Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with Chapter #2 of Native, the same title of the story I suppose has to be named after the album it came from (don't know why I skipped over that rule till now... odd, anyways...) so here we are. Last chapter was an insight to the first little moment of Roy and Robin Nadar's life where they are seemingly stuck in some financial game that makes them not necessarily fully human and their thoughts leap away from themselves on a terrace over looking the night sky. Today's chapter, Lost in Reality, is based off of another song in the Native album, a personal favorite: If I Lose Myself. I hope you enjoy this chapter!


She hugs him tight, face planted in the seeded warmth of his black tweed jacket while he pointe blank fires the pistol. Bang! Bang! Bang! The body falls to the ground with a heavy thud, and seconds later the warm chill of their blood passes over her boots, and now Roy and Robin Nadar stand in the middle of an open grassy field outside of New York with a dead man, a pistol, and a suitcase full of money.

Robin takes the pleasure of knowing at least she isn't the one firing the weapon. She takes absolute disgust in seeing the haunting affect it has on her husband. He shows no signs of remorse anymore when the bullets leave the gun, how the cries for help turn into old symphonies with loud violins played at desolate and destroyed concert halls in Sydney, Australia. The white haired wife takes a moment to excuse herself, needing to stare hard at the road while he cleans up the mess in the back.

"We're no better than those who run from their problems. We lose ourselves day in and day out. If we're not shooting someone, we're stealing from them. And if we're not stealing from them, we're shooting someone. He didn't do anything wrong. He... he just got in the way," she says to herself, although the pitch is raised a decibel or two above normal pitch just so he can hear her and stop what he's doing. "He didn't do anything wrong and neither did we..."

Roy's gloved hands are slick with the crimson stains of blood, a color so vibrantly and dashingly matching the strong lava hue of his hair. She has to blink several times to reassure herself that her husband isn't the dead body looking up at the sky in vain, giving out last breaths. The man holding the dangerous weapon smiles, although it is much more hollow than happy. He wishes the wind blowing through the field could consume him and rot his bones from the inside out, cause his eyes to wither and die. He at least hopes to die the same way all his victims have died, with bullets in their skull. Would be rather... ironic.

"You act as if you hate what we're doing, and then go back on your word because the sympathy doesn't come when you want it to," he remarks, noticing her erroneous behavior. "You need to make up your mind," Roy says pointedly.

Robin meets his gaze, lip curled up in a smirk, but she still wants to feel terrible, she desires to be vomiting on the side of the road at the sight of his cruelty. But... she can't. It is virtually impossible. Roy's bitter opal eyes from contacts meet Robin's soft diamond ones.

"I suppose we all walk and talk like living paradoxes then. We lose the old reality we once had and try to formulate new ones. Hypotheses that only work with that current situation because we say it does. It truly won't save us in our time of need, but because we hold on to that faith, one we never let go... it makes sense to say that."

He shrugs, truly lost in whatever weird homeostatic state his wife's mind is in. The red head stopped trying years ago, perhaps even before they knew what an alter was and where it existed. He stopped trying to figure her out years before they were married. Their marriage didn't help his understanding of her at all. Damn those church halls with carpet floors and velvet curtains, and those idiotic choirs that never stopped singing even when they said I do, and damn the stupid ritual where the couple held hands back down that same damned cerulean carpet that she had requested because she loved the color.

Roy places the pistol in the dead man's hand, looking distastefully at the blonde hair that blends in with the dandelions and daises that dot the roadside. Absolute miracle they hadn't been caught yet. He notes the crimson streaks mixing in with the soil, some insects coming out of hiding to find what all the mess is about. A few run and flee, others stay. He bends down to observe this strange phenomenon.

"Hey... Robin, you want to see this?" he asks.

She looks up, curiosity piqued, heart having nothing else to do but beat, her time is spent looking at horizons she'd never be able to run into. Robin joins him, starting to gag and curl her nose up at the smell of the body. "You didn't have to kill him you know. He was innocent. He did nothing wrong."

"You said it yourself," he shoots back. "And besides, how many times are you going to say, 'he didn't do anything wrong?' He's a crook, plain and simple."

"Aren't we crooks?"

"I don't think so. And besides, you said it yourself," Roy adds once more.

"What?" Robin defends herself.

"You said he got in the way. Simple as that. No further discussion of the dead man lying in a ditch covered in bright yellow flowers," Roy says, though there is strange humor behind that, as he needs a way to turn everything around and point the finger at the one who is dead, not the one who fired the weapon in the first place. "But I didn't call you over for the rotting corpse. I wanted you to notice his blood. Apparently insects are curious at a dead man's vitality spewing everywhere. Odd."

She wrinkles her nose. "Why... that's just fabulous," Robin snarks. White hair blows soundlessly in the wind. She pulls him close, giving her husband a hug. "Are you still physically here?"

"Yeah, no need to worry," Roy clears his throat. "I've got the feeling in my feet, the regret surmounting in my soul. I'm very well alive and sensitive."

