a complete enigma to me, Sir Cakes.” She shrugs, taking Jester’s leash. The dog in question tried his best to stay as close to CupKake as he could in order to bite him.

“Hey, now, you don’t know that.” CupKake claims. He points a finger gun to Moira and makes a click sound, since she couldn’t actually see him wink. “Listen to my show tonight, though, yeah?”

“I’ll just leave the radio on and let Jester decide.” Moira shrugs, waving CupKake away as she went on with her day.

__

Once again, poor Jester had to be left outside while Moira ran into her regular stores to shop. “..dryer sheets…” She was lucky that the owner of this shop kept so many useful things for a fashion designer such as herself. “...base, base, base..” Moira fingered through a clothing rack of nothing but plain white dresses, before noticing that this particular rack wasn’t here before.

“Ooh, did you add this rack just for moi?” Moira called across the small shop, and heard the shop owner scoff.

“Gets you out of here quicker, doesn’t it?” Irene joked, spinning a pen around in her fingers as she looks down at a clipboard on the counter.

Moira rolled her eyes, putting her armful of dryer sheet boxes onto the counter. “Should I ask?” Irene sighs, crossing her arms.

“I’m gonna use these for a dress I’m working on.” Moira replied, tapping her fingers on the counter with a smile before returning to the clothing racks.

“Oooof course.” Irene hummed, neatly stacking the boxes of dryer sheets on the counter.

Moira browses the base dresses, thinking of the many different outfits she’ll have to make. There were several different characters, all with their own personalities, which means there has to be several different outfits that represents them to the smallest detail.

The only problem is that the outfits are meant to be based on their personalities only. So Moira plans on making the clothes not look much like their outfits in the original movie. Since the way she designed their outfits for the movie were meant to make them appear different then how they really are as characters, it shouldn’t be too hard.

As Moira nitpicks a good armful of white dresses and several other blank articles of clothing, Irene calls out to her. “So, you think that Stephen will be at this, uh, movie premiere of yours?”

Moira pauses, thinking for a moment before chuckling. “Yeah, probably.” She says, taking her armfuls of fabrics and clothes to the desk. “He seems to like looking at my clothes and creations.” She says.

“You mean judging them unnecessarily?” Irene sighs, checking the price for everything that Moira’s put on the counter. “I’m sure he only does it for attention- why else would he bother coming to every one of your shows?”

“Maybe he has a crush on me.” Moira smiles, in a way that makes it completely unclear to Irene if she’s joking or not.

“Don’t sexualize someone who’s clearly made himself known as someone who dislikes you.” Irene scoffs, pausing her actions to look up at Moira skeptically.

“I’m not sexualizing him.” Moira hums, looking away with a sheepish smile, “I’m just.. Guessing.” She says. She pauses for a moment, twirling a lock of hair around her finger in thought before adding, “He is hot, though.”

“Oh, my God.” Irene rolls her eyes, quickly putting Moira’s items in multiple bags before shoving them towards her. “Twenty-five.” She says, “And he is not that hot.”

“I like his hair. Every picture of him- black and white or not- stands out because of his hair alone.” Moira comments, digging around in her purse for a moment for three tens. “And yes he is that hot. I’d let him degrade me any day.” She says, and Irene once again finds herself wondering if that’s sarcasm.

“Get out of my shop, Moira.” Irene scoffs, waving her out. “And answer my damn calls!”

“Can’t answer them if I’m not hoooome!” Moira calls back, walking out of the store. She turned to wave to Irene, but thanks to that, she accidently walked into someone.

“Moron.” Irene sighs, before looking down at Moira on her knees and the man she’d just knocked down. “You two good?”

“Sorry, sorry!” Moira quickly stands up, helping the person she’d bumped into off of the ground. “Are you okay? I should’ve paid attention to where I was going.”

“I’m fine, yes, thank you.” The man stands up straight, dusting his clothes off as Moira picked up her bags. “I’m glad I ran into you, though.” He says, looking at her.

“Yeah? Are you a masochist?” Moira asks, tilting her head to the side in what the man hoped was a joke.

“What? I..” He pauses, deciding to not to answer that, “I am Detective Masashi Hideo, and I’ve been sent to ask you a few questions.” He pulls out an ID that secured his claim.

“Spooky.” Moira comments laxly, “I’m open to questions. Could I possibly finish my dog’s walk, though?”

The detective shakes his head. “This won’t take too long. Depending on your answers, you could continue your routine or come with me.” He says, pulling out a notepad from the pocket of his trench coat. Moira hummed in reply, more so wondering why exactly he was wearing such a warm article of clothing in already warm weather.

“Do be sure to reply honestly.” The detective said, clicking his pen. “Where were you twelve days ago? The 10th of June?” He asked.

Moira lifts a hand to her chin in thought. “That was, like..Sunday, right?” She asks, the detective nodding, “At home, then.”

“And three days before that?”

Moira counts back for a moment, before saying. “Also at home.”

The detective writes something into the notepad. “..when’s the last time you've been out outside of today?”

“Last week exactly. I don’t often leave the house outside of Thursdays to run errands.” Moira replies, “I have visitors over more often than I bother going to anyone else.”

“Right.” The detective writes something else down. “When are you free today?” He asks, placing his notepad into his pocket.

“Sometime during sundown.” Moira responds. “I..don’t ever have a watch on me, so I don’t go home depending on the time.”

“Would you feel comfortable with me coming over at that time?”

“If you want.” Moira shrugs, before pausing. “What would you do if I said no, though?”

The detective places his hands in his pockets, his face straight and serious as he looked up at Moira. “I’d likely have to get someone to issue a warrant from the judge. Do I need to?”

“No need.” The taller lady hums, “I’m gonna finish this walk, but we’ll be home later, detective. See you tonight!” Moira waves, leaving at the detective’s nod.

Once the detective was far enough, Moira looked down to Jester. “Ooh, they’re onto you for stealing those treats.” She joked, referencing an incident from when he was a pup.

[thenebulochaoticwriter]

Prologue: Doe

“Hm..” Bea leans back in her chair, humming into the mic in thought. Her attempt at snatching Lys’ attention and getting him to ask her what she was thinking about had failed quickly and quietly. As soon as it did, she decided to just come out with her thoughts. “So, arson.”

“My favorite hobby.” The blonde says to her, chuckling a bit at her sudden and dark subject choice.

“You’re really not gonna ask?”

“I hate attention-seekers.” He says, flicking his tongue out in a teasing manner.

“It’s not for attent– okay, so, yeah, it is. But–” Bea holds up her hand to stop her companion’s victorious laughter. “--it’s for suspense. I had all of this planned out and you’re totally not helping right now.”

“Why not just say it? I don’t get the need for suspense.” Lys shrugs, spinning around in his chair. He never liked suspense. Something about a scary birthday party he’d experienced as a kid. Not that that’s important.

“You either play into my suspense or I take the rest of your coffee.” Bea threatens, revealing his coffee mug- which Lys swears he had on his side of the desk just moments before.

“You can’t do that.” Lys says, although Bea’s smug laugh says “I can and I will”.

“Dude. You don’t even like black coffee.”

