Title: Things in The Dark
Description: for: Lilla's Clem
Nikolaos - June 7, 2008 07:25 PM (GMT)
Thump.
Helena turned wildly, her white cane swinging with her body's motion. It was just a noise in the night. It was- it was nothing to worry about. She was safe- wasn't she? Helena wore all black tonight- her jeans a dark hue and her tank top the color of the night. Black nikes led her to school for her eyes could not.
The wind blew her wavy blonde hair over her shoulder, pulling and teasing the frightened teenager. Blank blue eyes swiveled in her head as she grasped her cane and turned to move forward- towards the school. She had tutoring tonight and she didn't want to miss it. She needed good grades- needed to get into a good college, get a god job, get a house, and live her life the way she wanted....
And- this fear- this fear would not, could not stop her. She walked on.
Mrrrrrow!
The noise was harsh and Helen stepped back with a jump as the cat hissed at her. She swung at it with her cane and continued on, her heart racing dangerously fast. What if he followed her? What if he found her and bit her again?
What if the crucifix around her neck didn't work? What if he killed her before she could shove the stake, that she had in her pocket, through his heart?
Lilla - June 7, 2008 08:27 PM (GMT)
Clementine was drunk.
It was only a few hours after sundown, and she was drunk. What could you say, the girl worked fast. She had been at White Mice, with a man she had met there last week, but they were playing rap music and two of the man’s college buddies had shown up and were trying to talk them into going to a house party and Clementine didn’t want to go.
So, she took her drink (it wasn’t finished yet!) and walked out of the club without saying good bye. Nobody followed her, so she decided to take the long way home. She walked along the sideway, sipping from her glass, until she realized it was finished. She reached down and set the glass neatly beside a stop sign, then straightened up and happily skipped away towards the high school.
She was on the sidewalk across the street from Matheson when she heard a thump, out of the corner of her eye, saw someone startle and wave a white stick around. Clem stopped walking and turned to face the commotion. She saw a little grey cat race down the street, and realized the little blonde girl seemed frightened.
“Are… are you okay?” She called out, a little uncertainly. It was only a cat, after all.
Nikolaos - June 9, 2008 02:00 PM (GMT)
“Are… are you okay?”
"I'm.... I'm fine Ma'am," Helena replied, hearing the woman's voice to the right of her. She continued walking, continued on her way. She had to get to school- had to get inside and away from the unknown darkened streets.
She doubted vampires would be weakened by the streetlights but she was sure that once she got out of sight and into the school she'd be safe. Helena's heart raced with every step, with every noise. She was paranoid. And, it wasn't fun at all. She had little protection and little knowlegde of vampirekind. She only knew what Chi had tld her. That stuff in the books- half of it was false anyways....
She frowned as she remembered what her parents had said when she told them.
"Vampires aren't really darling- you're just imagining things...."
It wasn't fair- they didn't understand. They hadn't felt that boy- the silver vampire-bite her. They hadn't seen the colors that he showed her- the tempting hues that haunted her every time she felt asleep.
Colors.
She could dream of nothing else.
Lilla - June 9, 2008 03:31 PM (GMT)
Clementine watched as the girl started walking away quickly. Well, jeeze! She’d only asked a question! No need to run away! She made a little scoffing noise under her breath, and then shrugged.
“Okay, well… It was just a cat. It’s gone now. Down the road… Might get hit by a car or something, poor kitty…” She rambled a little bit before she paused and looked both ways down the street, and skipped across it to walk on the same sidewalk as Helena.
“I’m not stalking you or anything!” She cheerfully, drunkenly called ahead to Helena. “I really had to cross the street.”
If Helena dreamt about colours, Clementine lived in them. Her dress was a rich emerald green colour, the skirt made with extra material so it billowed out whenever Clementine twirled on the dance floor. She wore bright yellow shoes, had painted her mouth an ox blood red, smudged green and purple shadows onto her eyelids, and had a rainbow coloured ribbon tied around her forehead.
She played with the long strand of pearl beads looped around her neck, beginning to hum a Sinatra song and as she continued to skip along.
Nikolaos - June 15, 2008 09:22 PM (GMT)
The dress whispered as the woman turned. Why was she following? And, as if she had heard Helena's unspoken question, she answered it.
"I'm sorry I'm rude, but I'm afraid I rather hate the night- I'm in a rush. Fine, you're not stalking me...." she replied, hearing the offense in the woman's voice. yes, it had only been a cat- but what if it had been a vampire? The word rang in her mind over and over again.
Vampire.
She almost flinched with the pain of the memories and continued on her hurried way, not bothering to look back at the other woman. Would she follow ehr again? Perhaps?
"I have to go to school...." she explained, still hearing the woman behind her. "For- tutoring...."
OOC: don't really know how to reply. I'll have a better post next time :mwaha:
Lilla - June 16, 2008 01:13 PM (GMT)
Clem stopped her skipping and simply walked, listening to the girl’s apology and explanation. The effects of her last drink were slowly wearing off, and she was getting bored. She started to think about the empty apartment waiting for her, or worse, of the argumentative friend who could be there.
