I. Hellooooo Dolly!
Angel glanced down at the note in her hand , then glanced up at the building before her in surprise. She moved cautiously towards the iron gates and placed a hand on them carefully, sliding the gate open with a deafening screeech! Reading the note again and again, hoping she'd read the scribble that the head mistress had written wrong, she kept staring at the building.
" You've got to be kidding me..."
Gravestones dotted the land surrounding the hill she was supposed to climb to reach where she'd be staying for school. The gates suddenly slammed shut behind her, the sound echoing around the tombstones. Fog clung to every surface as she began to walk slowly towards the white building on top of the hill. It looked like an insane asylum, but with bigger windows. Clinging to her almost empty suitcase protectively, Angel tiptoed her way through the bone yard, absent-mindedly crinkling the note in her hand as she went.
The hike up the hill seemed to take hours, and when she reached the building, all silent and white, she wished she had turned away at the gate. Angel dropped her suitcase beside the front doors, reading the note again in her mind. The address on the paper matched the one on the post box next to the doorbell, but this asylum was no school dorm. Little did she know, the dorms were on the opposite side of town. Had the headmistress made such a mistake, she would have to be senile or blind, which she certainly was not.
Angel sighed, tired and irritated. First her parents' death (she choked up a bit at the thought), now this– shipped off to a boarding school in another country by her parents' will, abandoned by the school she'd been sentenced to. There wasn't any choice now except either finding a place to stay or finding a way back home to Chicago somehow.
" Fuck!" Angel shouted angrily, kicking her suitcase to the edge of the cliff, where it almost fell over into the graveyard, teeter-tottering there on the edge. " I shouldn't have come!"
She paced the edge of the hill, fuming silently to herself. She ran a hand through her hair as she began to panic. She searched for a different solution than that forbidding building before her. But what else could she do now, stranded, alone, out of money? Without a British citizenship she couldn't get a job to earn a ticket back to America or even to stay in a motel somewhere. She knew no one in this new country.
Angel stopped pacing and looked up at the dimming skyline, watching the sun starting to sink beneath the curtain of night. The night seemed constant these days, but that was comforting to Angel. The darkness was an assured thing at the end of each day and made her feel secure. But the graveyard in which she was stranded was not a pleasing place to be in when the comfort night came around. She didn't want to head back down the hill she'd just ascended. A raspy groan rose quietly from the graveyard, as if greeting the yellow-gold of evening; it sent a shiver up Angel's spine. She grabbed-up her suitcase and hurried back to the front doors. At first she paused, then worked up the courage from a louder moaning, and knocked four times. The door swung open instantly and Angel jumped back in surprise.
" Finally, I've been waitin' for you lot..."
A shirtless, black-haired man stood at the door smiling a big, sinister, impish smile. She noticed that, as his grin faded, his teeth weren't normal, they were pointed; like a vampire, but all over. He sneered as he looked at her, pulling up his pants slightly.
" Who the 'ell are you?" he asked loudly.
" Uh... I-I... er..."
" Well don't stand there babbling!" he snapped, tapping his foot, clearly agitated.
Angel could feel her frustration growing inside already, but managed to hide it and tried to form words into a slightly intelligent sentence.
" I was told to come here by the... uh..."
She held out the note and the man seized it from her, skimming it carelessly. The sound of footsteps crunching up the trail that Angel had hiked up and cheerful voices that followed it grabbed his attention before she had another chance to speak.
" Bugger, they're here," he snarled.
" But, I–"
" Get inside! Don't talk, don't be seen, just go!" he snapped, shoving the girl inside the white building and slamming the door behind her. Angel stood facing the door, in shock of what had just happened. She turned around and glanced about the room she found herself in. It looked like a waiting room attached to some sort of living room. The wide screen tv and table in the corner offset the front desk and elevator. She noticed a stack of brochures on the front desk and wandered up to it, taking one off the top. The front read 'Welcome to Kong Studios!'. Suddenly interested, Angel opened it carefully as she started to walk down the hallway in front of her.
The pamphlet was more like a map than anything else; like a blueprint of the building from the ground floor to the second floor. Angel walked blindly down the corridor until she reached a dead end. She glanced around, unsure of what to do until she heard voices echoing down the hallway she'd just come up. She recognized one as the gruff voice of the man who had answered the door. He suddenly appeared from the corridor and fell silent when he saw her. He turned on his heel and stretched out his arms to stop whoever was walking behind him.
"Er... uh, 2D seems to be... er, sleepwalking again... you might want to wait here a minute... j-just a minute."
He stormed towards Angel, glowering all the way. He ushered her into an open room, muttering darkly. He grasped her firmly by the forearm and pulled the girl towards the door on her right, pushing it open roughly. He tugged Angel inside and glared at her.
" I told you to keep out of sight! Stay here in the café!" He shook a finger at her like he was yelling at a dog. " Stay!"
She sat down in a booth and dropped her suitcase onto a table, grumbling. The man slammed the door shut and she was alone, again. The girl stared at her suitcase and opened it quietly, peering at the few clothes and possessions she had inside. She glanced down at the high-heeled shoes she'd been forced to wear to the school meeting, and pulled them off her feet, shoving them inside the suitcase angrily. She didn't care about finding the dorms anymore, she wasn't going to that school, not for a minute.
Angel laid back in the booth, staring at the ceiling, listening to the faint music coming from the floor below the café. She daydreamed to herself, waiting for something to happen. The door behind the booth opened a crack and she whipped around to face it, expecting the tall, black-haired man; but she didn't see anyone. The door was only open a crack, so the girl got up to close it. The door smacked against the wall and two black figures moved across the floor, a low hissing filling the room. Angel clung to the door handle and watched the two creatures clawing and attacking each other under the table she'd been sitting at a moment ago. One of them, a raven, tried to fly away from the other, but it's wings were tied to its leg, making each attempt to fly a sad failure. The other creature, which could only be described as a demon, snatched at it and growled. The raven screamed in rage as it was pinned down and scratched at.
