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[alec-writes]

Keep Knocking, Nobody’s Home

(I’m Sleepwalking)

I cannot believe I’m even uploading this but here’s something I threw together in like an hour before my class started.  Season 3 has been a TRIP, man.

For the record I highly doubt the show is going to go in this direction (besides Eclipsa using Marco somehow -- I see you, show writers), but this is what you get when I get drunk and watch How To Train Your Dragon 2 while thinking about Star.  After reading tons of season 3b theories.  I literally could NOT get this scenario out of my head and it was just gonna bug me till I wrote it out. Special thanks to @jedichic for proofreading and actually getting me to post it.

So here you go.  I am so sorry in advance.

Word Count:  1,026

Marco Diaz was about ninety percent sure this was a dream.

He couldn’t see a thing except a swirl of purples and blacks shifting across what he assumed had to be the backs of his eyelids.  The colors circled and slid into each other, like it was an entity all its own, living, breathing, interacting.  Some of the shapes even looked like people.

No, not people.  One person.  Standing right there.  Reaching out. To him?

Maybe this was more like a nightmare.

Marco was also keenly aware that everything was strangely silent in the noisiest way possible.  There were none of the usual squeaks of his bed frame whenever he was aware of his body shifting, no ceaseless yapping of the laser puppies, or anything that he might expect to hear from laying in his room.  But there was humming.  He would almost say it was constant, but the closer he listened, the more he realized that there were breaks and pauses between hums.  Not rhythmic, not purposeful, but natural.  As if someone was speaking.  But there were no voices that he could make out.  Except…

One voice.  His voice.

Weird.

“I call the darkness unto me from deepest depths of Earth and sea.”

He knew these words.

“From ancient evils unawoken, break the one who can’t be broken.”

He knew these words.

“From blackest night, I pledge my soul and crush my heart to burning coal.”

His heart was starting to pound in his chest, he could hear it in his ears, and Marco didn’t quite know why.  This was just a bad dream.  It had to be a dream.  Why would he have any reason to—

“To summon forth a deadly power, to see my hated foe devoured.”

There was a sudden change in the colors swirling before his eyes.  A flash of purple, similar to the purple of the silhouette, overtook the black for just a few seconds before everything settled.  But now, he wasn’t just seeing shapes anymore.  His vision was clearing, and once it had, he immediately wished he had stayed in whatever purple dream dimension he had been stuck in.  He felt his blood run cold and his stomach turn to ice.

Star.  Upon seeing her, the only response his dumbfounded brain could manage was to remember the last time he had talked to her.  Just a couple hours ago, during their big fight.  All the tension and uncertainty they had been living with since he had moved to Mewni had built itself into a ticking time bomb over their relationship, and it had finally exploded.  He said some things he didn’t mean.  Maybe she did too.  He didn’t know.  But just seeing her was not what caused the world to start spinning and his breath to come up short.

Star Butterfly was kneeling on the ground, crouched desperately over a figure that his mind could just barely make out as Queen Moon. There was a hole in her chest, tinged with purple, that seemed to continue growing more and more over her body.  She wasn’t moving.  Not anymore.  And the weapon, the cause of it all, was Star’s own wand, shifted into a form that Marco vaguely recognized as his, being held up and aimed by a hand that was coated with purple.  Dark magic.

His arm.  His wand.  In a moment of panic, he tried to throw the wand down but found his hand wouldn’t let go of it, so it simply hung there at his side.

He was going to be sick.

“Star,” he whispered, unable to lift his voice to a stronger pitch.

It was when Star rose her eyes to meet his that he felt his whole world start to crumble around him.  Her eyes were overflowing with tears and she wore an expression he could never hope to describe; one he had never really seen on her.  Not even when she lost Glossaryck and her book of spells.

The world was crashing in hard.  It hurt.

God, did it hurt.

“M…Marco…”

She couldn’t even get through his name without her voice cracking with tears.

It was all his fault.

What had he done?

