Night of Ever
The woman settles on a small wooden stool. She smiles at the gathering of strangers nervously. Her eyes stray to Martha when their stares prove to be unrelenting.
"I've told you before. This is Rosemary. She's been staying here for a few weeks. One of the children got lost in a game of hide and seek and she found him. She was living on the streets so we brought her in as thanks," Martha explains for the umpteenth time.
No one responds. Their stares grow no more intense yet still refuse to relent. Rosemary taps her feet anxiously. Her time in the streets was more comfortable than their stares. It's as though they've all forgotten their manners.
"How long have you been here?" Luna asks eventually.
"I've only been in Satellite for about a month now. I used to just roam from place to place," she replies.
"What kind of place were you living in?" Leo frowns suspiciously.
"Whatever kind of street I was in. I slept rough," she responds, her nervousness fading.
"Was it a city?" Leo prods.
Rosemary nods. "Yes, it was. The entire place was so big and populated. No one had any time for me. No one gave me any money. I thought that I would be stranded there forever. Luckily, I managed to sneak onto a small fishing boat. It brought me here,"
Leo makes a gagging gesture. "That must have been stinky!"
"It was. I can still smell it in my dreams. I'll never forget it as long as I live," she replies, pleased with the sudden change of atmosphere.
Yūsei leans forward. "Were you in Neo Domino before?"
Rosemary flinches. "Oh… Yes, I think so… Yes, definitely Neo Domino. It was a bad place to be. No one cared about charity that I ever met and I've met a lot of people there. Sitting on a pavement really gets you in with the crowd. They always pushed and shoved each other. There was no respect for others. I think that's why I was so hungry,"
Her voice trails off and her eyes grow distant. Her hands grasp the skirt of her dress tightly as her nerves make an unwelcome return. Then, she sighs deeply. A small spark lights her eyes and she forces herself to overcome her nervousness. She beams brightly, pleased with her current state of affairs.
"People always used to say that a good deed will make the world go around. It's very true. If I hadn't have done what I did then I would still be out in the street. I'd still be begging and people would still be ignoring me," she leans back leisurely. "In fact, I've been here for quite a long time. It's sometime around half a month since I arrived. I feel so bad that I still don't know this place. I wandered these streets too for a week. That's usually more than enough time to learn a place. Satellite is such an amazing place. I didn't think that I would ever be so lucky, I-"
The front door slams shut with a roaring bang. Yūsei, Jack and Crow leap to their feet to investigate. However, all they find is the front door swinging, creaking on its hinges. Yūsei glimpses a shadow of a person fleeing. He decides not to give chase and neither Jack or Crow say anything. They grumble between themselves and return to report back to Martha. Yūsei, however, remains in the hallway. When he's sure that no one else is with him he kneels by the door and lifts a small item from the floor. It looks like half of a ring. It's close to the torn letter that he was given addressed to Ro.
He sighs. "Selene…"
The silence seems excruciatingly loud. Selene falls against one of the steel columns weakly. The port's decline in use has offered her a great deal of places in which to hide. None of them are particularly comfortable, but they serve her purposes and she can't ask for more. However, at this moment Selene wants nothing more than comfort. She wanted to apologise but was faced with betrayal. Her cheeks are still crimson from embarrassment.
Her hand shoots towards her throat. She gasps loudly, straining for air before coughing up blood. Her strength abandons her and she falls to her knees. The thud of the harsh ground echoes in the abandoned warehouse. Her arms quake with the effort not to collapse. Her vision blurs and she struggles for breath.
"You…" Selene chokes.
"My, how pitiful," Rosemary chimes.
Selene tries to voice her fury but no words will come. Her throat burns too greatly to speak.
Rosemary smirks snidely and inspects her nails. "They were pathetic. It was too easy to slip away. I didn't have to exert myself at all. I don't know why I'm surprised though. Predators always choose the most weak-willed and impressionable company, isn't that right, murderer?"
Selene glares, having managed to move onto her side. "Don't… Don't dare harm them!"
"Why? How are you going to make me do that?" she pouts dramatically. "If I remember correctly you tried to kill me before and failed. What exactly is going to change this time?"
"I didn't try to kill-… You're lying," she gasps. "You can't… Can't stop me… Surrender."
Rosemary shakes her head in disappointment. "Here I came all the way from Earth just to see you. I didn't think that you'd treat me so badly, but, then again, you did kill your adoptive parents. You should have been more appreciative. I mean, it isn't like your birth parents wanted you. They didn't care about you. No one cares about you. You're lucky to have these powers because you'd be worthless otherwise… You're still pretty worthless now,"
She shakes her head slowly. The movement makes her sight blur again. The arm that supports her gives way. She rolls onto her back and stares up at the ceiling. Tears have invade her weary eyes. They threaten to overwhelm her emotional defences.
"… Liar…" she pants.
"No, I'm not," Rosemary snaps. "You know, you might think about shutting up permanently. It would make the world a much nicer place for everyone and everything."
Selene groans and rises to her knees. She glances over at her former friend wearily.
Rosemary laughs. "Maybe you should take Sayer's offer,"
Author's Note: I'm sorry! I know that I said I would do Little Fairy after this but there's been a hitch. My version is one third television series, one third game and one third mine. The only watchable version is in Chinese. I have to go through a website for every word. There are 5,000 words. The game is in Simplified but I want to learn Traditional. I have to go through the list of traditional characters, looking for one similar to the simplified version. Then I have to click on the character to get further detail. I'm not fluent in the language either so that doesn't help. Don't get me wrong, I love Chinese. I'm just not best pleased with this. It's going to take an awful lot of time. The website only has 4,000 characters out of 5,000. I probably won't have a use for most of the translated dialogue. Before you ask, no, I can't get the game. If I want to play the game then I have to rip out the Windows software that I've got and make it Windows XP. I can't do that as I'm getting a Chinese game this Christmas and it was made a year or two ago…
So, I'm going to offer you something else instead. I once had a conversation with Kpoplover1110 (I'll take your username out if you don't want to be mentioned) about stories. It was mentioned that I may have only planned out the first few chapters of Love & Hate. I did. It was originally going to be a story of re-incarnation. I'll do that instead following Night of Ever - the story Remember. I'm sorry about the confusion and the problems. I'll get on with things.