Angel rushed forward and stepped on the demon's head, kicking it off the bird. She scooped it up in her arms and held it tightly as it struggled. She quickly untied the string tangled and knotted around its body. The demon came scrambling to her, baring a set of huge teeth for its small size. A horrible stench, like rotting rats and disease, lingered around it, filling the room quickly. She tucked the panicking bird under her arm and grabbed the suitcase off the table, swinging at the monster. She gave it two sound smacks on the head before releasing the bird from her protective grasp. It flew about wildly, unsure of whom to attack. The demon sank its teeth into the suitcase before it was hit a third time and forced it out of her hand. It threw the case recklessly into a corner and turned on Angel. It reached out a long, skinny arm and grabbed hold of the bracelet she wore with scraggly, sharp claws. Before she could do anything, it gave one strong tug and the bracelet broke in it's hand, beads flying everywhere.
Angel stood there in shock a moment, watching the plastic beads scatter all over the tile floor. That had been her sister's bracelet– her dead sister's. The broken string fell onto her bare feet and the demon cackled mischievously as he watched the star and moon shaped beads spread farther away. She clenched a fist tighter and tighter until her nails dug into her skin. And something happened to her. Angel's serene, ice grey eyes slowly began to cloud over with a ruby-red color, as if they were filling up with blood. Her anger at the demon grew until she herself let out a small growl. The creature crouched in wonder and cracked its tail, sniffing the tense air in alarm. In one short bound, she swung her strong, slender leg back and then forward into the demon's body, sending it flying into the opposite wall thirty feet away. It bounced off it with a loud screech and crawled off through a swinging door in the back of the café. The black raven cawed and yelled loudly, still flapping about in the air. But after the demon slipped away, it came to rest on the counter in the corner and watched the newcomer warily, preening its feathers.
Angel trembled with fading anger, standing in place. She took deep breaths and slowly let her fists go. The red drifted out of her grey eyes and she relaxed again. But before she could bend down to pick up the blue-green and black beads, a cold sensation, like long, skinny fingers, crawled across the back of her neck. The girl froze in place and her eyes went wide, searching for whatever was behind her. Terror danced in her spine as she turned her head to look over her shoulder.
The man from the front door slid around her with one gliding step and gave her a strange look of impression. It appeared that he'd seen her little show and enjoyed, or at least laughed at, what he saw. An expression of surprise swept across his face as he realized something and reached into his pants pocket, drawing out the wrinkled paper that she'd handed to him earlier.
" Now, what the 'ell do ya want?" he snapped suddenly.
" I..." She scrambled to regain her composure when he asked. " I was told to come here by the school I enrolled in, but apparently I'm in the wrong place–"
He cut her off by thrusting the paper back into her hands.
"Yeah you are."
" But I was hoping that maybe I could..." She knew that she had to choose her words carefully, but she wasn't sure how else to put it.
"... Sleep here for tonight."
The man wrinkled his broken-looking nose and grimaced.
" Sorry love, this ain't a hotel."
He started to walk off to the door, pulling it open violently.
" It's just... I've got nowhere to stay, and if I could just sleep here for tonight, I'll leave in the morning!" she called after him, tailing the man into the hallway.
" No," he said simply, looking up and down the corridor before him.
" Look, please can I just sleep on a couch, anywhere, for just tonight? I'll be quiet and stay out of the way and leave first thing tomorrow morning! Please, your graveyard creeps me out!"
He gave her a venomous glare out of the corner of his eye, and then glanced left and right up and down the corridor.
" Damn, where'd 'e go?! Fuck it..." He cupped both hand to his mouth and let out a deep, raspy call. " DULLARD!"
Silence followed the yell and Angel stood there in confusion, wondering if the man was really insane. She leaned against the doorway for support and looked down the hallway for an escape just incase he started talking to an imaginary friend. She shivered at the voice that answered.
" Whaaaaaaat, Muds?! I was in the studio!"
If this was an imaginary friend, why could she hear it? She clung tighter to the doorway in realization– maybe she was crazy too. But as she thought to herself, a figure appeared around the corner. Broad-shouldered and towering over the dark-haired man, a second man stood before him. His spiky blue hair– bluer than hers!– grabbed her attention and made her eyes travel down to his. Black, coal black, like shadows.
Despite the height difference, the dark-haired man seemed to take control of the taller, much younger one.
" Face Ache, did they leave?"
" I-I dunno..."
The tall man cowered somewhat, like he was about to be struck by his mother.
" You good fer nuthin'!" the first man yelled.
Angel couldn't help but stare at the ordeal between the two. Just then, the tall man looked in her direction and stood up to full height.
" Murdoc, who'ssat?" he asked in a squeaky voice.
The man named Murdoc spun around and gave her a look like he'd just remembered his ugly sister standing there.
" Oh, you're still here... Look, chickie, go home."
He waved her off and began to walk away, ushering the tall man to follow. She knew she had lost and that she would have to go back down through the graveyard and take her chances elsewhere if she didn't think of something quick.
" No! Let me stay! My family's rich, I can pay you!" she exclaimed in desperation.
Murdoc stopped and hovered for a moment, thinking to himself. He turned slightly and gave her an incredulous look.
" Pay me?" Murdoc asked.
Angel wasn't sure what to say that would sound believable, but the man nodded for her to follow before she made a fool of herself. Surprised, she hurried along behind the blue haired man, sticking close.