Notes: Check out the Year's End Fanfiction Awards at the Daughters of the Moon Writers forum.
"Black and White and Red"
The little girl skipped down the street. Red pigtails bounced merrily. Pleated skirt swished from side to side. She giggled and licked the ice cream cone a kind old lady had bought for her.
It was like watching a movie set in the 1950's. Bran didn't know why he was so captivated by the girl, except that he was an artist, and a black and white photograph of such a perfect blast from the past would be excellent to enter into his high school's annual photography contest.
And so he followed her. The crowded streets of LA seemed to part for her, and although this helped Bran keep track of her, it hindered his ability to catch up. Just before he could reach her, the waves of people would crash down on him.
That wasn't the only strange way people reacted to her. Bran couldn't help but notice how every man, mostly his father's age, stopped longer than the others, stared longer than the others. But Bran didn't waste time trying to understand. He had to have her.
He finally caught up with her. She sat on a park bench, cheerfully licking chocolate ice cream from atop a waffle cone. The sun shone down, casting a heavenly glow around her. Birds chirped a springy melody from the trees.
"Excuse me?" he approached her carefully, not wanting to scare her.
She didn't look over at him. "Can I help you?" her bubbly girl's voice had a strange edge to it, just beneath the surface.
"Um… I'm sorry… this is going to sound weird, but well…" he rubbed the back of his head. "See I go to Torney High, and we have this photo contest, and I thought you were cute so…" he cringed, realizing what he had just said.
She giggled and turned her face to him, a big cheeky, chocolate dotted smile overtaking her features. "Aren't you sweet? Of course, you can take a photo of me."
He looked at her for a moment longer. She was older than he expected. The girlish clothes had hidden her more teenaged figure from him earlier, but now, so close…
"I'm Bran," he said.
She giggled again. "Nyssa." He looked into her eyes, but there was nothing. A sterile void. He quickly looked away.
"Um… if you could just keep doing what you were doing, I'll just take a photo or two and leave you alone."
She shrugged and began methodically licking her ice cream cone once again.
He took more than a few pictures. The roll of film was reduce to only a few more available shots by the time she started to lick the melted chocolate from her lithe little fingers.
She finally looked at him again, as he lowered the camera from his face.
"Is that all you needed?"
"Yeah… yeah."
She smiled her cheeky smile once again, this time the chocolate wiped away. "Well, it was nice to meet you, Bran."
"It was nice to meet you too," he called to her quickly retreating back.
-
Bran didn't know what came over him in the days to come. It was like he was in some sort of trance.
He developed the photographs the day after taking them. Perfect shots, every last one of them. Adorable, playful. Nyssa.
He found himself staring at them. One by one he would shuffle through them. One by one, memorizing her little mouth, her button nose, her round cheeks, her soft brow. But he avoided her eyes.
Her eyes were wrong. Even in the photos.
-
It was dark. No moon shone onto the deserted street, as Bran walked towards home after leaving his friends at the diner. He wasn't much in the mood; he still hadn't picked the perfect photo of Nyssa to enter into the contest. If only they weren't all black and white. He would have loved to capture the intense red of her hair.
As he past alley, his mind still thinking of Nyssa, a shrill girl's scream pierced his consciousness. Without a rational thought, he dashed into the alleyway.
And there she was. Nyssa. Pushed against a wall, quivering. Her pleated skirt was ripped; her shirt had lost buttons; tears smeared mascara on her cheeks.
And there he was. Scum. He held a gun to her head, demanding something of her. Bran didn't know what. He didn't need to know. An animalistic rage drove him to dive tackle the thug. And after only a moment of wrestling for control, Bran held the guns in his hands, pointed straight at the assailant's head.
"Bran! Oh, Bran! You rescued me!" Nyssa said from beside him.
"Nyssa, my phone is in my back pocket. Get it and call the police," he said with barely controlled rage. He didn't want her to call the police. He wanted to shoot this motherfucker.
Instead she threw her arms around him. His hands, clutching the gun so tight that all of his knuckles turned white, shook. "Bran, you're so brave!" She was breathless. He felt them, so soft and warm against his cheek. Her lips.
"We have to call the police," he strained his voice trying to get the words out, past the lump in his throat.
Her lips brushed against his ear. A whisper. "Kill him."
-
Bran didn't notice anything on his way back to his room. He didn't notice how the front door didn't close completely behind him or how his mother screamed when she saw him.
He entered his room, closed and locked the door, and crossed to the desk where his photos of Nyssa lay.
As he leaned over them, drops of something red and sticky hit them. He touched his face. The goo was on him.
In the mirror he could see it. Red blood peppered his face, clothes, and hair. And something else. Something grey and soft. Idly, his mind told him that it was brain matter.
He turned back to the photographs. The color was perfect. Carefully, he dabbed his little finger into the miniature blood pools and gently painted in Nyssa's hair. And now the photographs were even more perfect. Black and white. And red.
-
He hadn't seen Nyssa in two weeks. He couldn't eat. He couldn't sleep.
He had to find her.
Of course, he had no idea where she would be. But he still tried.
His friends were glancing at him with concerned looks. They had dragged him to crash the La Brea High dance club Planet Bang, which he usually loved. But now he sulked against the back wall.
A flash of impossibly intense red hair. Ignoring his friends' calls, Bran dashed into the crowd of dancers. His hand closed around Nyssa's wrist. She swung around. He dropped her arm. Nyssa's name dying on her lips. It wasn't Nyssa. And yet…
She glared at him for a moment and then looked into his eyes. Her own widened and she backed away slowly.
"Stay away from me," she hissed, then melted into the crowd.
Bran began to walk back to the back of the club, but stopped when a punk with far too many piercings in impossible places on his face stepped in his way.
"I know who you're looking for. She wants to see you too. Come with me." His lips didn't move, at least not that Bran could see in the lighting. But his heart began pounding. Nyssa.
He followed the unnamed punk out of the club. They walked through the LA night for what seemed like hours until finally they reached an out of the way building. Cars were parked all around it, and even before he could see it, he could hear the music, feel the bass on the ground.
Bran broke into a sprint. Nyssa was there. He knew it. She could be in trouble again. He might have to rescue her again.
He pushed through the crowd club. It was nothing like Planet Bang with all its preppies and popular rap music. Drunk and high bodies thrashed around to the beats of bass, drums, and screams blasting from the speakers.
There she was. No mistaking her this time. She sat at the bar. The pleated skirt and pigtails were gone. She looked hard, harsh. Not a little girl anymore.
"Bran!" she called when she saw him. The cheerfulness was gone. The edge had taken over her entire self. What had happened to his Nyssa.
She pulled him to her. "I'm so glad you're here. I've been wanting to show off my rescuer to all my friends."
"Are you okay?"
She grinned, a certain wicked kind replacing her lost girlish smile. "You're so sweet to worry about me." She stroked his cheek. "Bran. Look into my eyes." He resisted. "Bran."
Slowly he raised his eyes to meet hers.
And all he saw was black. And white. And red.
And then he was lost.