Despite Lys’ protests, Bea pours the bitter coffee from his mug into a spare paper cup. She takes a sip and coughs. “Jeez. I can’t believe old people like this.” She pulls the inside of her elbow to her throat and pushes the mug back to Lys. “Oh my god. If I die from this I’m telling your wife it was your fault. And I’ll give my inheritance to her so she can pay for the divorce.”

“I’m not that old. Donna is older than me. Are you calling her old?” Lys scoffs, scooping his mug back into his hands.

“She’s only 35.” Bea shrugs.

“I’m only 32!”

“Exactly.” Bea raises her cup to her mouth and mutters. “Old ass.” Before coughing again after drinking the coffee she forgot was bitter.

“You drank my coffee. Why are you mentioning arson?” Lys rolls his eyes, lifting up his foot to rest on his knee.

“Uh, Doe.” Bea continues coughing. “Miss Doe. The designer.”

“You mean Moira?” Lys asks. Bea nods, clearing her throat before pulling the microphone closer to her.

“Okay, listen up, small-town people.” She reaches down, turning her microphone up. “We all love Moira, so I’m giving you the juice she spilled with me about her next line.”

“You hate Moira.” Lys calls out, although he’s thoroughly ignored as Bea continues talking.

“The reason why I bring up arson is because Doe is making a line based off of that. Or more specifically, the arson of, uh, Mournsville.” Bea explains.

“Like, a real life arson?” Lys cringes, pulling up his mug to his lips uncomfortably. “She’s covered some freaky topics, but isn’t that kinda disrespectful?”

“That’s what I was thinking at first, too.” Bea nodded, sitting up. “Can we get some air in here, Donna?” She asks, pulling her hair into a ponytail. After puffing it up a bit, she notices a red dot blinking on the system. “Shut up, Lys, we’ve got a caller.”

“I’m not saying anyth–”

“--Caller you’re live on Lys & Bea’s Show. What’re ya callin’ for?” Bea asks, tapping her fingers on the desk impatiently.

“It’s a movie.” The caller says.

“Nice to meet you, too, Anon.” Bea rolls her eyes.

“What’d you say, caller?” Lys leans in to the speaker as the anonymous caller repeats what she said.

“Mournsville is a movie. It’s not a real place.” She explains and Bea groans.

“Oh, my god, Bea.” Lys exhales. “You can’t live without giving me a heart attack can you? You’re callin’ me old but you want me to die of a heart attack, right?”

Bea chuckles, “You suck, anon.”

“I know.” The anonymous caller hangs up abruptly, as if running away from the fit that Bea might’ve thrown if she’d bothered staying on the call.

“Anyway.” Bea huffs. “No, it’s not a real town. Yes, I wanted to give you a heart attack.” She sighs, “Boooo, I was hoping on keeping you on that string a bit longer.”

“Okay, well, while we’re on the topic..”

“Of you dying?”

Lys scoffs. “Of the movie, you- you need therapy.”

“The movie, uh, Mournsville, was made by, uh…” Bea snaps her fingers, smacking her teeth as she struggles to remember who made the movie. “..the same sucker who made that ‘Wonderlust’ movie.”

“That sounds like those movies made by pedos.” Lys grumbles and Bea laughs out loud. “Like, ‘Oh, I’m sixteen and I want to learn more about my body so I should ask my dad’s work friend, my teacher, and that one homeless man to help me figure it out!’- while the actress is, like, twelve.”

“Are you calling someone out specifically?” Bea snickers, almost lifting the paper mug back up to drink out of again. “Donna can I also get a drink? Preferably not poisonous tar.”

“Tar is already poisonous..” Lys murmurs, only receiving a mouthed “I didn’t ask” from his younger companion. “And yes, I’m thinking of a specific movie when I say that.”

The red light flickers back on and Lys takes the opportunity to answer the call while B is reaching for the cup that Donna is handing her. “Caller you’re live on Lys and Bea’s Show–”

“Hey, that’s my job!” Bea hissed, swiping his hand away as he chuckles smugly.

“It’s Victor Callirrhoe.”

“Shut up, Anon, I didn’t ask.” Bea huffed, and Lys kicks her shin.

“Victor Callirrhoe. Is that the movie director of ‘Mournville’ and ‘Wonderlust’, caller?” Lys asks.

“Uh huh. Mournville is set in an anonymous and somewhat recent timeline. It’s about a girl who presumably dies and ends up in a small, isolated town called Mournsville. Spoiler alert- it ends with an old woman who I think is named “Cynthia” burning down the city due to its “corrupt” and “immoral” ways.” The caller explains. While Bea is sulking in her chair Lys is listening and nodded, as if the caller could see him.

“Thank you for that, caller, I think I’ll watch that tonight.” Lys states, “Donna, could you look into that, please?” He calls to his wife.

“You still suck, Anon.” Bea rolled her eyes.

“Mwa.” The anonymous caller makes a sarcastic kiss sound and hangs up.

“So, am I wrong or did Moira do a line based on Wonderlust? Because I’ve seen that movie.” Lys asked.

“Yeah. That’s why I think that, uh.. Doe and Vic are sorta in kahoots.” Bea looks at the dimmed mini light that she expected to turn red again. “Don’t say anything, Anon.”

“Moira designed the costumes for Victor’s movies.” Donna called quietly, and Lys nods.

“Oh, really?” Lys turns to the microphone. “So, according to my gorgeous wife’s research, Moira actually designed the costumes for Vic’s movies.” He turns his head back to her, “All of his movies?” He asks, and she nods.

“That’s pretty interesting, actually.” Lys comments, pulling a hand up to his chin and thought. “Thinking about it, their tastes, whether in fashion or film-making have all been pretty similar. Like, what did Moira say her favorite movie was that one time?”

“Uh, Tim? By Vincent B.” Donna replied from the back.

“She likes a movie called ‘Tim’?” Bea chuckles, “And makes the kind of clothes you’d see in freakin’.. some Wonderland type stuff?”

“Can you get me the summary of the movie ‘Tim’ for me La’Donna?” Lys asks.

After a brief search, Donna speaks, “I can’t really, uh.. Find anything on it, actually, but there is a small article here if you want to read that instead.” She offered.

“Yeah, can you print it out?” Lys asks, brushing off Bea’s weirded out expression.

In only a few minutes, Donna came over and handed Lys the paper, nodding at his quiet thank you as he began skimming the paper over. “Okay, so.. This is.. Moira’s favorite?”

“What? What’s it say?” Bea asked, trying to peak over her companion’s shoulder, despite him swatting her back while he read.

“It says…” Lys does one final once over before finally reading it out loud.

“Okay, it says ‘I’m not sure what happened to this movie, but I wanted to write about it to see if anyone actually remembers this. So, the movie “Tim” is about a kid- believe it or not, named ‘Tim’, who identifies himself with his favorite actor, who’s first name is also ‘Tim’. It’s cool to idolize people and whatever, but considering that this particular actor stars in disturbing horror movies, one would think that this kid shouldn’t have access to this stuff, right? Well, due to the things he grew up watching, he imagines doing horrible things to his aunt, dog, and imaginary wife. Mind you, this is a KID. All of these horrible thoughts are based off of what the actor does in the films that he’s watched, In the end, the only thing he accomplishes that his actor did is kill himself. And it just ends like that. Anyway, it was likely taken down because of it being so unnecessarily gruesome and scary for kids…”

It was silent for a moment before Bea coughs suddenly. She accidently picked up the cup of bitter coffee rather than her water. “So, there’s no way that this is.. Like, Moira’s favorite movie, right?” Bea spoke through her coughing.

