Yes this is a rewrite of Alexis.
I've finally settled for a first chapter, i always found it the hardest since you always have to grab the readers attention or they'll never continue reading.
Anyway! this is dedicated to cluelesscat, rebelmewphoenix, Kai-Hiwatari-Lover, CheshireMax, MissCloud and Crazy anime chick since 1993, and everyone else who read and liked the original Alexis. Thank you to everyone who encouraged me to continue this, writing always was my only creative outlet and without it i feel considerably empty. pity i don't actually have enough time to get anything doe and i'm hardly ever satisfie with what i come out with most of the time.
I know I said i's update this sooner, but hey if you know me you should know I'm world's worst procrastinator.
anyway this is a slightly different layout and i'm hoping to include it in the next few chapters too. a little backgorund (from the past of the characters) followed by the present. i hope you like it.
I'd appreciate it if you reviewed this after you read it, critical reviews too please. i love you all! AND ON WITH THE STORY!
The lady stepped out of her front door, hugging her throws around her shoulders against the winter freeze. Her stooped shoulders seemed to shrink into her as she bent over to set the rubbish bag in the box to the side of her front doorstep.
A sudden drum roll of tiny feet seemed to whisk from one side of the street to the other and then disappeared under the muffled sounds of the cold snow filled street. The lady looked up, the light from the fire indoors sending her shadow's head across the street to her opposite neighbour's front door. She glanced left and right, but nothing but the snow and the silence occupied the empty street.
She shrugged her shoulders once and turned back into the warmth of her glowing home.
By that time, the patter of quick, tiny feet had reached several streets away and was heading along another dark street. A church loomed up at the end of the close, the flickering lights from within sending dancing shadows up and down the houses on either side. With a great leap, the running figure jumped up the five steps to the large oak doors and reached out to knock.
Before their knuckles even brushed against the wood, the door was flung inwards and a large man loomed over the small form.
"You?" barked the man, "what are you doing here?"
"Ma…mah," the small child gasped for breath, which came in quick bursts with the accompanying plume of white vapour.
"Didn't I tell you not to come here!" he roared, his boot making contact with the child's stomach, sending the light figure flying back down the stairs into a heap in the snow.
Red feet stuck out from under a grey shawl that had been wrapped around the child, but was now bunched around its legs. The child was a girl, sobbing in the snow which fell around her as she glanced up at the towering man as he came down the steps slowly.
"Demon filth!" he spat, the white collar disappearing under his double chin as he lumbered down the final step. "You have no right to enter our holy sanctuary and contaminate it with your evil, devilish taint. How many times do I have to throw you out you-"
"Mama Zoya is dying!" she screeched, cutting off his rant. "Come!" she cried out, the sound coming from deep inside her, the grief spilling over as her tears came in torrents. She stumbled to her feet, reaching out to his sleeve as if to pull him after her.
His arm swung back, avoiding her touch, and then came forward, knocking her to the side. For a moment she stood motionless as he roared, "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" and then her knees buckled from under her as he strode past, his black cassock sweeping the snow behind him.
The girl flopped into the snow, a thin layer already settling on her like a blanket of death.
From the roof of the church came a hiss, as two sets of glowing jade-green eyes followed the black figure as it disappeared around the corner.
She settled back into the corner of her couch, in the corner of her room, surveying it over the corner of her magazine, which she held in her left hand. In her trembling right hand she clutched a sloshing glass of crystal clear vodka that assaulted her highly sensitive neko-jin nose.
The muffled purr of sleeping came from across the room and Alexis allowed herself to be lulled by the sound, merged with the constant tik-tok of the grandfather clock by the door, as she gulped down glass after glass of the devilish drink.
It was a while before her sight seemed to haze and the grandfather clock appeared to loom out at her from across the room, like a threatening boxer clicking his tongue at her before the big blow to the gut, head or wherever.
"Stupid fuck! What have you gotten yourself into?" she glanced back down at the year old magazine where spread across the double page was a photo of Boris Balkov and the Blitzkrieg Boys. She turned over to a caption that read "AND THEN…" and just below it was another showing their confrontation the year before. She sighed once and flung the magazine to the other side of the couch.
She'd be able to look after herself. Right? Wasn't she Alexis? Fierce, ferocious and highly independent. She hugged herself, suddenly feeling vulnerable and unloved. She studied the sleeping mound on her bed across the room. Couldn't she do better? Couldn't she just live? Couldn't she just pick herself up and leave? Everything that tied her down in this city had been torn away. Everything that had made her feel like this was home had disappeared.
"You don't belong here, eh kitten? You're a free spirit. I can see it in your eyes. Gold. So gold."
She shivered, remembering the hand that had caressed her cheek, rings so cold on her skin.