His vision was starting to blur, and he could feel the cold, wet sensation of tears welling in his eyes.  He couldn’t even be startled when he felt two hands grip his shoulders and a voice start to speak in his ear.  He didn’t have to look to see who it was.  He knew.  Her voice was already imbedded so deep in his mind, so tightly wound around him and pulling him in a million different directions, that he just knew.

Eclipsa.

“That got a bit messier than I expected, I’ll admit…”

Marco noticed through his tears that Star had picked herself up from the ground, albeit shakily, and had transformed herself with a magnificent golden light.  She must have noticed Eclipsa.  Was Eclipsa even visibly there?  He couldn’t tell anymore.  He could only focus on Moon.  Still, lifeless Moon.

All because of him.

“No, no, no…” Marco heard himself whimpering, though he barely felt himself speaking.

Please, don’t let this be real.  This can’t be real.

“But I think it will work out for us just fine,” the voice in his ear continued to purr.  “This is only the beginning, you know.”

“I-I didn’t…”

He couldn’t find the words.  Everything was starting to go dark again, those shades of purples and blacks seeping back into his vision.  And honestly, he could only welcome them.  They were lifting him from this place, this world, this unforgiving reality in which he killed the Queen.  Hurt Star, his best friend, the person he loved – wholeheartedly loved – more than anyone else in this crumbling world.  He hurt her in a way that he could never take back.  But even she was starting to fade away with the purples and blacks.  He thought he might have heard her call out his name, but that didn’t matter anymore.

“We have a lot more to do,” Eclipsa finished.

His body finally relaxed, succumbing to the purple haze.

Everything was noisily quiet again.

And Marco Diaz felt nothing.

[alec-writes]

Untitled:  Chapter 1

All characters mentioned in this short story belong to me. Constructive criticism is always appreciated. ___________________________________________________________________________

“The suspect and the hostage are starting towards the property, over.  Reminder that suspect is incredibly dangerous; use force to take her down if you have to.  Over.”

“Roger that.  Bailey, are you in position?”

Officer Bailey didn’t move right away.  She let the wall behind her support her weight to remain standing up, a faraway look in her eyes.  Her left hand gripped her gun, finger on the trigger, while her right hand held tight onto the maintenance closet doorknob.  The static of her walkie loudly buzzing through the silence broke her out of her trance.

“Bailey?  Are you in position or not?”

Once again, she ignored the question and forced her limbs to move her out of the catatonic state they were stuck in.  She twisted the doorknob and stepped outside, into one of the many long hallways of the Carter’s National History Museum.  Bailey let out a short exhale as she shut the door, taking in the sights around her.  It had been a long time since she had been in here.

Joshua Carter’s National History Museum wasn’t anything too special.  It certainly wasn’t as fancy as Washington D.C.’s Smithsonian or Philadelphia’s Academy of Natural Sciences, but it was nice for a little Pennsylvanian town like Zelts.  Much like the town itself, it was small, by museum standards.  Joshua Carter had built it with his bare hands in 1926, and it had been owned by his family line ever since.  However, because Carter was literally the only one putting it together, many of the facts were ‘inaccurate,’ to put it gently.

Bailey remembered coming to this museum only about a year ago, walking through the auburn, rustic hallways with Elena and laughing at some of the ridiculously offensive exhibits.  They would get shushed by the other townspeople who loved to take the museum too seriously, but that would only make them giggle harder until someone called security to kick them out.  Not that they cared all that much.  Just being able to spend the day together through their busy schedules was enough.

Feeling her stomach twist uncomfortably at the memories, Bailey leaned on the wall again, bracing her hand against it,  She couldn’t start thinking about those times.  Not now.  Swallowing hard, she finally reached for her walkie when it buzzed with static again.

“Christ, Bailey, answer me!  Are you in position?  Are you hurt?”

“I’m going,” she answered, voice still shaking.  She cleared her throat in an attempt to steady it.  “I’m close by.  Passing the cavemen now.”

She waited for a few moments for a response, but none came.  The chief was satisfied with just that.  Bailey stalked quickly into the American History section of the museum, passing displays of old TVs and cameras, of mannequins with lacy corsets or suspenders on, until she came upon the artifact that she had been looking for.  A pure gold chain necklace with a cat’s eye gem pendant at the base.