“I don’t think so- I mean.. But she is making an outfit based on the arson of a- of a damn movie. Like..” Lys pauses in thought. “...okay, so hypothetically, if she was into that stuff. What are your thoughts?”

Bea sucks in a deep breath before sighing as she thought. “I mean, who cares, right?”

“Right.”

“It’s, like, creepy as hell according to this, uh..” Bea waves her hand, unable to think of her next words. “..this dude on the internet.”

“And that’s ignoring the fact that no one can even find this damn movie anymore.” Lys added.

“Right. But Doe’s already, like.. Weird.” Bea shrugged.

“No offense, Moira.”

“Much offense.” Bea corrected Lys and continued. “So, what do we care about this weird movie she likes? I care about my previous subject before you interrupted me. Doofus.”

Lys rolled his eyes. “Kids.”

“So, like I was saying before, why make clothes based off of a movie you already designed clothes for? And how do you make clothes based off of arson, right? Is she gonna set herself on fire?” As Bea asks that, Lys rolls his eyes. “I’d honestly pay to see that- but find out two weeks from now during the debut of Victor Callirrhoe’s fifth and final addition to his pentalogy movie series!” Bea cheers in faux excitement.

“Two weeks from now?” Lys asks. “So Victor’s promoting his fifth movie and Moira is showing off costumes based on his previous movie? The fourth one?”

“Yup. So they’re obviously in deeper contact than just a fashion designer and a director/writer, right? Right??” Bea asks.

“Maybe.” Lys shrugs. “Oh my god, but look at the tiiiime.” He chuckles, standing up.

“Don’t get up, we’re not done here!” Bea stands up, too. “Five more minutes!”

“Unlike you, Bea, I have a secondary job. And I need to get to it soon.” Lys claims, his voice fading as he walks away.

“You should’ve just gone with the suspense! Then we could’ve discussed mo…”

After a moment of silence on the radio, quick footsteps sound as someone walks over to the microphone. “I’m sorry for the unprofessionalism, listeners, but we’ve run out of time for today.” A sweet voice, presumably Donna’s, says. “Have a nice morning, everyone!” She says, before ending the channel.

~*~

As her radio goes to static, Moira frowns, poking the pickled beets on her plate with her fork. “Aw.” She huffs, turning the knobs on her radio before ultimately turning it off after finding nothing interesting to listen to.

“Now my food tastes worse.” She sighs, looking down to her fluffy dog that easily took up the full corner of her kitchen. “Hey, Jesterrrr.” She hums, the large Komondor immediately getting up and trotting over as she held out a fork of her food.

“You want some watercress? It’s healthyyyy.” She offers, bouncing the fork up and down, before pulling away. “I’m kidding. Dogs aren’t supposed to eat this. You can have a snack, though.” Moira says, plucking a small, bone-shaped treat out of a glass bowl on her table and tossing it towards Jester, which he easily caught in his much larger mouth.

“Free snack for being cute.” Moira says, before holding her breath and scooping the rest of the food in her mouth in two big forkfuls. She quickly swallows it and stands up. “Oh, the price of a healthy body.” She sighs dramatically, before downing some water. She puts the glass cup and plate in the sink and heads upstairs to her bedroom.

Jester followed behind her, trotting after her as she went up the stairs to her bedroom, but somehow he’s always surprised when she closes the door on him as she enters the bathroom. “I’ll be out there in a moment, Jester!” She called.

For the next ten minutes Jester passed the time by rolling all over the floor, which Moira would definitely scold him for later due to his hair getting all over the place. Not as soon as she gets out, though, because he’ll be on his back, waiting for her to notice just how cute and innocent he is before noticing the hair all over her rug.

Moira opened the door, immediately smiling and kneeling down to her dog. “Hey, therrrrrre.” She stretched out her words happily, scratching his stomach before standing up and walking to her bedroom.

As she looked behind her to Jester, she noticed the hair left on the rug and gasped. As soon as she did, Jester scurried down the stairs. “You fiend!” She yelled back dramatically, walking into her room and closing the door behind her.

In mere seconds, Jester came back and scratched at the door. “You’d better not mess up my paint!” She hissed, “Those flowers didn’t paint themseeelves.”

Jester barked once, instead of scratching, pushing up against the door. “Yeah, well, maybe you shouldn’t have gotten fur all over my rug!” She huffed. “If you get the broom and clean it up I’ll probably let you in.” Moira claimed, shrugging.

Jester made what she could only translate as a groan as he slumped down against the door. Moira rolled her eyes before turning to look through her clothes. She pulled out a particular fluffy red dress. It was made for winter, which unfortunately was not around at the moment. “Oh, winter. If you were a handsome man I’d make you stay all year round.” She hummed, chuckling to herself.

“Alas, I can’t wear this in this weather. Or anything fluffy, matter of fact.” Moira groaned. “Hey, Jester. Should I sweat to death in this or should I go out and get more fabric to make a similar dress that I can wear in the summer?”

Another groan from her furry companion made Moira shrug. “I dunno. I think dying in something fabulous is worth it. I’ll make sure to put in my will that you get all of my bones, too.” She joked, putting the fluffy dress back.

She wasn’t ready in the slightest to go out. If she said that her hair was usually neat, she’d be lying. They’re dreads, so the only way to really neaten them up would be to do them all over again, but why do that when you can just make clothes?

Moira skimmed through the rest of her clothes, finding a simple red tube top dress. Seeing this plain, base-like dress made her hum, and she picked it out. “I guess I could maaake something, real quick.”

Realistically, she couldn’t, but it didn’t do any harm to go out a bit later than usual. Moira relocated from her bedroom to her office, once again leaving Jester outside of the room, much to his displeasure.

“God, I don’t have anything pre-made!” She huffed, going through every drawer, hanger, and trash bin in the room. Instead of anything inherently useful, she found a couple boxes of dryer sheets. “Of course I’d leave something like this here..” Moira chuckled, pulling a couple sheets out of the box.

She lifted it up to the dress, which she’d put on a mannequin. “I’m obviously not gonna wear this, buuuut..” Moira smiled, lifting a hand to her mouth in thought. “That’d be so ironic for Cynthia..” She laughed. “I know damn well Vic’s gonna be mad about it, too.”

As Moira came to that conclusion, she proceeded to staple almost the entirety of the two boxes of dryer sheets to the upper rim of the dress. If you looked at it a certain way, she was pretty sure that no one would even notice what it was made of. Of course, this is considering that they weren’t close enough to touch or smell it.

“Then again, the smell is part of the joke..” Moira hummed to herself. The dress was nowhere near done and she’d most likely have to scrap this and start over if she wanted to actually do something with this idea.

“Well, regardless..” Moira sighs, tossing the empty box into the nearby bin and exiting the room. “Well, now I have to go buy more laundry sheets.” She said to Jester as she walked into her bedroom and closed the door on him for the fourth time that morning.

In the end, she settled for just a simple red and white polka-dot dress and matching ribbon to tie her hair with. In addition to white strapped heels, her outfit was topped off with a large white ribbon tied around her waist to make a giant bow in the back. In all honesty this is probably the most normal outfit she has- bow included.