"A free spirit." The alcoholic breath rose from her glass of vodka. "My maverick…my sweet, vicious, gentle killer." Her arms around herself turned into his embrace. "You'll run as soon as I let go, no?"
And he'd let go. They'd all let go. And she'd let go of them too…hadn't she? If so, then why on earth was she still here, watching them from afar, keeping them in sight, even if it was at the edge of her periphery? She sensed a slight niggling in her mind.
'What is it?'
'You need to leave in a bit. You've got a big appointment ahead of you.' The low purr that infiltrated her psyche was the voice of her bitbeast Pantera, a great big black panther.
'I know.' She thought to herself about the way in which Pantera had been acting. As far as she could remember, he'd always been a part of her consciousness, protecting her through everything, had shared every experience with her. Yet for the past few months he'd begun to disappear, at no specific time. She sighed loudly and got up, strolling casually across the room to stare down at the sleeping face in her bed.
Probably sensing the neko-jin's gaze the sleeper's eyes flickered open, blinking against the light of the morning filtering through the gap in the black curtains straight onto her pale face. She smoothed back her hair, yawning slightly.
"Thank you," she murmured. She smiled shyly, clutching the covers closer. "What's the time?" she whispered, barely audible to an ordinary human's ears, but clear as crystal and loud enough for a full neko-jin.
"Quarter past eight," rumbled Alexis, her voice coming out deep and masculine. "I need to leave soon."
"Oh. Oh!" realisation had taken a while to it the girl. "Then I should go. I'm so sorry I bothered you." She slipped out from under the covers, her pale pink underwear matching the light blush on her cheeks. She grabbed at her clothes, the blush spreading and deepening. She pulled on her jeans, doing them up at her hips, and slipped into her crumpled, blood-stained shirt.
"Take this." Alexis held out a plain white shirt, which she had pulled out of her cupboard. "It should fit you."
"These are girl's clothes," whispered the girl, not expecting Alexis to hear it.
"They belonged to a friend," lied Alexis, as she settled back onto the still warm bed. She shut her eyes and allowed the warmth to seep up into her back. She sniffed, the fabric clinging to her face filtering the smells around her. But she knew instantly where the girl was, even with her eyes closed.
"Ouch!" squeaked the girl as Alexis gripped her wrist, "I just wanted to see."
"Sorry." Alexis opened her eyes and turned her head away in time before the girl's lips could brush the fabric right over her lips. 'Stupid fool! Stop pushing yourself on to me! Can't you see I'm not interested?'
The girl punted slightly, but pulled back nonetheless. She slipped her hand out of Alexis's light touch and made her way to the door, her bloodied shirt in one hand and her purse, which she picked up from the bedside table, in her other hand. "Well I'll see you around?" she said, but it was obvious it was more a question than a statement.
"Sure," murmured Alexis as she watched the girl hesitantly close the door behind her.
'You'll get a lot of that if you carry on with this psychotic idea of yours.'
'So I'm a psycho now? Thanks for the support!'
'You know I'll still love you no matter what you turn out to be,' chuckled Pantera. 'I mean you have no one else…'
'…' Alexis ground her teeth. 'Thanks a bunch!'
She walked along the gravel path; shoulders hunched, eyes looking straight at the ground; as inconspicuous as usual. She didn't want attention, yet.
'Can I do this? Will it really work?' The thoughts ran around her mind.
A set of steps came into her line of vision. Dark asphalt steps. Looking up at the great oak doors she let out a sigh, 'well…' she told herself, 'this is your last opportunity to turn back, as soon as you walk up those steps your gonna be someone new, a totally different person.' Her fingers entwined themselves in a strand of her hair. Taking a deep breath she walked up the steps. Upon reaching the front door she pressed the bell. The sound was loud and tolled like church bells. Instantly she heard hard shoes rapping on stone floors. At about eyelevel, she watched as the person behind the door pulled out one of the panels in the door. Two cold grey eyes looked out at her, "Who are you? What do you want?" came the acidic hiss. The grey eyes looked her up and down, a disapproving scowl settling above them in the colourless skin.
"My name is Alexis, I have an appointment with Mr Balkov," she said as she pulled out a letter from deep inside her black trench coat.
"Take that atrocious thing off of your face, I can barely hear you!"
"I said! …My name is Alexis and I have an appointment," her voice louder and deeper, yet still somewhat muffled. She shoved the letter up to the hole in the door and waited.
"Very well, you may come in." the displeasure evident in his tone. The door opened revealing a dark corridor, scarcely lit. Alexis breathed in and let out a deep sigh, "well," she muttered to herself, "here goes nothing," she stepped inside the shadowed hallway.
I hope you all enjoyed this as much as i enjoyed writing it. I'll put up the next chapter as soon as i'm done and they'll all be about this length if not longer XD