Culzean

"Heatherrrrr..." I whined, my head wearily hanging off the side of my bed in a rather pathetic attempt to amuse myself. A bad idea on my part, really. Having the blood rush to your had causes a pretty major headache from my recent experience.

"What now?" She replied, irritated, her head on my stomach. "What now?" was probably an answer I should have expected. It was around my seventh attempt of talking to her, trying to rack my brain in what to say.

"What do we do now?" I asked.

We'd decided to test our luck by entering a sort of sweepstake a few days ago. Today was the eventful and concerning day that they would contact the winners via e-mail. It was just about the most perfect trip imaginable for us, along with the most convenient, considering how many people you could bring with you had you the chance to win. You could take yourself and a maximum of four friends or family members to station temporarily in a spacious house in Death City, Nevada with a pool, hot tub, fluffy towels, no doubt those cute little shampoo bottles that soccer moms always snag on their way out the door a final time. They probably had everything! And what was to be the best part? The house was located in the city where the Soul Eater chronicles took place. I was so excited to see if they had any tourist things to do there related to the beloved series. Probably not, but it was more than worth a shot in my mind. Any possible sliver of a chance to meet Death the Kid was to be swept up immediately. /Immediately/.

Heather and I waited in anticipation. Well, I know for certain I was. I couldn't say for her. It was hard to tell when she was truly excited when she always hollered and shouted with her naturally loud voice as if she were stoked about something. For a moment, I wondered why she was like that, what with her family not being the most enthusiastic.

"You've got a big enough imagination, figure something out." She groaned.

"Like what?" I retorted.

"I don't know," She grunts. "Nor do I really care."

I let out a long sigh, clearly showing my displeasure for her grumpy attitude. A small jingle that could only be identified as her phone notifying us of an e-mail pierced the air, interrupting our uninteresting and somewhat snappy conversation. We both looked at each other eyes wide, hoping to God it was what we thought it was.

We both began to scurry off of the bed, Heather jumping straight off from her spot on my body. Me, on the other hand, had my hopes high, but not quite high enough to swan dive off of my quite comfortable mattress. Somewhere along in the process of attempting the extremely difficult task of putting in effort to move, I fell face first onto the carpet. But that couldn't put a damper on my mood. So I simply laughed at myself from my spot on the floor and look up at Heather, who'd somehow made it back to the bed with her phone that was across the room. I don't think I would have ever been able to understand that bundle of strangely lazy yet fast weirdo. Her eyes were filled with happiness and a form of contentment as she began to unlock her phone, only halfway into her unnecessarily long password. What kind of password was "mikasasha" anyways?

I leaped back onto the mattress, my stomach churning in anticipation, scooting next to her as she opens the email. I let out a strangled, excited noise from the back of my throat upon what adorned my eyes. A colorful message, a little box with small text save for the top of it, of which had "Congratulations!" scrawled across it. Heather gasped, jumping a little in her spot as she tensed up.

"We won!" Heather screamed, smile taking up nearly all of her face. I screamed in happiness, Heather doing the same, pressing the button on top of her shattered phone and throwing it on the bed like a touchdown. Immediately, I grabbed my phone and started dialing the twins' house number, merging the call with one to Payton's phone. I was shaking, giddy with excitement. As I held the phone in my wobbly hand, Heather found a way to slam the speaker button.

"Hello?" Lucy asked, sounding bored and uninterested. She must've not checked the caller I.D.

"Get Cessy right now!" I yelled at her, not patient enough to waste anymore time in notifying them of the great thing that had just happened.

"E-Eh?!" She sounded shocked. "Culzean? Is that you? What happened?"

"Shut up and grab your twin!" Heather yelled, obviously also growing impatient.

"Heather?"

"Heather's on the phone?" I heard Cessy ask in the background, surprised. Yes, Heather on the phone was rare indeed. She mostly stuck to texting, where she loved to use improper grammar sarcastically and also liked to call everyone a "memer". Really, I would never understand her. What the hell was a memer?!

"Yeah. Culzean is, too. They want to tell us something, I believe." Lucy said. "Honestly, I'm scared. If the two most irresponsible people I know need to tell me something, it's near impossible for it to be good news."

"Hey!" Heather snapped defensively, cheeks reddening and brows furrowing. "We're still here, ya know!"

"Guten morgen, Culzean." Payton greeted cheerfully, finally answering her line.

"Payton!" I cried cheefully. "Good- you've answered. Now listen up, peoples!"

"Oh, hi, Payton!" Cessy chirped.

"Eh? Cessy? What's going on you guys?" Payton asked.

"We won!" Heather screamed, silencing all of the voices on the other lines. Confused noises escaped some throats.

"Huh?" Lucy questioned. You could practically imagine the confused look on her face. "Won? Won what?"

I groaned. "Oh, rack your brain, Lucy! You're supposed to be the smart one here!"

"Oh!" You could hear Payton snap her fingers after she'd cried out. She had a tendency to do that when she figured something out. "You must mean the sweepstake for going to Death City, right?"

"You never fail to disappoint, Payton!" Heather cheered, throwing her hands in the air and smiling like an idiot.

It took a few moments before the information actually got into everyone's heads, various celebratory cries upon their realization then exiting their mouths and reaching Heather's and my ears.