“Okay, Jester, I know you’ve been waiting foreeeever.” Moira hums, picking up her bag and the notorious jeweled leash that Jester hates so much. She won it in a dog competition she and Jester competed in, but Jester still hates it to this day. Moira can’t tell if it’s because he can’t eat the jewels, he doesn’t like the jewels, or because he just hates all leashes in general.

As soon as Moira opens the door, Jester immediately gets up to his feet, but barks at the sight of the leash. He attempts to turn, likely to go run and hide under the couch (which Moira is still surprised he can fit under at his size), but she was thankfully able to grab him and hold him still. Thankfully, he’s trained well enough to know that if she actually grabs him then any game he might be trying to play is over. If not, he would most certainly be able to drag her around the floor due to his sheer size alone.

“No- noooooo, I have to put the leash on you just in case we..” Moira grunts, attempting to restrain his back leg with her leg. “..run into..CupKake, cuz.. You like running after giant cupcake mascots. Even when I tell you not to.” She exhales, finally getting the leash attached to the collar.

“If you’re good I’ll let you sit on the couch tonight. But right now we have to run some errands and..” Moira pauses, double-checking her purse before leading Jester downstairs and through the front door. “We have to burn off the 30 calories you gained from that treat! Whoo!” She says in faux excitement, although Jester seemed hyped either way.

[thenebulochaoticwriter]

Hello, people, I am Missy, formally known as The Nebulochaotic Writer (I say that like I have any followers yet).

My only goal with this is to expand my literary knowledge and gain feedback for my work. I don't entirely know how to bring attention to my stories yet, but I'll certainly try.

Below I'll add a list of finished and unfinished stories. But since as I'm writing this I've posted close to nothing, I'll leave this up to be edited later.

Feel free to give me feed back, questions, or criticism whenever you want. As of now I live isolated in a rural area with no one but my family to talk to, so you can imagine that the feedback I receive is greatly lacking.

Regardless, please feel free to message me anything about my stories.

~*~

Garden of Poison (Finished{the story}/Editing{correcting errors})

In Stereo Rhapsody {Previously "Unnamed Story"} (Unfinished{story is not planned out})

[thenebulochaoticwriter]

Garden of Poison

Paul was a smart kid. Everyone knew that. His classmates knew that, his teachers knew that, his father knew that, and even if his mother wouldn’t admit it, she knew as well. And of course, Paul knew that everyone knew. He was a smart kid after all. You would think that such a smart kid would have a lot of friends, right? That he’d get first place prizes for every contest he participated in because he’s just… so smart.

No, because… because people like to forget that he’s a child. Children, regardless of how incredibly smart, regardless of how many tests they ace, they’re still children, right? They’re still inexperienced. still bound to make mistakes. Paul knows that, but… why didn’t anyone else? His teachers didn’t understand, his mother refused to understand… The only one who bothered was his father.

Part of Paul likes to try to convince himself that his father is all he needs. So long as someone believes that he can be as normal as his mother wants him to be, everything will be okay. In the end, though, he realized that false hope feels worse than accepting the worst.

Thankfully, this time he believed. This time he was sure that he co–

~*~

Just one more drop. Paul always messed up with this one. For some reason, his stupid rattling fingers couldn’t make just one drop with his dropper. It was always too hard or too soft. Unfortunately, out of all the things he could calculate, a single drop wasn’t one of them. How embarrassing.

BANG

Paul yelps in shock as his door is busted open, which in turn causes the dropper to fall out of his hands completely, and into the pitcher beneath him. He silently gets up, although with a nervous noise, and carries the pitcher over to his open window. Smokey white fumes quickly exit the bottle, and despite the fact that Paul has his mouth covered by the crook of his elbow, some still manages to make it into his system.

Paul abruptly begins coughing, and accidently drips a good pour of the liquid beneath him. “Dammit..” He groans in between coughs.

“Watch your tongue, young man. An eight year old shouldn’t be saying words like that.” His mother hisses, who Paul realizes is the one who slammed the door open.

“M sorry, ma.” Paul apologizes in between coughs, which his mother doesn’t bother commenting on. Paul peeks out of the window to where some of his screwed up concoction spilled. As it turns out, it had spilled over his mother’s small orange tree. She’d been waiting an awful while to get that tree to finally grow some oranges. And now it looks like he’d screwed it up. Part of him was afraid of what his mother would think, but the rest of him remembered that due to the uneven amount of ingredients, it could very well be deadly to anyone who touched it. His mother made orange juice for his father every morning, so it was probably best that he informed her of his mistake, regardless of the punishment.

“Uh, ma.” He places the pitcher on his window sill, allowing the air to waft it out of the house. His mother raises an eyebrow to him, “M sorry, but i messed up a mixture and it spilled on your orange plant. So it might not be safe to eat from, ma’am.”

His mother’s eyebrow twitches. “You mean the weed killer you said you could make?! This is why I say you shouldn’t have these damn things!” She hisses. Paul recoils into his lab coat as she walks towards him, but slowly comes back out as his mother walks past him. She snatches the pitcher and begins leaving. “I’ll tell your father about this. Make sure these damn things stay away from your hands.” His mother marches out, continuing to grumble and complain about the likely loss of her orange tree.

Paul sighs, grabbing a nearby rag to clean up the couple drops of liquid on his already stained and bruised desk. He tossed out that rag and slipped his lab coat and gloves off, immediately bringing them to the washer and starting that up. It was around seven in the morning from what his clock said, so he should definitely be heading to school soon.

Despite his earlier mistake, he was at least able to finish up the concoction. Even if it would probably kill his mother’s oranges. With that thought, he peeked back out of his window, expecting to see rotting white oranges in his mother’s pot. Surprisingly, though, the oranges were incredibly vivid in color, and he could’ve sworn that they even grew bigger. Of course, this likely wasn’t any good news. How the orange looks now was probably just the orange absorbing the mixture.

Good thing Paul told his mom to avoid it.

Paul closes his window and checks through his bag for everything he needs for school. Once he decides that he has everything, he picks his bag up and slings it over his shoulder. By the time he’s made it down the staircase, he hears his mother slam the sliding door that leads to her garden. She was likely going to go use the weed killer, regardless of how upset she was at him.

“Pal.” His father speaks to him, lowering his newspaper beneath his eyes. “I heard what happened with your mother’s plant.” He comments.

Paul quietly sat down across from his father at the dining table. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. Honest.” He says, clutching his shorts in nervousness. “I inhaled some fumes and I couldn’t stop coughing for a little while. Eventually, it led to me spilling the mixture.” He explained.

“And how’s your throat feeling?” Paul’s father askes.

“Better now. I didn’t inhale too much at all, so I should be fine.” Paul responds, kicking his feet a bit in his chair.

“That’s good.” Paul’s father nods, smiling a bit. “You really are a smart kid. I know you wouldn’t do anything like that on purpose.” He assures him, sliding his plate of eggs and toast over to Paul. “The only reason I’d take away what you’re so brilliant at is if you seriously hurt yourself. At least until you were old enough.”

Paul quietly thanks his father for the plate, and eats while his father speaks. “Of course, you’d still be able to study those, poisons and herbs and such. It can be really useful for numerous future careers for you.” His father comments. “Imagine if you became a scientist in this day and age. With so many things left to discover!”

