Vampire Hunter

A random scene with random characters.  I doubt I'll ever finish it or go anywhere with it, but here's this bit anyway!

He walked into the room, cloak swirling, dark hair falling into his eyes, an air of faintly the faintly dangerous about his person as if in a shroud-

“Oh, please” Said Andy (short for Andrea, not Andrew) with a roll of her eyes.  “You can’t seriously think that will work.  Could you have come up with anything more obvious??” she asked in exasperation.  Dane shot her a look comprised of equal parts indignation and embarrassment.  “I thought I was supposed to look like a vampire hunter” he said, initial air of danger morphing surprisingly fast into one of wounded pride.  “This is how vampire hunters are supposed to look!”

“No” countered Andy, “that’s how vampire hunters look according to teenage girls who have no life and a habit of turning their sexual fantasies into crappy fiction.” She leaned back in her chair, a battered old puke green laz-z-boy recliner, that Andy claimed was the most comfortable chair on the planet, on the day she decided, on a whim, to drag it home from the garbage two blocks down. 

“What you have to do is actually look like a vampire hunter.  You have to fit in.  These guys are the real deal” she said, smacking her black-lace, skirt clad knee for emphasis. “And they have to mistake you for the real deal, too.  Which in that”-she curled her lip in a faint sneer- “will not happen.”

“Fuck it!” Dane exclaimed in exasperation, flinging his hands up in the air, then collapsing onto her bed with a long suffering groan. 

“If you’re going to be so goddamn picky, why did you tell me to put together my own disguise in the first place?  I should have known you’d just decide to do it yourself, anyway” his voice was muffled slightly by the covers his face was pressed into, but the annoyance in his words still came across quite clearly.

With a theatrical sigh that let anyone listening know just what she thought of always having to do everything herself (for that sigh communicated all of that quite clearly), Andy heaved herself off the sagging old chair in a decidedly un-graceful manner, and headed over to her closet to see what she could find. 

Mirror Mirror

I look at myself in the mirror. Brown hair, straight (lank, I think), brown freckles on beige skin. Colorless lips, washed out, gray eyes. What does that face tell me? Who am I really? I is such a big word. ME. I don’t know who ME is!!

I pinch my cheeks, tug outwards. Whiskers, silver shiny and luxurious, sprout instantaneously. I pull on my nose and it lengthens into a miniature elephants trunk. My ears droop in Spaniel like fashion, my pupils turn to slits as reptilian lids flick restlessly over my eyeballs.

Once it starts, I can’t control it. I just watch.

My eyes grow and shrink, slide around my head, so that, momentarily, all I see is the room behind me. They grow bulbous as a frogs, slit-pupiled like a cat, multifaceted as a fly.

My hair grows longer, shorter. Covers my entire body in the rough skin of a Rhinoceros, my back in the spines of a Porcupine, my head the crest of a rainforest bird.

My breathing speeds up, heart beating faster.

thump-Thump thump-Thump thump-Thump

The changes seem to match the speed of my increasing heart rate.

Thump-THUMP giraffe neck, head hits the ceiling

Thump-THUMP a mermaids tail and I start to fall

Thump-THUMP horses legs and I steady myself

I’m breathing too fast, my heart is beating against the walls of my body, struggling to get out!

In my chest I feel a tightness, a knot curling tighter into itself, compacting my being into a single ball of fear, of frantic uncertainty.

I watch the mirror. The bits of creature disappear, to make way for wavy black hair, curling around my very human ears. I grow a good six inches taller, my breasts melt away, shoulders broaden, hips narrow, jaw and nose become more pronounced. Stubble covers my chin, a dark shadow. Incredulous eyes, deep blue and ringed by darkest lashes, stare out at me.

ME?!??

The knot attempts to tighten, yet it can’t get any tighter, so instead it explodes.

I wail, a great, wavering cry of anguish. My soul tearing into a million pieces. A piece for every part that isn’t me.

WHO AM I!!!!

I collapse, my knees hitting the old hard wood floor with a sharp crack. I welcome the shoot of pain.

I curl up, rap my arms around my knees.

Sobbing.

Tears run down in twisting streamlets.

Run down my cheeks.

Down my arms where my face is pressed close for comfort. Drip from my arm onto the floor.

I watch the tear-lakes form.

Wait.

I stop.

Everything holds still, the dust motes stop drifting, watching me instead. ME?

I stand up, uncertainty shivering through my shaking body.

My head hangs down, breathe catching. I look at the mirror.

Brown hair, straight (lank, I think), brown freckles on beige skin. Colorless lips, washed out, gray eyes.

ME?

Me.

Grass-Turning

The girl sits at her desk, tapping a pencil on the mottled wooden surface.

Taptaptap

The motion is slightly frantic. Irritated.

Taptaptaptaptaptap

“I should damn well know what to write” she thinks to herself, frustration making her fist tight around the pencil, her shoulders clenched. The hard wooden chair makes her shift uncomfortably, muscles numbing in prolonged contact with the unforgiving seat.

She takes a deep breath, attempting to center herself, breathes in, holds it. The air is lightly scented with the dying flowers on her bed table, cloying sweetness just barely perceptible. Dust makes her nose tickle slightly, almost sneeze. She squeezes her eyes tight shut, feeling the tightness in every muscle, then, exhales. Everything loosens, and, just like that, she lets her soul take flight.

Flying, higher, further, lifting, up up up-

A soft meadow rolls. Literally. Circles of grass, clinging loosely together, wobble-run past. The small creatures, skin nearly the same colour as the grass they gather, racing in place in their grassy wheels, shoot quick, curious glances at the newcomer as they pass by. The newcomer sees nothing but flashes of deep blue pupils against stark white, and the flurry of green-yellow spinning.

The newcomer smiles in contentment, excitement close behind, and her interest piqued. What stories does this place hold?

The smooth air caresses her, and her nose tingles at the warm smell of dusty grasses. She wiggles her toes, now bare, in the cushioning grass. The prickly softness lifts her spirits even higher. Perhaps those creatures? She thinks. Perhaps they hold the tale I’m searching for.

Light patterned skirt, just now noticed (Did it exist before I noticed it? She wonders.), swirling gently around her legs, almost tangling. Every sense always seems more pronounced when I’m story-walking She thinks delightedly. Better for the stories. They like to be fully alive.

She walks downward on a gentle slope, following the way of the Grass-Turners, as she’s mentally started to call them. And, as soon as she thought it, that was their name anyway. Several more grass-wheels fly awkwardly past, seemingly barely managing to stay upright, held by the sheer willpower of the curious Grass-Turners. They must live in some type of hut. Or underground? No, they seem to be lovers of open air, open places. It must be huts.

And, of course, what does she see but huts as she gets to the bottom of the slope. She doesn’t really notice the fact that no huts were visible from the top of the rolling slope. As imagined (for imagination is always key), they are built of the same grasses as the grass wheels. The ground is drier here, rougher on the soles of her feet. The grasses already harvested. She sees the creatures tumble out of their grassy wheels as they’re carelessly stopped by simply leaning to the side. The small green bodies, huge eyes no longer interested in anything but the building of the lodgings. Chittering high, keening, exited voices, happiness clearly evident as they flit around, weaving and collecting. She watches in fascination. A pattern seems to be emerging in the outside decoration. Strange marks, figures, and somehow she knows that they are vastly important. Yes. She smiles in triumph.

Her hand grasps the pencil firmly, she shifts on her seat, and starts to write.