“Oh, tutoring…” She said vaguely, confirming that she was paying attention and not preoccupied with her own thoughts, which was where she was headed.
She sighed, and then seemed to brighten once more.
“If you don’t like walking alone, I could walk with you to the school. I mean, I know it’s not much further, but we’re both headed in that direction anyway.” Clementine offered, watching the figure of the girl ahead of her. Why didn’t she turn around, engage in a normal conversation?
She sounded nice enough, only a little too cheerful, which could be blamed on the drink. She was just one young woman, wearing a whispering dress. What danger could she pose? Half of the time she couldn’t even remember herself.
“My name is Clementine.” She added, as an afterthought.
Nikolaos - June 16, 2008 02:05 PM (GMT)
"Fine. Walk with me if you want-" Helena said offhand, turning as if to see, but she couldn't. Her blank eyes flicked to where Clementine stood, but she didn't see her. She could only hear the swishing of the dress. That was the closest to seeing that Helena would ever get again.
Because the colors were gone....
She tapped her walking stick on the ground gently before turning away and moving on towards the school, her pace slowing for the other. And how would she know if someone was a vampire? How could she tell? Did they smell differently? No, no- the vampire of before had no distinct smell. He just smelled- like copper. Maybe that was their smell? Metallic and rough? But this woman didn't smell anything like that? So, maybe Helena was safe?
No, she'd never be safe in this city- and even if she was safe- her paranoia always ruined it for her.
"I'm Helena I guess-" the blind girl said with a shrug as she moved on, walking through the eternal darkness of the night- her everlasting night. And dawn would never come- now that she knew- Dawn would never come.
Dawn was relief- a freedom in the scorching sun- a freedom that Helena would never possess. She had been thrown into this demonic darkened world unwillingly. And now, the nightmarish figures of her own imagination only haunted her- made her life a paranoid hell.
Lilla - June 18, 2008 06:17 PM (GMT)
Clementine finally realised that Helena was blind when she turned to look back at her. It was the blank look in Helena's blue eyes – Clementine's maternal grandmother had been blind, had had the same vacant stare in her brown eyes. Clementine shrugged to herself and hurried her pace to catch up with Helena. Once she was beside the girl, she slowed down to her pace and walked beside her.
"Well nice to meet you Helena," said Clementine. She walked quietly for a moment, before she spoke again, as if finding the silence awkward. "So, what are you getting tutored in?"
Clem almost sounded like she could be a high schooler, herself; she spoke in a lilting, breathy voice that was now only slightly slurred from intoxication. She certainly didn't seem like a seventy-five year old.
"I never understood why someone would go back to school, I mean, don't you spend enough time trapped there during the day?"
Nikolaos - June 19, 2008 01:24 PM (GMT)
"I am doing the tutoring-" Helena said with a frown. "Another boring night of teaching kids English literature. I hate it. I hate everything about my life...." she mused, not to Clementine, but to the night air- and possibly.... to herself as well.
"I never understood why someone would go back to school, I mean, don't you spend enough time trapped there during the day?"
"To get a good job- one must get into a good college. To get into a good college- one must do well in school. I'm tutoring because it'll look good on my college application- and when I go to college I'll study hard- graduate, get a great job, buy a house far, far away.... where the sun never stops shining---"
Helena shook her head. She had to get away, now more than ever. Her parents thought she was crazy- and her own nightmares were keeping her awake. She could barely breathe sometimes when the nightmares came- when the colors flashed through her eyes. And maybe- maybe she looked forward to those colors- maybe she looked forward to the rush of fear? No, not possibly. She must, she must get away from here. Maybe Alaska? In the summer the sun simply didn't set- there'd be no vampires there....
She'd be safe until winter- and then she'd just move away again- to someplace else where night is scarce.
Lilla - June 19, 2008 05:54 PM (GMT)
"Oh, you're the tutor... Sorry." She laughed at her mistake, but quieted down when Helena began to ramble to herself. She could tell Helena was still upset, but she though the girl was still startled from the cat and being joined by a stranger.
"I never liked college. My daddy got me into Vassar, but New York wasn't my scene." She paused for a moment, thrown back in time to her wildest, most destructive phase. "Oh, gosh, I haven't thought about that in awhile!"
She sounded like a girl gossiping with a friend. "I remember we used to sneak away to Columbia, for the co-ed parties, those were wild!" She laughed, and shook her head. "Still, though, it couldn't beat Chicago. I hitchhiked home before the end of my first semester and just put up with my parent's drama."
Drama was putting it mild. As Clementine recalled, there had been china thrown, tears shed, threats uttered. But Clem had ignored it in all, hiding in the smoke and jazz of the speakeasies, and eventually her parents had left her alone to self-destruct.
"So, where are you hoping to get in?" She asked Helena.