Paul smiles as he finishes his food. “Yeah, I could prolly become a scientist. Get a whole lot of money for you and ma. So you can get a big house and start a farm and stuff.” He mumbles, walking over to the sink and washing his dish.

“We’re fine right here, son. We have everything we need.” Paul’s father assures him. “The only thing we need to perfect is your life.” Paul gives his father a slightly confused look, and he decides to elaborate. “By that I mean your future is the last thing we need to worry about. As soon as you get a successful job, maybe a honey on the side, some kids, our job will be done.”

Paul hums in thought. Paul did believe that he could get a job. The only reason he didn’t have a good job yet was because he was still young. He didn’t think much of a wife or anything, though. A lot of kids at school didn’t really like him. He only had, like, one friend at school, and that was Rory. Maybe he could try making a girl friend today, and maybe she’ll want to get married.

“I’ll see if a girl wants to be my wife today.” Paul says, putting away his dish as his father laughs.

“I don’t think it’s quite that easy, my boy. Maybe try to get your life together, first. You can’t have a wife if you still live with your parents.” Paul’s father chuckles, tapping his son’s back on his way out. “Enjoy your day at school. And tell me if you come across any trouble, yeah?”

“Bye, sir. Have a nice day at work!” Paul calls, trotting out of the house with his bag on his shoulder. He turns to the house and cups his mouth, “Bye, ma! Sorry, about your plant!” Despite his secondary attempt to apologize, he gets no reply, and decides to simply head off to school.

~*~

School was a pleasant time for Paul. Mainly because since he had completed a majority of his classes for the school year, he had access to the staff library to study things that they don’t teach here. He often preferred to come to school early to avoid any harassment from his peers, but unfortunately, one of his smarter bullies tended to come here earlier for the sake of messing with him.

“Boo!” Someone suddenly shoved their hands into his back, pressing an intense weight onto him and making him topple over. Rather than addressing the bully, he simply picked up the things that had fallen out of his bag. As he reached for the last book, a shoe stomped onto it and his hand, although thankfully it didn’t hurt too much. What really sucked was that the shoe was muddy, though.

“That’s really gross, Michaela. This is a library book.” Paul said, brushing her foot off of the cover. It helped that she hesitated due to realizing that her action would cause more trouble than it would make her feel superior. Paul brushed off the book, but couldn’t get certain smudges off. He couldn’t bring himself to scrape it off either due to the chance of it scratching something important off.

“It’s Mickey you dweeb. And maybe if you weren’t such a wimp, you wouldn’t have fallen. Honestly.” Michaela kicked his wrist as he attempted to get up, causing it to slip. “See? I nudged you and you slipped. Do your parents not feed you at home?” She scoffed, chuckling to herself.

Paul successfully stood up this time, and examined his wrist, which ached a bit more than he felt like it should have. “This might bruise, Michaela. How do you plan on explaining this to the nurse?” He crossed his arms, lifting a judgemental eyebrow at her.

“Oh, shut up.” Michaela shoved Her hand into his shoulder. “You can handle it, can’t you?” She shoved him again. “And if you can’t, maybe you should grow a pair!” Again, with a giggle. “What, are you really a girl?”

“Cut that out, Michaela!” Paul hissed in irritation, although nowhere near as loud as Michaela was naturally.

“Why don’t you do something to stop me?” She said, shoving him into one of the classroom windows.

Paul would, but his mother told him that it was rude to hit girls. It’s not as if anything she was doing was anything more than an attempt to get on his nerves. Mind you, she was succeeding, but it really was nothing to start a physical fight over. “I don’t hit girls.”

“Well, then.” Shove. “Sucks.” Shove. “To be.” Shove. “Yo–”

SHOVE.

Michaela was suddenly shoved away from Paul with more force than she had bothered putting in. “He might not hit girls, but I do!” Paul’s single friend, Rory, said, raising a fist up to the girl threateningly.

“Ugh!” Michaela tried to keep up a threatening face, but couldn’t help the crack in her voice. “You always get in the wa-y, you–” She let out another irritated sound and stormed off.

“You made her cry.” Paul commented, turning to Rory, who shrugged.

“And? That’s what she was tryna do to you. So what?” Rory lifted his arms and folded them behind his head. “I only pushed her once. That should teach her to stop messing with guys. She’ll definitely get hurt that way. Mickey is always tryna scare other kids.”

“I know that. But her face is too cute to be threatening.” Paul points out. “That’s why she resorts to violence.”

Rory scrunched up his face. “Ew, dude, don’t say that. You’ll make her think that you like her.”

“I’m only bein’ honest.” Paul shrugs, sliding the slightly dirty book into his bag. He’d definitely have to explain this to the librarian. The only thing that sucks is that the librarian, Mr. Lebedev, is really mean about his books. He already gets mad enough if it’s overdue. Lord forbid you get it dirty or torn.

“Whaaaatever.” Rory shrugged. “Anyway, if you’re done bein’ a pushover, I’m gonna go see if the cafeteria is open for breakfast this early.” He says, kicking his heels back and rolling off on his heelys. “Peace.”

Paul never got the hype over those shoes. He knew they were new and all, but considering he’s seen well over several students fall because of them, he doesn’t get why so many kids still insist on wearing them. Paul shrugged, continuing his walk to the library.

~*~

Thankfully, Mr. Lebedev seemed to be in a good mood today. Hence why he only threatened to shove his face in mud if this happened again. Maybe his dog finally made it out of the vet after that accident, Paul thought, briefly looking up at him from his chair near the window. Yeah, usually Mr. Lebedev had this incredibly unapproachable resting expression that didn’t seem to be there today. That’s good.

Paul was glad that Mr. Lebedev was having a good day.

But back to Paul’s notes. He was currently writing down important notes from a book called “The Mind of Orfila”, Orfila being known as the “father” of toxicology. This was given to him by Mr. Lebedev’s personal records, and was thankfully not the book that Michaela had messed up with her shoe. Paul was sure that Mr. Lebedev would suffocate him in the mud rather than just shove him into it if that were the case.

Paul often asked his teachers for such books, but although they say that they’ll keep an eye open, they never seem to be able to buy any. Mr. Lebedev is the only one who actually puts in effort into getting them for Paul. He’s thankful for that, but it is quite a disappointment that he has so few ways to receive what he needs to continue to learn.

Paul hummed quietly. Maybe it was too soon to think such things. Regardless of what little he has, it was probably best to worry about that after he accomplishes everything that these books are meant to teach him before he worries about that. On that note, he continued writing, and he did so for a couple of hours, past several ringing bells, before he eventually heard the excited chatter of his other schoolmates.

The young toxicologist-in-training continued writing and reading, attempting to ignore the stares of the kids who entered, and clearly avoided his table. He didn’t really mind. If someone was talking to him, regardless of what it was, he definitely wouldn’t get as much work done. It was good that no one really wanted to talk with him anyway. It was a bit isolating, but at least he wouldn’t get too distracted.

Just as he thought that, someone approached his table and sat right next to him with incredibly loud shuffling. Of course, it wasn’t that loud, but considering that the idle chatter of the students was so far and the only sound near him was the scribbling of his pencil or occasional page flipping, the shuffling sound came as a bit of a shock. He didn’t look up at the person, somewhat paranoid that they were going to harass him.

