prologue: introductions
The low rumble of the vehicle's motor was the only sound as the car tore up the driveway, leaving a swirl of golden leaves in its wake. As it wove its way through the winding forest road- no, path, road was too grand a word for it- I leaned my head against the glass of the window. "Xigbar, please drive more carefully."
"We're already here, geezer," he replied, coasting the car to a stop in front of the house. I rolled my eyes, not taking the opportunity to point out that his moniker for me was utterly unsuitable, seeing as I was younger than he was. Instead, I simply unbuckled my seat belt and escaped the car before he felt the need to drive at unreasonable speeds for any longer.
My other companions followed suit, exiting the vehicle and stretching. It had been a long trip out here, but I was satisfied with the results.
"You sure know how to pick 'em," Xigbar muttered, leaning against the hood of the car. "Could you find a more frou-frou place?"
"Are you kidding, Xiggy?" The blond boy to my right was practically bouncing with excitement. "This is the kind of place with ghosts. And hidden passages. And-"
"Demyx," I said, still exhausted from his unending excitement during the drive. "Could you relax for just a minute?"
Xigbar chuckled. "Come on, help me with the geezer's stuff. He brought practically his entire lab." The two of them circled the car, and began to unload the mélange of boxes and suitcase we had brought. After observing them for a moment, I turned to my last companion.
"You're quiet, Zexion."
The slate-haired boy looks at me with a tiny amount of annoyance in his eyes. "And what do you expect me to be noisy about?"
I shrugged. "Salient point. But you shouldn't be so sullen about it."
Zexion glared at me. "Vexen, we're in the middle of nowhere, hiding a psychopath. There's nothing good in this entire situation." His voice was hushed, half-hidden under one of Xigbar's raunchy jokes.
"I know," I agreed. "But try and deal with it. We'll be able to do a good deal of research out here, away from all of the nonsense of the city."
He only shook his head in reply. I sighed, turning to face the house. It was fairly fanciful, average for its era of architecture, painted a creamy shade that made it shine amongst the red- and gold-leafed trees. It was a beautiful picture.
Speaking of which…
I motioned for Zexion to follow me, starting toward the house. "I have to ask you… this house has both a groundskeeper and a housekeeper. Don't mention anything about why we're here to them, alright?"
"I'm not an idiot," he replied, brushing past me to make his way up the steps. In front of him, the door to the house opened. I raised an eyebrow, but relaxed when the dim light of the foyer revealed the silhouette of a slim girl, who I took to be the housekeeper.
Zexion paused, glancing back at me. I stepped up next to him, fixing my gaze on the girl. She immediately looked at the floor, and mumbled, "Would you be Vexen Ackerman, sir?"
"I am," I replied. "And you are…?"
"Xion, sir, the housekeeper."
She was still staring at the ground as Xigbar struggled up to join us. "What did you pack, geezer? These cases weight a ton…" He glanced at Xion. "Who's that?"
I rolled my eyes. "She had just finished saying that she was the housekeeper, Xigbar. Try to keep up, would you? And be careful with that. It's fragile." I turned back to Xion, and shrugged with a bit of remorse. "As I was going to say, I am Vexen. This is Zexion Oublié" –I gestured to him- "and Xigbar Hohei. The blond over there" –I waved generally behind me- "is Demyx Tenir. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"Are these the new tenants?" The voice drifted up to the porch from behind me, and I turned to see a man with a shock of pink hair. "I'm Marluxia, the groundskeeper." He held up a hand as I opened my mouth to make another round of introductions. "No, I heard who everyone was the first time. If you have any concerns about the grounds, bring them to me. I'll be seeing you."
With that, the man strode off, his gardening tools flashing from the bucket he held them in at his side. I raised an eyebrow at his departing back, but turned back to Xion with a faint, and just slightly forced, smile on my face. "Well, would you mind showing us the house?"
She nodded, and turned around, leading us into the depths of the foyer. Despite its shadowed appearance from the outside, it proved to be quite well-lit on the inside, with a sweeping staircase as its central feature. Xion paused, turning to face me. "What would you like to see, sir?"
"Somewhere I can dump this crap," Xigbar muttered from the back, still struggling with what I noted to be the heaviest of the cases I had bought. "Please don't say it's upstairs."
"There's a study here, yes?" I asked, shooting him an annoyed glance. "That would do."
"Of course, sir." She bobbed her head, and slipped past me, opening one of the heavy-looking wooden doors by the stairs. "It's just this way."
The house was quite large, filled with rooms covered in dark wallpaper with wide windows. Xigbar grumbled throughout our entire trip through the house, heaving the box along. Eventually, Xion paused in front of a door, and then swung it open. The study was closer to my laboratory than any study I'd ever seen in size, but I wasn't complaining. I gestured to a table for Xigbar to place down his box, which he did with another round of muttering.
"You can bring the rest of it in here," I told him, letting a note of superiority slip into my tone. "Xion, the rest of the house, if you would?"
Later –
"It's really happening, isn't it?"
He turned to look at where she was sitting on the railing of the porch, one foot gracefully balanced against the posts. "Everything says that it would be now."
Xion sighed, and closed her eyes. "It's all just… oh, I feel terrible for them."
Marluxia smiled, just slightly. "They brought it on themselves. Don't feel bad."
She looked up at the sky, where the moon was just cresting over the horizon. "None of this was supposed to happen."
"It did, though." He bent back toward his gardening, yanking a weed out of the ground with more force than was strictly necessary. "We have to live with what happened in the past. And with everything else that it's brought us."
A/N: Hello, and welcome to my latest project! I'm going for more of a horror angle this time, so the story will be revealed slowly... just stick with it, and all of the little hints in this chapter will eventually lead to something. (I'm also unused to writing horror, so forgive me if it's not very scary...)
There are a couple of subtle references in this story, mostly in the characters' last names. Zexion has the same last name as he did in a story I wrote previous to this, Don't Stop Believing. Vexen's last name is a small salute to a fanfic entitled Love Never Dies, which you can read on sora-x-roxas-4ever's deviantART. (actually, that story was one of my inspirations for this. so, if you note similarities between the two, that would be why... the plots will be very, very different, I promise.)
And... I think that's about it! ^-^ There's a few more things I'd like to explain about this story, but you'll have to wait until more of the plot appears.
Until next time,
-Frae
