A/N: As promised, here is chapter 4!
I'm also running out of witty things to put here…
A note to my lovely reviewers: luff, and mucho thanks, sometimes I just need the extra little push.
Lionpawheart: thank you so much for catching my grammatical errors and for providing me with another person to whom I can turn for help.
Disclaimer: I do not own Altaïr, (or any other products) but I however do own all thoughts, OCs, and ideas that will be held within this story.
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Natasha groaned, disliking the thought of having to visit the doctor again. Sure he was a nice man, but she was never one for doctors or therapists, who always seemed to pry. Plodding back down the stairs into the kitchen she saw Budding pawing frantically at the back door. "Aww my silly puppy, you want in, don'tcha big guy?" She carefully unlocked the door and was nearly run over by the happy dog. As the dog happily pranced around the kitchen table, Natasha went foraging for food in the rather large pantry, but there was nothing too appealing in there. With a grunt she went over to the fridge, digging through the fruit drawer to pull out a sweet smelling peach. They were one of her favorite fruits, when they were ripe enough but pineapple was at the top of the list. After quickly washing the delicate fruit she pulled out a knife and plate and set to work chopping it up.
Thoroughly finished making her mess and cleaning it up, the hunger in her belly was satisfied. A quick glance at the clock told her that her parents would be home in probably an hour, give or take. Pulling a small spiral notebook from her backpack, she flipped through to find a blank page. Only one teacher had given her homework, but it was pretty simple. Just to color and label the axial and appendicular portions of the human skeleton. What she gathered from the other kids in the anatomy class was there would be lots of coloring involved in the class. This didn't bother Natasha, since coloring was a rather enjoyable pastime of hers.
Time ticked by, and at last she heard the loud groan of the garage door opening and the deep rumbling of the car. Her parents were home. With a smile, she unlocked and propped open the door to the garage seeing as how her parents were struggling with bags of groceries. At last! Decent food! The unloading was done relatively fast, and the oven was quickly brought to temperature. "Nachos, it's whats for dinner," she thought with a smiled. Natasha had no reason to complain, they were simple to make and in her opinion, absolutely delicious.
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By the time Natasha glanced at the time again, it was already 9:00 P.M., much to her surprise; she was not the least bit tired, but she still decided to get ready for bed. Half running up the stairs she skidded down the hallway, sliding on the polished wood floors with her slippery socks. Grabbing a pair of sweatpants from her drawers and a raggedy old tee shirt she slid back down the hall to the bathroom. Sliding was much more efficient in her mind. In the bathroom she flipped the shower on, waiting for the warm water to come spewing out. Stripping down she looked in the mirror, the scabs were coming loose from her side and some had already fallen off. She knew that the rest would be lost in the shower.
The water was so gloriously warm, relaxing her muscles and breaking the small chill she never knew she had. Of course the worse part was yet to come. There was nothing that could parallel with the unpleasantness of stepping from a warm shower to a cold room. Stepping out into the cold room, goose bumps rose on her skin almost instantly, but she was right about the scabs, they were washed away leaving a bright pink line of fresh flesh. Dressing at lightning speed, she slowly began warming back up, the process aided by the use of her hair dryer. It didn't take too long to dry her hair and she ran to her room, power sliding almost half the way. Oh the fun that she would have… It didn't take long for Natasha to wrap her self up in a cocoon of blankets and drift off to sleep.
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Blood everywhere, rocks falling. Screams of pain, not all of it was physical. The dark feeling of despair and helplessness was almost overpowering. There was only one thing to do, and that was to run.
Flashes of white robes and metal once more. Almost unintelligible shouts for someone to halt. The white robed man moved faster than what seemed humanly possible, flying over the rooftops, climbing like a squirrel when needed. And the rare, insane dive.
Yes, he must be an angel, or perhaps an eagle trapped in the body of a human. There was no other explanation for how he moved. It was smooth and coordinated, like a bird who rides on the thermals high above the heads of people.