As the shuffling stopped, he felt someone’s gaze on him. They were probably staring right at him. He pressed his lips tightly together, before awkwardly raising his gaze to the student who’d sat behind him. To his surprise, he recognized the person, but thankfully not from any bullying or harassment. Well, maybe a little bit of harassment, but not anything he could really qualify as ‘bad’.

“Hi, Pal!” Trinity held her face in her hands as her elbows resting on the table. She didn’t even have any books out, she just sat down to stare at him.

“..hello, Trinity.” Paul mumbled, looking up to her bright pink curly hair, which matched her eyebrows, eyes and eyelashes. Of course, this wasn’t natural by any means. Not until he screwed up a concoction when trying to show off to his classmates. He thought that maybe they’d stop bullying him if he did something cool. But in the end, he just got in trouble for it.

After fall break was over, he came to school determined to prove to his classmates that he wasn’t some sort of freak for having the interests that he did. Of course, he didn’t tell his parents about this plan out of fear that they’d reject his idea, which was likely why what happened happened.

He waited until recess to gather his classmates around and show them his new “potion”. It was supposed to make your eyes temporarily change color, but only by inhaling the fumes. He tried on himself several times during the break, and it worked out perfectly for him.

Unfortunately, he misjudged his classmate’s patience and maturity. While he was grabbing his dropper, a bunch of giggles erupted from the crowd around him, and he turned to see his concoction bubbling furiously and changing color. He didn’t know what happened or who had done what, so he just told them to stay away from it so that none of it got on them.

Trinity, unfortunately, got too curious and leaned over the bottle, and was unable to move when it exploded in her face. The laughing of the classmates immediately subdued as they realized that she was screaming in pain and not in shock. Several students ran to get the teacher as Paul attempted to calm Trinity, who was painfully kicking her feet and holding her face in panic.

Apparently, by the time her parents arrived (which was only around five minutes due to an intense speeding ticket that they paid off), the burning of her face had stopped, although her usual brown eyes had begun to gain a purple hue. Outside of that, she reported being perfectly fine, and feeling perfectly fine. They even took her to a doctor to see if anything was wrong, but she was 100% healthy.

Regardless, they still wanted to sue Paul’s parents, but outside of some smoke from an overall harmless potion, they had nothing to hold against them outside of a scare. They still took Trinity out of school for around two weeks, before returning her recently. Paul had never bothered attempting to speak with her due to fear that she would have a good reason to bully him. Which she did.

That was the first and last time he ever bought his equipment to school, and this was the first time that he’d spoken to Trinity since. He didn’t realize that the mixture had done that to her appearance. Not that she looked bad at all. If anything, the bright pink contrasted very well against her dark skin. And it matched perfectly since she wore pink notoriously every day, regardless of what the specific article of clothing was.

Trinity opened her mouth to say something, but paused, and ended up just sheepishly picking at her nails. She seemed to be ill-prepared for this interaction, despite how eager she seemed to meet with him. “Uh, so, I’m…sorry fo..”

“..sorry for messing up your..” Paul paused as Trinity spoke at the same time as him. “..hair.” He paused again. “Why are you apologizing?”

Trinity stretched her arms across the table, resting her cheek on the cool surface of it. “Uh, cuz.. You know, it would suck to be sued. I mean, you didn’t, but I know it’s, like, totally not cool to be sued. And you almost got sued. So. Like. Sorry for almost getting your parents sued.” She said, tapping her fingers on the table. “I probably should’ve stayed back like you said. But now i have pretty hair!”

Paul paused. Apologizing for such a small matter was pretty mature of her. “Oh. Okay.” He muttered, not really being able to put his words together. “..uh, I’m sorry for my, uh, ‘potion’ exploding in your face. That was probably super scary.”

“It was, but totally worth it!” Trinity sat up with a bright smile, kicking her feet excitedly. She combed her fingers through her hair, clearly very content with the outcome. “My parents are pretty mad, but the doctor said that there wasn’t anything wrong, so I think it’s fine.”

And positive, too. Paul’s father said that it wouldn’t be easy to find a wife, but Trinity seemed like a perfect fit. “Trinity, do you want to be my wife?” He asked bluntly.

“I guess, if we can live in my house, cuz my house is pretty big.” Trinity agreed. She put a hand to her chin in thought. “But my parents still kinda hate you, so I’ll probably have to sneak you in through my window. Like a prince!” Trinity patted her hands on the table vigorously with a big smile.

That would probably work, Paul thought. He would just have to tell his parents that he found a new place to live. If her house is so big, maybe he can use her basement or attic as a secret lab or something. Yes, that sounds ideal. And his father said that it wasn’t that easy. Paul didn’t want to toot his own horn, but he was quite proud of his accomplishment. Now the only thing to do was to get his job as a scientist.

Despite his goal to continue studying, Paul found himself unable to do so as he and Trinity chatted about several things. Most of it having nothing to do with marriage, to his surprise. What was even more surprising, though, was how quickly lunch time had come. It seemed quicker than when he was simply studying. He wondered why.

“Okay, I’m gonna go and get something to eat, now.” Trinity stood up, smiling at Paul. “Do you wanna come with me, Pal?” She asked, looking hopeful.

“Yes.” Paul stood up, before quickly sitting down, “Uh, I mean no.” He quickly reworded as Trinity frowned. “I-I have to finish studying. I didn’t get enough done today, I don’t think. I’ll probably go to lunch with the next class. And then to my own.” He explained, the tense feeling releasing his shoulders as he reminded himself of the work he had to do.

“Okay, well, see you!” Trinity smiled again as she waved and lined up with the rest of her class.

Paul waved back a bit, before his hand rested back on his pencil. Right, he had work to do. Although, for once, he found himself not wanting to work that day. Part of him wished that he could just go play with Trinity. Or, actually, his future wife, he reminded himself.

He was sure his father would be proud of him for this accomplishment.

~*~

Nothing much more eventful happened during the day. Paul went to the same few classes he always did, and he was bullied by the same kids as always. The only difference was that Trinity waved him goodbye that day and wished him a good rest of the day. That was a pretty nice change. Another regular of his day was walking home with Rory. Thanks to Rory popping up, Michaela shoved off with one of her terribly thought out plans.

“Seriously, she needs some attention from her parents.” Rory huffed, kicking some stones as the two boys walked together. Rory always seemed pretty mature. Or at least more so than Paul. He says that it’s probably because of the fact that he usually has to be home to watch his little brothers at home.

“Yeah, probably. It’d be sad if she bullied people just for attention.” Paul agreed, frowning at the thought.

“Your niceness is, like.. Super weird, man.” Rory commented. “Like, you didn’t say anything to Lucy when her dog died, but you’re feeling bad for Michaela?” He asked.

Paul shrugged. When Lucy’s dog, Buster, passed, everyone was already crying for her. And with her, matter of fact. It’s not like his pat on the back would’ve changed anything. If anything, she might’ve gotten mad at him for doing so. Michaela bullies him worse, but she also doesn’t have many friends, like him, unless they’re laughing with her. At him.