A series of thumping noises sounded from behind the double-doors she just entered through.  Gunshots went off, but the only cries she heard were of her own teammates.  Taking a deep breath, Bailey stood in front of the necklace, pulling her gun from its holster and pointing it directly at the doors.  There was silence.  Then the doors flew open with a bang.

********

“Stick close to me…  This place is probably crawlin’ with cops.”

Violet padded closer to the museum doors, subconsciously checking her outfit to account for all of her weapons.  Guns, check.  Throwing knives, check.  Machete?  She grinned to herself before reaching back to check, discovering that she did indeed have it on her.

“Can’t wait to go all Rambo on their asses,” she muttered to herself, before realizing her party was not sticking close like she ordered.  With a frustrated sigh, she turned to find him mindlessly kicking some pebbles on the ground.  “‘Ey!  Did I fuckin’ stutter, Gray?  Get your ass over here before I beat it!”

The boy, who looked as if he couldn’t be older than seven, looked up in alarm and quickly ran over to Violet’s side.  He took hold of her hand, which she begrudgingly allowed.  “Sorry, Violet.  I’ll be good now.  I’m ready!”

“Metertelo por tu culo.”

Grayson paused for a moment before looking up at her curiously.  “What does that mean?”

Violet snorted.  “Go learn Spanish and find out, idioto.”  She braced her hands on the doors and shoved them open, taking into account the silence that soon engulfed them as they entered inside.  Even Gray’s giggling at her calling him an idiot faded away the farther in they moved.  “Stay behind me,” she murmured, pleased at the fact that he listened right away.  With her free hand, she pulled out one of her guns and held it at the ready.

The museum was just as she remembered it.  Banners advertising the new area in the American history section were hung up all over the walls of polished wood.  Right by the front desk stood a life-sized statue of Joshua Carter himself.  His arm was raised in a waving motion, a broad smile painted on his face.  The bastard, Violet thought with a glare, before continuing on inside.  The floor, which had been refurbished with nice red carpet just a few months ago, creaked under their footsteps.  The noise echoed off the walls and the ceiling and seemed to make the whole building tremble.

It wasn’t until they made it all the way up to the second floor that Violet felt someone else’s presence.  Gray seemed to notice as well, from the way he gripped her hand like it was a lifeline.  “Get your shields ready, kid.  These motherfuckers are gonna try to get the drop on us…”  She felt him nod and let go of her hand.  She took it as a sign that he was ready and marched forward, lightly fingering one of the throwing knives strapped onto her belt.

Just as she expected, two police officers jumped out from the corner up ahead and yelled at Violet to freeze as they raised their guns.  She raised hers and kept walking, firing off some warning shots at their feet.  “I don’t have time for you.  Get ‘outta the way!”

Again, as expected, they started shooting at her.  She made no effort to duck out of the way.  Grayson stared straight ahead, face pinched with concentration.  There was a pale blue tint to his eyes.  The bullets that flew at Violet seemed to sink into something invisible in front of her before bouncing uselessly to the ground.  She smirked at the shock on their faces and waggled her gun tauntingly.  “Bebés pobres… I tried to warn you.”  The amused expression on her face shifted into one of sick joy as she pulled the trigger on the officer on the left.  He dropped to the ground without a sound, a bullet hole sitting neatly between his eyes.  The other officer tried to run and take cover, but Violet tossed a blade into his side with a quick flick of her wrist.

Violet raised an eyebrow mockingly and blew on the barrel of her gun, before twirling it in her hand and shoving it into its holsters.  “Holy shit.  Did you see that?”  She grinned widely at Grayson, who was blinking dizzily from putting up the shield.  “Are you trying to tell me that you didn’t see what I just did?  I twirled those fuckin’ guns perfectly, man!  Come on!”

She started walking down the hall, allowing Gray to hold her hand again since he was so off-balance.  “It was cool as hell.  I dunno how you -- oops, ‘scuse me,” she added, carefully stepping over the writhing, bleeding cop on the ground before continuing on her way.  “Yeah.  I dunno how you missed something like that.  It was straight out of a goddamn cowboy movie.”