Caught up in the celebratory moment, I shoved the phone into Heather's hand and rushed to my worn closet, wasting no time in being gentle with the noisy, rusty door and dragging out my old suitcase covered in dirty lace and a faded floral pattern. I flipped hastily through my closet and drawers, having to find the perfect clothes that would last me three weeks in Death City. And of course, by perfect, I meant symmetrical. They had to be symmetrical. Otherwise, how would I get Kid's attention? I wouldn't. Anything I deemed decent, I tossed into the bag, all the while Heather stared at me with a puzzled yet amused expression adorning her freckled face.

"You do know we're not leaving until four days from now, right?" Heather said more than questioned, clearly entertained by my rushed escapade.

"Shut your dumb face hole, bitch! I need to be prepared for when I change my mind later!"

Heather just responded to my statement with a click of her tongue and the shake of her head in mock disappointment, but she couldn't hide her humored smile well enough for me not to notice.

***
Heather

All five of us had of course planned to bolt out of the car as soon as we saw the place. But it was a lot easier said than done, because it was just like us- as the art fanatics we were- to admire the intricate patterns on even the smallest of areas on the house. It was absolutely beautiful, and as I attempted to snatch my bag out of the trunk, I nearly dropped it when paying too much attention to the immense detail of the place.

But after I'd gotten used to the design and the others had not, I took the opportunity to run to the front door, preparing the excuse of "I was in here first" to get the room I wanted. I used the small key with a hart at the head to open up the house, and upon pushing the large, intricate door wide, I was shown a comfortable looking sitting room of sorts at immediate entrance. I skipped inside, just to confirm my place of first inside of the house.

Once everyone had gathered, we scattered throughout the room, Culzean plopping down onto the clean, plain black couch with the most feminine squeal I'd had the pleasure of hearing, Payton in an arm chair with a content sigh at being able to adjust however she wanted rather than sitting stiff in a car, Lucy looking through the bookshelf, no doubt searching for the thickest book there to read, and Cecilia observing the view from the window of the wrap around porch for whatever reason, it being located just behind the end of the entrance room.

I laughed joyously upon seeing the rather moronic action of Culzean bouncing off of the sofa and spreading her arms out to mimic an airplane, "flying" about the room while making motor noises. I'd decided to follow her, to supervise her. Well, that was the excuse I told myself. I honestly just wanted to laugh at Culzean for being so childish.

But the further I followed Culzean, who had begun to put down her arms in realization of the surroundings, the more off-putting everything started to seem.

The room that followed the sitting room was unpainted, sets of furniture covered in murky and dirty plastic laying on the dusty concrete floor.

"Uh... maybe it's a style or custom here that we don't know about?" Payton inquired behind us, her voice sounding rather spooked. I didn't know when Payton had gotten behind us exactly, but I didn't really care all that much to think deep about it.

"I don't think so." Cecilia walked in after her, Lucy on her heels. Lucy nodded in agreement of her twin.

"Cecilia's correct. I've read up on both Nevada and Death City. This is neither a trend nor custom." She looked over to Payton, brows upturned in both puzzlement and worry.

Culzean furrowed her brows and walked cautiously further into the house. Going further made the bad feeling in my gut grow stronger, making me quicken my pace to keep up with her. I didn't want her getting hurt just because she decided to go further ahead out of curiosity or adventure or whatever the hell she was feeling. To our utter surprise, the next room we entered was nowhere near being able to call "finished", let alone "presentable". The concrete floor was uneven and rough and the old wallpaper was peeling off the walls due to rot. As if to add to the eerie effect, the room was lit by a single light bulb that hung about halfway from the roof and flickered ever so slightly. Bits of questionable wire hung from the ceiling, all different combinations of colors, some snapped, some ripped, and some fully intact.

"Hey, Lucy, did it say anything about this in your books?" I questioned. Upon getting no answer I turned around, spotting not a single trace of my companions. "Lucy? Cecilia? Payton? Culzean?" Panic spread throughout my body, giving me goosebumps and an even worse feeling in the deep pit of my stomach. "H-Hey, guys, where are you? This is creepy enough, don't freak m-" Out of what felt like nowhere, a hand clamped around my nose and mouth, blocking my airways with a peculiar smelling cloth whilst also rudely interrupting my question. It didn't take a genius to figure out what was spread on the cloth, but it must have been a lot because immediately upon it reaching my facial orifices, my vision started to get foggy and black around the edges. I wanted to fight, but my muscles grew far too limp, and soon my train of thought did as well. With my little brainpower, I tried to find my friends, knowing somewhere in my clouded mind that whoever drugged me had no doubt drugged them, too. But I had little time to think as my knees finally slammed into the floor and I greeted the black with a tired mind.

MsGeekNerd: YAY! IM NOT DEAD! Ok so I know I've been avoiding my fanfics for while cuz I'm terrible but you can thank Tattoots for getting me back on here even if most of my stories are terribly written! But I would totally airplane around a house like that it's fun! EXCLAIMATION POINTS!

Beta: i do say memer a lot and yes the password to my phone is 'mikasasha'

im also doing a petition for msgeeknerd to make crona in this story either female or non-binary, so if you wanna sign the petition leave a review saying 'i sign the petition'

it would mean a lot to me bc im actually super homo

thx

-Tattoots

MsGeekNerd: hmmm interesting… I've never written anything like that…. I'll see what y'all have to say bout it but I might give it a shot…