Regardless, Paul just supposed he felt bad at the fact that she didn’t really have anyone to pat her on the back. It’s not like she acted out for no reason. “I dunno. I mean.. Who else feels bad for her?”

“No one, obviously. Cuz she’s a jerk.” Rory replied. “It’s not like she doesn’t know that bullying people she dislikes will make her unlikable. It’s her own fault if she ends up alone.” He shrugged as well.

“Yeah, maybe.” Paul and Rory walked in silence for a bit. There wasn’t much sound outside of their steps on the gravel path and the occasional rustling of the trees around them.

That is, until Rory spoke up.

“So, how’s your mom?” Rory asks. “My mom said that your mom doesn’t come to parent-teacher conferences anymore. And that it’s just your dad.”

Paul frowned. In all honesty, he didn’t really like talking about his mom. Not necessarily because he disliked her, but because she disliked him. Paul didn’t think he could ever bring himself to hate his mother, regardless of how much she hated him. It’s not like he knew why, he just assumed it was because of one of the many mistakes he made in his life. And considering he was eight already, that was probably a lot of mistakes.

“She just likes taking care of her plants, I think.” That might be vague enough for her, Paul thought. “I don’t- like, I don’t know for sure, so you might want to ask her yourself.” He added quickly. Thankfully, Rory didn’t seem to want to dwell on the matter.

“I would, but this is my stop.” Rory said, jabbing a finger to his street. “Thanks for walking me home- as per usual. See you tomorrow.” He said, waving to Paul. Paul laxly waved back, before continuing the rest of his walk home.

He was glad to be heading home.

He was glad to be returning to his father and mother.

~*~

Today was the same as always, save for a pleasant surprise at school. Paul was excited to tell his dad that he would be married and moving out soon. On top of that, he still got plenty of studying done, so he and Trinity speaking didn’t take up as much time as he thought it would. If anything, it might’ve made him work better. That’s something he didn’t quite understand, but he could probably just ask his father after breaking the good news to him.

With that in mind, Paul entered his house with a small smile. It wasn’t likely that his father was home yet, as he didn’t often get off work this early. But maybe he could tell his mother. Maybe this could be some good news that will make her smile at him.

Paul took off his shoes at the doorway, but as he passed the dining area to reach the stairs to his bedroom, he noticed something.

“Sir. I didn’t know you were.. Home.” Paul stared at his father for a moment. His face was dunked into his cereal, and his spoon was on the floor as his arm hung beside him. “..sir?” Paul gently poked his shoulder, before tapping his arm. He flinched, realizing that his skin was cold to the touch. Not only that, but it seemed..bloated. Like a poorly blown balloon.

“...dad..?” Paul whispered, his heart picking up its pace. He heard of these symptoms. Of course he did, he had to do his research and learn about all of the risks of poison. Or consuming poison. But it’s not like his dad was.. dead. There really was no way. He just had to ask mom. She’d know.

Paul walked towards the back door, and while his eyes lingered on the completely living body of his father, he ignored the unnaturally vibrant colored orange juice next to his bowl of cereal.

“..Ma’am..?” Paul called, his voice surprisingly weak, which was likely caused by his lack of breath due to his heart palpitating. He looked around the fenced yard, not spotting his mother, although she could’ve been knelt down tending to her plants. Unaware of what definitely wasn’t a bloated body in the dining area.

The boy looked around, determined to find his mother despite his evident lightheadedness. Due to his dizziness, though, he nearly missed the large hole hidden away behind one of the rows of bushes. He flinched, taking a step back and looking down into it. It looked incredibly deep. No one, regardless of how tall, could climb out of there without some sort of assistance.

Just as Paul turned away to continue his search for his mother, he noticed that she was actually standing behind him. “Mom!” He exclaimed. He immediately wanted to explain what was happening, as he always did. There was always some sort of mistake that he had to explain to her before she got mad, even though she always got mad anyway.

But there was something different about his mother’s appearance. Her usual wavy auburn hair looked to be tangled in some places, and overall was very messy. Her black eyes seemed dull and lifeless, even looking paler in color. With pale on the mind, her skin looked sickly, as if she spent her whole life locked in a basement. Beneath her eyes were heavy bags, despite the fact that it looked completely fine this morning. Speaking of eyes, they were surrounded by red circles, and it was clear that she’d been crying for an… extended amount of time.

“Mom..I–” Before Paul could begin his pathetic extended excuses, his mother raised up her hand. He flinched, thinking that she was about to hit him. Which she was, but it was unfortunate that it was with a shovel rather than her hand.

He felt a sudden pain in the side of his head- but only realized that he was laying in the dirt of her garden when he felt dirt on the back of his arms. Something warm and wet dripped from the right side of his head, and some even dripped into his eyes, causing his vision to go slightly red. His heart was once again sped up to an irritating degree as he attempted to gasp for air.

Unfortunately, his mother seemed to catch onto this attempt, and immediately reached to deroot her flowers. She didn’t speak a word as she began shoveling flowers, roots, and dirt from out of her garden and shoving it into Paul’s throat. Outside of Paul’s wincing and watery eyes from lack of breath, he was staring wide-eyed back to his mother. That was one thing they had in common- the same blank gaze as a resting face. But his mother’s face was… scary.

Well, of course it was scary. It just.. Confused him. Is this how his mother stared at him whenever he wasn’t looking? Is this how everyone stared at him whenever he wasn’t looking? Trinity? Rory? His father? Wide-eyed, not in shock, but in pure disdain and disgust?

Why did she look so calm? It’s as if she had dreamt about doing such things to him for the longest time. As if this very act was in the back of her mind whenever she even thought of him. Did she stare at him in his sleep, fingers twitching and just barely reaching out before realizing that she still had another person in the house to pin the blame on her? Maybe because she realized that she still had something to lose if she went to jail?

That made sense, part of Paul thought. Of course. If he had hated someone so much, he’d probably dream or think of such things too. But he would hate for his parents to look at him like this if he did do something so horrible. But would he kill someone he despised if they were gone? If they themselves died? If… they had died of accidental poisoning?

He deserved it.

He deserved the cold feeling in his throat that was being blocked by fresh dirt and soft roots and fragile flowers. He deserved this inability to gasp for air, and the burning of his lungs, and the pain his fingers felt as he clawed at his mother’s wrists and clothes. Regardless of what his brain was telling him. Regardless of how badly his body wanted to live.

What he didn’t deserve was such a loving father, or a mother. What he didn’t deseve was the few holes of air he was getting through the layers of nature in his mouth and throat.

What he didn’t deserve was the shovel that his mother had dropped, that was laid right next to his suffocating body. Regardless of what his brain was telling him. Regardless of how badly his mind told him to live.

Despite his messy thoughts, Paul gripped the forgotten shovel. He couldn’t even say that it was just his body moving on its own. Paul wanted to live.

With possibly every ounce of strength left in his body, he swung the shovel up, and stabbed it into his mother’s head. Not with enough strength to kill her, but enough strength to knock her out. Enough strength to make her bleed. Enough strength to let him live.

As soon as her body fell limp, he rolled over, coughing and throwing up dirt and flowers and roots. Tears flowed his face and blood fell out along with the nature that had violated his throat. He breathed, finally, although all he could taste was dirt and copper. Every breath seemed to tear at his throat, and more blood leaked from his mouth as he hunched over, trying his best to let anything else fall out. Nothing felt normal in his throat. And no breath he took sounded normal. It was scratchy. It sounded like an old sickly woman’s cough.