The rest of the way there was much similar to their first encounter with the police.  By the time they reached the right room in the American History section of the museum, Violet had to give Gray a piggyback ride so that he didn’t pass out in the middle of the room.

“I want you to know that you’re messin’ up my whole fuckin’ image here, you brat,” she growled as he wrapped his arms around her neck.

“Sorry, Violet.”

“Yeah, yeah…”

Violet approached the double-doors and promptly kicked them open, locking eyes with the first and last person she ever wanted to see.  “Lashaya Bailey,” she said aloud, bringing up one of her wide, fake grins.  “Oh, my bad.  I mean Officer Bailey.  How rude of me.”

“Elena,” Lashaya greeted, brows coming together in a glare and fingers tightening on the trigger of her gun.

“How many times do I have to remind you, silly?  I go by Violet now.”  When Lashaya’s firm expression failed to change, Violet sneered and bumped Gray a little to wake him up.  “Look, Gray!  It’s our favorite fuckin’ person in the world!  You remember Shay, don’t you, kid?”

Gray started awake, blinking sleepily at the other woman.  Then he gave her a small smile and a wave.  “Hi, nice cop lady.”

Lashaya’s expression softened slightly.  “Hello again, Grayson.”

Violet made an irritated clicking noise with her tongue.  “Gray, you can’t just--...  She’s our goddamn enemy, you…  You’ve lost your piggyback privileges.”  She set him down on the ground, ignoring his tired whines of protest.  Then she turned back to the woman across from her, her lips curling into another grin.  “Would you put the gun down?  You know you won’t shoot me.”  She moved towards her, letting her sarcastic smile melt into a genuine one.  “You miss me too much for that, Shay.”  The officer’s shoulders grew more relaxed as she looked into Violet’s face, surprised at the honesty in them.  But it didn’t last long.  “I think...something else must miss me too, huh?”  Violet let her gaze flicker down to Lashaya’s crotch before they came back up to meet her eyes with a smirk.  Lashaya make a disgusted noise and pushed the other woman away.

“I miss Elena.  You’re not yourself anymore.”

Violet’s face twitched slightly in annoyance.  “I am myself.  Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean--”

“No, you’re not!” Shay screamed back at her, finally losing the calm and collected persona she had been trying to pull off.  “The minute you shaved half of your head and dyed the other half purple -- don’t you dare correct me,” she growled, giving Violet a warning glare when she looked about to cut in.  “It’s.  Purple.  I’m not in the mood to satisfy your dumbass obsession with puns.”  Violet pouted in disappointment and slumped, letting her continue.  “For God’s sake, El, you’re wearing red contacts!”

“Why does everyone say that?” she huffed, putting her hands on her hips.

“Because your fucking eyes are red instead of brown!” she exclaimed, throwing up her arms in exasperation.  “People’s eyes don’t just change from brown to red overnight, Elena!”

Violet opened her mouth to retort, but the sound of police sirens outside made her stop.  The backup finally showed up, it seemed like.  “Welp, we better speed this up, I guess,” she sighed, looking back at Lashaya with a frown.  “You need to move.”

Shay stiffened in response, raising her gun again.  “No.”

This time, Violet didn’t try to hide the look of regret on her face.“Then, I’m sorry.  I’ll have to force you.”

********

“...Bailey.  Bailey, get up.”

Lashaya awoke to ringing in her ears and a gruff voice ordering her to get up.  She blinked open her eyes, wincing at the light in the room.  The voice belonged to the shadowy figure above her, who she could eventually identify as Chief Martinez.

“Chief?  What...ugh, what happened?”  Shay sat upright, wincing when her head throbbed.  The bump on the back of her head felt so big that she thought she was growing a horn.

“Violet,” he answered simply, and the memories came rushing back.

“She...she hit me!  Actually knocked me out!”  Not too gently, either.  Lashaya reached back and touched the throbbing bump, groaning lightly in pain.  “Son of a bitch…”

The chief rose an eyebrow, his mustache making his mouth look like it was set in a permanent frown.  “You’re surprised?”