Nikolaos - June 24, 2008 06:14 PM (GMT)
"Well, if you didn't like college- if you didn't stay- then where do you work now? What kind of job do you have that you didn't need a college diploma? Does it pay well?"
Honestly, Helena loved to learn- loved literature and science. But if she didn't have to go- if she could get a job right after high school graduation- get away as soon as possible.... then she'd be able to run- to run to safety.
Clementine mused about college days and sneaking out to parties and Helena found herself feeling very.... included? She was talking to her as if she were- a friend, a comrade or something of the sort. She blinked once and looked to Clementine with disbelief.
"You talk as if we're friends...." she stated, rather dryly- afraid of truly letting this stranger know just how wonderful it felt to hear a friendly voice that wasn't her parents and wasn't his.
"Chicago? I've always wanted to visit there though- what kind of drama- if you don't mind me asking.... I'm curious- that's all." Clementine had hinted that she had stories, wonderful tales that could maybe take Helena away from this horrible place and to a new realm of fiction and fantasy- an escape.
"Well, really I'd just like to get into any Ivy League school. Yale is my favorite. The only problem is- my reading comprehension and biology and math skills are excellent but my writing skills are very poor because of my condition.... I just don't understand how to put thoughts to paper sometime. I'm getting better- and usually my other grades make up the difference on my SAT and ACT but still.... I wish there was a way I could speak my college essay."
Was she actually talking to this woman? Socializing? With a stranger? Why? It must have been her voice- something in her voice.... like Chi's voice.
Lilla - June 25, 2008 03:46 PM (GMT)
"Wow, tons of questions for somebody who didn't want to walk with me in the first place! There's no reason to think we're not friends, is there?" Clementine laughed, but it was a bubbly, kind laugh. The two girls clearly had different views on strangers; Helena distrusted them, but Clem considered them all friends she hadn't met yet. At least until they proved they weren't.
"See, I was the opposite. I could write an essay like nobody's business. I think it ran in my family, my brother was a poet. But get into science and I'd rather go dancing." She laughed again, remembering the hours she had spent cramming for biology and chemistry tests in school. She had cried over it then, but now she laughed. If she had only known how her life was going to turn out, she never would have bothered to waste her energy on those topics.
"And what kind of drama didn't my family have?" She sighed, shaking her head. "They were old money and very proper, and I didn't fit in. When I showed up on the doorstep, when I was supposed to be studying for finals in New York, they acted as if the sky had caved in, as if I'd murdered someone. Said I'd shamed the family name, and would never see any of their money and I'd never go anywhere in life." Clem herself had said things just as bad, if not worse, but she conveniently left those out whenever she retold the story.
"I'm a seamstress now," She continued. "To answer your question. I make and alter clothes. I might not make a fortune, but I'm doing okay. I make enough to feed the cat, and to help out a friend every now and then." She had one particular friend in mind, Harrison. Far from only helping out 'every now and then', Clem frequently had to cover his rent and buy him groceries, when he came back from the track or the casino with less money and more debt that he left with.
Nikolaos - July 6, 2008 12:51 AM (GMT)
OOC: sorry it's short :(
Helena listening intently, her brow furrowing as she listened while she walked. Her cane tapped lightly against the gravel and she stepped carefully- even though she knew these streets so well- by the back of her hand. Hell, she could walk this route to school with her eyes closed.... Not that it made any difference- she was blind either way.
"We aren't friends." Helena replied softly. "I just met you. Don't even know you--"
She shouldn't trust strangers. What if they turned out to be like him? What if they turned out to be vampires? She was paranoid of everyone these days. She wanted to just right out ask the woman if she had fangs, but thought that would be a. rather crude and b. silly.
It'd also make her look like a raving lunatic- a fool- a stupid little girl.
"Seamstress.... Well, I can't possibly do that- I can't see colors."
Colors.
Why did everything always come back to the beautiful- the enchanting- colors....
Lilla - July 9, 2008 02:23 AM (GMT)
"Well, aren't you a wet blanket." Clementine frowned when Helena continued to insist that they were not friends. She was sobering up now, and she was finding the walk home less amusing than it had been when it had the fuzzy warm feeling brought on by the booze. Now she was just slightly cold, and she was walking with someone who didn't seem entirely pleased to be with her.
"I never suggested you should be a seamstress." Clem sulked. "I've been doing it since my grandmother taught me to sew, and I'm good at it. I wouldn't advise anyone to just jump into the business." She was silent for a moment or so, before she realized how far they had walked.
"Well, we're almost at your school. I'm sure you'll be glad to go in and study, and be rid of the party girl who talks to strangers on the street." She didn't exactly sound mean, but her voice wasn't as bright as it had been during the rest of their conversation.
"I think I'm going to go home and blast Janis Joplin. I'm in the mood for some Southern Comfort." She decided, announcing her plans for no reason in particular. She'd do it, too… She had more than half a flask in her liquor cabinet and Pearl was already in her new stereo system.
