Chapter 2: Ominous

The morning after Terra saw the hidden object in Jerri's hand was like any other, or so it started. He stood up, his body unscathed by the night. He usually tossed and turned, never able to sleep well, and usually had drool running from his mouth down his face, but he slept rather serenely. He got up and thought he heard someone approaching, but wasn't sure. He went over to his closet, not remembering that he had forgotten to take his clothes off from the prior night.

He took off his white vest casually and removed his tattered pants. After finding a newer pair of underwear, something he found unusual, he put it and some other clothes on. It was odd that he actually wore mint condition clothing today. As he opened the door to his living room, he smelled the smell of lavender. That only usually meant one thing to him.

He turned the corner into his unusually well furnished living room and something seemed odd to him. He didn't like the way it looked, for some odd reason. He didn't seem to recognize the room as his own, but each of the new furnishing he found in the large room were reminding him of something he'd seen fairly recently. He felt a need for reverence when he approached the couch that Livvie was sprawled over.

She slept like a rock as Terra found his hand moving towards her. He brushed some hair out of her face, her bangs to the side swiftly, and lifted her hand to kiss it gently. It seemed odd to him that he was doing this nonchalantly; someone of Terra's nature usually hesitated to overcome the shyness that restrained such open acts of affection. Almost instantly, as Terra's hand brushed across her face, pink shot to her face and her cheeks were quickly enveloped in a shroud of light violet haze. The lavender smell intensified at the same rate and Terra yanked his hand away.

"Hmm..." the young boy thought to himself as he ran the same hand that touched Livvie's face through his hair, lifting his bangs slightly. He couldn't imagine how she would still be conscious enough to feel the brush across her face but still be unconscious enough to recuperate and regain strength. He decided that he would try a couple things before he jumped to any conclusions.

He smiled at the sleeping Livvie, who smiled back almost immediately. Her lips curled up, revealing her perfectly white teeth as she smiled into his amazingly pristine gaze. He didn't know how else to describe it as other than a hoax or something rather supernatural. He couldn't assume, as he promised himself.

He lifted his hand and she didn't follow his movement, so he realized that she wasn't shadowing his movements at all. He decided that if she was faking, she could only make so many actions to react, but if she was sleeping she wouldn't do anything. So he slowly crouched, bending his knees and finally kneeling. He kissed her cheek ever so slowly, gently, and got up.

She just smiled, and to Terra's amazement, giggled. That was it, she was awake. Terra started to tickle her, his fingers digging at her ribs, but she didn't move. Instead, she looked at him in wonder, amazement some how.

Terra was dumbfounded. He couldn't find any logical reason that Livvie wasn't completely drowning herself in hysteria, as he had reached her most sensitive spots with the tips of his fingers; she was incredibly ticklish but managed to shun his attempts.

Livvie's eyes opened, revealing a new mysterious scent. It wasn't lavender this time, but it seemed like a mixture of light pink roses and the morning after a thunderous storm. He smiled and she smiled back, but then looked downward. He felt her hands shoot up to his and her could skin touched his. He smiled but she still looked up at him in confusion.

"What're you doing here?" he asked he calmly. She shrugged and grabbed his hand.

"What're you doing here?" she asked, clearly referring to the placement of his hands. His blushed as he realized how awkward it must have been for someone to wake up to someone clutching at their sides. She simply smiled and lifted her head to kiss him on the cheek.

"I don't even know why I did that..." she admitted. She looked rather concussed as she lifted herself up and off the couch, revealing newer clothes just like the ones Terra wore. He looked at her clothes in a daze and she did too.

"This is a weird morning to say the least," he admitted to her as he stood up and walked over to his stove. He put a pan on and lit the stove with the flip of a switch. The smell of gas wafted towards Livvie but she seemed unphased entirely. He smiled as he got some vegetable oil from the cupboard above the stove and poured some into a pan. He put the pan on the stove and got eggs out of the fridge.

"How do you like your eggs?" he asked Livvie, but when he turned, she was gone. He stood dumbfounded for the second time that day as he realized that not only had he been left, but he didn't realize she was leaving either.

He felt the day take a new color, depression, or sadness in an equivalent degree for a careless preteen, shroud his day in an unfortunate new mood. He hated being shunned like this, but the person shunning him seemed to make the wound deeper. He felt as though his desperation to have the kiss seemed to drive her away.

It was then that Terra heard a yelp. He turned to see nothing there, but a note. "You want her, don't you?" it had scrawled on it in scratchy letters. The work of a ten year old, no doubt, was Terra's first thought, but then thought about the picture on a larger scale.

How is it that she escaped Terra's nearly supersonic hearing, or better yet, her abductor escape his supersonic hearing and still have the countenance of a ten year old. A smile spread across his face as the challenge was making itself evident. As he lifted the paper, the letters on it changed.

"So come and get her."