“...No,” she answered, after a beat of silence.  “Did she get away with the amulet?  And the boy, too?”

“Yes.  When the team and I came in, you were on the floor, the glass was broken, and the amulet was gone.  She and the kid already left by the time we got here.”

“Figures,” she sighed, closing her eyes and trying to think through the pain.  “What do we do now?”

“First, we get you and all the other injured officers to the medic,” he stated firmly, slinging her arm around his shoulders and helping her to her feet.  “Then, we call Coulson’s and Madison’s families and help them make funeral arrangements.”  He didn’t look at her when her head snapped up in shock.  “Both took a bullet to the head.  Dead on the spot.”  Lashaya closed her eyes and hung her head again, shaking it slowly.

“Oh, God…”

“Once that and the paperwork is taken care of, we’ll just have to wait for Violet to make another move.”

“I suppose it’s all we can do,” Shay mumbled, letting him help her onto a gurney that was waiting by an ambulance outside.  Two officers, dead, because of Elena.  Lashaya’s jaw clenched and she ignored the sharp pain that came along with that.  Next time, she swore to herself, she wouldn’t let her memories and sentiment get the better of her if Elena wasn’t.  She would bring her in, kill her, anything it took to stop her.  Next time, she wasn’t going to lower her gun.

********

Grayson held on tight to Violet as she leapt from building top to building top.  He was in charge of keeping the amulet safely bubbled in his hands.  Don’t touch it, she told him.  If he touched it, he would get into a lot of trouble.

He leaned his head on her shoulder and scooted up slightly so that he could see her face.  “Hey...Violet?  Can I ask you a question?”

“God, no.”

He continued anyway.  “How come you hit Ms. Bailey?  You said that she missed you.”

“Because,” she answered shortly.

“Because why?”

“Because, it’s complicated, dipshit!  Why do you ask so many fuckin’ questions?”

Gray just hugged her tighter so that he could get even closer.  “Because I wanna know!  You talk about her all the time and she acts weird every time she sees you.  So how come you always fight?  Why can’t you just be together?”

Violet sharply turned and ducked into a hotel window.  Or, rather, an abandoned hotel window.  The place had closed down years ago because of a rat infestation and no one else wanted to step in and reopen it.  Because of that, the place was practically falling apart.  The carpet was either torn up or moist with mold or mildew.  The furniture was broken or just plain unusable.  But, it was a decent place for a fugitive and her hostage to hide out in.

It wasn’t as if she let the kid sleep on the moldy floor, either.  She set up beds for both of them in the room she fixed up herself.  They weren’t allowed to bring in any obvious lights, for fear of getting discovered, but she had moved in a tiny TV they could play in the daytime.  Violet even had a laptop for herself that she would charge in the Starbucks in the next town over.  It was risky, but worth it to see what the news did and didn’t know about her already.

“It’s not that simple, Gray,” she answered after a few seconds, dropping him on his bed and then going to flop down onto her own.  Gray sat up and tilted his head at her curiously.

“Why not?”

“Oh, for fuck’s...it’s just not, okay?  This isn’t some simple bedtime story problem that magically gets solved in the end.  You can’t just go up to someone, after doing something so horrible, no matter how much you love them, and just pop the question and expect everything to be okay.  It doesn’t work like that.  Do yourself a fuckin’ favor and grow up, you dumb brat.”  She shot him a glare that warned him not to continue his questioning if he didn’t want the consequences.  Then she turned around so she faced away from him and kicked off her boots, preparing to get some sleep.

Gray sat still for a few moments, still staring at her and taking everything in.  Then he took the amulet that he bubbled and let it pop on the table.  The amulet fell with a clatter before settling.

“Violet?”

She let out a frustrated sigh.  “What?”

“...Good night.”

“...Que pases buenas noches.”

After that, only silence followed.