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Natasha awoke with a start, pain coursing through her body and the feeling of despair was so very strong that it threatened to make her sick. A deep pain ran through her stomach, she couldn't place the cause, but it must be the feeling that people would call 'gut wrenching'. "So much for being free of this," she groaned into her pillow. The dreams were always flashes, and secretly she longed for more, to find out who this mysterious man was. Rubbing her tired eyes, Natasha rolled onto her side, pulling the blankets up to her chin, urging sleep to come back to her.
It never did.
When her alarm finally went off, it was almost a blessing. That is, until she went to the bathroom and saw her bloodshot eyes. "God I look like shit." She sighed, there would be no hope to make her eyes look less bloodshot, but hopefully the red would fade before school got too far along. Trudging back to her room to get dressed, Natasha grabbed a pair of old jeans and a raggedy pull over sweatshirt, a grim smile playing on her face as she mused, "If only it was this easy for everything"
Her breakfast was almost nonexistent seeing as how she wasn't hungry and she had a strange suspicion that she wouldn't be able to keep her food down for very long. Natasha carelessly threw her schoolwork into her backpack, tossing it over one shoulder.
Malik is in no place to criticize my actions, if he had followed my lead then he would have both arms and his brother still.
Natasha glanced around warily, wondering if anyone else heard. No, it was just the voice inside her head, narrating those thoughts with her own voice. A half grin flashed on her face as she tried to figure out why the voices in her head always sounded like her voice. It was one of those mysteries that always amused her. Why couldn't the conscience have a different voice, at least that way it wouldn't feel like you were always just talking with yourself? She shook her head as she realized the ridiculousness of her thoughts.
It didn't take forever long to walk to school; it was only a mile or two, with a few signals in between with the hopes of stopping the cars from hitting people. I guess that was the only issue here, so many people were distracted when they were driving that they often hit other cars, motorcyclists or even worse, pedestrians.
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School passed without a hitch. Well, except for a pop quiz in government and more homework from English and anatomy. But that was to be expected for a Friday. Natasha froze mid stride as a shrill scream split the air. Panic nearly took over until she realized the source, a red tailed hawk. They weren't commonly seen in the suburban area she had already assumed, and judging from the sound it made, it had found some worthy prey.
It seemed like time had slowed to allow for her to get home in time. It wasn't surprising to see her mother home, and in a sense it was comforting. That is, until she reminded her about Dr. Augustine. "Natasha go get cleaned up, Dr. Augustine called and I'm supposed to drop you off at his office in half an hour!" A muffled groan was the only answer she got. She trudged up the stairs to dig through the closet in hopes of finding some rather presentable clothes. Natasha resorted to grabbing a clean pair of white shorts, a black v-neck shirt that had a sketching of tiger in a more silvery color. A quick touch up to her lack of make up and Natasha was back down stairs pulling on a pair of white sandals. Her only sandals actually, and they were in surprisingly good condition. Natasha glanced down at her hands and a smiled tugged at her lips as she fiddled with a friendship ring given to her by Alyssa. It was a simple, silver ring with the words "Friends forever" inscribed on the outside. The inside of the ring was inscribed too, but with different words, words that could be considered more like words of wisdom and inspiring at the same time. "Look back and smile on perils past" (*) "Natasha go open the garage door, I'll be ready in a moment!" Of course in her mother's sense of time, a moment really means about 3 to 4 minutes. It took about another 5 minutes for them to actually hit the road. "Uh mom, where is his office?" "The more industrial part of town, off of 19th and Sherman I think." Natasha tilted her head to the side, like a confused puppy. "Oh, ok."
It only took another half hour to reach the office, her mother cursing the traffic and "shitty ass drivers" all the way there. They survived the eventful trip, narrowly missing two collisions from people randomly swerving into their lane. Her mother pulled into the tidy parking lot, stopped right in the middle of the row and unlocked the doors. "Off ya go honey; just call me when you need a ride home." "Yes mom." The reply was slightly muted, but it was all her mom needed to hear before driving off.