He didn’t think he could ever breathe normally again.

For a long time, Paul laid there, eyes wide and his throat unable to make the sweet sound of nothing that every functioning throat should. Maybe thirty minutes, and hour, two, he laid there, and after whatever time had passed, he felt his heart slow down. He felt lightheaded, and found his skin crawling the longer it touched the ground.

Nothing felt right anymore. Nothing felt “right” before, but now everything just felt wrong. He felt like the dirt and grass was nipping at him. Like it was trying to peel him apart and bring him underground, where he can finish suffocating. He sat up, breathing slow, hard, and unnaturally. He hated how his mother’s beautiful flowers looked. He hated the vibrant colors, the smooth texture. He hated it. It never belonged in her throat.

He couldn’t properly breathe due to the snot filling up his nose. He was still crying after all. Not silently, although he failed to bring himself to sob. What did he have to cry for? His mother was knocked out next to him, he was still alive. Still breathing. The taste of dirt wasn’t that bad.

Part of Paul wondered if the taste would stain his mouth for good. He looked down to his mother, who lay still. Her fingertips looked bloody and busted, likely due to the desperate digging. She would never be able to rest easy again. Not after everything that’s happened. She would have nightmares every night, of course. Of her husband’s dead, bloated body. Surely, she would feel regret if she woke up and finished the job on her weakened son.

…

Paul couldn’t let that happen.

He doesn’t think his father could rest easy after this. He didn’t die peacefully, fulfilled. Of course he didn’t. Paul hadn’t gotten married or moved out or gotten a job yet. At least, he wasn’t alive to actually hear it from Paul.

He could at least allow his mother to rest easy. After everything she’s…been through.

Paul stood, staggered, to his feet. He didn’t know what to do. Or, more precisely, he didn’t know what he was doing. He grabbed the shovel and pushed his mother’s unconscious body into the hole. He felt sick.

Paul doesn’t know how long it took. But his wrists felt sore. Somehow, that stood out as he finished filling up the hole. Somehow, his wrists and back and knees all hurt more than his aching throat.

Paul patted the hole with the shovel. Then he knelt forward and patted both of his shaking hands into the dirt. He wish he could grab one of the nearby flowers and put it in the grave. But he didn’t.. Want to touch the flowers. Not because he was scared of them. Not because they would surely dive down his throat and spread and successfully suffocate him this time. No, it was….. It was just because his mother would be cross with him if he touched her flowers more than he already has.

That’s why.

…

Paul didn’t know what to do. So, as per usual, whenever he was confused, he went to speak to his father.

His body looked a bit more bloated. It had been since this morning that he’d been like that, so it makes sense that he looked so… unstable to touch. It was now night. Paul was scared of the dark, so he didn’t want to be outside anymore anyway. Paul sat in front of his father, where he sat this morning. A stench had filled the room. Maybe even the whole house. But it would be rude to comment on his father’s lack of shower. He would get to it eventually. Surely.

“...” Paul opened his mouth to say ‘sir’, but found that his words were groggy, and that any push to get a coherent word out of his mouth tore at his throat. He cleared his throat a couple times, and tried again, hardly even being able to understand himself as he spoke. Regardless, in his head, he held a conversation with his father.

“I got…wife..day. I mov.. Her tomor…” He croaked, gasping as he attempted his next set of words. He paused, the stench making him feel sick as he leaned over and pulled the trashcan closer to him, just in case. “..I studied today.. I made…” He pauses, allowing him to gasp. “..a friend. Who is..” Gasp. “..my wife.”

Gasp after gasp, he somehow didn’t lose his lunch as he spoke. In his head, he and his father had a conversation about his future. About the vacation his father and mother would have after he moved out. About how proud they’d be when he graduated. About how his father would probably cry when he got married. Maybe even about his mother pitching in when naming his kids.

Although, as their conversation came to a close, Paul frowned, realizing that there were tears flooding his face again. He probably looked irritatingly unprofessional. His father probably scolded him and told him to go wash up before bed. He was covered in dirt and roots and.. And flowers.

Paul tried to get up, but found his breath slowly incredibly as his heartbeat slowed down. Was he going to sleep? If he was, then it wasn’t comfortably. His heart felt like it was skipping two beats at a time and it made his chest hurt. He gasped more often, before his vision blurred. Not from tears this time, but maybe because he was so tired.

It hurt, but maybe he’d feel better after he catches his breath.

…

~*~

…

Paul awoke. Not to sunlight peeking in through his blinds or the smell of pancakes. But to something being strapped around his head. Something that smelled like rubber… Or some sort of new equipment.

Paul stirred, his gaze looking up as his head was moved. He squinted, his vision surprisingly pink. That was weird. Even his mother didn’t own pink. He tried his best to look up again. His vision was still blurry, but he could’ve sworn that there was someone tall. A woman, maybe, because she wore a large dress. A dress?

A dress… Trinity wore a pink dress. Not as fancy or… or royal-looking, but it was a pink dress. She also had pink hair. Regardless of how tall or grown this woman looked, it had to be Trinity, right? Or maybe he was hallucinating about her. That’s what husbands do, right? Hallucinate about his wife?

“Trin..” He gasps. “..Ity..”

The woman picks up his head and helps him sit up. He can barely feel his legs, but his chest is finally rising and falling as it should. Paul lifts a hand up to his face, his hand bumping into unfamiliar curves and dips of the accessory covering his mouth.

“That’s a gas mask.” The woman spoke. Her voice didn’t sound anything like Trinity’s, but Paul didn’t know who else to identify her with.

“Why?” He croaked. Despite his steadier breathing, he still couldn’t speak correctly. In the mask, his voice took on a lower few octaves. He almost sounded over, too.

“Because you need to breathe, dear.” Trinity said.

Paul nodded slowly. Trinity held out her hand and Paul took it, slowly standing up. He wobbled, but Trinity supported him with… the skirt of her dress. Paul craned his neck to look up at her. He didn’t even think his father was that tall. He didn’t know what happened to Trinity, but at least she didn’t mind his father resting on the table.

“Let’s go to my house.” Trinity offered, and Paul nodded, regaining some of his composure.

That’s right, he was supposed to go to her house. Of course. He probably kept her waiting. Some husband he was turning out to be. “O..” He gasped. “..kay.”

Paul felt embarassed. His throat was failing him. He probably sounded like a fool in front of Trinity.

Well, even if he did, Trinity didn’t comment, and simply led him outside to his backyard.

Part of Paul felt bad. He was leaving his father there on the table instead of waking him up. But at least his mother was likely resting easy. Surely, it was just his mind playing tricks on him. It was a crow. Some other bird maybe. He didn’t hear any muffled voice. Or at least, he shouldn’t.

Paul looked up at Trinity, and Trinity smiled, although she didn’t return his gaze. He could barely see her face, just a bit of her smile.

Well, regardless, he and Trinity walked past a gate that he didn’t know his backyard had. The two of them left, and walked deeper into the forest.

It doesn’t matter who looked for Paul after that. Rory, Trinity, even Michaela.

Paul wasn’t seen after that.

Not how he was, at least.

~*~