[alec-writes]

The Darkness

All characters mentioned in this short story belong to me. Constructive criticism is always appreciated. ___________________________________________________________________________ Dear Darkness, The Marshmallows ran some tests on me again. Lots of needles and stuff that shocked me when it touched. But in the long run I guess it wasn’t unbearable. It was better than being locked up in this dark-- Dark wasn't strong enough. --It was beter than being locked up in this dark pitch black-- Better, but not quite. --this dark pitch black unnerving, safe, lonely, secure, horribly dark room that I call my bedroom. That was more accurate. Stripe set her notebook down quietly. Her eyes were still not yet adjusted to the dark and they were starting to hurt while she strained to see when she was writing. She looked about the room blindly. But this was all very ordinary for Stripe. Thinking back, she was quite angry when the Marshmallows gave her a notebook to write in and didn’t supply any light, but she had eventually trained herself to write in the inky black. At least, she hoped she did. The Marshmallows would never let her check outside of the room where it was light. Stripe was a very young girl, only around 13 or 14. She could not tell due to the fact that the Marshmallows would not tell her, so she had to estimate based only on books she read and movies she watched. She was tall, and very slender thanks to the strict diet she was kept on. Her hair was long and black. She both hated and liked it because it reminded her of the blackness in her room. Absentmindedly, she ran her fingers through the hair that lay lightly on her shoulder, feeling the nametag on her outfit beneath it. It read ‘Number 418-86’. The Marshmallows did not give her the name ‘Stripe’, of course. She gave it to herself. One day, when the Marshmallows had brought her into a room for testing, she was fascinated to find the walls and floors all covered in nothing but stripes. Never before had she seen such patterns on the normally blank walls. With sticky notes, each line was labeled ‘stripe’. She liked the ring to it. After all, it sounded a lot better than a group of numbers stuck together. Oddly enough, she had no inkling into what color her eyes were. The Marshmallows were careful to have no mirrors in the premises, so Stripe used her imagination. She imagined she had big, bright, green eyes, like a character in one of her books. Or maybe an unusual color, like violet or red. Sometimes she would get desperate to know, and she would try to ask one of the Marshmallows. But they never spoke. They only stared blankly at her with their big, white faces, their eyes covered by a black screen, and gestured to what they wanted her to do with their huge gloved hands. She sat idly for a long few minutes, trying to decide on what her next course of action would be. If she kept trying to write, she would most definitely get a headache. It was much too dark to read a book, not that she had one in the first place. They were supplied to her by the Marshmallows. As were her movies. All of them, she read or watched in a different room, one with light. It was strange and frightening, having her eyes finally adjusted to the dark and then having her door open. It was completely blinding, as if the very heavens were opening up and trying to suck her in. Sometimes she wished it would. Other times, it was just terrifying. The darkness was calm and quiet. It somehow both unnerved her and gave her comfort. The light was always painful and noisy. It terrified her, but she still found herself longing for it. Her eyes were beginning to adjust finally. She could see the outline of her bed, which was very simple and white. It was always made for her whenever she came back to it. The Marshmallows, Stripe thought, do everthing for me. They fed her, they bathed her, they made her bed and gave her all the necessities. So why did she find herself despising them so? Perhaps it was their eerie silence. Or the fact that they never showed their faces, or any skin at all for that matter. But without them, she would be lost. Without them, she would not know how to do a single thing for herself. She hated them. I need them. The strong silence continued. Not a sound was heard, besides her quiet breathing and the light thumping from the wall opposite to her. Stripe listened to the consistent thumping for another few moments before she realized that this was not a normal occurrence. The Marshmallows never made any noises around her room for as long as she could remember. She slowly got up and shuffled over to the wall. She sat down and put her ear to it. Thump...thump...thump... A constant rhythm. Not pausing or breaking in the slightest. “Hello?” Stripe spoke the word hesitantly. The thumping stopped. “Who’s there?” More silence. “Please talk to me…” Not a second later, her room filled with a blinding glow. There were suddenly noises all around her, most of them being footsteps. Two Marshmallows came in and gently took her by her arms with their thick, gloved hands. Strope still could not see, but she knew they were heading out the door for more tests. Despite it all, she had a growing, warm and happy feeling in her chest. Because just before the Marshmallows showed up, she heard a quiet voice say, “Hello.”