That had become a daily ritual for the couple. Once the terrible deeds have been committed, and depending on who did what, the other went through safety measures to make sure the other person still lived in proper states of mind. They had to ensure that their frames were not disgruntled, their minds were at ease, and above all, despite the fact their looming illegal activity could literally be sitting five feet away from them, Roy and Robin had to make sure that their atrocities had no bearing on the love making later that night between the sheets.

The white haired girl never watches the killing. She lets the sounds fill in the missing pieces. However, she always has to plan the perfect scenario for the killing later in the day to take place. Today, rather, Robin had gotten up extremely early for her husband, to make sure today's assassination or murder or whatever the hell it is supposed to be went swimmingly well. She'd take the first trip down the elevator, one trip out of twelve. It had to be twelve exact trips or otherwise things go terribly wrong. She'd smile nicely at the concierge at the front desk. Slowly, but so expertly because she has been doing this for a very long time... Robin would slip the poison into the concierge's warm tea and then grin so creepily as he coughs, complaining about a burn in the throat, and then collapses.

Once that would happen, she'd have to race back upstairs, call the preemptive head of business that matters need to be dealt with elsewhere... as we've had a little mess up downstairs and cops and medical officials and those damned journalists will be filling up the hotel lobby basin in five minutes. She requests that the concerned party meets at that quiet café that no one visits because this food is terrible for insanely high prices... you have everything working perfectly. Robin loves the phone calls. Did you hear... or Are you alright... Why was everyone so concerned about her? She's fine. Robin wishes she could say the same for the hotel concierge.

She grins to herself, thinking of this. "Why, I am doing so peachy I might have committed murder."

Roy stands, the pool of blood not really being all attractive anymore. He holds out a hand for her to take. "Want to walk back to the hotel?" he offers.

Robin takes his offer like a lady, giving him a kiss on the cheek. He flinches. Their... romantic touch had to be lowered down to a minimal as they never were able to act like a couple in front of their clients, a whole cover story of... Oh nothing, he's just my super attractive secretary that I happen to have sex with afterwards because we're exhausted from killing all of those whom you love. Oh dear! Did I say that out loud? Don't mind me darling, it's just the heat.

She kicks a few pebbles from the roadside with her heels. He had wiped down the gun, dusted the vicinity for finger prints, and emptied out three shells. The body hadn't needed a cleaning up- those would discover it soon enough, and they are the poor couple on the side of the road who had their car stolen by the man who ended up dead... they knew what they were doing, perhaps a little bit too much.

The sky dims again, and he sighs, placing a complacent arm over her shoulder, a bit of the hover hand a tad too unnecessary, but the gist is hitting full force. Robin rolls her eyes. "Yes, Roy, you may."

He grins, landing the hand down. "You know, sweetheart, when we threw our little engagement rings off the top roof of that hotel last week, I felt a sense of happiness in my heart. Did you feel the same thing?"

"Maybe," she responds. "I may have had a few grudges left behind in my heart, but nothing to major."

"That's good."

The two are enveloped in silence once again, and she stares at him while he looks full force ahead, perhaps thinking of tomorrow and the new people they'll mess with and eventually when that field will start to crumble and the sirens will chase them from dorm to dorm, just like in college. Robin taps her chin.

"I'm thinking of you."

Roy raises an eyebrow. "Of me?"

"How you fire that gun so easily..."

"Same can be said with you and poison."

"I just watch the initial reaction," she dejects the criticism. "I don't stay behind to view the rest."

"And why is it okay for one and not the other?"

"Rules we'll decide later," Robin looks in the opposite direction, uncomfortable now. "I just want to make sure I don't lose myself. I have everything where I need it, all in you, placed in one basket that I can rely on not breaking."

Roy nods, but he truly doesn't understand this. "I suppose so."

"Aren't we flying out to Dallas tomorrow?"

"First thing when dawn light hits. Why?" he questions.

"I think about the plane crashing and us all dying on it every time we board."

That's the first he's ever heard of this. His eyes soften, his mouth parts, and concern is the main feeling he's emoting at this point. "Honey... what would possibly have you wonder that?"

Robin's response makes his heart solidify. "In case we die, I sit there and cannot believe you're the man I fell in love with. That you're the person I could be dying alongside with. I can never be fully happy with who we are, but as long as I don't lose myself tonight, or any other night, I'm okay with who I lose in the process."

The couple leaves many undesired words between them as they walk back to their hotel.

Behind them, a blood sun sinks beneath the sky.


There we are guys! Damn... I'm feeling rather just whoa right now, as I'm super happy of this chapter that I made despite me not knowing where I'm headed. Have you pieced a few of the thoughts together? I hope so! My Roy and Robin Nadar are becoming my new favorite characters ever and I hope you all can see this too. Next chapter is #3: Broken Faith and Relationships dealing with an amazing song from the Native album, Preacher. It'll get into some religious talk, but I cannot work around it as I have a message from that song to place in this story with how these two characters interact. I hope it'll invoke the same feeling. Thanks for reading and have an amazing day. Love you all!

~ Paradigm