Natasha walked towards the large glass doors almost hesitantly, realizing she had no idea where she was supposed to go, let alone anything else. Shoving the worrisome thoughts to the back of her mind, Natasha strode towards the front desk looking at the bespectacled woman with mousy brown hair. "Uhm hi, I'm here to see Dr.-" The lady cut her off and looked up before speaking in a sour tone, "Dr. Augustine? Yes I know. He's on the 8th floor. The elevator is to your right; the stairs are next to the elevator. You might want to hurry, you're almost late." Natasha raised her eyebrows and quickly walked over towards the elevator, which seemed to be taking forever to descend. "Oh forget it," she muttered, shoving the door to the stairs wide open before running up them, sometimes taking two steps at a time. It took a good while to run up the eight flight of stairs, but it was pretty good cardio, so Natasha didn't really mind. The door to the 8th floor was already propped open, as if someone was waiting. A frown flashed across her face before she quickly replaced with a smile that was almost too happy to be real.
Setting a quick pace down the hall, she quickly found the door labeled "Dr. Gabriel Augustine" and with that she carefully opened the door, to come face to face with another receptionist desk. The lady glanced up, "Go straight back, he's in the 3rd room on the left." Following the simple directions, Natasha was face to face with another door, waiting to be opened. So that's what she did.
The room behind the door was rather open, a few chairs, a bookshelf and a table. The color itself was a warm brown color that was almost soothing. Two of the three chairs were already occupied, one by Dr. Augustine and another by a stranger. "Natasha! I see you've found your way quite easily!" "The ladies told me where to go… anyway I'm sorry if I'm late, the elevator was taking too long so I went up the stairs. Talk about my exercise for the day." Both men laughed at her feeble attempt of a joke. "Natasha, do feel free to sit down and allow me to introduce you to Mr. Vidic. He's my partner in crime so to speak, and he's found your case to be much unlike the others we've ran into." Vidic smiled, though it wasn't a kind smile. It seemed rather forced. Natasha just assumed he wasn't the smiling type. "It's a please to meet you Miss Natasha…" She just smiled and dipped her head, her thoughts going a million miles an hour. "God, even when he talks it's as if he feigns politeness!" They must have noticed the furrowing of her eyebrows as she pondered the situation, "Natasha, is there something on your mind?" "Oh, yeah! The dreams, they've come back. And so have the voices." The caught Vidic's attention as he seemed to focus more intently. "Do explain Natasha, are these new ones? What do you see and hear?" "Uhm, its just more flashes of white and metal, but its like, whoever it is. It feels like something bad happened to them, or maybe even around them? I woke up with this horrible feeling in my stomach once, but I don't know why…" It was time for the men to look curious. Then Gabe spoke, "Quite interesting, so you actually feel things?" "Yeah, but it might've just been bad food or something." She was quick to provide a false explanation as a sense of unease crept up her spine. "What do you hear then?" "Just more whispers, I can't really hear or understand what is being said, but it has an angry feel to it, or something of the like." "Quite interesting..tell me Natasha, have you ever been hypnotized?" Dr. Augustine looked at her with imploring eyes as Natasha's heart skipped a beat. "Oh, no I've never had a need or a desire to by hypnotized…" "Well, Mr. Vidic and I were thinking it might help you to remember the dreams, and then you can be at peace." "Really?" "Yes, would you like to give it a try?" "Uhmm, sure I guess." Dr. Gabriel Augustine nodded, "Well, in that case, please follow us."
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After a short trip through the halls and another room, Natasha looked around, noting the plainness. It didn't make sense until Mr. Vidic pushed a small inlay on the wall near a bookshelf, sliding open a hidden door. Her jaw dropped, "Holy cow, that's kinda cool!" As the small group walked through the small hallway, more and more caught Natasha's eyes. Everything was so plain, making the word Abstergo that was printed underneath an oddly shaped triangle like object stick out like a sore thumb.
"Abstergo?" "Don't worry about it."
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A/N: Oh noes! So she meets the jerkface, Warren Vidic and now she's in his territory, completely clueless about anything related to Abstergo. Things should start picking up after this, I guess I just like to add a pretty big back story or something.
And for those who wonder how I typed this up so fast, I'll just say I like to plan ahead. Faaaar ahead. :3
Reviews are still loved to death so please, feel free to comment, even if it is on the simple things (dont make me implemement the review requirement again lul) :]
